Unlike the eye-doc-in-the-box we once saw in New Hampshire 30 years ago, the local surgicenter thankfully does not have closed-circuit TV to the waiting room whereby the patient’s family can watch their loved one’s cataract surgery. I mean gee, I always wanted to… (Or not so much. Gack.)

We tried to schedule it before the kids coming home and the wedding and the birth of the baby and everything else, but today was the day and he needed to see.

An hour and a half after we got there, we were on our way home with me at the wheel and him exclaiming that dark cover-up glasses and all, he could already see so much better. SO much better! He was looking at everything with a delight that reminded me of when I got my first pair of glasses in third grade. Comparing his eyes. Taking it all in.

When Holly and George were here, she told me that it’s better to wait to have it done (like we did) till it really has to be done: it makes it easier to put up with the adjustments that come with it. You know what you’re not having to go through anymore and why you appreciate the skills of that eye surgeon.

He does, oh, he does.

(p.s. My new Mac gave up on trying to change the word yarnovers in an email I was typing to the word earners; now it’s auto-corrected it four times to carnivores instead. And having typed that word, it’s done it six times more. Trying again. Yarnovers yarnovers carnivores carnivores carnivores –okay, that’s funny. It left the first two and last one as I corrected them to and grabbed the ones in the middle that I had previously gotten to hold still and I am just going to leave them on display for now. As presented by Apple. And now it’s grabbed the last one and I don’t even know when.)

Yarnovers yarnovers yarnovers I WILL win this one.

Richard wanted, and got, a weather station for Christmas, but I’m the one who most watches it like a hawk: it turns out we are consistently a little cooler than the Wunderground pages say for this area, but then, the breezes off the Bay have a nice straight shot at our end of town.

The thing is saying that the lowest temp recorded in the last week was 24 degrees last Friday.

And yet my tropical trees continue to do fine. As I said to my sister today, they’re what I have now that need close watching over and care and attention. Much though I’d rather be immersed in the day-t0-day of watching our grandchildren, this is what I’ve got. (I’d be one of those babysitting grandmas in a heartbeat.) I do love the idea of our children and their children picking fruit at our house like the time in September when I got to hold Parker high to pick the last two apples of the year; that’s what it’s for most of all, them.

And for sharing of our abundance with the people around us: God’s handknits, created quietly day by increasing days until after all the happy anticipation at long last they’re ready. There is nothing like a warm summer peach ripe right off the tree.

I can’t wait to meet Madison in person.

Seated a ways behind her, I snapped pictures of the bride’s grandmother in a wheelchair, hands high and clapping enthusiastically. Snapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnap and then looklooklook oh yes I did manage to capture the action after all–with three or four shots in between that looked like she was holding still.

It was only fair to go introduce myself and show her her photo. She has email? Cool, could I send her this really good one?

Not that I could hear that address over the music–I handed my phone to her granddaughter, who typed it in, I added a subject line since it was going to be coming from a completely unknown-t0-her address, and together we hit send and the three of us grinned at our success.

The bride and groom were lovely and that love was utterly contagious. A wonderful time was had by all.

And then a number of our relatives adjourned to Michelle’s house with us to keep the conversation going over even more good food. Much laughing, with nobody wanting it to end. We got well into the yawn zone.

I looked around the room, wondering when I would even get to see some of them again. Our children are getting older with more responsibilities and more dispersed.

But Richard’s other sister has a son who just announced his engagement, so, hopefully, not too long.

We got up early and dropped John off at the airport. And it is very, very quiet around here.

If I say it was a crabfest it’ll sound totally wrong–people were totally good to each other.  It’s a Bay Area tradition to serve newly-caught Dungeness off the docks to celebrate the new year. The (non-sun-avoidant members of the) groom’s family tried providing some of those themselves, the Texas contingent adventuring for local flavor while they’re here, but Grampa told me the sea lions got most of the bait. The fishermen didn’t mind helping out, I’m sure.

There’s a whole lot more than a calendar becoming new. Two families together, the young and the old and the in-betweens. A rehearsal dinner and almost done.

The father of the bride smiled warmly as he told me, See you tomorrow!

