As you may have seen, I had an ambitious weekend filled with holiday activities planned for Rudi’s absence.

It didn’t go according to plan.

I mean, I still got things done.

I hit three holiday markets/craft fairs — the DC Women’s Business Center Holiday Bazaar, the Upshur Street Art and Craft Fair, and the GRUMP Market — and did some shopping at each one. I’m not done shopping, but I’m probably in better shape than usual this far out from Christmas (yes, I totally realize I just gave you early planners a heart attack with that statement). I need to finish my online shopping over the next day or two and then hopefully finish the local shopping next weekend.

I rode my bike to take advantage of the mild, dry weather.

I vacuumed, did a load of laundry, and cleaned off my desk. Apparently it had been longer than I’d thought since I’d done the last did that latter item. But I couldn’t work on my Christmas mix or write my Christmas cards without taking care of it. (Yes, I suppose I could write Christmas cards in ink that isn’t red or green, but that’s what I like to do. But I did really need to clear things out of the way to access my cd drive on the computer before I could import some of my new holiday tunes.)

I learned all about the new composting system at my community garden and helped get it set up for us to begin using it.

I read Paul Auster’s holiday piece, “Auggie Wren’s Christmas Story.” It was, as Auster hoped, unsentimental, but also maybe not quite as cheering as I was looking for this weekend. Don’t get me wrong: it’s quite good. Just not an especially good match for my mood. If your mood is more upbeat than mine and you have a spare 10–15 minutes, I’d recommend the book. ISOL’s illustrations are particularly striking and fit with my Sesame Street-inspired impressions of New York City in the 1970s. I have Frank Baum’s and J.R.R. Tolkein’s Christmas books in my drawer at work, so I’m hopeful they’ll be more to my taste.

I ate the spiciest grilled cheese ever (it had habaneros in it) and drank a delightful housemade soda (plum-cinnamon).

I started work on my Christmas mix by eliminating some of the carryover songs from last year and by adding some new ones. I’m a little negligent about locating the tracks I’ve been wanting to include, so need to get moving more solidly on that.

I watched the Garfield Christmas special from the ’80s, the “Blizzard” episode of Fame (which did not take place at Christmas, as I’d misremembered it doing), and the first episode of the new TNT show, The Librarians. (I never saw any of the movies, but Amazon offers them for streaming. I guess I’ll have to decide if my boycott of them extends to their non-physical products…) The CW is airing the episodes a week later than the cable premieres and it’s online, so I’d recommend watching. It’s Indiana Jones meets nerds.

I’m still hoping to paint my nails, do the handwashing, and put away my summer clothes (not in that order) tomorrow morning, but as of right now, those are untackled, as is the baking (I got as far as planning what I was going to make, but not actually to getting off the couch). No cards got written, but I’ve pulled everything out that’s needed to get started on them, so perhaps that will happen tomorrow night after Rudi and I get home from the airport. I didn’t do as much knitting as I would have liked, but it required too much effort to open the knitting bag sitting next to me. And while I dozed on the sofa quite a bit (the one good thing about Rudi being away is that I had options for where to lounge), I wouldn’t really say I got enough sleep, and I felt it.

Speaking of which, I’m going to toddle off to bed now in hopes of getting up early enough in the morning to do those things before work.

Weekending along with Pumpkin Sunrise.

Have you ever had difficulty getting a jar open? If so, I have novel solution:

Place the jar on the floor. Feel free to leave it in the bag you used to carry it home from the store.

Take one cat. (You may borrow Corey if you don’t have one of your own.)

Add one bicycle, parked in its usual spot, but maybe not quite balanced.

Have the cat jump on the bicycle, as is his wont.

And, voila! The cat will tip over the bicycle, and the brake lever will cleanly puncture the lid of the jar, saving you the strain of trying to open it on your own!

Ta da!

What’s that you say? It seems unlikely that the events will unfold in just this way, and isn’t it far more likely that the jar will break, rendering its contents unusable?

Why, yes, I suppose you’re right. It does seem unlikely…

(And, yes, my first thought was how glad I was that the brake lever encountered a jar of tomato sauce, rather than Corey’s head.)

Rudi is out of town visiting his mom, so the cats and I are holding down the fort. We celebrated this tonight with a trip to the grocery store (just me), napping on the sofa, watching two Christmas-themed episodes of Saved by the Bell, and following a dinner of leftovers with a sleeve of snowflake-shaped Ritz crackers dipped into the peanut butter bought earlier in the evening.

I do live an exciting life…

Other things I hope to accomplish this weekend:

• Attend some craft fairs.
• Make a list of what else I want to buy.
• Bake some cookies.
• Do laundry.
• Work on my Christmas mix.
• Start my Christmas cards.
• Put away the off-season clothes.
• Learn how to use the new composting system at the garden.
• Knit.
• Read.
• Paint my nails.
• Sleep.

How about you? What’s on your agenda this weekend?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. I stop at Trader Joe’s in the evening and there is no line.

2. Twice this week, I have found Jeremiah and Corey in close quarters together. The first time, Jer was under a blanket and Corey on top of it, so I thought it might be an anomaly. This morning, though, I turned around to find Corey had joined Jeremiah stretched out on the sofa cushion.

3. We (more than) fill the Burrow with 35 guests for our tree-trimming. We appreciate that so many of our friends are willing to spend some of their precious holiday time with us.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world this week?

One of the things Rudi and I really wanted to get done before our party was to hang the new artwork we’d bought this year. I tracked down a frame for the print we bought on the High Line in New York City this summer and we contemplated where we’d like it to go, but that’s where that project still remains.

We did, however, hang some pictures we were given last Christmas. My aunt is a professional photographer and, inspired by the photos we took and gave as gifts the year we went to France, they began giving us framed pieces each year. For a while, I rotated the artwork periodically over my bookshelf, but I’ve gotten lazy over time and, anyway, I have something else I want to go in that spot.

While I was dusting the stuff on top of the pie chest (which holds yarn, not pies), I realized there was adequate room above it for the paired photos my aunt gave us last Christmas. After getting them hung, I went to see if any of her other pieces would work on the adjoining wall and discovered that one of them fit perfectly.

I also rearranged a few things on the pie chest to better display the photos and other tchotchkes already there.

I know it slowed our cleaning process down significantly (more than an hour was lost on Saturday as we both went looking for the picture hooks I knew were someplace in the apartment), but I’m really pleased with the result and am so happy every time I look over there and see filled walls.

In this week’s Ten on Tuesday, Carole asked folks to hit “shuffle all” and list the first 10 songs that play on their iPod or whatever device they use for music.

These come from the “holiday” genre on my iPod. Lest you think that might prove limiting, that’s a pool of 451 songs:

1. “Here We Come A-Wassailing”—Steve Schuch & The Night Heron Consort
2. “Pretty Paper”—Roy Orbison
3. “Pax Um Biscum”—Ringo Starr
4. “Pretty Paper”—Willie Nelson
5. “Christmas Is the Time”—Katharine McPhee
6. “California Christmas”—Sleepy Rebels
7. “O Holy Night”—Lettermen
8. “Deck the Halls”—The Everly Brothers
9. “A Child Was Born”—The New Christy Minstrels
10. “You Make It Feel like Christmas”—Neil Diamond

I’ll admit that I groaned when Willie’s version of “Pretty Paper” followed Roy’s within 5 minutes. One or t’other is fine, but it’s really not cool to only split them up by a single Beatle.

How about you? What’s your random play?