Too Early for Christmas?

Erinn

1.  I am the first person to roll my eyes in disgust and mutter to myself when I see Christmas decorations in stores any time before Thanksgiving.

2.  I have been known to mute the TV when holiday commercials air before Thanksgiving.

That said, I am running a small business whose main products are handmade.  I have to plan ahead.

And there is my dilemma.  How do I encourage early shopping without becoming the very thing I hate?  Suggestions?

Lunchtime

It was a productive morning.  I was almost finished with a child's quilt  

and was starting to think about lunch when I heard a loud noise.  It sounded like something slamming into the front door or the living room window.  I was home alone, and I froze.

What if that was someone trying to break into the house? Our neighborhood is pretty safe, but you can never be too sure.  I debated investigating.  Nervous Me wanted to stay upstairs and wait.  Worried Me didn't hear any more noise and thought it might be safe to go downstairs and check.  Worried me won.

I grabbed the phone so I could call 911 if necessary and glanced around for something that could be used as a weapon.  My choices: a pile of fabric, a plastic trash can, and a pool noodle. I was going to have to go downstairs unarmed.  Maybe I could throw the phone.

I took off my shoes, walked softly to the stairs, and placed my foot on the first step.  Creeeeeak!  There went my element of surprise.  The house is 80 years old; the stairs are noisy.  If there was anyone in the house or trying to get in, they would know that someone was home and, if I was lucky, leave.

From halfway down it was clear that the front door was still closed and the living room window looked uncompromised.  I relaxed a bit and continued down, now more curious than worried.  After testing the front door (securely locked), I went to the window to see if there was any evidence of what caused that bang.

The answer was sitting on the porch railing, settling its ruffled feathers.  A beautiful hawk turned and looked at me, its expression clearly saying, "There's nothing to see here, silly flightless creature."  Then it turned its back and launched itself off the railing, quickly rising into the afternoon sky.

Surprised and a little awestruck, I wanted to go out on the porch to try to catch another glimpse of the hawk.  I opened the door and looked down just before my foot landed on the source of the hawk's collision.  A small bird lay on the doorstep, fatally wounded.  The hawk had lost its lunch, and I suddenly didn't feel quite so hungry myself.



Hanging out with the awesome bloggers at yeahwrite.me again this week! 

A Very Short Trip

We were in the middle of the intersection when the light changed.

"It's okay," I said in my most confident voice.  "They won't hit us."  I hoped that saying it would make it so.  She continued her slow and careful progress across the street, and I kept an eye on the drivers of the truck and two cars, hoping that we wouldn't need a second light cycle to get across the remaining two lanes of traffic.

Maybe parking across the street from the restaurant had been a bad idea.

We were out because I needed supplies.  Or maybe I really didn't, but I needed to get away from my studio so I invented an outing.  I hadn't seen my friend in a while so I called and invited her to go with me and get some lunch.  Always eager for a reason to get out of the house (and good food), she said she would be ready in an hour.

We became friends in college.  As working young women after college, we would regularly go shopping on the weekends and then have lunch.  If the shopping trip was stressful, we would just have dessert.  We had more than one "lunch" that consisted of soup or salad and a giant piece of chocolate cake.

Her energy was starting to flag by the time I parked at the restaurant, and we were both hungry, which leads to poor decision-making as evidenced by my parking across from the restaurant.  It doesn't sound like a big deal, but here's the thing about my friend: she has multiple sclerosis.  She has been using a walker for the past year.  The last time that we went out without the walker we both almost ended up on the ground and decided that we shouldn't do that again.  Imagine, if you will, two women on a rainy day, one trying to balance the other's lack of balance, as they try to step up onto a curb with piles of soggy leaves.  It looked quite perilous, and a truck driver stopped and got out to make sure we were okay, but we were laughing at the absolute ridiculousness of the situation.  It's like that with her.

So there we were in the middle of the street.  She kept walking and I apprehensively watched the slowly increasing number of cars that were waiting for us.  We made it to the other side just as the light changed again.  We were safe.  No one had honked at us.  No one had tried to intimidate us by nosing their car forward.

"Maybe that wasn't the best idea," we said simultaneously, looking back at the intersection and laughing at our folly.


Hanging out with some awesome bloggers at yeahwrite this week.