Forever Friday

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

OK, I'm s2s and have had breakfast.

Need to concentrate on writing. I'll start by listening to a podcast reflection while I tidy up the kitchen. It was untouched from yesterday. Ds's call went from 9:20 to 11:20 (and we got in the door at 9:10) so I didn't get anything done at all around home yesterday.

Ds is settled into his new place and happy with it. Turns out it isn't a 2 bedroom apartment with 8 beds but a 3 bedroom apartment with 13 beds! It is a testament to how quiet the residents are that he had no idea there was a whole other bedroom down a hallway. This is not a party place, everyone has work and/or school and some are illegally in the country so all keep really quiet to avoid trouble.

He posted pictures and it looks ok. He has a bottom bunk so has storage underneath as well as clipping things to the bars that hold the upper bunk in place. He says the beds creak but are comfortable. He has rope strung up all along 2 edges of the bed so he can hang his clothes to dry. That makes his space more private too.

He's paying $15 a week more than his female friends who are two floors down in the same building. That is a one bedroom with 8 people (4 in the bedroom, 4 in the living room.) The girls come up to ds's place to eat because there is no place to eat at their place. They have a kitchen in their apartment but no place except the edge of the bed to eat on. Ds has a table for 3 and three couches (for seating not sleeping) in the living room (and 2 chairs on the balcony but no table.) The Italian brought home a 4' used Christmas tree so they have that (without decorations) to make it seem even homier.

It is a no-smoking place but smoking is allowed on the balcony. He has met everyone in his room and a few of the others but not everyone yet. The mix so far is Chinese, Korean, Italian, Japanese, Canadian and Egyptian. People come and go, minimum stay is just 2 weeks. Ds has committed to 3 weeks but will stay longer if he gets the job he's applying for a job today. It is literally right across the street so his commute would be non-existent. The girls are working day labour jobs and also love that ds is cooking dinner for them each night. He loves that he has the companionship over the meal and the ability to split the cost 3 ways. It means they can have more meals with a bit of meat.

The van gets returned this weekend. There might be a headache over that (it needs better cleaning and the others have disappeared so ds is on the hook for it.) He used it this week to drive out to the suburbs with the girls and they stocked up on cheap food from a major grocery store while they still had a way to transport it easily.

[OKay]

Harriet - BWTG on food prep. Your eggs sounded delish

Kathryn - I enjoy hearing about your DS travels and adventures. Has he thought about blogging for profit (income from ads)? I would definitely be driving up his "clicks"

Next up -
** process onions. I was going to do this earlier this week but was OBE
** watch Duck Dynasty Christmas special online while working in kitchen.

[BookSaver]

Good morning, villagers ~

Yesterday was rather exhausting. (Y'all can skip the rest, I just need to remind myself that I did stuff.)
* Up very early to finish sewing group reports and agenda for Tuesday meeting, sent them out.
* Sewed a quick gift for my friend Z, prototype for the ones I'll make for the sewing group board members.
* Picked up the mail at post office. Bills (boo!) and a package (yay!)
* Met Z at the nursing home where our friend M lives, had a nice visit with M before her lunch.
("Nice" being a relative term ... M had a stroke a couple of years ago and by now I see only small glimpses of her personality and intelligence left. Yesterday was what I considered a good day, even though she was in and out of reality about every other sentence. She was in a good mood, someone had washed & styled her hair and given a manicure. They take good care of her there.)
* Long lunch with Z to cheer each other up and catch up on each other's news. We went to a Lebanese restaurant new to me, and it was very tasty.
* Finally made it to the sewing group's meeting room to inventory the cabinet where we store our library books. The list I had was about 5 years old and we've added a lot since then, so I want to get a current list into the next newsletter. I have more books to process, too. Luckily newsletter deadline isn't until mid-January, so I can now put the rest of this project on hold until after Christmas.
* Grocery shopping, unfortunately delayed until rush hour. No close parking spaces, long lines at checkout, but I was able to pick up essentials.
* Long drive home in rush hour traffic.
* Phone tag last night with library group member, eventually caught her and listened to her vent about people blocking projects we want to do.
* Dealt with a bunch of Emails.

Today's goals:
* 2 loads of towels, 1 load of shirts
* Short nap
* Cook lunch
* Post office and library
* Library group bank deposit
* Run back to The Big City to look for a top to wear on Christmas Eve. Also opaque tights to keep my legs warm under a black skirt.
* While I'm in the neighborhood, stop at my favorite used book store to pick up a gift card.
* Pet store for cat food.
* Check contents of sewing group archive boxes pulled from deep storage to see how big of a job it will be to declutter and reorganize them. Ugh.
* Cook supper
* Look to see if we need anything from site offering free shipping today only
* This evening = sew, sew, sew!

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Like Booksaver, I need to remind myself I've done something.

1. Did half the weekly kitchen chores
2. Listened to two preaching resource podcasts. I'm always struck by how I'm on the right track on my own. I have some sort of idiot-savant thing going on here.
3. moved my computer to the living room and have figured out a way of lowering the keyboard. I had a sore right arm and can't think of a thing I was doing different except my new desk is higher than my old so I'm worried about carpal tunnel. I may end up having to move in a rolling chair (in theory, the floor in here won't tolerate it so I'd have to find a rug to stick it on.)
4. Learned the new hymn I picked for Sunday.
5. Answered questions about last night. The friend who invited us to sing is a reporter and will be writing up an article for the newsletter and had questions about what it is like to sing the same music over and over, and which songs do we not enjoy singing. That was easy to answer - none, because we made up the song sheets! She also sent a nice picture of dh and I singing.

