That Poor Little Bird

Quite a few years ago, I lived in an old hotel that had been made into apartments. I lived on the third floor. One night, a noise was keeping me awake. I could hear a chirping noise from the shorter building right beside my apartments. The chirping sounded like a little bird and it was the time of year when little birds start learning to fly. I thought it must be a fledgling that had fallen from a nest in one of the trees outside and it was cold and chirping for its mother. It would chirp for awhile and then stop but always, once again, that pathetic distressed chirping would start again. Finally, I just got really upset for that poor little bird. I knew I couldn't do anything for it, even though if I'd been able to figure out a way to do it, I'd have tried to rescue it. It just went  on and on.

 That  chirping was so pathetic and loud. Obviously it was really in dire straits. After awhile, I started wishing a stray cat would go up there and put it out of its misery since obviously the mother wasn't going to rescue it. I couldn't think of anything else that could help the poor thing. Since it was doomed, I just hoped a cat would manage to get up there and at least it wouldn't suffer anymore.

After about three hours of this, I started praying for a cat to come do the evil deed so that poor bird would just shut up. Every time it stopped for a little while, just when I started to drift off to sleep, it would start up again. As I was praying for the little bird, asking God to just let it die so it wouldn't be suffering so much.,

God must have nudged me or something because the thought came to me "Wait a minute. That chirping stops for exactly the same length of time each time and then resumes. It must not be a little bird. It must be something else." I still couldn't get to sleep because the chirping sound was so loud but in awhile it finally stopped.

The next day I found out what the chirping was. It wasn't a bird. Some neighborhood kids had discovered that if they hit the button for the crosswalk twice in rapid succession, it would make the chirping sound. The chirping sound was an intentional function for the blind so that it would let them know when not to cross the street. But in addition to having learned how to make the chirping alarm work, the kids had also been jumping up and kicking the button with their feet instead of pushing it with their hand. That made the chirping alarm stay permanently chirping after awhile. Eventually the city fixed it so it wasn't stuck on and peace reined at long last.

Christmas is Shaping Up

I love Craigslist. I was looking on freebies a couple nights ago and found an ad had appeared for a big box of crochet thread. I love working with thread but was running low. I pounced on the box of yarn and thread! And the lady was so sweet. She made me a beautiful Christmas centerpiece of cedar, holly, a white candle and big red and gold bow. She also gave me an adjustable desk/table that she'd gotten for her father when he lived with them before he passed away.

Last week my wonderfulness from Craigslist was a big box of goodies I won't mention because they're going to be Christmas gifts and I know my grandkids know about this blog. Far be it from me to blow the secret. Sorry kids. The girls and their fiances are going to come to visit the day after Christmas if they can so we'll get to open presents together. If they can't make it, I'll just ship the gifts down to them by UPS. I like those late presents that show up around Christmas. It always makes the holiday seem to last longer. And the girls and I, while they were teenagers still living at home, made the decision to do our Christmas late so we could take advantage of the big after-Christmas sales, so 

It really amazes me how things work. I've been wishing I could make spa washcloths but I didn't have any of the worsted weight cotton yarn. When the big box of thread and yarn arrived, there was the right kind of yarn for the spa washcloths I want to make! My daughter Crys has been needing a warm scarf since it's really, really cold outside. There's just enough worsted weight yarn for a scarf for her scarf. I've made about a third of it while watching television tonight. And I've still got bunches and bunches of various weights of thread to make pretty things out of throughout the coming year. I want to have enough stuff for a table at next fall's holiday market since I didn't have enough done for this first one just passed. Now I have a lot of size 20, 30, 50 and even 100 weight. The 100 weight is like thin sewing thread because the higher the number, the thinner the thread.

I'm watching a nature show on this beautiful big TV I got from a really nice couple I found on Craigslist. It's "old school" flat screen. I see so many of the newer flat screens on there that say the  newTV is broken, so I really prefer this monstrosity. It has a wonderful HD picture and I love watching nature and travel shows. I wish my laptop had a screen like that. I love to watch travel shows on Youtube before I go to sleep at night. I didn't have anything suitable to sit the TV on so they even brought me the chest of drawers they'd bought to use as a /TV stand when this TV was new.

So this is how my Christmas is shaping up for this year. I get to give some honest-to-goodness "bought with money" gifts instead of just handmade things like I always make.I know handmade gifts are wonderful, but for kids who aren't blessed with parents who can afford the latest big "deal", things that are homemade are disappointing. I raised all six kids with good values about what's really important in life and all that, but every kid deserves to be able to dream they might get the latest thing all their friends have gotten because sometimes they really do. All the kids are grown up now, but it hurt my heart when they were small and Santa didn't bring anything truly stupendous. I'm not able to give stupendous wonderfulness in the area of gifts, but my heart feels good that this year, I can give some things I didn't make along with the ones I did make.