On the eleventh (reading) day of Christmas

At Relief Society earlier this month, we were given a folder of handouts to help us find imaginative ways to celebrate the season. In 2005, the church published a list of readings in the scriptures, to correspond with the twelve days of Christmas. Some of these scriptures will be familiar to you, as they come from the KJV of the Bible. Others will be new to you, but harmonious with what you already know.

As this is a copyrighted article, I am not cutting-and-pasting each day’s reading into my blog posts. Instead, I will post the link and this notice, and you can just read that day’s portion if you choose. I would love to hear your thoughts and impressions.

Consider these my Christmas card(s) to you.

We finished watching Cross Creek at lunch yesterday. Hard to believe that that movie is 25 years old. Harder to believe that Mary Steenburgen and Peter Coyote have not been bigger stars than they are. Quiet, nuanced performances, and of course I loved the vintage clothing and the quiet transformation of the shack she bought into a house filled with love and light. My friend at work and I were both thinking that we need to read the memoir upon which the movie is based, and also The Yearling.

I finished BittyBubba’s scarf about five minutes before getting off the train [in spite of distractions]. It is blocking as we speak. Tonight I will pop it into a gift bag and put it with the other gifts that are going to Secondborn’s tomorrow afternoon.

I parked at the Richland Hills station and rode in from there; it’s convenient to the highway which leads straight to Firstborn’s house, and Middlest. There were not many of us in attendance, but I was a little giddy and kept making bad jokes, so we were pretty much in stitches all evening.

Mmm, when I walked into the house after Knit Night last night, the fireplace was chuckling, too, and the living room was roasty-toasty warm.

About those distractions? Three little words. Trainman. Trainman. Trainman.

[Sigh.] Sometimes I think we are just JustFriends and that he is mercifully immune to my charms. And sometimes he looks at me and smiles as he listens, and there is such warmth in his eyes.

And last night he leans across the table and murmurs, “In January, not sure yet when, but in January, I would like to take you to dinner.”

I did not spit in his eye.

And perhaps I was a little susceptible after watching the last half of Cross Creek? But I am going to just keep showing up for life and see what the next adventure will be.

I thought it might involve frogging an inch of the Wollmeise sock, because I thought I might have begun the gusset increases two rounds too soon. So I grabbed the finished first sock and compared that junction stitch by stitch; they look identical. Whew!

Knitting: now that’s a terra that is not incognito. If I knit to the edge and fall over it, a crochet hook can rescue me in a Noo Yawk minute.

Driving in today, because we are closing the office an hour early and the trains and buses are running on a holiday schedule, which means that if I miss the 4:10 I will have to wait an hour and a half for the next one. No thanks; this also guarantees that I can pick up the things I need for Christmas dinner on the way into work and not have to deal with frazzled shoppers on the drive home.