yarn bombs

I am sick again. Again! But being sick did allow for a couple days of lying in bed (and on the couch), situations which, for me, often lead to crafting. So on the plus side, I got a little glass ornamenting accomplished. And really, what could be simpler? Vibrant-hued yarn (a little too scratchy for a scarf), shoved right inside an empty glass ball. Fun and festive.

A little yarn explosion of your very own.

But be careful when shoving yarn inside your ornaments.

Sometimes there are sharp bits along the rim of the opening, and then stuff like this happens.

And you end up pulling glass shards from your index finger. Not cool, ornament, not cool.

contingency plans

Gmail chat between me and Catherine.


Me: Morning.


Catherine: Hey!


Me: How's your wound?


Catherine: It hurts. It took me a long time to get ready, and it's all bruised and gross. I'm going to take pictures of it each day. I only wish I had pictures of all the blood, and I don't think my new bandaging makes it look any less suicidal-y.


Me: No, I would suppose not. You and your injuries.


Catherine: I don't have that many, but seriously you need to come up with a game plan.


Me: For?


Catherine: Because the first thing I thought of was: what if this ever happened when someone was home alone?


Me: California?


Catherine: No. Like with you or Mom.


Me: Oh.


Catherine: With injuries. It was intense.


Me: Yeah, I'd just lie on the floor and bleed to death or choke on some chicken while eating in front of a mirror. Stuff like that.


Me: Mom would have to drag herself in from the barn or lie out there and hope Ray could hear her calling for help. But she has the advantage in this situation because if we can't get her on the phone, we'll call Ray and make him go look for her.


Me: I, on the other hand, am mostly off the grid. I don't answer my phone consistently and don't really see people with any regularity. But I would be missed at work, and since I usually only have one day off, it wouldn't take too long to find me.


Me: So that is my game plan.


Me: Although, I guess it's really just a plan for finding my dead body.


Catherine: Hmmm.

pseudo-cide

While I didn't do this:

I still look like this:

Which is really hard to decipher from this:

The difference is that I was taking the garbage out and stabbed into my wrist with some broken glass, but it's hard for other people to know that's what happened.  There was lots and lots of blood.  In 7-10 days the stitches come out and I can unwrap my wrists.  In the meantime, maybe I should wear brighter colors and not drink wine in public...really I should just look as un-depressed as possible.

But tonight, I drank wine in public.  We went to Trinacria (which I've blogged about before). I had the broccoli calzone.

                

I took a gnarly picture of my wrist (which Nick said I shouldn't post, but I kind of want to).  If you don't want to see it, don't scroll down.  It's gross. I'm going to post it.  Don't scroll down.

I warned you.

Two down.

Yup, I fell again today. Seriously. Steps in front of my apartment again, but this time I only went down three or so. And the steps were basically ice-free! There was just a little spot of ice on the edge of one step. Sigh. The good news is that I didn't re-injure my left foot and leg (I think...I hope). Of course, I injured my right foot. I'm officially out of uninjured feet, so I can't really afford to fall for the next week or so. And believe me, those bruises are piling up and getting dark.


Enough of that business. Tonight was the Wassail Party at the Campbell House (the historic house at the Museum {where I work}). We set up a little table full of items from the Museum Store. We were located between the library and the conservatory, and let me tell you, that little corner was cold. Apparently, they weren't insulation geniuses in 1898.


The Wassail Party is a Members-only Holiday event where sections of the Campbell House that are not normally accessible during the tour are opened up. We also have cookies and wassail (the rum is optional {I chose rum. I will always choose rum.}), Christmas carols in the library, and a very authentic Father Christmas in the foyer. My plan was to wander the house for a bit and take a bunch of pictures, but I ended up spending the evening behind our store table. And it's pretty dark in the house because the lighting is period, so I only have one picture that turned out anywhere near decent. Just imagine thirty people singing
O Holy Night while an elderly gentleman plays the piano and about seventy-five others mill around eating cookies and sipping seasonal drinks laced with rum. Festive, right?

The library is all decorated for Christmas.

All right. I'm going to elevate my ankle now and hope that tomorrow is not a repeat of today.

One down...

First fall of the season: 3 December, 9:48 AM.
The steps in front of my apartment.
Me: Hmm, I think it's just standing water.
Nope. Wrong. Ice sheet.


Down I went--all six steps. Dunt, dunt, dunt, dunt, dunt, dunt. That's the sound I make when I recreate the fall over the phone. (I imagine it's the sound of half a barrel of beer rolling down steps into a dirt-floor cellar.) So, there it is. The cement steps tore my stockings and a couple knuckles, and I'm sure I'll be hard up as hell by the end of the day. But for now, I'm up and around. I don't think there were any witnesses...maybe the squirrel next door. This sort of thing usually happens because I get too cocky. Nature has to take me down a peg. It's the classic Greek hubris situation (except without the sex). Every winter, I tempt the gods by thinking I can walk normally outside. And every winter, they bop me on the head. Now I'll spend the next three months terrified that I'm going to break my face.


I have some bruises coming, but despite what I said in that one post (about dedicating a post to scabs and another various injuries), I won't be putting up pictures of any bruises, welts, scrapes, or swellings. I'll be keeping those to myself--which means that once or twice a day I'll probably dedicate a couple silent moments to staring at my black and blue ankle or shin or ass and scolding myself for being so bold as to put a careless foot outside my door.


Anyway, since there are no pictures of my fall-related deformities forthcoming, I thought I'd continue the countdown to Christmas with another peek at some holiday items I've recently acquired.

Here's the little group! I found them at the Volunteers of America thrift store.
(That's the one I recently re-discovered. So very exciting!)

He seems to be listening intently.
Maybe he's waiting for the cue to play that paper violin.

Most are stamped Japan on the bottom.

There's something jolly yet sinister about this guy.
Probably the black hole eyes.

This one has a secret.

Classic cottony snowman.

If you dig these little guys, Martha Stewart's December issue of Living has a swell article on vintage elves, snowmen, and Santas. Check it out. No pressure, but it does feature a giant (well, relative to the elves) toadstool!