the twelfth morning

My current residence is heated with heating oil. The burning unit, or whatever it’s called, is located in the crawl space underneath my bedroom. I was wakened sometime in the wee hours this morning by some mysterious sound below me. When I woke for real around 6 in the morning I realized that the heat had stopped working again. This is the second time in as many weeks. I looked over to the other side of the bed. It was empty. Ara left yesterday morning to go back to Baltimore to take his exams. I’d been waking up next to him every morning for eleven days. The lack of heat and the lack of Ara made me feel like it was impossible to get out of bed. But I did.

I’m almost completely done with my Christmas shopping already. I’ve been buying Christmas gifts online since 1998. Back then shipping was always free. That is no longer the case. Despite having to pay for shipping, I much prefer shopping online when I can. The last few things I will purchase are for the daughters, and I’ve already scouted them out at local shops. Most of them are on sale, which is fantastic, as funds are tight yet again this year. The daughters decorated our Christmas tree yesterday afternoon, so now all I have left to do for Christmas preparations is wrap the presents and bake cookies should I desire to do so.

This morning I was reading a blog kept by a woman in Vancouver. Her photographs of her daily outfits are adorable. The blog is called Lost In the Forest, and it is located here – http://aforestofapples.blogspot.com/.

The most recent thing I marked with the tag “want” on my delicious bookmarks is this adorable Orla Kiely notebook. I think the pattern is very attractive, but it would be too indulgent of me to buy yet another notebook that will not be written in.