Hooray for decongestants. While I am grateful that the allergy shots have kicked in enough that getting a cold no longer means I have to spend a few weeks being unable to breathe, apparently they have not yet progressed to the point where my sinuses don’t try to get me in some way or another. I wisely took decongestants at the first sign of sinus pressure this morning and the rest of the day was much happier than how yesterday started.

It was good that my cold has finally subsided (well, except for that pesky sinus pressure issue). Years ago I heard the John Denver and the Muppets Christmas CD for the first time (shut up – the Muppets are cool) and fell in love with one of the songs. This year I finally got the chance to sing it – today, in church. Considering my tendency to get winter colds at all the worst possible times I was half afraid that I’d end up too sick to sing. Again, hooray for decongestants. Yay! It actually went pretty well, and even though I was so nervous my hands were shaking, I got enough compliments afterwards that I guess no one else noticed.

The rest of the day has been pretty busy. After church I dashed home to change and wrap the present for a baby shower. It was a nice party – plenty of veggies to munch on and three pregnant ladies to tease and talk to about babies. It’s kind of fun that three of our group is pregnant all at once, although the other two aren’t due until April. We did some of the usual baby shower games, ate cake, talked, and played baby bingo while she opened her presents (bingo cards are filled out with typical baby shower gifts – encourages everyone to pay attention when the presents are unwrapped). The minute I found out this particular friend was pregnant I knew I was going to knit her a baby blanket, and a few months ago I found some incredibly soft pastel blue yarn and made this. We’ve all been so excited for her about this baby because they were trying for so long.

I ended up leaving the baby shower a little early, but time was running out and we still needed to get our Christmas tree. So I called Richard and he met me at the tree farm, and we grabbed a saw and a map and marched down the road to the tiny little section where the incense cedars grow. And this year I think we may have found one of the best trees we’ve ever had. It’s straight and full and has marvelous shape, and there’s not a bare patch on it anywhere. We didn’t have to spend hours on the front porch hacking off knots that made the trunk too big to fit into the tree stand, or worry about which side to have facing forward. And best of all, somehow we managed to cut it to just the right height.

It’s decorated now, with all the tiny colored lights and the garlands of red beads, and all our ornaments. The house smells delightfully of pine. Richard arranged all the branches we had them cut off the bottom around the front porch to give the house a bit more festivity. And then we settled down on the couch, Richard with his writing and me with my knitting (because these hats and scarves will not knit themselves, after all), and watched a very special holiday edition of Design on a Dime, where they built what might very well be the world’s most hideous Christmas tree ever. And now it finally feels like Christmas.

I had today all mapped out. First we were going to wrap up the presents to be mailed, and then drop them at the post office on the way out of town. Off we’d go to do our bi-monthly trip to CostCo, to stock up on huge bags of rice for the various food drives we’re involved in, with a brief detour by Michael’s, because they had a great sale on yarn – yarn that would be perfect for those three blankets I must complete by April (for gifts). Then we were going to hit a few other places including possibly somewhere where we could each get some new shoes because my sneakers have holes in the sides, and then we’d go off to the tree farm and cut down our tree, come home, and spend the rest of the day decorating.

This was all, of course, before my sinuses decided to throw a wrench in the whole thing. The pressure started building just about the time we headed off to mail presents, and continued rather quickly as we headed down the freeway. By the time we reached Micheal’s I was feeling pretty horrible, so after I picked out yarn and staggered back to the car we gave up on all the rest of the plans and went back home.

A few hours later, once my stomach had calmed down enough to take some decongestants, I was feeling better. But by then there wasn’t enough time to get everything done we’d planned. So instead we went to Costco, picking up lots of things we probably didn’t need (because that is the magic of Costco) and on the way home we hit the fabric store because yarn was on sale there too, and then we came home and decided that if we couldn’t get our tree, at least we could get started with the rest of the decorating.

The goofy penguin windsock is now hanging outside by the front porch. Richard set up the lit garland on the mantel and arranged our various Christmas bears and snowmen and moose around the downstairs. I dragged out all the Christmas placemats and napkin rings and set them around the dining room table, and put my Edie Walker nativity scene on the piano, where I am hoping that the cats cannot get to it. The trio of nutcrackers were set up on our gorgeous new sofa table, along with the silly little clay goose my mom-in-law got me a year or so ago, which comes with holiday hats (in honor of the season it is wearing its santa hat). And once the decorations were out, we settled on the sofa with stacks of Christmas cards and a movie in the DVD player (Ella Enchanted, which was sweet and delightful and which I highly recommend to anyone, even though my boyfriend Cary Elwes plays a very bad man), and addressed the first round of holiday cards. Maybe it wasn’t everything I”d hoped to get accomplished today, but it was at least a very good start.

