the best part of winter weather has arrived pic.twitter.com/8KPj3KrYOq
— patrick (@redford) November 27, 2018
Been a while, but there’s always room for gratitude…
This week, I’m grateful to discover that Lands End womens gloves, size XL, actually fit my hands. (The older I get, the more I appreciate warm hands.) I have broad-for-a-woman palms, but the fingers on mens gloves are always too long; usually finding a new pair means standing at the store counter trying on every available ‘large’ or ‘one size fits all’ pair until I find something that works. But LE had a half-off sale, so I ordered three different kinds and they all fit just right! Even the ‘EZ touch’ metal-threaded thumb & forefinger pads actually work well enough on my cell that I can answer a phone call before it goes to voice mail, which is about as much as I attempt online while out in the weather.
What one good thing are you grateful for, this week?
Amir Khalid
Poor Mimi.
David Anderson
I got to spend Thanksgiving weekend with my kids and their cousins. My four year old niece has decided that Uncle Dave is a mobile climbing wall and by Sunday morning we had moved from tosses to flips.
geg6
Poor thing. I always feel sorry for the dog videos of these poor pups struggling with their booties.
My new kitten, Cleo, is really doing well. She’s been on antibiotics for an upper respiratory infection, the fleas are finally being conquered and, overall, the vet is quite impressed with how healthy she is. She still needs to fatten up a bit and he wants us to keep giving her the cat milk for another couple of weeks. She is eight weeks and weighs a little over 2 pounds. She is zooming around the room we are keeping her in and eating as much as we’ll give her. The pups got to see and sniff her for a little while while she was in a crate. As soon as we are sure the fleas are gone, we’ll be moving her to another room where the pups will be able to smell her behind a closed door (she is currently in a bedroom in the basement from which they are forbidden anyway) and, for short periods, view her from behind a gate. Vet says he’d like her to be a bit bigger before directly interacting with them, though. In all, things are going well.
The Dangerman
I would feel gratitude if that poor dog would take a dump in his shoes. All of them.
rikyrah
The Blue Wave.
donnah
I am finished travelling to teach until January, so I’m enjoying some rug hooking time.
https://imgur.com/gallery/iwoVR4r
Dorothy A. Winsor
This morning I decided my current draft is not terrible.
MattF
One of my neighbors had a dignified, elderly yellow Lab named Earl. Earl didn’t like cold weather or marble floors, but booties were out of the question.
Aleta
@donnah: Beautiful. You’re amazing.
donnah
@Aleta:
Gee, thanks!
NotMax
@donnah
Balloon Juice. Come for the politics, stay for the hookers.
:)
MattF
And, on subject, I’m grateful for last week’s family + friends Thanksgiving dinner. No politics at all, and my sister made peace with her best friend– who had drifted into Foxspace.
westyny
Had 29 years without an alcoholic beverage on Monday. This means 1) I’m old, and 2) a little closer to actually coming to. Also, the Blue Wave.
chris
@westyny: Congratulations! I guess we’re both getting on, I marked 26 years last Monday. Not sure about the coming to but I’m grateful every day.
Kay (not the front-pager)
Looking out the window at the wind blowing through the trees, and listening to the 6′ wind chimes clanging on the porch, I’m grateful for a warm snug house. I guess that means I need to make up some mittens out of leftover windproof fleece to hand out to homeless on the street.
Ohio Mom
I can identify with you, Anne Laurie: I finally found fingerless compression gloves in my very, very small size. I only need the right side, for my lymphedema arm but these are completely reversible. I can lose one and still have a useable one.
I’m grateful that I made it through Thanksgiving. Thursday with my family, Friday with the in-laws. No land mines were trod upon. Next comes Hanukkah, which we celebrate with friends.
Josie
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Spoken like a true writer. ;-) What I keep struggling with is how do you know if your rewrite of a scene is actually better that your original version? I am having a hard time with objectivity.
ETA: I am grateful to have saved up enough to buy a new laptop so that I can continue my writing without fear of a crash.
narya
Grateful that I don’t have cervical cancer, and that the screening colonoscopy next week is 100% covered by my insurance. I’m bemused by the “low-residue” diet thing, because I don’t have anything except “high-residue” food in my house, but I’ll manage. and will be glad when it’s done.
