The time, it goes quickly.

The time, it goes quickly.

But for dogs, it doesn't seem to be quite as hectic. "If blanket, then dog" seems to be the motto. Filius has been bringing his sleeping bag downstairs lately, in the hopes of curling up in front of the space heater with a book in the wee hours before school time. The dog, however, has designs on the sleeping blanket. One morning, Filius stopped in front of the bookshelf to pick a book, and found his bag occupied.

Filia and I have finished our hats and mittens for a holiday present. She did the purple, I did the pink, and they're ready to be mailed off. Diligent knitter that she is, she reworked one of the mitten tops when it was discoverd that it was a full inch shorter than the other mitten. I'd give her a hard time about that, but within a day or so I killed one of Filius's mittens by neglecting to remove it from the oven -- it had been put in a warmish oven, along with some rising bread -- when I turned the oven on. I've got a top of my own to reknit!

Icarus is next on the agenda for finishing. I've 15 rows or so to go.

A free toy came my way today courtesy of ClassEd. Audacity.com has free software to turn your computer into a recorder. I can record myself playing the harp, and send it to people as mp3 files! Well, actually once I find MORE free software to do the conversion. But I can convert to .wav files already. I can also record my childrenwhotalkquickly, and they can listen to themselves. Oddly enough, Filius wanted to listen to Filia read quickly, but he couldn't stand listening to himself. Hmmm.

Tomorrow is St. Nicholas Day, and the day that we take a break from school and delight in the Christmas season. Which, being translated, is that I will sit back and watch the children put up the tree, occasionally putting on some different holiday music which they will also unearth. I think I like the idea of putting up a tree on Christmas Day, and leaving it up for 2-3 weeks. Too often it seems the pre-celebration wears out the actual celebration of Christmas, so that on December 26th, one is glad it's all over. Or one is shopping. I've got a pretty good idea what will be going on here on the 26th, and it doesn't involve shopping. Or computers.

After the holidays, I hope to get back to more reading and commonplacing. At the moment, I'm keeping my head above the water and wondering if I'm out of touch with reality to consider having a standard school week next week, with 8 doctor's appointments and 2 haircuts. Or, if that's out of touch with reality, could we start Christmas break this early? That doesn't seem right either.

For now, I shall do the Next Thing. Which, being a peaceful Wednesday evening, is knit. With some hot Nutella drink. Mmmmmm.