Well, this Thanksgiving was so much better than the last one!  Spent Wednesday cooking with daughter in law Kristi, then on Thursday we headed out to Crosby TX for the family gathering at the home of Kristi's grandmother and aunt.  Good weather, reasonable traffic and way, way too much food shared with about 25-30 of Kristi's relatives.  As a newcomer to this group, I have to say that nametags and a family tree would have been helpful--but everyone is friendly and it was a fine day.  They were frying turkeys so we brought a small turkey with us and fried it there, then reheated it the next day for a smaller gathering in Eagle Lake at Phil and Kristi's house.  So, several days of cooking orgy and affection in a real atmosphere of thankfulness.  

Now, back to packing  boxes.  And I have turkey leftovers in the fridge, plus I claimed the carcass to make soup.  Just have to pick up some celery this afternoon.

I give up.  I've consulted libraries, colleagues, weblogs.  Nobody wants 50 year old paperbacks about American history.  So into the recycling bin they go, box by box.  Here is where I need one of those waste chutes they use on large construction projects--I could just toss them down the chute into a dumpster.  But lacking that, I am developing strong thighs marching up and down the stairs with boxes of paperbacks.  I'm saving the hardbacks and any books that I really want to read,but it's time to be ruthless or I'll never get done.  [Is there such a thing as "ruthful"?  Where do you keep your ruth, anyway?]

Holidays are coming and I'm itching to sew.  But I have to pack up the fabrics as soon as I finish the books.  In a few months I can be creative again.  In the meantime, I discovered a handwork project that calms the itch.  A guerrilla knit/crochet group called YarnBombing Los Angeles is planning to cover a building in granny squares in turquoise, white, orange and lime green.  So I'm making five inch squares in the evenings, using up some cheap yarn.  It's sufficiently mindless, satisfying, and the final goal is certainly whimsical.  You can find out more here:  http://www.latimes.com/features/home/la-lh-yarn-bombing-museum-granny-square-20121106-002,0,4682723.story

Work on the new house continues.  The floor tile is in, the shower is demolished and rebuilding begins next week. I transported many gallons of paint last week (Sherwin Williams was having a great sale.)  I'm sleeping there a couple of nights a week and learning my way around the area.  Each time I go, I find places in the house where I can put up bookshelves!

Much of what I'm doing at home is preparing to move.  We've lived here almost 20 years, but in addition to the usual accumulation, there are boxes never opened from when we moved to Texas.  I'm going through those now; some are my own old files and I know what to discard, shred, etc.  And some are Patrick's, so this is a trip down more than 50 years of memory lane.  In one of his file boxes were all the letters I wrote  home during college.  So the sorting stopped dead there while I reread those old stories.  In a small envelope I discovered this photo:

1961 was a long time ago!  This is taken next to Lyman Lakes on the campus of Carleton College, just weeks after I met Patrick.  I am thankful that men's hairstyles have changed--that flattop had to go eventually.  And I guess that the Minnesota standard for coolness did not preclude white cotton socks.

This is  one of my favorite pictures; I had been wondering where a copy might be, and I'm so glad to have found it.  Now I'm digging into the files with even greater enthusiasm.  Who knows what might turn up?  I have been ruthless with old magazines--into the recycling with them all.  Newspaper clippings are saved only if they have photos of family or stories about us.  I don't think anyone will write a biography of either of us, so archival attention to the original filing system isn't ironclad and I can consolidate files.  Even so, the amount of stuff to be moved is downright frightening.

This morning I attended the opening of the annual art show at First Christian Church.  The theme this year is the "I Am " sayings of Jesus.  My piece, "Like Father Like Son" is part of the show and they had kindly invited all the artists to come to services and then to lunch in the church hall where the exhibit is mounted.  The featured artist, a painter, gave an art-oriented meditation during the service, encouraging participants to create something while lovely music played.  Everybody earnestly gave it a try, after which they had Communion and a prayer, and we all went to lunch.  The art was well-received; several of the artists found each other during lunch and talked about technique--and agreed that none of us play music while we work.  I know that many people do, but for me, silence works better during the creative phase.  If I'm doing handwork,quilting or binding or whatever, I'll listen to television--but not while I'm working on composition or piecing.  When I'm concentrating, I don't hear anything going on around me (probably a result of being one of six children and an inveterate reader.)

There were a number of nice comments about my piece and also Hope Wilmarth's lovely embroidery.  I would post a photo, but my phone-camera isn't cooperating.  If I can figure it out, I'll post later.