On the seventh (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.

In the Must Have Needed the Sleep department, I came home from work two hours early yesterday. Actually, more like three, because I caught the 3:05 instead of hanging around the station until the 3:55. [One minor downside to riding the train is that they don’t run every half hour, all day long. Another is the uncouthness exhibited by some of one’s fellow passengers. I had two middle-aged F-bomb-droppers sitting behind me until the second station and was about to say something until one of them casually mentioned that he was schizophrenic and the other started a discussion about the meds that he was on. Sadly, sharp poky sticks are no match for that.] Between the turkey I ate at lunch and the Jim Brickman Christmas CD, I was asleep by 6:30. I woke at 2:30 this morning, ready to knit.

The Chocolate Pecan Tart that I took for yesterday’s luncheon was a finger-licking success. I did a copy/paste from yesterday’s post into more or less a recipe format and sent it out to the office, at the request of one of the legal secretaries, but the office manager said she couldn’t follow a non-recipe. So she has decreed that I must bring it each and every year from now on. Instant office classic, like her own deviled eggs.

It appears that I have become one of those dash-of-this, smidgen-of-that cooks. Yes, baking requires more precision than general cooking, but I am finding there is still great latitude for improvisation.

I finished the cashmere sweater ornament while biting my tongue between Union Station and the dropping-off of the afflicted brethren. I am galloping away on BittyBit’s scarf and am about to go sit on the couch and listen to yesterday’s KnitPicks podcast [please tell me there is one; I haven’t checked yet] and knit until I need a nap. Each pattern repeat on this scarf roughly equals an inch in length, so I should easily finish this today and move on to BittyBubba’s miniature version of 2BDH’s birthday scarf.

I am really enjoying these quick projects. And I’ve already warned Brother Sushi that he is getting an IOU. I won’t be ordering the yarn for his project until the 2nd or the 16th. While I am waiting, I hope to finish the second Wollmeise sock and get started on a project that may integrate those two disparate greens in the Jitterbug that I bought last year. And after that, I think the new purple alpaca yarn that I brought home from the Knit Night sock yarn exchange.

I am planning minimal errands today, maximum knitting, and a modicum of baking. Sounds like the perfect recipe for a quiet, happy day.