The Best Laid Plans

The knitting fates are not the only ones with a sense of humour.

I have been looking forward to today with great anticipation. It is my first true day off in weeks, a day without work or Christmas preparations or social obligations. The gifts have been wrapped and unwrapped, turkey dinner for 24 has been cooked and consumed, and my mother-in-law has gone to her daughter’s after spending the last six days with us. Ahhh…

The plan was to sleep in, drink lots of tea and eat lots of chocolates, pet my new yarn, catch up on blogs (including my own), knit on my shawl, read a book, take a nap, and just generally spend the day doing nothing in particular. The first part of the plan failed miserably when Colin’s alarm began to ring incessantly at 6:45 this morning. (How he can be lying three feet away and not hear it is a mystery to me.) Then, as his alarm droned on, the house alarm started sounding. Meow. Meow. Meow.

Sighing, I dragged myself out of bed, woke up Colin and told him to shut off his alarm, hit the bathroom, fed the cat, and gratefully crawled back into bed. But just as I was slipping back to sleep Colin’s alarm began to sound again—he’d hit the snooze button instead of off. Seconds later, the house alarm began to ring again too. Meow. Meow. Meow.

Defeated, I climbed out of bed and once again told Colin to shut off his alarm. (Dazed and confused, he mumbled something about how he thought anyone could mine the rock. Huh? “You know, the rock,” he said, patting the top of his alarm clock. Ah yes, that rock.) I let the cat outside and put on the kettle to make tea—no reason to let the second part of the plan fail. With a nice, hot cup in hand I headed downstairs to my computer and almost stepped on a fresh deposit of cat yak on the top step. Oh joy. It was only 7:03 a.m. and something told me my day off might not be as relaxing as I’d expected.

An hour later, I am on my second cup of tea, I have a blog post written (though not the one I’d planned), and the rest of the household is starting to stir. Life feels pretty good and I have hopes that I can salvage this day after all. Now, where did I put those chocolates?