FelonyGovt
I’m grateful that the California fires have been contained and that some rain is expected here. We sure need it. And as always, I’m grateful for this great group of people here.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Josie: This is when you need beta readers. I still need to make at least one more run through before I impose this on anyone else though, and I probably need to let it sit for a while before I do that.
stinger
@donnah: Wow! That looks very challenging, and rewarding.
westyny
@chris: Wonderful, Chris. Congratulations yourself! Time flies, doesn’t it?
Steeplejack
It feels slightly crass, but I’m grateful that I got a new TV on Monday. The old one died in September, but I was out of town for three weeks and then was coasting with occasional streaming on my tablet. Also driving myself nuts with in-depth and of course contradictory research. Finally broke the logjam when I realized that any TV I got now would be miles better than the nine-year-old one I had been watching with no complaints.
I hate shopping in general, much less Black Friday/Cyber Monday, but I joined the consumer stampede and got a good deal on a 49" Samsung QLED model. And I got a check from a client that almost exactly equaled the cost of the TV with tax, so I’m telling myself I got a free TV. Yee-haw.
I haven’t set it up yet, because I have to get the old one out of here. I’m not quite within the city limits of Falls Church to do free recycling, so I’m going to check the county recycling center (Fairfax). And I got a vague text from Bro’ Man that seemed to indicate I could take the TV to Sighthound Hall and recycle it through Arlington County. Need to confirm the details on that.
Until I flush my memory banks I’m temporarily an expert on—or at least have semi-informed opinions about—current TV tech, so if anybody has any questions I’ll be glad to entertain them and go into blowhard mode.
The Moar You Know
I am grateful beyond words for my dog, who has shown me what it is to be loved utterly without conditions.
He’s got issues. If he were human, he’d be diagnosed with severe OCD. And probably agoraphobia. He is full of love and a very nice doggie to all he meets, but I’m the only person he trusts 100%.
Lot of responsibility there, but also a lot of reward.
R-Jud
I had a really great third date this past weekend and have just made another one with the same guy for the 14th (we’re both travelling for work between now and then).
stinger
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Dorothy, I’m grateful for your recommendation of Sickles at Gettysburg. All I knew before, about Gettysburg, was the Address (1863 Pennsylvania Avenue, or something like that??) and that the good guys won. I’d never even heard of Dan Sickles. But I’d been meaning to start reading up on the Civil War, and always figured to start with McPherson or Foote or maybe Ken Burns, try and get a feel for the war as a whole. Turns out, a very narrowly focused examination of one general officer’s decisions, motives, and missteps in one battle is an excellent introduction — if that examination is a lively, well-written, thoroughly sourced bio of an intriguing personality!
I’m just at the halfway point, and enjoying it very much. I’ve learned quite a bit about 19th-century military tactics and am now intimate with every boulder, mud hole, and war-torn peach tree in southern Adams County, PA. Thanks for mentioning this title and your connection with the author!
gene108
I am grateful that my recovery from my kidney transplant is going smoothly.
zhena gogolia
Still grateful for my husband. And for a friend who makes the best borscht in the world and gives it to us. He says it’s “Kremlin borscht, which prolonged the life of Brezhnev.”
WereBear
Grateful that when I slipped on the soggy snow in the parking lot this morning, I banged my elbow instead of my head. And that after I attended my meeting, the office was cool with me going home.
Should be okay for tomorrow.
WaterGirl
@donnah: It’s really coming along. Your work is amazing!
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Victory!
WaterGirl
@NotMax: @donnah: NotMax is apparently in competition with your husband for hooker jokes. :-)
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
What’s the Russian for mixed blessing? (The borscht quote, not the husband.)
/rhetorical
zhena gogolia
@NotMax:
Glad it’s rhetorical, because I’d have to think about it. It’s not a common expression, but I bet they have one.
chris
@westyny: It sure does! never thought I’d get here…etc.
Matthew Kimbet
That I live in the tropics and have never owned a pair of gloves.
narya
@gene108: yay! my mom got one nine years ago, and it transformed her life. She managed to avoid dialysis for years through very careful attention to her diet, and then did dialysis for two years–and then won the lottery, in her 70s. It’s been wonderful for her–not least because she could eat peanut butter and bananas again, and doesn’t have to soak potatoes to eat them.
Also, congrats to the Friends of Bill in this thread! I used to work for an organization that provided services (behind bars as well as not) and learned a whole lot from my coworkers.
zhena gogolia
@NotMax:
I’m getting “a stick with two ends,” which isn’t really right, because that’s equivalent to “a double-edged sword.”
