Happy End of the Year! What will you do with your extra second this year? I'm going to listen to a cat sneeze -- I bet you can't think of anything better to do with a free second. Or wait, did we miss it? Did it already happen? Dang it! That extra second is so wily; just blink, and you'll miss it.

So, in traditional year-end fashion, I will now look back at the goals I set last January and see how well I did. Let's see. . .

-- I DID keep a written journal. I made a small (A6, roughly) journal each month and used it to write down what I'd done each day, kept shopping lists, made a note of appointments, etc. I'm very pleased with this accomplishment. For next year, I have a Fabriano artists journal to last the whole twelve months. I can't wait to start using it!

-- I DID expand my vegetable garden. And how.

-- I DID. . . NOT really keep a garden journal. I started off strong, and I DID give the occasional update here on the ol' blog, but I use up all my gardening enthusiasm in the first couple of months. Then maintenance kicks in, and it's just enough to keep the plants going, much less write about them.

-- I DID NOT make a Blurb book of my photos. But I may revisit that idea next year. I've got a whole year's worth of additional photos since I made that plan, after all.

-- I DID join the gym and attended regularly (except for when I suspended the membership over the summer, because I was so active outside). I wasn't able to get back into running very seriously, due to the plantar fasciitis, but I might make another go of that with better shoes.

-- I DID take ballroom dance lessons, and I learned that although I was better at it than I'd expected, standing that close to somebody and moving around the room makes me go a bit cross-eyed and seasick.

-- I DID learn to make my own clothes this year. Yes! I'm very proud of that one.

-- I DID finally distribute my zine, and I even wrote two more. . . which I have yet to distribute. Cough.

Overall, not too bad on 2008's goals. Tune in next year for my new plans! I hope you all have a fantastic and safe New Year's Eve!

Phew! We've entered that lull between Christmas and the New Year, people. I'm ready for everybody else to go back to work, so that when I run my errands in the middle of the day during the work-week, I don't have to bother with all those people being everywhere. That's the true beauty of working for home, you know. Everybody thinks it's the pyjamas, but it's not.

I decided that I prefer being in my living room more than the back bedroom, both for working purposes and relaxation. Luckily, both those things rely on a single piece of tech -- the new iMac, so I ran out to Target and cashed in a few gift cards in exchange for a new desk. Of course, once I put the new desk together (well, attached the legs), I realized I needed to rearrange the entire living room to make things look right.

I've never not had the bookcases in the corner in which the desk now resides, so its been tough adjusting. I spent all yesterday evening and this morning walking through the room, feeling like it was a bad haircut. It might have looked fine for somebody else, but it just wasn't me. I think it was the combination of newly blank walls and windows -- broad stretches of nothing. So this afternoon, I hung the two wall shelves I've had in the closet for ages. I put a few things on them and switched around some framed pictures, and now I'm pretty happy with the set up. Thank goodness.

I've just got a boring blue Apple desktop on the computer, so I was playing with the screen savers when I took the picture above. I later set it to flip through the images in my Photo Book folder (that would be the photo book I never got around to actually printing), and at the risk of sounding immodest, I had to sit on the sofa and watch as it cycled through all the shots. There's something about seeing one's photos on a 24" screen from halfway across a room that's a bit dazzling.

So, I hope you had a marvelous holiday-time (I don't get why Christmas-folk get so uptight about people saying 'Happy Holidays' -- I mean, even if you're a Christian, there's still Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, and New Year's. That's more than one holiday!). And if you didn't, try hanging some shelves. It might make things look better.

Happy birthday to me! Frankly, I don't even care if it's underdone in the middle. We can just pick off the struesel and frosting and eat that.

People, today has been a day to top. The perfect mixture of busyness and relaxation, purpose and loafing. And tomorrow! Is my birthday! Which means today wasn't even the day I get a massage. It's enough to make a person count her many blessings.

With the exception of yesterday, which was sort of ruined by a blizzard, this weekend has been pretty remarkable -- simply because it's my birthday run-up, and I have birthday issues. They don't have so much to do with getting older (except that it keeps happening! I get older every year, people!); I would say it's to do with expectations, but it's much more vague than that. I'm going to stop trying to describe it (I've deleted several rewritten sentences already), and just say this: meh.

