Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone is calm and happy and ready for tomorrow!  It is officially now Christmas Eve and I wanted to send along our good wishes.  It will be a fairly quiet Christmas for Golfer and me.  Nurse J is working this weekend and we are "having Christmas" with her, CableGuy and BeyB on Monday the 26th.  I am planning on watching a couple movies tomorrow since I know for sure that some of our presents to each other are DVDs!

I spent a chunk of time today trying a new pie recipe.  Golfer found it while surfing the web a while back and thought it sounded good.  Chocolate peanut butter banana pie does sound good but the recipe is rather time consuming.  It's chilling in the fridge as I type this.

Golfer and I have a tradition of going out for a sandwich on Christmas Eve and then looking at light displays.  We've hit a slight bump in those plans this year.  Most of the places we'd like to eat are closing really early or are not open at all.  so I'm going to sign off now and go make burritos - the start of a new tradition!

Take care and stay safe and have a wonderful Christmas!

Welcoming a New "Family Member"!

Hey, all!

This is a picture of what Golfer and I did yesterday!   We traded in VJ, our LHS, and got this 2008 Toyota Tacoma X-Runner.  Golfer had been having some serious nostalgia for his past trucks and VJ had served us well.  It seemed like the time was right.

In other news, it's almost Christmas.  We're about as ready as we're going to get here.  It was really cold for a couple days and now today it is a bit warmer.  Supposed to be 70 again tomorrow and possible heavy thunderstorms.  Geez.

So, all is calm now and all is well.  Stay safe!

Additional Decorations!

Had to make one more post today!  Bikini made us an appliqued piece that fits perfectly with our Nativity set that I posted earlier.  Thanks!

And in the mail today we received the most lovely kitty ornament from a dear friend.  It is all the more special because, by her own admission, she isn't really what we would call a "cat person".  Thanks, E.!

Stay safe, everyone!

You Are Wondering .... Why the Multiple Posts?

I have been having issues posting lately,.  Many thoughts are bumping around in my head and I have tried to write and just could not get them to load.  I couldn't get pictures to download.  Posts would disappear.  It was extremely annoying.  I've switched back and forth between FireFox and Explorer as suggested by the help site.  I've tried other methods for the pictures.  Finally I ran across an upgrade and figured it was worth a shot.  And this morning I am learning their new methods!

Things have been busy.  Holiday preparations are pretty much done.  We've hosted a gathering and been to another one.  Daily routines continue.  Golfer is out on the course when the weather cooperates.  We even had shorts weather last week for a couple days!

Work has been busy in my office, but fortunately most days I have the space to myself and can accomplish a lot.  We've been getting back into our "Y" routines.  I've had a few blah days recently, but am feeling better.  It was a year ago that Mom died.  I know she always enjoyed the Christmas decorations and shows on TV.  I hope she has some good ones this year.

Hermione injured herself somehow this week and I had to take her to the doctor.  Nothing broken or torn, but she had some inflammation in her hip and knee and could hardly move.  And from the moment I got her back home, Cinder turned into a little tyrant bully.  After a discussion with Dr. W. we decided to supplement Hermione's steroid injection with some pills and also to give Cinder something to calm her down.  Poor Cecil was just distraught and wanted all the fussing to stop!  But things are improving now.  Hermione is moving much better.  Cinder is getting back to her sweet self and devoting more time to Christmas tree skirt rearranging.

Life is good.

Some family members tease us and say Cecil doesn't exist because they never get to see him.  He almost always runs and hides when anyone else comes into the house.  But this is him enjoying the tree skirt.  He loves the trees and will sit under them and peek at us. He wore himself out this evening!

Stay safe!  More later!

Nativity

I have not displayed this Nativity set for a few years because it is rather large and takes up a lot of room.  This year I decided to try this.

Some New Ornaments on Our Original Tree

These are just some pictures of a few new ornaments on our tree for this year.  Golfer's brother and his wife gave us a set of Cleveland Browns ornaments (this is just one of them).  They also gave us the large blue ornament with the lovely trees on it.  In that picture you can also see the new Romulan Bird of Prey.  Golfer and I have collected Hallmark Star Trek ornaments over the years.  This year we have a couple that have just simply given up working.  They all either light up or have recorded messages.  The Bird of Prey was a new one this year.  For the record, we also have a Millennium Falcon on the tree!

Golfer gave me an early gift of a set of Harry Potter ornaments.  There is one for each "House" and one for Hogwarts!

Have a great weekend!

WTH, Post Office?!?!?!?!

Hey, all!

We've all been hearing about the woes of the Post Office.  And sure, I agree it would be nice it they were more profitable.  But, come on!  It's hard to muster up sympathy for them when I find things like this when I open our mailbox.

Those two strips are from an envelope and a card that I had mailed.  They arrived back in our box in the special envelope that says "we care".  If they cared so much they wouldn't mangle my mail!

Stay safe!

Just Saying "Hi!"

I hope everyone's Christmas and other holiday preparations are going well! Things are under control at our house. I was out doing errands with the top down on Duke yesterday with the Christmas music playing on the radio. Felt real festive!

I have a new daily routine of putting the tree skirts back under the trees. The furry kids are really enjoying them.

Golfer is out playing golf today. It's in the 70's and nice. Supposed to get colder later today and rain.

Things are busy at Bikini's. Brief is still working on the outside decorations. He's having a problem with Santa's runway lights, I think.

BeyB and Nurse J have been sick. BeyB is better and went back to school today. Nurse J now has what she had and is trying to get better.

So all is all, things are calm and quiet. The decorations are up, the shopping is about done, the cards are sent, and the baking has started. Have a wonderful Christmas and stay safe! More later...

Original Tree!

New Tree!

Whew!

It's been a busy time for us! This was our year to go to Bikini's for Thanksgiving, so Golfer and I were away for a few days. We had a nice trip and a wonderful visit. Bikini did a great job preparing dinner. Boxer and Bloomer are growing up sooo fast! The weather wasn't too bad but the traffic was a bit worse than usual. We are safely home now and getting back into a daily routine.

There was some catching up to do with unpacking, and putting away of "stuff" and doing a mountain of laundry. The yard needed leaf clean-up again; I think we might be nearing the end of that yearly job. At least we hope so! And then there was the decorating to tackle. Golfer and I decided it would be nice to have a tree at the front of the house that would be visible from the front windows. Our usual tree is a bit too big for that, so we bought a tall, slim one for the dining room. Our original tree is in the living room in its usual spot (after shifting the new furniture around a bit) I really like them both! The furry kids are wearing themselves out running from one tree to the other. (they don't know which tree skirt to rearrange first!)

It was at this point that I wanted to insert pictures of both trees. For some reason, that function is not working with blogger right now, but I discovered I could post the pictures separately by using another route. So please see the two following posts. Thanks Bikini for your help!

I'm in the process of finishing the Christmas cards and hope to have them in the mail soon. Haven't even thought about baking anything yet. Most of the shopping is done. So we are well on our way into the Merry Christmas season.

While we were at Bikini's, NurseJ and CableGuy surprised BeyB with a trip to Disney World! They had a great time and came back exhausted.

I have to get back to work on all this desk stuff so take care and stay safe!