Greetings fellow readers! As I look out on this day I see gloomy skies, fog and drizzle. As the day wears on the fog gets thicker and thicker. It’s so dark outside! I am keeping cozy by the fire with plenty to do however. My pumpkin pie is in the oven baking, filling the house with a wonderful aroma, the cranberry sauce is done (in my Mom’s crystal bowl).

With a few of the Thanksgiving tasks taken care of I’ll be settling down now in front of the fire to have a mini marathon of my favorite Christmas movies. Have you seen any of these?

They never fail to jump start my holiday mood. Since Thanksgiving is so late this year, I need all the help I can get. Why is it that I don’t ever really start thinking about Christmas until Thanksgiving? I wish they would insert another month in-between. That would be much more to my liking. That way you’d have plenty of time to gear up for the holiday season. Yikes! Christmas is in just a few short weeks!

I’ll also be working on these while watching the movies: Rick’s slippers. Don’t worry, I know they look big enough to be clown shoes but they get thrown in the washer and felted down to a normal size. Cozy and warm, and my favorite pattern of all to knit! (More on that later.)

I might even get to start this:

I need a thriller right about now!

Hope your holiday is cozy and packed full of all the things you love!

Taking Bella out on a leash in the back yard can be either an enjoyable experience or a painful one. Enjoyable because we get one-on-one time together and it’s interesting to see see her favorite places in the yard first hand. Painful because once in a while she’ll just take off without warning and fly to the end of the leash, causing a painful, abrupt jerk of the arm. Also painful on forays into the woodsy part of the yard. In and out of trees with small branches poking into my arms and face. I’ve learned one thing for sure: she does not travel in a straight line.

And, now that she’s feeling her old feisty self again she has taken to trying to chew the leash in half so she can be free, all the while bouncing up and down like a kangaroo. This is new, and trust me, not an endearing little act but it is funny. I try not to let her see me laugh.

Of course, her most favorite spot in the entire yard is the woodchuck hole under the side deck. It looks harmless enough, right?

Just room enough to stick a dog’s head into, but certainly nothing else?

Okay. On Sunday we were outside raking and blowing the last of the leaves. Bella was inside, staring out at me through the sliding glass door. Her eyes said mommy please please please let me outside with you. i am so bored and i promise to be good. I fell for it thinking she would just come out and hang out with us. If she got too rowdy I would just put her back inside. I let her out and the glee in her expression said it all. i’m free! i’m free! I went back to my raking, keeping an eye on her. She seemed to be doing just fine up on the side deck sniffing around.

A few minutes later I look up to check on her whereabouts and ... she’s gone! I quickly scan the yard, the woods. Nowhere in sight. I panic. I call out BELLA! Nothing. I look back up to where I last saw her and know she couldn’t have gone very far in the few minutes I had looked away. The side deck. The woodchuck hole. A sinking feeling started to take over me. No. No, she couldn’t. Could she? She wouldn’t have gone under the deck into the hole. Would she? I knew in my gut that that was exactly where I would find her. I threw down the rake and ran to the deck. BELLA! I called. Nothing. Closer and closer I got, calling—now screaming—her name in panic. Honestly, the worst thing a dog with stitches in their belly should be doing is crawling into a hole! I was having visions going through my head of Rick having to tear up the boards to get her out, her thrashing around panicking. I mean, I didn’t know how far she could go under there. I was almost to the hole, waves of guilt and fear washing over me, when out popped her head, then the rest of her body.

There she stood. Muddy and dirty, leaves sticking to her coat, with a big grin on her face. hey mom. guess where i was? I was ready to kill her and feeling (very very) guilty at this point, imagining that she possibly had torn something up inside. I grabbed her collar and promptly marched her back into the house. I kept a close eye on her for the rest of the day for any signs of distress, but she appeared to be no worse the wear from the “hole” experience.  Well. So much for letting her off leash until the stitches come out and the vet gives the all-ok for normal exercise.

When I laid on my stomach on the deck and hung over the edge of the hole to try and get a photo of how much room there really was under there, this is what I got.

So, it doesn’t look like she could really go very far. Still.

As for the woodchuck hole, we’ve added a few impediments to the entrance in the form of big chunks of logs. Now only the head can get in.

awww mom. you’ve spoiled all my fun!

Get over it Bella!

And folks, don’t forget to sign up for my special Christmas yarn giveaway! The drawing will take place on Friday! Don’t miss out!

Dress No. 4: Black dress, ruffles (Rick wants me to call them tiers instead of ruffles), asymmetrical shoulders was worn in the end. At least it won’t have the dubious aura surrounding it as the I-got-drunk-in-the-cobalt-blue dress does. I may never be able to wear that cobalt blue dress in mixed company again. Well, at least not the company I was with last night since they all know the story now.

Back to clothes with dog hair and dog slobber on them today to finish up the business of raking/blowing leaves. In other words, back to normal life on four acres in way-out-of the-suburbs New Jersey.

“X” marks the spot over my house.

Okay, you wanted pics, so here they are. I did my best at photographing them and I know you would rather see me in them, but that ain’t gonna happen folks! Please read previous blog entry for this all to make sense to you if you haven’t already.

Dress No. 1: with “slit-down-to-my-navel” cleavage.

Dress No. 2: classic black A-line with cap sleeves

Dress No. 3: cobalt blue with stone necklace neckline aka “the dress I was drunk in.”

Dress No. 4: black dress, ruffles, asymmetrical shoulder

So, there they are. Which one??

What follows is basically a discussion that Rick and I had when he came home from work tonight. I was asking him what I should wear to our “Champagne & Candlelight” evening out at Skylands Manor on Saturday. It went something like this.

Me:
What should I wear? Something fancy or not quite as fancy? (Note: I spent three hours down in Wayne today trying on clothes with nothing to show for it.)

Rick:
You have a closet full of things!

Me:
Uhm… okay. I have a a handful of dresses that might work. Some are really party dresses.

Rick:
You have tons of stuff to wear!

Me:
Okay. I have the little slit-down-to my nearly-navel little gold number I wore to the Opera last year.

Rick:
Yeah, I really like that one. Maybe too much for this event though.

Me:
Okay, you’re probably right. Too much cleavage for this crowd.  I have the little classic black dress, you know, the A-line one with the cap sleeves that I wore down the shore this summer?

Rick:
What’s A-line mean? What are cap sleeves?

Me:
Hmm. Okay, never mind. Or I have the the cobalt blue dress with the stone necklace neckline with the ruffles. Remember, I wore it on vacation in Cancun? I wore it the night I got so tipsy before our flight back that you had to pack for me? (It’s still a tad wrinkled from your packing.)

Rick:
No, I don’t remember that one. What’s a necklace neckline? (Excuse me, who was the

tipsy one here?)

Me:
Okay. Great. How about the black dress with the asymmetrical shoulder, ruffles, that I wore when we went to New Orleans?

Rick:
Don’t know. Don’t remember that one. But I do know what ruffles are.

Sigh.

The question is: what should I wear? Any votes?