The Trend on Tuesday

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Ds is here now. I actually got another string of lights and all my pewter ornaments up. I have 15 plus one silver/crystal one. They look wonderful in the window with the lights.

I took one box back to the basement and brought up three more. Hopefully, I'll get those done tomorrow. Ds is supposed to help me take things over to his place tomorrow.

I had to move the portable counter out of the way in order to put up the lights so I mopped/scrubbed under there and then finished the kitchen floor. So that's a weekly and zone chore done.

Need to attend to dinner now. Potato is on for mashing, carrots to eat but I need to check the turkey roast.

I note from 9 emails arriving from 5:30 to 6:30 that my meeting tomorrow has been moved to a pub and we'll enjoy some holiday cheer along with the hard work. Yay!

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Snowstorm outside. Ds is in bed. He's just come off 11 nights in a row. He slept from 9ish to 5 and by 7:45 was barely able to hold his eyes open. He's blaming the turkey.

I decided it was better to send him off to bed while he was tired and let his body wake him early in the morning, than to risk him waking up fully and then not being able to sleep at all tonight since he's off for the next 4 nights.

I've done up the dishes, emptied the garbage, picked up the mail and I'm picking up a few more steps now before sitting down at my desk for a while. I've decided to redo one set of the living room lights (again!) because they currently look awful. I put the wreath on the front door and enjoyed looking at it as I walked down the hall (our door is across the end of the hallway.) So bit by bit decorations are finding homes. Not sure how many I'll get rid of. I have too many towels and I love my black and white kitchen but my decorations are all red & green patterns. I have one solid red towel with an applique which is in the guest bath now because that room is red and black.

There was one sobbing incident as I first opened up a box. Knowing things would all have to find new homes (if at all) was just a reminder that my little ones are no longer around. Not sure where to hang ds's stocking. I'll have to think on that for a bit. Found a spot straight off for dh's and mine.

[FelineFriend]

Washed the 3 grandkids' afghans, tucked 1 bath puppet into 2, to hide them, as a "surprise" when they open their 1 gift. (We give $, to all the children, adults and grands, alike, for non-clutter gifts.) But I crochet 2 - 3 small gifts, for the 3 youngest grands, as they have no "concept" of $ gifts yet. I washed up a Dfriend's pink hat/scarf I made for myself, but don't care for the color on me. I'd rather wear something brighter or darker. As soon as I crochet the 1 dgs's puppet, I'll wrap all 3 grands' gifts, return them to the hope chest, w/my elderly Dfriend's pink hat/scarf set. I called over to her home, she's 98.5 years old, the caretaker said she's having a huge difficulty hearing right now, so they asked her if she likes pink and she said she loves ♥ pink.

DH got groceries and 1 prescription for me. Lucky for him- there was nobody in line at the pharmacy, totally unlike his previous recent visits, for about 3 weeks now. We got groceries put away, ate lunch, and I wrote 1 letter to a dfriend. Now I'm working on a card/note to another friend and have 2 letters to do after that. They won't take long.

It's 35* now, will be chilly tonight again, but tomorrow's high will be 4* higher than today's high. My hands really eat up the hand lotion, during these dry cold spells, too.

I decorated a beige 4" x 6" index card file box for outline cards, for work, and have 3 personal cards in there, for pampering and things to keep me on track because if Momma's not happy, nobody's happy.

Will be eating turkey sandwiches with soup for dinner tonight, then will throw out the last of the turkey, which isn't much. On TV, the day prior to Thanksgiving, they recommended not saving leftovers past Monday, to eat them on Monday and then get rid of them. So that's what we're doing. We've already gotten rid of the leftover peas, potatoes, etc... Garbage day is Thursday, so we're getting trash, etc... dumped today, b/c DH takes the can up to the curb tomorrow. He also goes to Costco tomorrow, but if it's still hazardous on the roads, from ice/fog, etc... He said he'll wait until the raining Thursday, to be safe, instead. At least we CAN wait and nothing's urgent, like some families get to be, awaiting until the last minute to get things taken care of. We won't starve, in other words.

I'm washing #3 LOL now, will stop there, as there aren't enough towels, dishtowels or washcloths to make up a full load after this. I need a break, want to get in more steps prior to bedtime, so I can get in 10K+ by the time I rest my head upon the pillow. Need to get up early tomorrow, get going, too, so DH can get out the door earlier, too. There's less of a crowd at Costco, the earlier you go, especially during the holidays.

Have a GR8 dinner and Kathryn, your decorations sound beautiful to me! Big WTG, Gal!

[Nancy]

Laundry is done for now.
Dinner is too dishes await my attn. Done.
The tree is up.
Gkids were full of vim and vigor have left.
I did not get to the bedroom stuff done.
did some spinning.
On the ex bike now.
Watching coal house on pbs.

[lucylee]

The trend around here... well... considering Christmas, it's going pretty well -- packages arriving daily w/gifts I've ordered online... started addressing cards tonight... all the decorations are up. I'll still have to make a shopping trip at some point and I'm still feeling pretty unimaginative re: gifts that have not been ordered online... BUT... all in all, it's okay.
OTOH... ugh... the trend re: my weight... is HORRIBLE. I was at 161 on Thanksgiving day, thought I was doing pretty well, didn't eat much that day... and it has steadily gone up every day until today I'm at 165 again. So close to seeing the 150s again... and then * poof.*

Also, I aggravated ds tonight -- he thought I was being a bit nosey re: the clutter and general disarray of their house. * sigh * But good grief... having no space to organize and put away stuff is one thing. Having three opened cans of coke on the end table when you've been away from home for a week is another. But maybe if they COULD organize and clean up the rest of the stuff, they'd have a little more motivation to do the little things. I will be sooo glad when dbil finishes all this paperwork. I wish I had not said anything, and I wish I could apologize more to ds, but it's a case of the more I say, the worse the situation gets... so I'll just have to let it go and pray that they can do better in their new home.

Red and green decorations do not match anything in my house, Kathryn, but we use lots of red and green anyway. I guess b/c Elvis (and Ernest Tubb before him, of course) sang about "decorations of red on a green Christmas tree." My main colors are blue and beige, but at Christmas time, I have red stockings on the mantle, red balls (actually plastic apples) on the tree, red candles in the windows, and lots of Santa figurines. Your decorations sound beautiful -- love the thought of pewter and crystal, but sending you lots of (((HUGS))) for sadness of "decluttering" ornaments and decorations.

I definitely can relate to the idea of more time/less done, helia. Oh my... yes... since retirement, I feel I've gotten NOTHING done.
However, dh said this was the first time EVER that we had the Christmas tree up in November. Every other year, on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, I'm in college town. And until last year, I was teaching, so I didn't make it a big priority for my Thanksgiving holiday. It's nice to have it up early, and I'm looking forward to seeing what dgs thinks about it. But otherwise -- so far as household routines and things -- I feel like I'm just spinning my wheels.

I don't think I could keep my bank statement on Quicken (or any other tech-system). Dmom wants to do that once she gets her life back together, but I know it would be too time consuming for me.

[helia]

Well, the evening was relaxing but not very productive. And I ate too much after being good most of the day. *sigh* Tomorrow is a new day. I'm glad I'm not the only one who is laissez-faire about quicken. I was using it only for the bank accounts, not the credit cards or investments. I don't fuss with investments anyway; I let dh do that.

I took the garbage to the curb but not the recycling. We can do recycling every 2 weeks. The kitchen got cleaned up but I forgot to run the dw, so I'll do that in the morning. I don't do that while we're sleeping after it caught on fire that one time.