So we had strong hands to help, it had been 17 days, and you’re supposed to put it to ground between two and three weeks after its arrival. For us, today was the day it needed to finally claim its spot in the yard.

I knew it was cold and I knew it was windy. I did not know that tonight is supposed to be the coldest night of the year and 34 degrees, along with those 40 mph winds that have been going on–uncovered and Christmas lit, in its protected spot on the patio the mango tree had kept a good nine to fifteen degrees warmer than the surrounding outside temps.

At least it came tied to a stake taller than it was. “Put one of those big heavy black plastic bags over it,” opined my sweetie, and I did and the thing was just barely long enough to let me put gravel over the bottom edges of the plastic. Yes the bag is touching the leaves, which is a frostbite risk, except that there’s warmth under there. The remote-read thermometer that I put on the ground but away from any lights is saying 53. Outside air is 45, having dropped by three degrees since I started writing this while the other has not. Good.

I’m thinking a second string under there might be the way to go if this weather keeps up. But the mango and the mandarin will, hoping those covers hold in place, make it through this night.

(Baby photos to come as I get permission to share. They’re kinda busy over there. Can’t wait to take my own.)

Edited to add–it went down to 27 that night, as it turned out, and 24 the next.)

The master bath suddenly sprang a fast faucet leak last night, which you don’t do when you have a drought but you can’t do much about late on a Sunday night, so Richard and John started off their day playing plumber and handyman with several trips back and forth to the plumbing supply shop and the hardware store. They picked out the faucet that I would have had I been there. Well done.

The old one that our contractor had chosen had had exposed sharp under-edges just out of sight that I more than once had cut my fingers on. The new single-center-handled one is flush with the countertop and could never do such a thing.

Saturday the wires that are twisted up into a steely yarn running from the bottom through the top of my bird feeder suddenly simply broke when I went to go fill the thing.

The menfolk didn’t tell me they were going to work on that too but all the sudden there they were out there next, figuring out how to thread the new wiring up through the plastic center part. Yes of course they’d picked out the screws and wires while they were out there to replace the old–done. I didn’t even know they’d checked it to see what they would need, much less paid any attention to it.

Next thing I knew they were on the roof. Nope, can’t set this up on that metal flashing, you need a piece that…

They finally sat down when we met up with family at a restaurant for dinner.

And after all that, the new carpet is still clean. Even by the door near the bird feeder.

Children, cousins, aunts, uncles, greats, Grampa my FIL–a happy get-together of fifteen of us tonight to start off the week of the wedding. Not all who are coming are in town yet but the ones who were got a chance to catch up on each other and we got to show off pictures of Dad’s newest great-grandchild.

Time to crash. Calling it a night.

A glitch. Richard to the rescue. My mail is working on the new computer now.

Things are settling in where they belong.

To every person who took part in knitting and piecing together my get-well afghans (and the Congratulations on finishing your book! one from my Campbell knitting group is in the other room, it should be in the photo, too) I just wanted to thank you all over again. You wished me back from the edges of life and I think of you all every time I see what you created for me. Every time. All that time, all that love, all that good yarn, offered in hope, taken from string in a skein to one-of-a-kind works of art. It is something to try to live up to and to be worthy of. (Hey RobinFre–“Same as it ever was.” Nails it.)

We got to see a video of our granddaughter sneezing. I tell you: there is nothing like the sights and sounds of a newborn, even across a screen, and we are utterly besotted.

No clutter. (In here, anyway. Definitely incentive to keep going on that.)

No dust. (Repeat row 1 from here to finish.)

No more 20-year-0ld blue carpet. It looked nice–once. But this matches the furniture and the tile in the entryway and it just makes me so happy to look at and to squish my toes in and the fact that the installers were wonderful started off its presence here with happy associations. Richard having thrown his back out between the quote and the installation, we needed more help moving stuff than we’d expected. They tried not to let us pay extra for that. I finally got a better number out of the guy on the extra labor–and then I about doubled it. They’d earned it, and I wanted them to be happy to come back to do the living room later.

No more 12-year-old Windows XP computer, either. When Microsoft said they would no longer support a system that was on about a quarter of the world’s desktops and on machines sold as recently as two years prior, my reaction was, Go ahead. Mac my day.

