I just finished wrapping the Christmas presents.
Back when I was a teenager I spent two Christmas seasons wrapping gifts in the little department store in my home town. That taught me how to wrap efficiently and tidily, although our results (my best friend and I worked there together) pale when compared to the gift-wrapping you might get at Saks or Macy's or Nordstrom. It has always surprised me how long it takes to wrap gifts. It seems like once the thinking and the deciding and the schlepping from store to store (in the old days) and the internet shopping (now) and the buying is done, the last step should be over in a snap. This year it seemed to go quickly, maybe because I knew it would take a while or maybe because there were not all that many presents to wrap or maybe because I was listening to an audio book (last bit of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, then Bill Bryson's At Home: A Short History of Private Life, thanks for asking). Anyway, the task is done for another year.
Note: The Leinie's box visible in the background is NOT a Christmas gift. It just happened to be sitting in the right spot to look that way. (If you are not from the Upper Midwest, you may not know about Leinie's. Follow the link to become informed.)
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You may have noticed the balls on the bottom shelf of my cart. They are the FO in the title, dryer balls that I made. We have used dryer sheets forever, but I heard about using wadded-up balls of aluminum foil to eliminate static electricity so I tried those. Two foil balls didn't seem to reduce the static much, and I started to have bits of aluminum foil all over the laundry room. Apparently a ball of wadded-up aluminum foil doesn't last forever -- who knew?
But felted yarn balls? Perfect project for a knitter with some extra yarn. Brown, purple, and dark green. I chose dark colors to avoid any possibility of adding lint to the dark loads. My dryer sucks at removing lint.
Three felted balls, however, were not enough -- still had static cling. So I made some more. Blue, maroon, and black, at left.
I haven't done laundry since I made them so I don't know whether six balls will work any better than three. Stay tuned. They were fun to make, though :)
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No word on the CT scan yet. Thanks for all the good wishes! My doc finally called me today to tell me she cannot find the results in my chart.
Headdesk.
The scan was done at a hospital in MN that is in a completely different health care conglomerate than my usual and hospital and clinics, which is probably why the information flow is less than optimal. Still, I have made numerous calls on Tuesday and Wednesday and again today to both places, making sure that the results were transmitted to the right place and that my doc was reminded to call me. Apparently the only call that mattered was the one today to ask the nurse to remind her to call. In her favor, my doctor gave me her personal cell number to call her tomorrow at home -- she is off tomorrow -- to find out if the results have been found.
As I said above, stay tuned...
