Home today, with my concussed girl and my sick son, who does NOT have H1N1, just to clarify. He doesn't have the flu at all, I feel the need to explain, because I've had to do just that with the school for the past couple of days. I'm a pro now.

In another hour or so, I'll also have my middle child home. That's when the quiet BLISS ends, and the roar of video games will fill the air.If he has no homework, that is.

Among the other things keeping me occupied of late, wool continues to lead the pack. It's getting to be an all-consuming passion. I find myself staring at people's wool sweaters (or those I speculate are wool), thinking what I could do if only they'd give them to me. It's lust of a very strange kind. I can't explain it to anyone not similarly afflicted.

And multi-media journaling. Oh, dear God! Every chance I can I sneak downstairs to my basement office to do "just one more page…" Paint under my nails and scraps of paper glued to my elbow, I reappear about an hour later, heady from the smell of glue, sobbing from separation anxiety.

It's an embarrassment of crafty riches Chez Guidarini, even if crochet hooks poke you in the back – or worse – everywhere you sit. It's like having our own little family of hedge hogs. Could be worse, though. It could be knitting needles.

Right now I'm working on a mini-purse in tie dye felt, a big tote bag in wool, and I have a couple of journals awaiting their papery insides. I also found some lovely suede I'm considering for another journal – possibly using a "re-purposed" book cover – for which I bought a tapestry needle so I can sew it without losing a finger. Did you know those existed (tapestry needles, not fingers), because I certainly never did. The things I'm learning!

But am I really not reading at ALL? Not entirely true. I'm sort of half working on two books, Cather's Death Comes For the Archbishop (for the next classics group read), and The Lost City of Z (for my nonfiction group read). Since both discussions seem so far away, next January, I'm not reading either particularly quickly. And I am still in the habit of picking up and reading whatever book comes within my line of vision, putting that down and completely forgetting I picked it up in the first place.

This is the impetus for what I've already decided is Resolution Number One, already in place for 2010. READ A MANAGEABLE NUMBER OF BOOKS, AND KEEP TRACK OF THEM. Not too much to ask of myself, and a good exercise in attention, methinks, for the bipolar sufferer. Just don't ask me to be less crafty in 2010. That would be beyond my capacity, and I very well may bite if you dare suggest it.

So that's where I've been, and what I've been doing, while I haven't been posting as regularly. Aren't you glad you asked?