But this year I had a very enjoyable outing with my friends on Friday evening, and today was also spent with friends, although not in a celebratory manner. It's hard having a birthday close to a holiday -- everybody always seems to flee the metro area, leaving me friendless. But I had some wonderful friend-time this year, so now my actual birthday-day can be spent with family, quite happily.

I've been going through a rough patch lately, but I think something is working. Because I remember last year, when my birthday cake wound up in the bin (frosting problems, cake problems; I gave up), how that managed to pull down my whole day, at least a little bit. And this year, when I took my cake out of the oven and saw this, I just laughed.

To be fair, I sort of expected that to happen, and I'm planning on frosting the sides of the cake tomorrow, so it didn't need to come out of the oven looking perfect. (The top is streusel, in case you were wondering -- it's not THAT mangled!) I even put the cake tin on a cookie sheet so it wouldn't burn when it overflowed.

Perhaps there's a lesson in there. Prepare for things to go a bit wonky, and you might just wind up pleasantly surprised.

I just hope the cake is done in the middle!

The FedEx man started to get dangerously late. I mean, sure, I didn't have to go anywhere until much later in the evening, but I also couldn't possibly take a shower if there were any chance my new computer would arrive. Luckily, it finally showed up, and I was able to bathe. Sigh of relief.

Ooh. I think it fits in rather nicely with the Christmas decor, don't you? That's not its permanent home, but I want to gaze at it from the sofa for a few days. Maybe watch a DVD on its ridiculously hi-def screen. It makes those books look rather hodge-podgy and shabby, though, doesn't it? I'll have to cover them all in anodized aluminum.

I thought of a 'quirky thing' for all you quirky-thing-meme lovers out there. I was going through the desktop image choices that came preloaded on the iMac, and there are a couple shots of Earth from space. I cannot look at those. Totally creeps me out. It makes me feel like I'm falling, or at least teetering at the edge of something very tall. I guess it's something in my lizard brain. Thanks, space-lizard ancestors, for making me freak out.

Anyway, I'm updating from my MacBook while the iMac happily sorts my music out in iTunes and copies work files over from my external harddrive. Later, I'm going to hold the laptop up to the iMac and make kissy noises. They can have a baby Shuffle.

Wow! If you ever need shoe advice, just ask the internets. I will be following the 'get a professional fitting' line of advice, thanks.

-- I think my fridge decor is looking particularly nice right now. Mainly because of the chocolate advent calendar. Chocolate tastes better when it's been behind a tiny door, you know.

-- I love Cathy Louise's studio room. There are lots of photos of it sprinkled throughout her blog, and she changes things around quite often. I would like, for my birthday, to find a room like that somewhere in my house. It won't cost any money, just magic! But clearly my new computer deserves a room like that.

-- Enough about the new computer, already, I know. (At least until it arrives tomorrow.) But I will say that I'm tempted to put it on the table in the living room, even if just for the time being. You know, as part of the shiny white Christmas decor.

-- So, despite my general aversion to birthdays (belonging to me), I'm rather excited. Tomorrow I'm having dinner and drinks with my friends, and I'm really looking forward to it. And there will be a bit of this and that on Monday (my actual birthday), including the cake I'm planning to make. Cinnamon coffee cake with streusel on top AND cream cheese frosting on side (of the cake. Not, like, 'on the side' -- that would be weird.). It will totally not be a disaster, like last year.

-- I'm not mentioning it again, obviously, but I hope my new computer arrives tomorrow MORNING. Then, when I've had my fill of playing with it, I can bundle up and go for a walk. I mean, temperatures in the 20s. It might as well be spring. With lots of snow.

Hello, people in my internet! Today is my second housiversary -- two years ago today, I closed on my house. Let's celebrate with a mortgage that far exceeds my property's current value. Huzzah!

-- Actually, I'm not all that miffed about low property values. It's just a number on imaginary paper, after all, since I have no plans to move soon. I'm a long-term investor, me. Anyway, we decided to have a quiet day together, my house and I, sipping glasses of tap water and convincing ourselves that the back bedroom does NOT need to be painted, especially now, right before holiday cheer explodes. Even if there is a new computer on the way, one that would look nice in a crisp, white room.

-- Speaking of the computer, you should have heard my sigh of relief when I got the e-mail yesterday that it had been shipped. I was getting angrier and angrier with myself for not having gone to a store to buy it (I wanted certain specs, but mostly I just forgot that there are Apple stores in the real world). And since the projected delivery window was the 18th-22nd, I was filled with anxiety over the idea that I might have to stay at home all weekend and ON MY BIRTHDAY, waiting for it to arrive. I couldn't even say that out loud before, lest it come true. But now it's on its way, to be delivered before I start my holiday celebrations.

