Holiday baking has commenced. Last night, I cut up pounds of dried fruit and a goodly amount of candied ginger for fruitcakes. These have soaked overnight in a quantity of rum that would have even Capt. Jack Sparrow saying "don't you think that's a bit much?" Cider, butter, and spices have now been added to the mix, and it is bubbling away on the stove, making my house smell oh-so-yummy.

Later today, molasses crinkles and checkerboard cookies. When the fruit/rum mixture has cooled, it will be turned into batter and baked. The cakes will then be marinated in Calvados until Christmas.

Oh, Anne, that sounds just marvelous. I'm jealous!

I agree with brother the pig. Making sure you have all the contact numbers is a sign.

I don't know why I am up. Bobby's soccer game isn't until 2PM so I could have slept in. And yet I got up early made coffee and watched General Hospital tapes for breakfast. That is junk food deluxe I tell ya.

HEC! Or other hair people. My hair has grown quite a bit. Long enough to get caught in the car door, backs of chairs and so forth. I like the long part in that I can twist it up when I am working up a sweat, but I think I look better with some shape around the face. Whenever I look at hair style pages the models have way more hair than me. I think I have perhaps 73 strands of hair. I'm probably going to do some red henna again, but I have hesitated because I have some grey strands now and I think they are fun and I hate to cover them up. Ideas for a cut that is shaped around the face yet still long enough for me to feel girly. (yes I know that short hair is perfectly girly, but I like the feel of it longer)

Mmmmm I can smell Anne's cooking from here.

Apparently we had a mouse. I'm so glad I slept through it.

It was the only one, right?

Only the one that was found.

It was probably just looking for a warm place. (Should have asked if it was a house mouse, deer mouse or field mouse. Field mice have another name but I forget what it is.)

It's possibly the warmest morning we've had here all week! And the longer forecast calls for it to get warmer still! Temps actually ABOVE freezing.

I'm having some morning coffee and a toasted bagel. And people are cooking Christmas goodies on my tv.

Vole. That's the other name for fieldmice.

My fluffy cat yells at me everytime I step into the kitchen. Silly cat - you've had your breakfast!

Apparently the "There's a War on Christmas" message is coming from the ususal suspects. [link] (Bill O'Reilley, Rush Limbaugh, etc.)

ION, caught a bit of Paul Harvey's mocking of global warming on his noon newscast yesterday. I want to give him a dopeslap and tell him to stick to "The Rest of the Story." Hey Paul, how about "The Rest of the Story" about Global Warming?

My fluffy cat yells at me everytime I step into the kitchen. Silly cat - you've had your breakfast!

Ours do too. Sammi and Harvey will sit at the threshold and stare at me in the kitchen. I suspect this is partly because the wood floor in the dining room is warmer than the linoleum in the kitchen.

The wood floor in my dining room is quite warm -- because it's above the room in the basement where the furnace is.

Ivan prefers the stare to the yell. I think the yelling is actually more bearable. (Generally, I just pick her up and carry her away -- which distracts her.)