Walking and Woohooing

The Nandina bushes are laden with berries.

And the firethorn (pyracantha) are simply bursting with orange and red berries. Soon great armloads of the branches will be cut and taken into the house, along with juniper and rosemary branches, to decorate the mantle and other surfaces of the house. The firethorn were here when we bought the house and they are probably going to be removed soon. They are getting too big and way too full of thorns, a real danger for anyone getting too close.

Buddy thinks the firethorn are a great place to hide his dog cookies. He seldom eats them when you give them to him; he prefers to hide them for snacking later in the day. He got a deworming treatment today and he was not a happy camper. He stuck his head in my lap and cried like a baby when he got his shot. We think that this is why he is so thin. He is eating like a horse now and hopefully he will start to put a little padding on those ribs soon.

In the front yard, deer parts are scattered in the stones. The last few bits of decorating!! And one lonely marigold thinks it's still time to bloom.

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The decorating is done! The gift knitting is done! And the big project is done, as well! Woohoo! And I'm only one day late!

I didn't think that I would make it. Sunday night there was a disciplinary issue at work and I, office supervisor, spent a few hours running around and counseling and typing up memorandums; just what I didn't need. It gave me a massive migraine that lasted into Monday. I went to the chiropractor just to help with all the stress and the tightness that was in my neck and shoulders. It depressed me no end (I DO NOT enjoy having to discipline a long-time employee) and I really wasn't enjoying the seasonal decorating like I usually do. Oh, how I appreciated reading your comments on my last post! I really think I could feel the supportive thoughts heading my way. Tuesday I attended the last training session scheduled for the month, so that burden came off my back, and today I finished typing up the big project. It will get turned in later this week and hopefully very little if any rewriting will need to be done. I wanted to have all of this done by yesterday; given the way things have been going, I am overjoyed to be only one day late on my goal.

And the Christmas knitting is done! I finished Branching Out #3 this morning. It still needs to be blocked; it's identical to Branching Out #1, Megan Littlelace. This one is going to my mom, and I can show it here because she doesn't read the blog and doesn't even know I have one at present. Her computer is old and slow; it would probably take two hours for the blog to load on her computer, and it crashed yesterday as it is, so who knows if she will even bother to get another one. She and my dad were coming out for Christmas, but now it looks as if they won't be able to make it because he's not feeling well. So there won't be any hurry right now to block it and mail it; she doesn't want me to rush with anything. It's too bad; we were really looking forward to having them here.

So now I can get back to regular knitting and regular bloglines and regular posting and enjoying the season and all that good stuff! Another supervisor has finally been assigned to my office. There are supposed to be two of us working on opposite halves of the week; I've been the only supervisor for most of the past year and it will be nice to have someone to share the responsibilities with. Perhaps now the long hours and overtime will ease up. I'm going to sit down with the stash and the UFOs and get a knitting plan in order for the next couple months. What a treat it will be!