Monday December 3

Not terribly cold right now though we have had bouts of snow which hasn't lasted long. The skies are gray with a few times the sun tried to peek out. We did go out for a bit because Mom wanted some stamps with a Christmas theme for the cards she had ready to mail. I wanted some embroidery thread and some new cross-stitch magazines.

One of my favorite gardening bloggers, Carolee at herbalblessings, noted that November was somewhat colder and wetter than usual where she is and that, as she has gotten older, she doesn't much like gardening in inclement weather. That was something I noted over the summer when the heat forced me to curtail my gardening. Some days I was lucky to get an hour or two of time in the gardens. I don't do late or very early season gardening because the gardens on the patio are too cold and various schemes to provide protection don't really work all that well for containers. They lose heat too easily. Instead I garden vicariously by reading bloggers like Carolee.

I got another reminder of age recently. I tried to start a counted cross-stitch pattern on 14-count aida cloth and totally messed up the counts. Twice!!! I simply couldn't see where I had gone wrong. I think though part of the problem is the fabric itself. I had set squares into an intended quilt top and then washed the whole piece after the piecing. I always do that for a quilted piece before I put the sandwich together to finish. I didn't have problems with earlier motifs I did but this time nothing seemed to work right. I am going to try some of the unwashed aida cloth for another piece and if I have more difficulty I guess I will have to switch to an 11- or 12-count fabric. My mother gave up needlework ten years ago because her eyes gave her fits. I don't want to do that.

Forecasting Intelligence has a good post that as he remarks has gone unreported by the mainstream media and largely ignored by the political classes. So far the demographic data I have seen show Africa as the only major area where fertility rates are still high. Most other areas of the globe have rates barely above replacement or, in some cases, below. The only reason the U.S. population hasn't begun to shrink is immigration, much of which our politicians are busily trying to block.