-- A question: Can anybody recommend a really good (but not reeeally expensive) running shoe? It needs to have amazing arch support (I have very high arches, and I also had plantar fasciitis earlier this year), plus lots of cushion for the balls of my feet, particularly in the big-toe region (if that makes sense). I've recently realized that I have no natural padding on that joint, and since my current shoes are pretty worn out, the result is that the balls of my feet start to go numb after a while. Perhaps I'd be better off finding a good insert rather than wishing for the perfect shoe.

-- Whilst on the topic of running and such. . . as part of my gym membership, I receive their monthly magazine, Experience Life. I've been really surprised at its quality, actually; there's always something interesting to read. This month, they have an article about high intensity interval training, so I've been (sort of) following their training chart. I've got pretty strong legs (to compensate for a noodle-like upper body), but I've been surprised how doing sets of sprints can make my muscles feel weak the next day. It's good.

Oh, winter. How you amuse me, with your highs that don't even get above zero -- FAHRENHEIT. The man in the radio said it would be around ten degrees tomorrow (that's -12C), and I thought, 'Oh, not to bad, then.' When he said it would be in the teens later in the week, I might have let out a whoop of joy. Okay, I didn't -- but I might have.

The cold is the hardest part of winter for me. When non-Minnesotan friends wonder at the fact that I'm almost always too cold, I explain by saying that although I start feeling chilly around 55F, it's all the same to me from there to forty below. That's not exactly true, of course; there's being cold as in, 'Gosh, I wish I had a pair of slippers/heavier jumper/great big parka,' and then there's cold as in, 'AAAAUGHH.'

I very nearly reached that point last night, saying one last goodbye to friends as we made our way back to our cars. (The photo above is of the American-stlye biscuits I brought to our gathering.) I remained composed, but part of me wanted to sprint the last fifteen feet to my car while screaming, just from the sheer cold of it. I think that pretty well describes winter in Minnesota. Also, have you ever felt your internal organs shiver?

There's also the whole lack of daylight thing, which makes the evening start around a quarter to four and drag on forEVER, as you keep checking the clock to see if it's an acceptable time to go to bed. The cold and the dark don't really matter if you can get out and spend the time with friends, but the cold and the dark make it hard to do that, sometimes. So I keep trying to come up with ways to fill the evening time, which means that almost every item of clothing I own is clean right now, and my dresser drawers can shut for the first time in months (the result of weeding and folding).

Never fear, though -- the days start getting longer in less than a week now! Of course, we're only just approaching winter, really. We've still got to get through January, and awful, awful February. But never mind; just think about next summer! Oh, how wonderful it will be. I'm going to plant corn and cauliflower and rutabagas next year. A Minnesotan summer is practically perfection.

Well, except for the mosquitoes. . .

Apparently, there was some freezing rain earlier, then a bit of snow, along with a twenty-degree plummet in the temperature. I wouldn't know, because I stayed indoors today (and tried not to even look outside too often).

-- Instead of being out 'in the world', I stayed in an did a little tidying up (I should stress the 'little' in that phrase) and wrapped presents. I had briefly flirted with the idea of sending out Christmas cards this year, but when I printed out a test sheet of the photo I wanted to use (which I consider hi-larious), it was a little too dark. And then my computer crashed before I could fix it. So bum. But if I get the picture back, I'll show it to you.

-- Speaking of computers, I placed my order today for the World's Most Beautiful Computer (an iMac). I can hardly wait until it arrives. It's triggered my nesting instinct; part of me feels like the old computer space won't be good enough for this one. After spending many years being staunchly anti-Apple (I hate the hype), I will soon be bidding my last PC a breezy goodbye. My MacBook has given me very little reason to complain over the past year and a half, so I can't say I mind.

-- I got that. . . tchotchke that's hanging in the window at the thrift store. I generally try to ask myself, 'But do I need this?' when I'm shopping, but in this case, the answer was, 'Well, I need my house to be pretty. So yes.' Plus, you know, it cost almost nothing.

-- With regard to Beany's sweater: It came from the dollar section at Target, and I only made her wear it long enough to take a picture. Cats know how to keep themselves warm, people. And yes, I did decide that I needed to buy the sweater just so I could take a picture of Beany wearing it. It may be time to reconsider my meaning of 'need'.

