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DECEMBER 2006

DECEMBER 20, 2006--I hope all of you are almost ready for the holidays (yeah, right!)! My refrigerator is packed with all the infgredients I think I may need, the counters filled wil baking ingredients, and the corner of the basement has all the presents I need to wrap under cover--Anyone who threatens to go down there receives my high-pitched wails of protest. My son who spent the summer in New Orleans arrived here two nights ago from Texas, thinking we would have snow. There' s none left! And the temperature today is 41 degrees! My oldest son will stay in New Mexico for the holidays while our youngest will be home tonight after his last exam at the University of Michigan. In fact, he will be headed West with his brother from Texas to go the Rose Bowl for New Year's. Go Wolverines! Sorry California readers.

I wish anyone reading this a great holiday season and a Happy New Year. I promise to start putting more blankets together after this holiday; for now, I have quite a bit of other tasks to complete. Special thanks and wishes to Marjorie, Nan, all the Canyon Villa Knitters in California, Nancy in Kansas, Yvonne in New Mexico, Shelly in Minnesota and Kathy in New York. The project continues; after watching an update on New Orleans last night on the NBC News, I am more further resolved to keep this project and the goodwill it promotes going.

DECEMBER 13, 2006--Wow--what a week, and it's only Wednesday! We have two boxes ready to go South to New Orleans tomorrow via UPS. They're going to Covenant House. One of the counselors stopped my husband and me this summer as we headed into Catholic Charities and said if we ever had some extra blankets, they could use them. So they are getting some of our best and most colorful work in time for Christmas. I am giving all of you contributors a virtual pat on the back for your hard and beautiful work! Besides getting these ready, I spent yesterday carting seven cats to a veterinarian for low cost spays and neuters. Imagine me and a friend in a car at 7:30 A.M., driving in heavy fog and rain, with seven hungry, yowling cats--it was a riot. At any rate, we have prevented lots of litters next Spring.

I have enjoyed receiving the yarn, boxes of squares and blankets this week as well as the kind Christmas wishes. With these blankets on their way, I can start getting serious about baking and decorating. My candy efforts have been dismal this week as I am multi-tasking, and I cannot jump from yarn to stove to wrapping presents and expect the candy to get hard!

It's been warm here the past few days, and the snow has all but disappeared except for the piles of brown snow at every stop sign and corner. I hope for my son coming from El Paso next week that it snows soon!

Well, I better go--my husband is trying to figure out the lights on the tree; he took a break in order to regain his sanity. At the protests of our sons, we purchased an artifical tree last year. We argued without the aid of three strapping YOUNG men, we couldn't drag the eighteen-plus-foot trees my husband has always insisted on getting into the house. Our chiropractor would be seeing us daily over the holidays! At any rate, the artifical one is beautiful, it doesn't make a mess with needles, and it was supposed to make our lives simpler. However, we discovered that the lights were assembled on one section of the 18-foot tree backwards--so much for simplicity.

We'll have some new pictures up after the holidays. My cousin is busy with family plans, and she makes my weak photography efforts better. I want her to relax this holiday season --here's one new blanket however that Mary Beth finished in St. Louis. It will be sent in a 2007 shipment!

DECEMBER 6, 2006--California did it again! The knitting and crocheting group from Canyon Villas surprised CLOSE KNIT HUGS with another box of squares today--thank you ladies! A surprise will be on its way to you soon!

Snow has been falling off and on for the last few days in Northern Michigan, and it's good weather to simply "hole up" and work at home. The dogs love the snow; the cats hate it; the birds are eating as many sunflower seeds as we have to fill the feeders, and it looks a lot like Christmas will be snow-covered and cold.

If I didn't have so much to do before the holidays, the blankets would be "flying" together. I hope by the start of next week to send 20 blankets south to New Orleans. Then we won't feel as frantic about trying to get them out to brighten some people's holidays. I have enough squares to keep me busy into the New Year and thanks to all our square-makers and the blanket assemblers--Carol, Ruth, Mary Beth, Shelly and Kathy!