misc...

Today is one of those slow vacation days that stretches on and on. I am going back to work tomorrow, but until then I will be alternately knitting and reading and eating and sleeping. Eating is specifically mentioned, because I have been reminded again this holiday season how much I love it. I try to be one of those self controlled people who say no to more cookies and chocolate, but I usually, utterly, yet quite happily fail. As a very wise woman once said, I can either be thin or happy.

But enough of that. Today I spent my Christmas money buying the largest quantity of yarn that I have ever carried in one shopping bag. I am going to make an afghan, and it may take until New Years, '08 to finish it, but it will be a lovely celery color and the Egyptian cotton yarn has a soft and elegant sheen.

For the last five years or so at New Years, I have recorded the events of the previous year in my journal, just for my own reflection and record. I think I will post some of it here this year, but I need to get all my thoughts together, and I have a few days until the new year, so stay tuned.

Tomorrow is my big film-making debut. We are re-shooting one of our DVDs at work, and while Rob gets the handheld camera and will be bobbing in and out, doing close-ups, I will be sitting behind the other camera on a tripod, doing a very slow zoom in and out. Maybe a very gentle pan back and forth. Rob had me watch some training videos, so I learned about the rule of thirds, and that you never EVER crop someones chin. Top of head? Yes. Chin? No.

I am also in the middle of reading Peace Like A River by Leif Enger. It has been too long since I have soaked in a novel like this. It is gritty and marvelous and wonderful. The writing makes me want to quit everything, move to Minnesota where the characters are from and be an English major.

But before then, I am going to go upstairs and continue knitting.

I know this has been such a miscellaneous post. No theme. No allusions. No purpose, really. I have been thinking about things. Contemplating life. Like this odd time between Christmas and New Years, where I feel we are just hanging, waiting for our feet to hit the ground running next tuesday. Thinking about how the excess of Christmas ends up making me want to just get rid of things and have open space. Yesterday it made me clean like a madwoman and the bathroom has never looked better. I have been thinking about family, and love and going to NYC. They just haven't all come together yet in to one coherent whole. So here is an appetizer in the meantime. (They may not ever come together in a coherent whole though, which is really ok considering that appetizers are always so much larger than you expect them to be. Who needs dinner anyway? Desert on the otherhand...)