This is going to be an odd assortment of early Tuesday ramblings.

It's been cold here in Ohio recently. Very cold. We did not experience the severe snow that other areas of the country have had. But it has been cold and windy. I dreamed the other night that our fence, built this summer with our friends Tiffany and John, was all but destroyed by the recent winds. I was devastated but then I realized it looked like the picket fence destroyed by the tornado on Desperate Housewives this past Sunday evening and I knew that it was just a dream. Still, once I woke up and it was light outside, I was checking out our fence. It's just fine.

I narrowly cheated death this morning. You know the little black thing in the bottom of every banana? The thing that will kill you if you eat it? Well, mine stayed in my banana this morning and I fortunately saw it and plucked it out at the last minute! (What? It won't really kill you if you eat it? Are you sure about that?)

Have you ever heard of tatting? This past Friday night we attended the annual Christmas party for staff and board members at Evan's school. It was the first year that both Lisa and I were there as official attendees rather than one as a spouse. That was sort of neat. Anyway, one of their traditions at the party is a Christmas ornament exchange which gets a bit brutal as it allows you to either choose an unwrapped ornament or choose to "steal" an ornament someone else has opened. Anyway, not being someone who wanted to steal, the box I chose had two little hand-tatted snowflakes in it, perfect for hanging on a tree. I may have been one of the few people there, and almost certainly the only man, who recognized and knew what tatting was. In my family, we grew up with a small end table that had a tatted tablecloth. I remember my mom often telling us about the lost art of tatting as she would carefully hand wash and starch the table cloth twice a year. The tatted snowflakes I received were made by an 83-year-old woman with apparently excellent eyesight.

Lisa told me last night that she really loves her new job, and the people she works with. I am so happy for her. She's going to do a great job there, I am sure.

I had to get new glasses last week. I sometimes choose glasses that are a little "edgy". Something about getting overweight ... it's hard to wear "edgy" clothes any longer so you go for glasses and shoes that prove your personal style. I have been looking for a pair of shoes lately. Having problems finding the right ones. I have bought three or four pairs from shoebuy.com, returning them all. I am afraid shoebuy is going to blacklist me if I do much more of that. But I did find some edgy glasses. You can see them here if you wish. The optician had another pair that I liked a little bit more. But they were labeled very boldly on one side with the made-up brand name of "Tony Morgan". While I do not know him personally, I do know of someone by that name (who is a friend of our senior pastor's) and it just would have seemed odd to go around with glasses that had someone's name on them. If a Tony Morgan out there ever sees a pair of glasses that have my name labeled on them, I hope they look for something different.

That's it for my Tuesday morning Mish Mash.