Sunday, November 26, 2023

The morning has been well spent drinking tea and reading the paper. Life's small but important luxuries. We almost made it out of November without measurable snowfall. Surprise, about 2 inches fell last night. It looked whimsical when I was going to bed last night. No denying it can be very pretty.

DS left this morning around 8am for his 5 hour drive home. He lives alone, and sometimes he says he feels lonely, but he also doesn't want a roommate. He is thinking very seriously about getting a bonded pair of cats. Our cats were siblings, and it was delightful. He has to travel for work, but is usually only gone one night at a time. Two kitties could keep each other company while he is away.

DD is here until Monday. So the nest is not empty yet!

I must have disconnected from work so well that my subconscious mind gave me a nudge. Instead of the classic I have a final to take, but I never went to the class dream, I dreamt I was at home, and realized it was 10am and I'd never put in a sub request! It has been a really restful break.

Speaking of restful, I have wrestled with whether to host Christmas Eve or not. It's such a tough decision. As I was completing the few tasks I needed to do for Thanksgiving, I decided no, I do not want to do it. I would even be willing to help host it, if another member of my family would lead the charge. Like when they have thrown a birthday party for me, I might have done a task or two, or even cooked something, but I did not have to carry the mental load of organizing everything. DH also does not want to do that, so here we are. We also have reached the point where my parents cannot make Christmas dinner on their own, so I am cooking it, and bringing it to their house. I am finally at peace with my decision.

Well time for me to find some protein to eat. I had toast this morning with my chai latte, not much protein, but it tasted good!

Sounds relaxing! Enjoy the remainder of your vacation time. And the pretty snow. I like to see a bit of it when home for Christmas but no more than a tiny amount.

Sounds like the right decision not to host Christmas Eve - I definitely couldn't do it anymore.

We were home yesterday by around noon. We took Justice for his 3 mile walk then vegged the remainder of the day other than doing the laundry and emptying the robot vacuum 3 times.

Today after the Justice walk I dusted every room and rearranged the lanai to accommodate the Christmas tree. It is up though unfluffed and undecorated. A few of the other decorations are out as well but my back is screaming at me. I think I have a bruise on the bone after that boat bounce 2 weeks ago.

We just received a call from DH's daughter that both she and the ex-wife have COVID. Uh-oh. DH's sisters are scheduled to arrive here on Wednesday. We feel fine so far but we will test tomorrow regardless. Fingers crossed - we didn't do any close hugging and both DH and I had a vaccination booster just 3 weeks ago.

Time to rest the back, then get showered. Have a successful Sunday!

Fingers crossed for you! My last bout with Covid was pretty mild, but my BIL experiencing his first Covid infection from the same trip was very sick. It can still pack a big hit for some.

I started to start the thread, and got distracted by the puppy. He's very distracting! My house is a shambles and I need a shower!

He had a good first vet visit (with me) yesterday. Lots of love from the staff and vet. He's a handful in the car. I couldn't use the plane carrier as it was a loss after the poop mishap. I need him contained somehow. I'm not interested in owning yet another crate so I ordered him a seatbelt and harness set up. He'll need a larger one at some point, but this will last a few months.

I'm feeling better today. I have to say, it's not fun doing puppy potty breaks in the middle of the night when it's below freezing and you have a fever and feel yucky!

Hope you all are well!

Greetings Peeps Peps and Pups

AWOL yesterday. No legit excuse. We did have our anniversary party at the gallery. I spent some time making cheese crisps and met a friend up there. I didn't stay long but it was a nice event and we had good sales. One of our members plays the harp. For some unknown reason they had him playing outside. It was sunny but geez, isn't harp music good inside an art gallery? I think we even paid him to play but no one heard it. But I did get my silversmith friend introduced to another silversmith *****cently joined the gallery. They seemed to hit it off. The older one has a lot of mentoring ability to share. Mentoring ability is one of the few good things about being old.

After the party DH and I spent all day pigging out on football. There were several really good close games. The last one was called "Farmageddon" as the match of two ag schools and was played in Kansas with several inches of snow on the fireld. Being refugees from the midwest, we thought it was funny.

I am embarrassed to admit we had pasta for dinner last night. DH asked for it. Our eating is so terrible. Friday they had roast turkey at the deli and I have no clue why I did not buy some.

It's sunny again and I think I will do some studio time. No shopping for me though I need to start planning.

DD I hear you on not wanting to do Christmas eve. It is indeed the organizing that is the burden. Even if all you did was order a bunch of pizza there is still the planning, pick up, house prep, drinks and table ware and all that. Good of you to cook for your parents. Thats plenty. Glad you have had a restful break. And yeah I still have that dream about an exam and being unprepared. I also still have dreams about winding up my law practice even though that was 20 years ago.

CC sorry you are ill. Hope that all passes soon and the puppy party continues. Hope the car harness works out.

Speaking of puppy parties, Peps you must be heavily into it. Puppy food now? How many poops per day do 6 puppies make?

Not much else. I think I will get a pot roast for the slow cooker next week. That will force us to have some protein for a few days.

Liz, yuck covid. It's still out there.

Cheers. Diane S

Definitely should have had the harp inside! Hope it was reasonably warm outside. We had a harpist at our wedding reception, before the dance. Very calming :)

We had a harp at our wedding too! dc

Pups were three weeks old Thanksgiving Day. Won't start mush until Thursday at the earliest. Mama is doing a great job feeding them, albeit with supervision. We have a good routine worked out. Poop won't be super bad until we start solid food then it'll be changing papers many times during the day!