I woke up last night to the sound of rain pounding on the roof, and sure enough, this morning there was quite a lake in the backyard. It's been raining on and off ever since, although not nearly as hard. Turns out the rain has been working its way down south and west, since Richard's parents unfortunately had to drive through it on their way up to hear our cantata. I'm glad, at least, that they came for the morning one, because I would not have wished the trip home in such dismal weather, especially in the dark, on them. They may not have gotten to hear the extended version of the cantata, which we only did for the evening, but the morning version (which was during the church service and thus has the bonus factor of not requiring any ticket purchase) went really well, so they didn't miss much.

This morning also marked the last day of the church food drive. It was the last morning to collect food, and I am so very, very glad that we do not have to make more scarves for the final pile of donations because my team donated so much I think I would have had to make possibly up to ten more scarves and I think that would break me. I am so amazingly sick of making scarves.

My knitting mom and I passed out the 27 scarves we had so far, which 'equalled' the 2700 pounds of food donated, and got 27 people to come up to the front as a visible indication of just how much the church had accomplished. Even though I would probably cry from having to make the scarves to match it, it would have been even more fun to bring up a crowd of 40 people, since final totals stand at just a bit over 4000 pounds. But considering the aforementioned scarf-knitting-overload issue, I can live with this teeny little disappointment.

We all went out to lunch (Richard's parents and sister, my parents, and Richard and I) and smashed ourselves into a booth that wasn't exactly large enough to contain us, because the restaurant was crowded. Luckily we all get along well enough that being smashed into a restaurant booth only means we have something else to joke about, so it was fun. Then Richard wandered off to do some Christmas shopping and I headed off to a bakery in Vacaville for some much needed knitting time with one of my knitting groups. The group keeps growing and we are definitely not quiet and sedate, but no one ever seems to mind and in fact this time there were some surprise free pastries and also a reporter from a local paper who showed up and amused us all by rather clearly demonstrating that he had absolutely no clue about anything to do with knitting at all. But he was very nice and friendly and took some pictures, and showed appropriate enthusiasm and amazement about all the very cool things we are all knitting.

It is a very good thing we did manage to get to Costco yesterday after all, because one of the things we picked up was a huge pack of Airborne, and at one point this afternoon, shortly before the evening concert, I felt as if I was some sort of pusher, passing out huge chalky orange tablets to everyone who sidled up to me and said "I hear you have some Airborne". All of us in the choir have been more than a little paranoid about getting sick.

This evening's performance went well too. There were glitches - amusingly, not the same as this morning's - but those are always to be expected and the audience seemed to enjoy the whole thing regardless. And now we are done with choir, at least for the year, and I am done with scarves (at least for the year). And as lovely as the cantata was, and as much fun as it was to sing it, and as much stash yarn as I have managed to plow through making all those darn scarves, I cannot even begin to describe how very glad I am to be done with both.

Happy Holidailies