And To Dry Leaves, That Before the Wild Hurricanes Fly...

First of all, happy birthday to my brother Keefe, who turns sweet sixteen today. I called Keefe this evening. Poor kid apparently spent his birthday sick in bed after being taken out of school with a very nasty cold. It wasn't entirely bad, though. His parents gave him a new TV that apparently kept him entertained enough, and the very pregnant, read-to-pop-any-day Anny and her son Skylar had just arrived for dinner when I called him.

The wind returned with a vengeance today. They howled around my apartment and tried to blow the tarp off my bikes. The remaining leaves skittered around my porch, sounding like a thousand running insects. They provided a nice "crunch" along with the slight "thud" I heard as I caught sight of a pair of booted feet leaving a small brown and black box on my doorstep.

The package turned out to be from my good friend Linda Young and her husband James in Georgia. Like last November, I received a present to be opened after Thanksgiving, one for St. Nicholas Day on December 6th, two presents for Christmas Day (they look like books - Linda shares my love of books), and a present and several small items to be opened now. The present for now was a lovely bread cloth with an embroidered wheat sheath and the words "Our Daily Bread" on one corner. I wonder if Linda made it herself? Embroidery is one of her hobbies.

It was a great start to an otherwise fairly quiet day. After I finally finished breakfast, I headed over to Uncle Ken's to do my laundry. Daddy was watching The Weather Channel and doing work on his laptop. Uncle Ken was resting in the den. I talked to Dad about Thanksgiving and the weather. It was sunny when I was there, but the Weather Channel reported possible clouds for later and heavy snowfall in parts of the Midwest and West.

All was still sunny in the afternoon, however, so I went for a walk to the Oaklyn Library while the laundry was in the dryer. I listened to the chatter of the school children as I browsed the videos and DVDs and read magazines. I ended up with two childrens' books on Thanksgiving and two of the books I took out of the Oaklyn Library last holiday season, Christmas In America and Cranberry Thanksgiving. I also took out two more Winnie the Pooh holiday specials, Winnie the Pooh Seasons of Giving and Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too!.

I rode out to the Haddon Township Library after I finished the laundry, got it home, and had lunch. I just organized the childrens' DVDs, which needed it (the Ss were really bad) and put away several stacks of adult DVDs. I looked for Christmas and/or Thanksgiving books at Haddon Township but didn't find anything of interest, so I ended up with the newest Garfield comic book, two Disney comic books, and a Backyardigans DVD I hadn't seen, Cave Party.

I made a quick stop at AC Moore to shop for inexpensive birthday presents for my sister Anny, but by that point, it was not only getting late, but clouds were coming out...and the temperature was dropping rapidly. I made a quick stop at Super Fresh but found nothing of interest there and just headed home afterwards.

I'll spend tomorrow raking leaves and baking bread if I'm not called in to work.