One day feels like another …

at least when referring to BlogHer's NaBloPoMo. Today marks the end of the 2012 experience of publishing a blog post daily for the month of November. Many of those who participated will go back to posting regularly, but not daily. (Last month there were 510 entries added to BlogHer's list, this month there are more than 3200. And the day's just beginning.) I've managed to keep the daily drivel going since the beginning of November, 2011, missing only a couple of days but racking up 646 posts since 11/1/11.

Some posts were just photos, which is fine and it counts. But I gotta tell you that when I sit down every morning in front of this screen, I don't feel like I have to write something. I feel like I want to. Sometimes I want to write something two or even three times in one day.

I suppose it's because I live such an isolated life. Were it not for Barack Obama's decision to run for President in 2008, I wouldn't have much face-to-face contact with anyone. I've lived in West Virginia since 1997 and four years ago I still didn't have friends who weren't also my husband's (he was born here).

Thanks to my volunteering to elect the President to his first term, my husband now has friends who also are mine. And thanks to the President, I have a lot more to write about than just knitting and running and gardening and cooking. And crafting, but I haven't figured out a way to work that into the title of the blog. Heh.

So thank you, both of you, who have read and continue to read the words that flow through my fingertips from my heart to yours. Unless something crazy-exciting happens later today (as it did yesterday), by the time I tuck myself in tonight I will have posted 59 times this month. It would have been 60 – a word post and a photo post each day – but on one day the photo prompt fit what I was going to write about, and so I combined them. (My photo prompts come from Chantelle.)

(The tiny little OCD corner of my personality wants to publish three posts today to make that come out to a perfect two-posts-a-day finish. I WILL RESIST!)

Yesterday was a crafty day, indeed. I started putting the journals together and discovered that I needed to have an extra leaf on the first and last signatures* to glue to the inside front and back covers. So I spent much of the afternoon reprinting, resewing and reglueing. I took the opportunity to add an extra signature to each of the journals. They're all dried and ready for covers, and I should (crossing fingers) have photos of the finished gift tomorrow.

And after yammering on about making ceramic tile coasters, I ended up making Scrabble tile coasters. Not that I won't also make ceramic tile versions, but I had a bag of tiles from an old game just waiting to be made into something. My son and I play Scrabble with each other online, almost daily, so he's getting a set of four for Christmas.

Many (most?) of the Pinterest versions all have beverage words spelled out. I decided to personalize this set. One represents his native state, one his current home, one has the word RACK, plus three words of high-point Scrabble letters (WAVE, JIVE, QUIZ) and the fourth is a nod to his journalism career.

I still need to trim them out of the slab o' cork. But they are, essentially, done. I hope he likes them. They don't really look or function like a salt mill, which is what he asked for. I will also give him a Southern Season gift card. 'Cause Santa always brings what you ask for, right? Heh.

There are lots of "O"s and "I"s left in the tile bag. If I knew someone who spoke binary, I could probably make another set. But I have many more gifts to finish, and miles to go before I sleep.

 
*b. A large sheet printed with four or a multiple of four pages that when folded becomes a section of the book.