My gladiolas are a few weeks ahead of schedule . . .

Do you have any favorite websites?

Right now, I'd have to list my top three as Ravelry, Etsy, and Zappos.

Ravelry is a community of knitters and crocheters. The website provides tools for organizing your crafts, and for sharing information. It's easy to contact another member who has completed a project similar to yours to obtain helpful information. You can find all kinds of projects for any type of yarn in your "stash", and the site has all kinds of "groups" for members to join. The groups are far ranging; I'm a member of not only Knitters for Obama, but also a group that enjoys reading British Mystery Novels.

I plan to do all my Christmas shopping next year on Etsy - a site for artists and craftspersons to sell their wares.

And Zappos has revolutionized shoe buying - a topic near and dear to every woman's heart. Free shipping both ways (if you need to return a pair), good prices and helpful reviews make it a great place to shop.

I recently ordered some books from another old favorite - Amazon - and even though I'm already reading Mark Haddon's A Spot of Bother, I started to page through Carl Hiassen's The Downhill Lie - about his return to golf after a 32 year layoff, and couldn't put it down . . . he won me over for good when about 10 pages in he points out that "Labrador Retrievers, while possessing cheery and endearing personalities, are not Mensa candidates in the canine kingdom", noting that they will lick or eat anything they can get their paws on . . .

As I was reading these lines, I was distracted by the sound of Hanna horfing up some rawhide she'd swallowed without adequately chewing it first.

Good times!