Stuff and Things

I was planning to come home after work today and rake, but the rain had other ideas. Instead of being useful I decided to waste my time and yours by telling you a lot of random things. This photo is not from today.

1. Seeing this pretty view every morning makes me not hate daylight savings time so much. I do wish those two dead branches on the far right tree would just fall off already though. Lots of people have been complaining about the sun going down so early, but I just see it as more sewing and reading in bed time.

2. We've started using the pellet stove again to heat the house, I forgot how great it is. I love to be warm.

3. I think my Christmas cactus has been spending time at Home Depot and Walmart when I am at work and thinks Christmas is a lot sooner than it is. Why plant, why? And yes, that is our smoke detector behind the plant, it seems to be going off a lot lately. I am not even the one setting it off.

4. This weekend Charlie and I are running a race. When we signed up it was an 11 mile race. Then we got an e-mail saying that due to weather and unforeseen trail issues the race had to be bumped up to a 12 mile course! Only in trail racing would this be acceptable. I am nervous because I've never done this race before, or even been to the area that it's held at. Most All of my training runs have been on flat trails and the race is up a mountain so that should be great. I have downloaded three new "pump up jams" for my ipod to help me run like the wind.

5. I went hiking last weekend to the top of the logging road with my sister in law, Meera. There was snow on the top of one of the mountains in the distance. Now I am very excited for it to snow. I won't be hiking up this hill when there is snow though.  Also, her little dog Raffi doesn't own orange gear to not be shot by a hunter so we had to tie a scrap of red fabric around his neck. It looked like a little scarf, so he looked like a mini French dog. It makes me want to sew him a beret.

6. I had to go to an unfamiliar grocery store the other day, and had only a little bit of time to find what I needed. Instead of wandering around (or reading the signs) I asked sales clerks where things were, I'm not afraid to ask for directions. This plan backfired on me when I asked a male associate "Where are your nuts?" Luckily he was nice and pointed my severely embarrassed red faced self to aisle 12, which was 6 steps from where I was standing when I asked him. The worst part is this is the second time this has happened to me. The first was in high school. I can't tell which incident was more mortifying. Probably the high school one as the boy then was much more attractive than the man this time. Anyways, to keep that from ever happening again I bought a huge container of nuts and will never buy them again, ever.

Lauren