Yaaaay! The quilts for the boys were finished in time for Christmas. (The dog feet were not intended to be part of this photo.)
Part of the story, though, is that the fabric for Johan's binding shipped Sunday afternoon, as in yesterday. It's on its way. How is that possible? I ordered the fabric on the 10th. By the 12th, it still hadn't shipped and I was getting antsy. I wasn't supposed to drive until tomorrow due to my head injury, but we had to take Sandy to the vet to have his ears checked, and Charlie is having difficulty seeing. (We had put off his cataract surgery because of my accident.) I felt good enough to drive, especially with another person in the car, so I drove and he rode shotgun. We had no problems, so I felt OK to drive to Joann's to pick up the fabric I needed. I thought I could cancel the order, since it hadn't shipped. I found out, though, that their shipping is automated, and there was no way to stop it. They say I can return it for a full refund, but I paid for shipping, and I've gotten a lot of conflicting information from various employees, so I'm not sure. I seem to have no choice, though, but the binding is now on, and I'm happy with the quilts.
I also decided to make a blouse, skirt and knee socks for one of Daphne's dolls, because she wanted a Hogwarts costume. We bought the pullover, scarf and tie, but the rest of the outfit was very expensive, so I'm doing my best to complete it. The magician's robe will have to come later. Here's the skirt and blouse, modeled by Veronika. I figured we didn't need buttons, because it will be worn with the pullover and tie. (She was holding the first sock, but I've made some progress since then.)
I know the shoes that come with the outfit with the skirt and blouse (which we didn't buy) would be too short, anyway, so I found some appropriate shoes to give her. (Can't have any pinched toes, even if they're vinyl.) I'm ready to pick up for the gusset of the sock. I hope they will fit inside the shoes. If I can get one sock finished, I can include it, and it won't matter if Daphne sees me working on the sock after Christmas.
Friday was Tim's birthday. He's 56. I can't believe it! I wish he could come for Christmas, but this is his busiest time of the year at work. We shared greetings with him in our group text.
Also on Friday, we attended an informal sing-along of the Messiah, put on by Central Oregon Mastersingers. We had a practice Tuesday, and my friend from choir at church drove for that. Then she and her husband both came and picked us up for the actual event. It was a lot of fun. We had soloists from the Mastersingers, and then we sang the choruses, everything from Part One plus the Hallelujah Chorus, which is always fun. It was, as I said, an informal event. They even stopped at one point for the pianist to begin again when she was playing for one of the soloists. I missed one entrance, but it's better not to sing when you're supposed to than to sing when you're not supposed to.
I think my hearing is improving, which makes me happy. Last week at church, I didn't understand anything that was said during the service, although I had no trouble with the music. This week, I could make out almost everything.
The physical therapy plus what my sister-in-law used to call "Tincture of Time" also seems to be helping my balance. I have some exercises to do at home. I stand on the dog bed in a corner with the walls behind me and a chair in front of me. With my hands just hovering over the back of the chair, I close my eyes and turn my head left to right for 30 seconds, then repeat with nodding up and down, which is a little harder. The thing with the dog bed is, it isn't consistently stable. As you shift your weight with any movement, it changes your balance. It's getting easier, though, maybe with practice and more of the Tincture of Time. The same treatment (T of T) seems to be taking care of my tailbone injury. I've begun sleeping well at night again and can sit in a regular chair without my special cushion. My bill from the hospital came. The insurance paid all of the more than $27,000 except for $450, which I was more than happy to pay. I had been afraid that that was just for the room in intensive care, but it included the emergency room, all the CT-scans, doctors exams, nurses, physical/occupational/cognitive evaluation and therapy and pharmacy. (I think all I got from the pharmacy was the IV.) I'm feeling very fortunate.
I've resumed my cooking duties pretty much full time. Saturday night I made my Austrian Sauerkraut recipe. We had it with baked beans and vegetarian hot dogs. (It's prettier with red bell pepper.)
We had to leave Sandy a couple of times in one day, and he was fine in his crate. He has chewed the eyes out of Snowball and all the stuffing in the head, but I removed them when I saw they were coming out and saved the stuffing to use again. I didn't want him to swallow the eyes. The repaired Snowball went through the laundry and is now waiting to have his face sprayed with Bitter Apple, so Sandy doesn't remove the stuffing so fast. In the meantime, he has really bonded with Lamb Chop, who seems a good substitute.
I don't know if I mentioned it in one of my August blog posts, but Sandy did this one day.
On Saturday, he did something similar.
I'm not sure what his intention was, but it's interesting that he does this.
We started to put up our tree on Sunday. We discovered that some of the lights didn't work. Can you see the dark area?
I went online to see if anyone in our area still had artificial Christmas trees for sale. Fred Meyer (Kroger) and Walmart both claimed to have some in stock, but when I got there, they were nowhere to be found. I even tried Safeway, but no luck. I did find this in the parking lot and waited around for a bit to see if I might be able to buy it, minus the skeleton, but I got tired of waiting.
We're going to have to work with what we have!
Also this week, I found out I was getting a special present I hadn't been expecting. I'm going to wait until I can show photos to tell you about it, but it's definitely doll-related, and it's sort of a thank-you from a special person.
Christmas/holiday cards and letters are coming in. We got this from the White House!
We're mostly sending greetings by way of a blog post and only mailing something if we received a card or letter. It's been hairy! If you want to read our holiday letter, basically just a summary of our lives this past year, it's here.
I have a lot of difficulty responding to comments to my blog posts because of technical issues beyond my control (my lack of understanding of how things work). Message me on Facebook, Ravelry or Spoutible if you need information.
If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Our Favorite Verses: Poems from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart". Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of any of our books, including Emil, Mariah or Classic Tales Retold, please leave an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them.
Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.
What's on my needles: Socks to go with the Hogwarts uniform. Still the Kultainen käki cardigan, the EmPower People Kerchief (hibernating) and the Happier Days Shawl, the Mystery KAL for the Rose City Yarn Crawl 2024, waiting for the rest of Clue #1 in January.
What's on my loom: Not even dust!
What's on my sewing machine: It's cover.
What's in The Doll's Storybook: In Finding What Fits, Pippa and Pauly are putting a puzzle together, while Mariah is there with her book. They end up discussing how they are like pieces of a puzzle but much more.
What's on my iPad/iPhone: Now listening to The English Air by D. E. Stevenson. I'm using my hearing aids as ear buds. I can now understand most of the story.
What's in my wine glass: Plan Too vinho tinto from Portugal. Still can't judge the bouquet, but the taste is very nice.
What's my tip of the week: YouTube has some nice practice tracks for music that's used a lot, like "The Messiah."
Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with a few changes.
Our Favorite Verses: Poems from The Doll's Storybook is available from the BookBabyBookshop and other booksellers worldwide. Poems included are Valentine's Day, Keeping Pets, Back to School, Victor the Vulture, The Week Before Christmas, Insomnia and Veronika's Vocabulary Verses.
The stories in Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are Little Green Greatcoat, The Boy Doll Who Cried Wolf and Lost in the Woods.
Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook and Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are also still available from booksellers. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories in Emil are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.
The three stories in Mariah are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.
If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less.
Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.
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