Target is a Minnesotan corporation, but their dollar section of recent years was clearly an idea thought up by somebody from another state. A more evil state.

As I said on flickr, the only thing I feel guilty about is the fact that Beany didn't struggle as I put this sweater on her. She just had no idea what she was in for.

Which is funny, because as I pounced on her, expecting a fight, I was reminded of the first few weeks she was here, when I had to give her antibiotics. Neither of us enjoyed that.

It's hard to say what compels one to put a sweater on one's cat. Comedy and mean-spiritedness, I guess.

Thanks for the blog anniversary wishes, guys! I celebrated by making a gingerbread house. (Okay, the two had nothing to do with each other.)

I thought about baking my own gingerbread, but it seemed like a crime to use real ingredients to make something that would be delicious but never eaten. So I went the route of the pre-shaped, pre-baked gingerbread house in a box. Pretty handy, as it came with the cement (disguised as royal icing) and candy -- although I picked out just the red candies to use.

I love the look of white piping. And I enjoy decorating like this, although I can't imagine saying I'd want to do it for a living. Professional pipers (of the icing- variety, not pan- or bag-) must have mitts of steel. The frosting we used for the cookies last week was fairly soft, but this royal icing, even when warm, was nearly impossible to get through the narrow tip. It may look pretty, but I was gritting my teeth the entire time!

The house is now in my living room, near the white Christmas tree. I feel like if I gather all the festive decorations in one corner, it'll be a more convincing display than the occasional attempt thrown here or there. I need some sort of banister to wrap garland and lights around -- Christmas lights strung over any old piece of architecture winds up feeling more 'college dorm' than 'hollidazzle'. My parents' living room is looking pretty seasonal at the moment, but my favourite part is their scaled-back tree, which is decorated almost entirely with Star Trek ornaments.

So, I did it again -- forgot my blog's anniversary. It turned eight years old on the sixth! Let's celebrate with the most mundane photo subject ever:

I'm still rather smitten with the wide aperture/shallow depth of field that my new lens has, obviously. It's pretty amazing what a difference f1.8 makes compared to f5 when taking a picture at dusk. I took this after mixing up a marinade for my tofu (mixed in its empty container).

So, eight years of blogging, yep. Back when I started, we still thought websites had to be about something. Thank goodness that's changed!

I was in college when I began my first blog (although I did have a website even before that), and it was very much just a journal of random bits and pieces. You know how it is when you're young and experiencing things for the first time (the city bus! using an oven!) all on your own; it's so exciting.

During my last year at university and then my subsequent move to London, I fell into the craft world, and my posts tended to focus on the things I'd made. I think it was in April of 2007 that I finally 'admitted' that twelve22 was becoming more of a food blog than a craft blog -- and since then, I feel like I've settled into a hodgepodge of subject matter. Almost like when I began, actually.

It's funny to me to think of people entering the blogging world now and seeing it as an establishment -- rather like a tween trying to imagine the world before cell phones, I guess. Eight years feels rather aged in the blogosphere, and it makes me want to say things like, 'When I was your age, we didn't even HAVE a crafting community! Wordpress? Forget about it! We coded everything by hand!'

It's true, we did.

I don't know if my new phone has been surreptitiously whispering in my ear about getting more gadgets, or if it's just the time of year to spend money, but I went out today and finally bought myself the new lens I've been wanting. It's, like, an early birthday present or something.

It's the Nikkor 50mm/f1.8 -- a very affordable alternative to a true macro lens. It's actually my first Nikkor lens (I've got Quantaray and Tamron lenses), and I'm pretty impressed with it so far. It looks a little stubby on my DSLR, and it'll take some getting used to the fact that it's not a zoom (I usually use a 28-90mm). My legs are now the zoom!

I'm really excited to use the lens for foodie shots, and its wide aperture is great for lower light situations, like, for example, the entirety of winter in Minnesota. I'm a little surprised how thrilled I am with the lens, to be honest. Even though I've wanted it for a long while, it's been more of an idle want -- I might have bought it sooner if I'd known how pleased I'd be.

Today is my parents' thirtieth anniversary, and I'm joining them for fancy dinner at a fancy steakhouse in fancy downtown Minneapolis. I looked at the restaurant's fancy website, and they appear to have forgotten to post their fancy vegetarian menu. Oh dear. Anyway, I'd better shake off my cat blanket and get ready for that.