Tonight was the monthly craft night, and I brought my little sister’s sweater with me, to get some feedback on how to finish it off. Because this was our December gathering we all brought goodies to share, and ornaments for a gift exchange. I’d found a peanut butter pie recipe on TUS that sounded interesting so I used this as an excuse to test it out. It smelled great, but maybe peanut butter, cream cheese, and Cool Whip isn’t the best combination. It was rich. Too rich. Ah well.

We had a wonderful time sitting around the room chatting and knitting – well, most of us. I *did* get some knitting done, but not as much as I might have. The ‘problem’ is that the hostess occasionally fosters kittens for a local SPCA, and one of them decided that I looked like the perfect (or would that be purr-fect?) spot to curl up on.

She started off on my shoulder, which wasn’t so bad because I could just sit a little awkardly and keep on knitting.

But as the evening progressed (and she proceeded to curl, uncurl, stretch, and otherwise rearrange herself) I ended up having to keep scrunching further and further down on the couch so this little scrap of fuzz would be comfortable (what can I say – I am such a sucker for teeny little kittens).

She rewarded me by purring every single second she was awake, and leaving my yarn alone. I may not have gotten much knitting done, but somehow I really didn’t mind.

This morning at breakfast Richard said, quietly, and in passing, “I still miss Rebecca.”. He noted that he had gone to get some new rechargeable batteries, and the drawer where we keep batteries is the same drawer we kept her food bowl, back when we’d been trying the special kidney diet. The bowl is still there – still full of food. Just one more little reminder we forgot existed, until it jumps up to smack us in the face.

I am still having a hard time saying that I only have six cats. I have had seven cats for so many years that six sounds just wrong. It’s not that either of us has any need to go out and get a new kitten just to bring the number back to seven either. It’s that the ‘six’ sounds wrong because she’s not a part of it any more.

Six is a good number. It’s an even number. When I put down wet food on two plates, three cats fit perfectly around each one. Six cats don’t take up as much room on the bed as seven. Six cats are easier to list when signing Christmas cards for the yearly card exchange with other members of the Cyberkat email group. But six is not the number that is supposed to be.

The other cats have, over the past two months, slowly been taking over some of Rebecca’s places. Allegra curls into my elbow at night, and sometimes stomps on my head, and will jump up on the counter and yell at me if I’m not getting the food out fast enough, just like Rebecca used to do. Rosemary sometimes jumps into the shelf where I keep my pants and burrows into them, just like Rebecca used to do. Zucchini has taken on the role of hairball hacker extraordinaire with what seems to be almost pride. But it just isn’t the same.

I know that eventually I won’t keep finding all the little reminders because eventually we will clear them all away. And I know that eventually I will look out at the flower bed in the backyard and think of something else besides a tiny little box buried deep inside, with a tiny little cat inside.

But I still miss her. I miss the number seven. And I wish we didn’t have to get used to anything else.

I woke up this morning with a painful sore throat, and a nose that is starting to run. Oh joy. My very first cold of the season. Since we decided we’d exchange presents with my little sister’s family so they could take theirs back to Seattle with them, I stayed up rather late last night frantically working on her Christmas present – a purple cardigan I’d been knitting but didn’t finish. This morning I got up early to try to get it finished, so the impending cold was not a welcome sign. Sigh.

We did family pictures today at a little photo studio downtown. The studio was so tiny only a few of us could fit at one time so the rest of us stood outside around the corner (to escape the wind – it was cold!). The photographer did a wonderful job though, even during the full family shot when all eleven of us squeezed into her tiny studio. Somehow she managed to get shots where all the kids were not only facing the camera, but also actually smiling at the same time. I figure anyone who can manage that with three kids under the age of 7 has got a special talent.

This afternoon I spent mostly knitting in a frantic attempt to get the sweater done and managed, somehow, to have everything but the buttons on by the time we had to pile into the car to head up to Napa for dinner at my older sister’s house. I sewed the buttons on in the car by the light of the interior lamp – probably not the best idea when sitting in the back seat of the car. The combination of hunching over a sweater with a tiny needle, sitting in the back seat in stop and go traffic meant that I was feeling a bit queasy by the time we hit Napa. Luckily the buttons were on, the sweater was done, and all in time for dinner.

