Tuesday, December 03, 2013

F's sister C. – the one who lives in Edinburgh – phoned yesterday evening to say that she had spoken to F. since the lumpectomy, and all was well although she remained a bit groggy from the anaesthetic. It was expected that she would be at home that night. Wow! We'll know more later in the week about the state of affairs, cell-wise.

I am still being plagued with pop-up ads. Googling suggests that there should be a monkey wrench on my Google Chrome toolbar which will offer a block-pop-ups option. But my Chrome doesn't have a toolbar and I can't figure out how to get one.

The computer man didn't phone. I'll have to pursue him, but silence is ominous.

Christmas

Even knitting news comes under that heading now. The yarn for the Sensible Christmas Project didn't arrive.

I made some more progress with the cards – maybe 20% done. Foggy Knitter, I agree with you about the pleasure of receiving, and of writing, Christmas cards. Thinking of old friends. But the pressure – and the expense, these days – is/are considerable.

I did some on-line shopping. Yesterday was supposed to be the big day for it. The present list is nearly dealt-with. Three ominous gaps remain, I think. I'm glad you like the rubber-band-loom idea, Dawn. Here's another omni-purpose present, for what it's worth: a pedometer. I'm having such fun with the one my sister gave me! I mentioned this to Alexander when we were at Loch Fyne last week – I had thought to give one to the health freak, but he said no, go for the couch potato.

I was grateful for comments about how different families deal with present-giving once the recipients move past childhood. I think we need to have a conference on the subject next summer. My husband's sister said to me once, during these dark days, that maybe we should stop giving presents to each other's children. I said, we'll talk about it in the summer. We never did. With the result that she stopped giving presents to our children, and I carried on (to this day) giving them to hers.

Last year I hit upon the idea of sending cards recording a donation to the superb hospice where their mother died, They seemed delighted. But perhaps that would be a bit tactless (at least for F.) this year.

Here are the promised ducks.

At home:



The pond they no longer use:




Setting off down the drive:


 On Loch Fyne:



5 comments:

  1. GrannyPurple11:33 AM

    If/when Loch Fyne freezes, they could heat the little pond to keep some open water. The golf club next door to us does that for their swans--it makes enough space to swim a bit.

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  2. Re: gifts. I think gifts should be given if one is so moved to give them. Some people love giving gifts far and wide and hold no expectation of receiving any in return. Others would like to give more, but cannot because of finances/time constraints/mobility issues, etc. And there are still others who rarely gift or do not gift at all because they are not moved to do so (I'm married to one!) An honest discussion with all involved can ease a lot of the holiday stress. I love knowing that some members of my family do not want anything, while others truly appreciate a gift. Likewise, I appreciate that my parents don't go crazy spoiling my son because we've always kept Christmas very humble around here.

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  3. Re gift giving, in my family we moved to drawing names for the adults (6) and set a dollar limit. We all gave the only child among us a gift. It seemed to work out well. We're continuing on with that idea this year except my youngest nephew is dating a woman who has four children so that means more children's gifts ... for children I don't really know. Ah, well.

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  4. In my family, there are years when there have been exchanges and others where there was nothing. One brother doesn't celebrate Christmas so doesn't want any gifts. I stick to giving to immediate siblings and their spouses in my family -- too many people otherwise -- and a few cherished friends. When you live alone, they are family.

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  5. To enable pop up blockers and also to add other extensions to Google: First look at the top right hand side on the address bar. You should see a small symbol of 3 small horizontal lines, hover over it and it says "customize and control Google Chrome" left click and it opens a menu . ( here you also find your print command, tools and other useful things)
    Scroll down to settings, click settings and a new browser page opens.
    On the right hand side is a menu, click extensions.
    Here you will find things such as Feedly, Mcafee Site Advisor and you may have Adblock plus there . If so just click to enable it. If they are not there it is easy to add just click on the "get more extensions" and search for Adblock plus, Google will find it and you can click to add it to add it. You can happily spend time searching for other extensions you want then they can be enabled or disabled at will on that first extension page.
    Caveat, I'm no expert but I just end up wasting time seeing what buttons mean! Hope that helps.

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