Plus and Minus

Today - a day with a few good things side-by-side with some not so pleasant. Nothing drastic, just uncomfortable, shall we say.

On the plus side -for me - I got one mitten completed of the type with no thumb - it turned out pretty cute actually. I used the Lion Brand Suede type yarn in the same hot pink shade I used for the thumbed mittens I made but that are about big enough for a child of at least 8 years of age. Can you say "swim" in 'em, with respect to Miss Maya's hand? LOL The thumbless mitt I finished today also has a stripe pattern -two rows of the pink, then two rows of a suede yarn in verigated shades of purple to the hot pink - looks pretty spiffy, actually. The hardest part was taking three strands of yarn and braiding a chain that gets woven into the mitt just above the cuff ribbing. I do much better working with some type of a needle in my hands than I do trying to braid something with just my fingers!

On the minus side today would be for my son. He phoned home this evening to tell me he'd just bee really "lucky" as he entered into Ohio from Indiana and got nailed with a speeding ticket. Seems Ohio's speed limit on the interstate highways is a flat 55 mph -whereas Indiana has a high speed limit and Clate forgot to slow down as he crossed over the state line. He didn't say how much of a fine it will mean to him - just that he was concerned about getting points on his license. However, since it is his first ticket as a "professional driver" and I think his license was clean before that, he should be okay there too. Just feeling a tad deflated tonight though from getting pulled over I guess.

We've been discussing a good bit here lately the upcoming holiday -when, exactly, will we be having our "Thanksgiving dinner" as it were. The idea of having the entire family together next Thursday, by the looks of things, isn't going to happen. My son it appears, will be on the road and the older daughter and her fiance most likely will not be able to come up either because she has to work Wednesday nite and Thursday nite. She works midnight shift at an assisted living/nursing home -frequently gets scheduled for 12 hour shifts too, so she has to find time to sleep some where along during the day. Maybe next Sunday will work that we can all be together. For me, the day itself doesn't really matter, it's the idea of having a big traditional meal with all of us together now.

I think I told everyone last week or so that our "tradition" for Thanksgiving, as well as Christmas, dinner did a big about face last year when my Dad's sole surviving sister and her daughter went into a nursing home. We'd shared those two holiday dinners for the previous 25 years at my aunt's home so last year was the first time my kids and I were "on our own" so to speak. Although preparation-wise, it is easier now in that I cook here, serve the meal here too unlike the last 5 years or more of going to my aunt's home when I cooked the bulk of the meal here and then we transported it all to her house. But ya know, when you are accustomed to doing things a certain way, having the closeness of immediate family as well as extended family to share that occasion with, when it ends, it does take a bit of the energy of the holiday with it.

And tonight, for some reason which I can't figure out at all, I've been having a lot of pain and discomfort in my lower abdomen. Nothing left there supposedly to be giving me fits like this but it is. And, I sure as heck hope whatever it is, that is passes through as quickly as it came on me too!

The other "minus" today was problems I was having as I was making my visits to my favorite sites. I didn't have any problem reading others blogs but on at least, if not more than, half of those blogs, I couldn't get the comments section to load. So, if you see that I made a comment to your blog today, then consider yourself to be among the lucky ones whose comments opened up to me! Hopefully, tomorrow things will be back to normal there too! (What is really funny about this with the comments is that the blogs that I have frequently had issues making comments to - those were the ones that generally opened ok today. Go figure, huh?

And, leading into the upcoming holiday and things I'm thankful for today -my son may not see this as something for which he'd want to give thanks, but you know, I'm thankful all that happened to him was that he got a ticket for speeding! I try not to worry about him driving all over the country, ten hours on, eight hours off to sleep in the truck as it is moving with his co-driver at the wheel, but I do worry about him. Now, with the winter weather ahead and the multitude of driving concerns that can bring - well, I'm just very thankful all has gone this well for him in his first year as a truck driver and hope that it continues on in that same vein too!

He is, after all, my "favorite son" ya know!