A Trio of Thrifted Rewards

I always buy myself a little got-through-Christmas reward every year; it's a tradition that helps me cope with the stress of the holidays. I really needed this ritual this year, too. My budget is always $50.00. This year I decided to try thrifting what I wanted with the same budget, and first bid on and won this vintage floral brooch collection for $9.99, or about 55 cents each.

My next thrift was this bundle of twelve McCall's Quilting magazines. This is my favorite quilting magazine dating back to the eighties, and I don't own any of these issues. Cost: $7.50, or about 62 cents each.

Finally I needed a few more colors of yarn for my 2024 calendar crochet blanket, so I bid on and won this 22 lb. lot of colorful yarn for $11.99, which works out to 54 cents a pound. Altogether I spent $29.48 on the three lots, which is well within my annual budget. :)

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Holiday Prep

For Thanksgiving this year we've invited some guests from Oliver's mom's side of the family, so I have to start prepping now to get the house in shape for the big day. The first major thing is having the carpets cleaned, which we've scheduled for next week. This weekend I'll be cleaning out four rooms to get them ready for that. I started with my front dining room, which I use as my sewing room. It was kind of a mess already, so it felt good to get everything cleared out. We'll be having ten people at dinner plus two babies, so this will give me a chance to figure out how to arrange two tables in this space. I think this will be my last time hosting a big Thanksgiving gathering. Mike has started his family with a lovely girl who has a huge, close-knit family of her own, while Katherine will likely be off at grad school out of state for the next several years. I'm also not getting any younger. My guy and I will always celebrate Thanksgiving, but ...

T-minus Day

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Fell Off the Wagon

I did cut up that plastic dollar tote to make into something stronger, but got caught up with work and set it aside. Then last night some hand-dyed silk and pretty threads called my name, and, well . . . Felt SO good to do some handwork, except my neck began hurting about an hour into it. I tried changing the way I sit and work, but it's pretty obvious that the doc is right.

Valerean

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