Today was an exciting day! When I woke up, Beany was nowhere to be found, so I went downstairs to discover her closely watching a mouse that had been caught in a live trap.

I really like mice, so I made him this temporary home in a plastic box while I decided what to do. It's already so cold outside, and getting colder, and it seemed plain mean to drive miles away and drop the little guy off in a field with no shelter. So I made a mouse nest out of a cardboard box and lots of shredded newspaper and told him he can live in my garage (and eat stale crackers).

I should have marked him somehow, so I could see exactly how many hours it takes for him to get back in the basement.

The cats were very interested in our visitor, and I worried about saying 'no' to Beany when she got too nosy. After all, Beany has currently caught three mice, compared to my one (and I have more gadgets to aid me). Headstrong as Beany is, she's pretty sensitive to being scolded. Funny how I didn't want to have this mouse's death on my hands, but I'm not bothered when Beany brings me one she's already dispatched.

Anyway, that was the excitement of my day. Well, that and delivering cookies. And a new book of crosswords -- because it gets dark so early!

I meant to update yesterday, but I wound up running around to buy a new phone and then HAD to go to a surprise birthday party. Not my own, obviously, but there was a pile of donuts in lieu of a cake, so it was good value for money. So since I didn't post yesterday, take this extra update in its stead -- a figurative pile of donuts, if you will.

-- I vacuumed earlier today, so I picked up all of Beany's many toys and put them in her tent. More than once today, she's gone in there, chosen something from the pile, and brought it to me. Then I have to drop whatever I'm doing and play fetch with her for five minutes. Because when a cat asks to play fetch, you don't say no.

-- My desktop came down with a case of BSOD earlier today, even though it wasn't doing anything except being on. Now it won't load Windows again. I've got a somewhat recent backup of my important files, and the manuscript I just finished proofreading is on my laptop, so I'm choosing to panic. . . a bit later.

-- Of more immediate concern is the fact that I've run out of bananas for my morning oatmeal. I had to go without this morning, and it's not an experience I'd like to repeat. But it leaves me with a classic catch-22: I can't eat breakfast until I've gone to the shop to buy bananas, but I can't really face going to the shop until I've had breakfast. It's no use wondering why I didn't just go earlier today.

-- I mentioned that I bought a new phone; I'm really, really pleased with it so far. I decided I wanted a phone that I could use as an MP3 player as well, and since I was a new customer with the provider, I paid only $20 for the phone and then went across the street to Radio Shack and bought an 8GB micro SD card for $35. (By the way, can you even believe that something the size of my pinkie fingernail can hold 8GB? Wow.) I'm not all that gadgety-techy, but I'm very excited about having such a fun new thing. Which is also shiny. And with the new provider, now I can actually hear and understand what people are saying when they call. Imagine that.

It's easy to be friendly, but making friends can be a bit trickier, can't it? I pretty much started from scratch when I moved to London, and by the time I left, there were so many people I was sad to be moving away from. Minneapolis was more or less the same story, and it's kind of incredible to have a group of people to call friends again. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that my friend Julie and I made cookies today.

It was our second annual cookies making day, actually. I baked the gingerbread cutouts yesterday, so we just had to bake the sugar cookies and then decorate them all. With lunch in the middle. The lunch is important, to stop you getting hungry while you're decorating. Because you know if you sample too many of the cookies, you'll just wind up sugar crashing by late afternoon.

Pretty, aren't they? We didn't bother trying to spread frosting this year, and I really like our piping efforts. Last year, our decorating discovery was thinning out frosting and dipping the cookies in to save time (a technique I used again for some of my Christmas gift cookies). This year, I did some coloured piping and filled it in with white, and we both decided that was our favourite look.

The cookies are all packed up now, waiting for Monday, when I will deliver them to their workplace destination. So if you work with Julie, start getting excited.

I said this on flickr just a little while ago, but it seems like this year I've been seeing a lot of recipes to help people out of the 'turkey sandwich rut' after Thanksgiving (I'm sure it happens every year). I guess maybe a genuine cooked turkey yields a lot of leftovers and maybe some people hate the idea of eating the same thing more than once a year, but I sort of feel like. . . really? Do you really eat so many turkey sandwiches at other times that you can't bear to eat a few in the week after Thanksgiving? Are you too good for a turkey sandwich?

