Yesterday was amazing. And long.

I was up at dark-thirty, as usual, and got in some prime knitting time before I could start running errands. I went to the home center and came back with a replacement mirror for the one in the guest bathroom which cracked when we installed it. Also shower curtain hooks, to hang the curtain I found when I was helping to look for the punchbowl.

Next a few paint chips to coordinate with the draperies that are going up in the dining room, even though repainting the dining room is fairly low on my list. I figured it was easier (or maybe just less annoying) to take a drapery panel to the home center before hanging the drapery panels in the window, than to pull one off the rod and make that run later on. And a shorter tension rod to hang panels in the back doorway to the dining room. That little task is finished, and it looks pretty terrific, even though one panel is pulled up and flopping across the end of the pew, and the other is skewed behind the quilt rack that Beloved found a few months ago and brought home so we can finish it and give it to one of our unsuspecting children, or maybe as a wedding gift? (It’s a very nice quilt rack, and I’m glad he rescued it; I’m just tired of having it in our dining room, and there’s no place else to keep it, for now. I have the tension rod set to the correct length (I think) for the draperies that will go in the dining room window, but I haven’t taken the step-stool back there to get the existing curtains down so I can replace them. Chiefly because my large suitcase is taking up that bit of floor space, and I’m not sure where it should go in the short run so I can finish this project. I will probably tackle that after church today.

I brought that stuff home, hung the shower curtain liner and pronounced it GOOD, in the Biblical sense. Then I ran out again for more errands. Got Younger Twin’s wife’s birthday gift, went to the craft store and picked up stuff to wrap Christmas packages and to get a head start on making the greeting cards we will need next year. Found a gift for BittyBubba. Discussed possible gifts for Willow, Lark, and BittyBit with Firstborn and Secondborn. Brought everything home and dropped my cell phone on the front step as I was juggling things to get the door unlocked. Phone bounced out of its protective case and lay there, dead as the proverbial dodo, at my feet.

Came in, wrapped a couple of presents, and got ready for the baby shower. Went to the baby shower. Best part of it, for me, was when I handed her a package containing two receiving blankets made by Beloved’s late wife and told her who they were from. Verklempt doesn’t half begin to describe it. Food was excellent, half of it Anglo classics, and the other half Filipino delicacies. May I just state for the record that I am a big fan of lumpia (pronounced LOOM-pee-ah)?

Came home and started dragging Rubbermaid storage tubs out of my studio and the dining room closet. Went through two of the shorter ones (“Christmas 2” and “Christmas 3”) and a taller one (“Christmas 1”), producing a full bag of garbage, a day’s worth of shredding as far as my shredder is concerned, a sheaf of stuff that went back into my studio in the scrapbooking area, and a raft of metal gift boxes. I also found the Chris LeDoux CD which has been missing for six or seven years.

We missed the stake Christmas concert last night; Beloved was too tired to even think of leaving the house. I nipped out to the phone store, prepared to bite the bullet in terms of getting a new phone, but the nice young man in the store took the battery out and put it back, and the phone fired right up. What a blessing!

I did take a good look at the Galaxy Note, and I think I will get one when my contract expires in April.  I qualify for one now, but I want to see if I can get a better deal at the provider who covers our internet, TV, and landline. My company has a discount with that company, as well, but I don’t know if the discount would apply to the entire bundle or just to the phone portion. Will check that out in the very near future.

I did get in some more knitting before bedtime, wrapped another box or two, and made a small stack of things to show Beloved when he is officially awake later today.

Almost forgot to mention that our gift to the baby was a fishing pole of his very own.

After church I will tackle more storage bins. Right now Beloved has three empties that can go out to the garage to hold his stuff, and when they do, I can use my company Christmas gift to label the contents. This is the part where I get ready for church. I wonder if I have two knee highs the same color?