We’d been saving our pennies for months to replace both ours and now we have.

More baby pictures: Parker admiring the baby, then, Parker holding the baby, looking rather dubious about this. Or studious and trying to do it right.

I can’t wait to see Madison crawling and later walking on this. It’s finally here and ready for our grandchildren.

And they are home.

While, over here…

Michelle set her alarm for quite early so she could start orange rolls for breakfast for Sam. John and Richard got up quite early so they could pick her up from the airport. Sam beats everybody on earliness because the only flights from Alaska in December within reach had a six-hour layover in the middle of the night in an airport and then a red-eye here.

Food and festivities and we had an absolutely wonderful day, laughing much. We all got to see Madison across the screens in all her sweetest, sleeping cuteness. (She took his mommy away for a day. Hudson is wary. Give him a day.)

Richard opened Holly and George’s gift of their hammer dulcimer and his eyes got huge. He repeated quietly, all day, I am blown away. I am blown away. I am blown away.

I was chuckling just now, typing that, and he said, reasonably enough, Well, I *am* blown away. I am!

I am, too, but I knew what was all wrapped up over there, and the stand to go with. We hope to do the gift justice, and he gave it a good start by practicing for a good hour quietly as we all chatted.

Sam fell into bed at 7 pm. John helped some more and then did likewise at eight after being on his feet working on the food with Michelle for hours and she was ready to do likewise when we left her place. We got home, Richard sat down a moment, and fell instantly asleep himself.

Well, *somebody* has to get this room ready for the carpet installers coming at 9:00 am. And I had the easiest day, certainly.

After two hours of that, I’m ready to fall into bed myself. It wasn’t just this room–I had to move everything out of the way for them to pull the piano and heavy couch into the other room.

I sat down a moment to take a break and go tell the blog our new granddaughter’s name while hoping everybody else had such a wonderful, perfect day like we did.

And that’s when it hit me. I still have to get all those tubs of yarn stash out of the closet–they’re doing that part too. Okay, a little more to go and then I call it a night.

Twenty and a quarter inches, 8 lbs 4 oz, 1:00 this afternoon and all went well.

Parker was given a big-brother package by the hospital and, finding a stuffed animal in it, he took it out and gave it to his new sister.

I had a list for the day, checked it twice, was tired enough that I only got half of it done and considered it good.

Meantime, our nephew and his wife whose wedding we flew to Atlanta for in July will be staying with us for his brother’s wedding.

The phone rang this morning, after the shop’s checking of quantities of both workers and material available: the desperately awful 20-year-old carpet in the family room will be out of here and the new one in, the day after Christmas and two days before the guests arrive. Thick and plush, good for the coming baby to crawl and walk on and lovely to see.

No. More. Formerly-and-still-trying-to-be blue carpet. At long, long last. Soon!

Michelle’s ward meets two hours earlier than ours does and John went off with her.

Which means we came home from church to find the tree up and a whole bunch of other Christmas-readying stuff done as a surprise: parental figures walking in the door and noticing in 1, 2, 3…!

One other surprise: a photo Michelle had found of my husband’s great-grandfather all dressed up as Santa  ~1885.

Looks to me like some handspinner tried to hide that last bag of merino fleece up the chimney and forgot it was up there.

My husband, son and I all got to Skype with Parker and his family for his birthday. Parker had had a long and overstimulating day (presents! And nobody gets to open these but Parker!) and he showed us his toys as he played with them. And happily shared them with his little brother. I was impressed.

Hudson, of course, then climbed into the empty box and made his own toy out of it. Choo choo!

Two more hours to midnight and then Parker still gets to share his birthday with his great-grandmother, but that one thing, his big day, he won’t have to share with his little sister. Seems fair to me.

Googlemaps showing accidents here, here, and here. Time: two hours and…

(Checking the flight) flight is delayed.

Time: one hour and…

Flight actually hasn’t left the ground yet. Oh.

Time: fifty-eight minutes… Still a red zone on 880, stop-and-go, looks like.

We could wait a little longer.

Time: fifty-one minutes…and no red zones. Still a little early. Forget it, we’d rather have us wait than him–time to go get our kid!

(Edited to add, John’s home, John’s home!)