We finally got to meet my older sister’s new kitty – an absolutely gorgeous Russian Blue cat with the softest fur. We did the gift exchange and my sister loved her sweater (although it still needs some adjustment), and it was fun, but it was good to get home. This cold is just getting worse.

It has been the tradition in the past that the day after Thanksgiving my mom and my sisters and I go out shopping. But over the past few years, with all of us being gone every other year with our respective in-laws, and with there being less and less at the sales I’m interested in, that tradition has died a slow death. However, I still thought it would be nice to have something for just the women in the family. First my little sister and I suggested we all go get pedicures but the others weren’t too thrilled with that idea. Then I suggested we all go for tea. I tracked down the one teahouse in Sacramento that serve formal high tea, found out that it offers hats and gloves and shawls for ‘dress-up’ purposes, and suggested that we all go for tea, just us girls. It sounded like something my little niece might like too, especially since she’s old enough now – at four – to start being drawn into some of the women-only traditions.

So late this morning I headed over to my parents’ house and my sisters and my mom and I all piled into one car and we headed off for Sacramento.

The teashop was not too difficult to find, and it was quite charming inside. We arrived a little early so there was time to browse all the little tea-related things that were available for sale. When they were finally ready for us we all picked out a tea (with the exception of my niece and my older sister, who opted for pink lemonade instead), and then we were given the option of choosing hats to wear, and were told to pick our own tea cup from a cabinet full of beautiful china. Then we were seated at our table and our tea was brought out in individual pots. A little more time to sit and admire the décor, and then out came the food and it was time for the tea to begin.

They had quite a selection of little sandwiches and goodies to nibble. It never looks like very much on the tea plates, but I’ve learned from other teas I’ve attended with the tea group that looks are often deceptive. There was a tiny little pecan tart, and scones – one even shaped like a turkey in honor of Thanksgiving. There were tiny little white chocolate cookies and cheese spirals and slivers of persimmon, and of course the required cucumber sandwiches. There was lemon curd and clotted cream for the scones, and at the end a selection of either eggnog ice cream, or cheesecake with a swirl of butterscotch.

My niece wasn’t too sure about wearing a hat at first, but a delicate peach number won her over, and she wore it the entire tea (and didn’t actually want to give it back at the end). Her mom allowed her the luxury of adding sugar cubes to her pink lemonade, and she nibbled at her scones and provided entertainment for the rest of us. I’m not sure my mom or older sister had ever done tea before (although I think my little sister had), and I felt bad because it was obvious pretty early into the tea that my older sister wasn’t finding the experience very fun. So I guess if we want to find a new, non-shopping women-only outing, we’re going to have to come up with some different ideas for next time. We’ve got two years before we’ll all be together again for Thanksgiving, however, so that should give us plenty of time to come up with something better. I hope.

This year for Thanksgiving the entire family descended on my parents’ house, which meant that Richard and I had nothing more to do than bring the parts for the green bean casserole and make pumpkin bread. Since my mom ended up buying a few loaves of bread from the church bazaar this past weekend I didn’t even have to bake! A big change from the stress of two years ago, when I had 17 people coming, a house full of furniture to rearrange so we could somehow fit all 17 people around two tables, and a turkey to cook.

I tried to sleep in, but my internal clock is set too early for that to work most of the time. So instead I got up around 7 and puttered around, checking email, doing a little knitting, petting the cats and trying to keep them occupied so they didn’t go skittering all over the bedroom to wake up Richard. I finally called my parents to find out when breakfast was going to be ready (my mom’s homemade cinnamon rolls), and poked Richard awake so we’d have time to take showers and gather up everything we’d need for the day before they were out of the oven.

My little sister, Bil-2, and my little niece arrived last night fairly late, so they were already up and wandering around by the time we arrived for breakfast. We all sat around the table and stuffed our faces with homemade cinnamon rolls fresh from the oven, getting a good start to the traditional day of eating. Later on, my older sister and her family arrived, bringing my two little nephews – much to my niece’s delight – and I’m not sure the noise stopped for the rest of the day.