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
Close enough for pravitel’stvo work.
:)
Actually, wouldn’t be surprised if it’s something akin to “the Tsar’s chamber pot steward.”
donnah
@WaterGirl:
hee hee! Yeah, I’ve heard them all, from being called a hooker to being called a stripper (the wool fabric is cut into skinny strips) and that just goes with the territory. That’s okay by me.
The challenge of this rug is the size of the wool strips I’m using. The size of the wool strips can run anywhere from a quarter of an inch wide (and some even wider) but in this case, I’m using the smallest cut, 1/16 inch. It’s about three threads across and a lot of the wool can’t withstand that fine cut; it just falls apart in my hands. But it’s been enough to keep going and I’m grateful to have the time to work on it. It’s about 20” by 26” so I have a long way to go.
Mnemosyne
I saw the orthopedist today and I can discard my squeaky knee brace for everyday use — yay! Now it’s just a matter of getting the muscles built back up again, which he says will take about a year post-surgery. He’s very happy with my progress and so am I.
(And it helps that his new beard makes him look even cuter than usual. ?)
@WereBear:
I realized at some point after my knee injury last year that I had made a split-second decision to risk a knee injury rather than the head or neck injury I would have gotten falling headfirst down a set of cement stairs onto a cement floor. The whole process of getting the knee fixed has been a giant pain, but it was still the right decision given the alternative in that specific moment.
Mnemosyne
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I figured out that I need to change my heroine’s spinster aunt into her mother in order to get my ending to work right. I think it’s going to be better, but I always bemoan the fact that it takes me SO LONG to figure these things out. Ugh. ?
blackcatsrule
@NotMax: By the way, if you do decide to get that necklace for your mom, would you consider letting us know if you and her are happy with it? I know I would appreciate having a jackal-recommended site on Amazon.
WaterGirl
@donnah: Amazing how you are able to capture the emotions you do in your work. You are a gift to the world.
Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ
Grateful for my fellow Jackals. You guys keep me sane and laughing.
Josie
@Mnemosyne: I can certainly relate to this. I have been struggling to make my secondary characters more interesting and real. I have worked so hard on the two main characters that I let the others languish. Do you ever walk around spinning different formulas for the story in your head, trying to see what seems plausible?
bookdragon
Daughter finished all of her college applications, so we’re done having to think about ridiculous multi-part questions with an absurdly low max word limit on the response!
Seriously, when did colleges go from single ~500 word essays to requiring 2-4 ‘short response’ answers? And what pointy-headed genius thought it made sense to put a hard 120 word limit on a response to a 6-part question that is itself over 80 words long? (rolls eyes)
donnah
@WaterGirl:
Thank you so much! You’re very kind and I appreciate you comments.
NotMax
@blackcatsrule
Sure, no prob. Would be post-holidays, though.
Mnemosyne
@Josie:
Oh, absolutely! That was why I had to change the character: the ending had to take place in a specific location (in part because travel was a giant PITA in 1815) and it was not plausible for either the aunt character or the existing mother character to be there. But if I dropped my original idea for the mother character and changed the aunt into the mother, then it made sense for her to be there.
JustRuss
Sad that one of the directors of my org is retiring. But grateful that I got to work with him for two years, and that he fostered a healthy and supportive work environment. I’d forgotten what that felt like before I got here.
Shana
@bookdragon: Mazel tov! Now comes the lovely waiting for acceptances part…
Middlelee
Grateful for rain last week and this week with sunshine interspersed often enough to ward off depression from gray and dark skies.Grass Valley was getting pretty darned dry.
Jharp
“What one good thing are you grateful for, this week?”
I’m going to the Big Ten Championship game on Saturday.
J R in WV
@Jharp:
I’m so sorry!
More seriously, not a Big 10 fan. I was glad to see WVU ranked above OSU for several weeks this season, not that it lasted until the end of the season…
My dad used to invite the family to join him when WVU was invited to bowl games. We’ve seen them lose badly to better teams, but also have gotten to see them beat good teams soundly, with family at the big party. New Orleans on New Year’s eve, regardless of how the game ended, was great!
Best of luck in your football game, very seriously!!
DSC
I’m grateful for chili with beans on a very cold day! and a Sunbeam bed warmer–greatest purchase ever
blackcatsrule
@NotMax: Thanks!