Monday, December 24, 2007

Again, some more.

I admit, I set about to make an official Maudlin Holiday Post tonight. A lot of words about the what and the why and the how much of my gratitude for everything, and to everyone. But I am actually aiming for a goal of Plum Texan being readable and amusing at some point (again?), and in the interest of this being a blog and not a slog, I'm going to gloss it over quickly.

Every day, no matter how much I want to pull my hair out or wish I could sleep through a week or wonder when the hell it's going to lighten up, I am grateful. My life is truly an embarrassment of riches, full of debts of kindness and love that I have no idea how I'll repay, though I will certainly spend the rest of my days trying.

To all those who have extended gifts far more generous than I could possibly deserve...thank you.

***

Oh look...real purpose ahead!

Thanks to the standard piles of work and taking care of the Buddy,* I've largely been too worn to get nearly as much holiday in as I would have liked. But I did manage to eke out a little. There are photos, which I'll share with you...when I finally unpack the box that has the USB cable for my camera. (That's any day now. I can feel it.) But in the meantime:

- Five of the houses immediately surrounding our new place put up quite a lot of bright and sparkly. I didn't want the world to think we were completely bah humbug, so I whipped up a little twinkle of my own for about six bucks. Two strands of lights and an 18-inch floral wire frame, et voila...a Very Plum Texan Window Wreath.

- I was short of time and energy to begin with, so I'd largely ruled out most of the handmade-for-the-holidays plans I'd hoped to accomplish. Then, in some evening's Bloglining, I happened across a post on Jeri's organizing blog** in which she promoted some lovely Japanese paper boxes...and that company led me to the site for Tansu. The link called it an online store...and then I discovered that the brick-and-mortar Tansu is right here in Houston...score!

Last week, I made a quick trip in and discovered a wonder of cool and awesome stuff, including a rather impressive selection of origami and chiyogami papers. I spent just over $20 for a nice stack of small items, some of which I'm using in gifts. Amy and others have said that they want everything in Tansu...and I'm pretty close to agreeing.

The best part of all this? The photos of these projects...will come with tutorials! That's right: I'm actually going to show you how to do something really cool that's not too hard, not too expensive, and really, really pretty. Crafts? On a craft blog? Who knew?

* Who is doing much better, thank you, after a week at home and tube feedings and...lots of other stuff.
** Note: while Jeri just happens to be my mom's name as well...this Jeri is someone different. :)
***

Since it does *just* happen that this is an obligatory holiday post, best wishes to everyone for a merry Christmas, or whatever happens to float your boat during December. Tomorrow, it's lunch with my parents at Kim Son, then presents and such at our house. A little bit of tasty, a little bit of togetherness, a whole lot of quiet and easy. Just about what we need right now.

As another year crawls to a close...I wish you all just what it is you might need, today and always.

2 comments:

Liz said...

Merry Christmas to you, too! Thanks for the link to that store. Someday, when Dave and I have real money, we will probably buy some of the furniture. My family has a number of tansus we bought in Japan, but the one I got isn't in great condition (I think they pulled it out of the trash!)

Meredith said...

Thanks for the info on that store--it looks very cool!