They’re still young enough that they can all play together – and look forward to seeing each other, and none of them care that one is a girl and two are boys. My niece is a little headstrong (it seems to be a common trait among the women in my family – heh), but the oldest nephew can match her in stubbornness when he puts his mind to it and the youngest seems blissfully oblivious to being ordered around by his older brother and cousin. So for the most part they spent the day happily playing with each other while the rest of us parked ourselves around the house with books and magazines and me with my knitting (of course).

We did the traditional lunch of fruits and veggies, crackers and cheeses. The kids, and some of the adults, took naps. Bil-2 opened some belated birthday presents and received, much to his 6-year-old son’s delight, a Monopoly game. Turns out he and his dad have played Monopoly on the computer, so he knew what to do. So Richard and both brothers-in-law and the little 6-year old played Monopoly. He needed a little help making change from time to time and he’s a little young to have any true grasp of the financial concepts included in the game, but he was having a wonderful time. And the rest of us were having fun eavesdropping on them.

I decided, rather belatedly, that I should make the three kids hats again this year – and this time add in some scarves. Admittedly the decision was driven by the fact that I happen to have a pile of sock yarn that I needed to use up, but still, I think this could be a fun tradition to start. So I worked away on stripy brown hats for most of the afternoon.

Thanksgiving dinner was full of all the traditional foods, including the grape Kool-Aid in the ugly green plastic pitcher. My little sister had gone out to my mom’s herb garden (or rather, what’s left of the herb garden, since there is a fairly massive tomato plant in the middle of it attempting to take over the world) and picked an assortment of fresh herbs for a centerpiece. Unfortunately they came with a few ants, so my older sister and I had fun surreptitiously squashing ants throughout dinner.

Later there was pumpkin pie and apple pie and the pumpkin spice cake I brought (because I do not like pumpkin pie and can only work myself up to apple pie on rare occasions). The cake was apparently a great hit, especially my youngest nephew, who practically inhaled his first piece, and gobbled down the second without hesitation.

The kids eventually wandered off to bed and we adults were left to sit around and try to recover from all the eating. There was talk of a rousing game of Balderdash, but I ended up dozing off on the couch and realized that I probably wouldn’t last very much longer, especially for any kind of game requiring thought. So we headed home, where we were greeted with six cats who insisted on getting extra attention to make up for the fact that we left them all alone all day.

Two weeks ago I started poking around on the wishlist program Richard wrote a few years back for both our families. Last week I selected a few items (and got ideas from the list for the rest), and late last week we made a bunch of orders. So almost every day this week there have been boxes in our mailbox, or sitting on our porch – boxes from all manner of places, all bearing the same marvelous thing. Yes, folks, this year we managed the unthinkable. We have successfully done every single bit of our Christmas shopping online!

It gives me a little thrill each time we open another box and pull out another soon-to-be-present. We’re carefully stacking everything away in a closet (and saving all receipts, just in case), and as each box arrives I check off one more name on our list. By the time Thanksgiving rolls around we should have every single gift accounted for. By the time December hits, all that will be left to prepare for the holidays is filling out and mailing the cards, putting up the decorations, getting and decorating a tree, and doing all the required baking. It’s still a lot of work, but my little early Christmas present to myself this year is the gift of mall avoidance during the pre-holiday season. No searching for parking in an overfull lot; no jostling with hundreds of sweaty, tired shoppers and their screaming kids, no forced exposure to tacky department store holiday music (otherwise known as ‘how many different ways can we expose shoppers to ‘Jingle Bells’ before the first one goes postal?’). Ah, what blissful relief.

Because we both had to get allergy shots after work, Richard and I decided we’d carpool. It’s something we wish we could do more often, but with our offices on opposite sides of Sacramento, doesn’t always work for timing. But every once in a while it’s nice, and since we had to head for the same place anyway, we figured yesterday was as good a day as any.

It being the end of autumn, it’s not uncommon to see flocks of birds winging their way across the sky, in their uneven V formations, heading for warmer climates somewhere south. However, as I looked up at the evening sky on the way to the allergy clinic yesterday I was shocked by the sheer number of birds in the sky. Usually they pass in clumps of a few dozen, but last night there were literally hundreds in the air above us. The massive flock formed and reformed into all manner of random shapes as they passed overhead. I’ve never seen so many birds flying together like that.