Personally, I can never be bothered to buy and cook a Quorn roast more than once a year, so I'm happy to eat all the fake turkey sandwiches it can give me. I buy fake turkey deli slices from time to time, but it's not the same thing, really. When I taste the combination of 'turkey', mayo, avocado, and all the other fixings, I think, 'Ooh, I want to eat this again tomorrow!' (except substitute 'tomorrow' with 'in ten minutes') not 'Yeah, I guess I'll have another a year from now.'

But I have a high threshold for repetition. I'm probably a little too dependent on it, to be honest. If I happen to discover that starting my day with a bowl of oatmeal, then going to the gym, then settling in at the coffee shop to proofread makes for a good day, then I'm apt to want to do that every day until it becomes boring and I'm forced to change it up.

So everybody else can keep their piles of creative recipes for leftovers. I'm just going to have yet another sweet potato and listen to the same album for the millionth time.

While I had a very nice Thanksgiving, there were two drawbacks to the fact that it wasn't hosted at parents' this year: no Quorn roast and no leftovers for me to take home. Well, I can fix that.

Fresh cranberries were pretty cheap at the supermarket the other day, so I made my own sauce. I used half the recommended sugar and added a small orange that I chopped into pieces. So good. True or false: cranberry sauce is basically just jam that you're 'allowed' to eat with a spoon.

True.

I also roasted some potatoes while I baked the Quorn roast. So now I have my own leftovers. Fake turkey sandwich? Yes, please.

Annoyingly (and unrelatedly), I cut my finger early this morning when I broke a drinking glass. It's not a bad cut, but it's right on my fingertip, so I need to wear a band-aid to keep it closed, but the band-aid itself makes it tricky to type. And impossible to play guitar -- just when I'd decided to become a rockstar, too. Oh well, move on to the next item on the list.

As I said yesterday, I put up my excellently fake Christmas tree:

Before Thanksgiving, I was so jazzed to start decorating for Christmas, so I was surprised when I couldn't muster up the enthusiasm until yesterday. To be fair, I did have to bring up a table from the basement to set it on AND I had to find a stool to stand on to reach the tree at the back of the closet. Seemingly insurmountable obstacles, but I overcame.

After I mentioned the polar bears last night, I had to go through all the boxes in the basement until I found them. I'm sure I've mentioned my Breyer horse collection before (high five, Alicia!) -- they now reside in cardboard boxes, and there were quite a few to go through before I found the bears. But I was determined by that point. Hmmm, one of these things is not like the others. I have to start wrapping presents so Beany won't think I've set up a special cat display table.

Uh oh, another picture of Beany. But you can't see much of her:

-- I realized late on Friday night that I'd run out of cat food (I realized this when both the cats bore holes right through me with their looks of contempt). There was a little bit of canned cat food in the fridge; they usually get only a taste of it as a treat, but I waited until the morning to give them a bit to tide them over. I didn't manage to get to the store until after lunch on Saturday, though, and by that point I was feeling very guilty.

So now we have a cat tent. It's actually billed as a 'cat carrier', but anybody who's ever met a cat will know that fabric mesh 'windows' would not contain a cat for very long, not if it really wanted out. Anyway, Beany forgave me for the food mishap.

-- Despite the multiple 'six quirky things' (and similar) memes I've done in the past, I don't think I've ever said how much I hate the feeling of grit clinging to my skin or (worse!) under my fingernails. I mention this because I keep forgetting to make more cold brew, so I've been using my Bialetti to make coffee in the mornings, and cleaning it out afterwards is awful. Touching wet coffee grounds. Urg.

I manage to be an enthusiastic gardener, though, so it's not just an aversion to getting my hands dirty, or whatever. Just. . . the feel of grit. But! A minute ago, I stirred up a batch of cold brew that'll be ready in the morning. I was carefully pouring grounds from the air-tight container into the measuring cup, carefully. . . carefully. . . care -- oh dear, coffee grounds all over the floor. Sometimes you just have to laugh.

-- I put up my excellently gaudy white fake Christmas tree (I was tempted to put some commas in that list of adjectives, but they actually don't belong). We'll see how long it takes Beany to knock it over. I think in lieu of a baby-Jesus-nativity scene, I'll put my plastic polar bears under the tree. There are so few opportunities to decorate with plastic polar bears, I find.

-- I'm going to make a real effort to post more during December. Just you wait and see. Yes, sir.