Tonight is my last night in Denver. I’d tell you what I’ve been up to, but my life the past few days has pretty much been the following:

Get up.
Work.
Eat.
Sleep.
Walk.

Mix up the order and that’s it. I read while I eat. I pronounced tonight a success because I wound a ball of yarn (for Monkeys, Sweetpea!) while I watched Numbers.

Home tomorrow. I can’t wait! (Particularly because Rudi tells me the weather is much more seasonally appropriate back home than here, where it’s been in the 70s and dry.)

PS: The Denver Starbucks switched over to their Christmas cups Thursday. They look so festive!

Hmmm… Travelling always means that I read a lot of mysteries, since I can pick them up at the charity shop for a buck or two, they’re compact, and generally the cozies don’t stress me out too much. Who wants to read a weepy book while you’re alone in a hotel room far from home? (more…)

I’m writing this early, so I’m sure other beautiful things have happened while I was in Denver. They, however, will have to wait for a separate post, since this time around I’ll be reminiscing about these three beautiful things:

1. The fresh oranges Rudi brings back to me from Florida are utterly divine — sweet … and pink!

2. Putting your cold feet on someone’s warm legs under the bed covers.

3. The arrival of a new baby is a thing to be heralded from the towers of a great cathedral or to be broadcast on the evening news. It timeline seems a bit trickier, however, when you’re awaiting a baby adopted from overseas (pregnancy-announcement-birth vs application-acceptance-waiting list-birth-interminable paperwork-adoption). The process is, as it ought to be, finicky and particular, and bureaucracy likes to make sure things are stamped just so and are filed in triplicate before they pass you on to the next step. The good news is that for my friend Rebecca and her husband, Rick, the final step of the process has been achieved. Last week the Guatemalan government gave them a big thumbs-up on the adoption of their beautiful (now seven-month-old) son. They are now merely waiting for the American embassy to process his American paperwork and in six to eight weeks they’ll be rushing to Central America with open arms. Every picture I see of him has him smiling, so I can’t wait for him to have the only thing more a child could want — parents who can care for him, a family that is eagerly awaiting him, and more love than could fill the distance between Washington state and Guatemala City. What a wonderful Christmas present he’s going to be!

Two hours and counting until I need to leave the house for Denver. I haven’t packed. I’m still wearing the wool blanket and sweater I put on when I got up this morning. (We have the window open and it’s in the 40s outside.) Posey really thinks that I ought to just let her lie lovingly in my lap instead of getting up and moving around.

I haven’t picked out knitting projects (although I do have books to read). Should I take the laptop? (The hotel has free wifi, but then I need to lug the thing with me.) Should I take workout clothes? (I don’t work out at home. What are the odds this would change while on a business trip?)

I have queued up a couple of posts for you to read during my absence, so do check back over the next couple of days. If the Denver conference folks let exhibitors use the public computers, I’ll post an update. Otherwise, you won’t here from me live and in person until the weekend.

Be well!

I admit it: for the first time since starting 007: Snap a Dozen Days, I had a hard time choosing between shots.

Oddly enough, I shot all the contending pictures the same day.

This photo was taken around the corner from the Burrow. I had never seen birds in those grasses before and I haven’t seen any there since. Maybe they were pausing for a snack on their flight south. (You know, like down toward the Mall.) There were a whole flock of sparrows having lunch in the middle of the day. They really made those grasses look delicious — must have been all the wheat-like tufts…

What else did I not choose, you ask?

This is from my day at Butler’s Orchard when I invented my own version of a day out with my fellow NESCAC alumni. I didn’t end up buying any of the pumpkins (and, in fact, I’m not sure all of them were homegrown, since they were also importing apples from elsewhere), but they sure looked pretty and made me feel quite autumnal.

Previous entries in this series include September, August, July, June, May, April, March, February, and January.

Well, Rudi’s flight gets in in half an hour, so the weekend must be just about over. I did several of the things I wanted to do this weekend, but not as much as I’d hoped to. I suppose that’s always the way, though, isn’t it?

Yesterday, as planned, I headed over to Alexandria to make more beer. The ironic thing about this is that I don’t drink beer. But Rudi does, as do our friends, and it allowed me to spend pretty much the whole day hanging out with several of them. Now if I could just figure out where to put three cases of beer (in addition to the four cases of root beer from last weekend).

Today I bought a couple things at the farmers’ market — apples for me and a branch of Brussels sprouts for Rudi) — before heading over to the garden to start the winter prep. I harvested the last of the peppers and trimmed about half of the huge sage plant. I pulled up almost all of the plants. I dug out a tree we’d hoped would do more than it did. And I turned over the ground in the hopes that come spring it will be easier to work than it was this year. (That may or may not have any basis in reality.)

After I was done, I headed to the store and to the library to return my overdue books. I came home, finished my book, chatted with Rudi (who was patiently hanging out in Orlando’s airport watching the Pats game), and fell asleep. (Oops.)

I’ve spent the last couple hours cleaning, but I’m not sure that it shows. Oh well.

Tomorrow, we get to see The Police. I hope they’re better than a solo Sting concert.

Off to the airport!