I just noticed the time so should eat some lunch. I haven't actually started writing yet. But things are brewing.

[Ivy]

GOOD FOREVER FRIDAY, VILLAGERS!

I got up early.
s2s, dressed, etc...
ate breakfast, etc....
went to S. S. Office.....
got signed up for S. S.
came home, had a celebration cup of Int'l coffee w/Folgers in it, in a Mrs. Santa cup.
Did calendar reminders, am going to slowly go about my day today.
Have flannel sheets in the washer now.
Wasn't feeling 100%, with congestion, coughing this a.m., but am fine now.

On my list of To Do's:
1- Make the bed with fresh dried flannel sheets.
2- Work on my Granny stripe afghan.
3- Write 2 letters.
4- Work on 1 children's story and some children's poems today and throughout the weekend.
5- Read on DD's "Ghost Stories of Washington," by Barbara Smith. (Good book!)
6- Will make a weekend Conga list, since am tired today, and want to take things easier.
7- DH might vacuum, so if he does, I might dust/dust mop, but if we don't, it'll be on our Conga weekend list.

Kathryn, Hope your arm gets better soon.

Booksaver, You're so productive!

Harriet, WTG on this Forever Friday with your food preps, etc...

Nancy, You call this flexible Friday and I call it focus Friday. I might make myself a "Flexible Friday" card now!

OKay, the buzzing phone photos sound FUN!

Everyone have a great afternoon.

[Nancy]

I will add fix it Friday to the mix now after putting up tree lights in the coop. dgd & I made cookies, now we are fixing to make up soup for the crock pot. Kit. Spiff under way h is on his way home. ★Do you have a fix it card?★

The leaves that I have working on next door are raked up and in the trash ready to go on trash day.

Dgd helped me to to get stew going in the crockpot.
We baked cookies this morning.
Weather is great outside here now! 40*

Time to cull hens dd has a friend that has some young ones I can have a couple have stopped laying and 2 others are older.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Had lunch, wrote a couple hundred words, had a long chat with CM (have staked my claim on gifts to buy the boys) and then dh convinced me to walk with him to the store for the mail. Dh has been inside the house during daylight hours since Monday so was getting cabin fever. Despite the temperature, which is just above zero F, I decided to go with him. It was a tough slog in both directions but I had enough layers that I didn't get too cold. We got the mail and back before dark. Neither of us brought sun glasses so the sun would do the most it could on our brains.

On the plus side, the house feels warmer now (although in fact it is getting colder.) I need to run around and close drapes now.

[Twins' Mom]

I ended up leaving here around 11, saw dMom (got there the same time as home health care nurse so got the scoop on her vitals, etc.) and visited and refilled meds, and drove to ATL and back and got ds home. He's unloaded his stuff and is settling in. He slept most the way home.

DD is out - she is driving to Mobile AL for a concert tomorrow night - a gf is going with her but dh is in a tizzy of course. He's making a hotel reservation for her at least.

I am tired. Tomorrow I have to get dMacs to PT in my Honda Pilot. I hope I can get him up into it.

I'm so happy to be staying in tonight.

[helia]

OK, that pot looks mighty intriguing! I don't have space in my cupboards, though - and I already have a rice cooker and a crock pot. . .Still, I am tempted.

I didn't get that much done today. I did find a nice web site with some fun activities and printables for ESL learners. I had fun prepping for my tutoring today! I left at 2:45 and got home at 6:15. I tutored, ran home to pick up dd15, drove her to synchro, drove to the church across town to drop off chips and salsa for the high school Cmas party, stopped by the redbox to get my movie, went home, chatted briefly with dh.

Our youth group has developed a really fun tradition for the Cmas party. Various leaders and alumni of the group dress in disguises, some of them goofy, some including facial hair, etc., and plant themselves somewhere in the big mall. Students are put on teams and their task is to go through the mall and "find all the elves." Then, they go back to the church and eat and probably have some activities with more spiritual content. We have a strong youth ministry; it is large (thus 2 trips to Haiti this summer) and some kids come to our youth group when their families don't go to our church - sometimes the family joins later. Best part, which I've said before: Every kid is in a small group same-gender Bible study that meets regularly with an adult leader or two. Dd18 is off to the party!!

[OKay]

Good Day so far.

I was able to fit in taking LO to visit Santa and also visit DMom.

I'm having a learning curve with the new stove. It cooks things so much faster than my old one that I've burnt or overcooked about 50% of everything I've cooked today. Set the smoke alarm off 3 times.

Package delivery continue to be slow from Amazon. Everything is 1 to 5 days later than they say. The weather must have put everyone behind because the grocery store is also having problems getting their food orders on time. The 100 lbs of nuts we ordered didn't show up today so we will be assembling the sacks tonight without the nuts. Will have to add the nuts to the sacks when (if) they arrive tomorrow.....or better idea - go early to church on Sunday and grab some volunteers to help.

Every one of the 14 turkey and hams were taken by volunteers to bake them at home. I don't have to cook any of them! I'll make some side dishes and desserts tomorrow to take on Sunday.

Papers processed = 25
SHE cards completed = 94

Next up -
** clean up kitchen
** process a few more papers until time to leave for FNG