Maybe this was the discount flight. All the wealthier birds, or the birds with frequent flier miles to burn, left earlier, in the smaller, more comfortable groups, and this was for all the ones who were left. Whatever it was, it was impressive. I’m glad Richard was the one driving; if it had been me I probably would have veered off the road from gaping at the sky instead of on the cars around me like a good driver should.

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This morning I got a late start to work due to washing machine issues. Our model has a little device that sits on the rotator bar in the middle, into which you pour the fabric softener. Every so often that device gets disgustingly clogged and we have to pry it off and then go through great effort to return it to its former, ungooped condition. This morning I ran it through the dishwasher on the hottest setting, but it still was gross when I pulled it out. So I spent half an hour running it under the water, shaking out more nasty gunk than I ever wanted to see. I know more about what happens to fabric softener that’s been left to molder for years than I ever wanted to see. Ick.

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It’s been foggy today – so thick this morning that it was hard to see far in front of the car, and oncoming traffic without their lights on were a constant and unnerving surprise. I passed a cyclist coming down the other side of the road, his tiny little bike light flickering, and caught a glimpse of his face as he pedaled by. He looked like I am sure I would feel if I found myself having to bike down back roads in such conditions – as if he was gritting his teeth for all he was worth in the hopes that he would make it to his destination before someone hit him, and more importantly, that he was hoping desperately that the fog would clear by the time he headed home.

Due to some mix-ups in the schedule, we didn’t get to Apple Hill last weekend like we’d hoped. However, we ended up with one more free Saturday, so we went today instead.

It’s a yearly tradition to go to Apple Hill. When my sisters and I were kids, and our family still lived in Roseville, we would all pile into the car at least once or twice each winter and go to Apple Hill. If we didn’t make it during the autumn, we would still get there in early December, to cut down our Christmas tree. The house we lived in had a 13-foot cathedral ceiling in the living room, and most tree lots don’t sell trees quite that tall. So we’d head up to Apple Hill, find a tree farm, and cut down the biggest, cheapest tree we could find. Since taller trees tend to be more expensive, we would usually end up with the cheapest kind –the one that gave you welts on your skin if you touched it with your bare hands. All throughout college it was a tradition for the boyfriends to come with us, so all the men could flex their muscles and kill the fatted tree (or something). And then we’d bring it back home and put it up – a procedure which usually involved at least two ladders and at least one person on the top of the tallest ladder swearing as he nailed the top of the tree to the beam that ran across the ceiling.

Now that we’re all further away, and more importantly, now that we have a Christmas tree farm within minutes of our house, there’s no such need to go up to Apple Hill to find a Christmas tree. Instead, we go up there mainly for the food.

There are two main places to stop and get food when you are in Apple Hill. The first is High Hill ranch, where they make the most marvelous caramel apples. We always go there first and go directly for the sweet stuff before we do anything else. Once the caramel apple is consumed and we’re sufficiently coated in sticky goo, we next move on to check out all the apple-related goodies and all the crafts. In nicer weather there are usually lots of kids and their parents fishing around the big pond down the hill, but today it was a bit too chilly, and perhaps too late in the season, for any of that. Instead we meandered around the craft tables and then swung by the fudge place (which was not very exciting at all) and finally got back in our cars and continued on to our next food destination.

Kids Inc. is the second important stop along the route. There they make the best apple pies – huge monster pies full of up to 5 pounds of apples. I think one of their regular pies could feed a small army. Since I’d promised to bring back something for my office we picked up two of the smaller pies (one for my office, one for Richard’s), and settled on little single-serving (ha!) pies for ourselves. Even those are huge – I think next year we’ve decided we’d be better off just splitting one, since I don’t think either of us managed to get through even half of our own pie.

There were more little craft booths to wander through, and we made a few more stops at a few more places. But after the caramel apples and the donuts (did I forget to mention the most amazing apple donuts?) and the pie we were so full we could barely move. So instead we drove around the little roads between all the farms and admired the fall foliage and the pretty trees and eventually made our way back home to take a food-coma induced nap.

I was supposed to go down to my almost-twin’s house this evening for a girls’ only party, but by the time we got home we were both exhausted. Richard’s been sniffly and stuffed up and I’ve been feeling draggy, so I called and reluctantly backed out of going, and instead we drove off to pick up a few more shelves for those bookshelves we got last weekend, and then went home and took long and lazy naps and are looking forward to spending the rest of the day in blissful laziness and not eating any more apples or apple-related foods for at least a few days.