SHEs Organized

The less I have to do, the lazier I'm getting. Slept horribly (really hardly at all) last night. Am feeling a little better this afternoon however. At least my neck isn't feeling so bad and I'm not feeling feverish like before.

Only 1 more night and then we'll be on our way back to dd's. It's been quite cool and windy here so haven't been out of the motel room very much. Do have a lot of Christmas cards done though. Have them almost all addressed, signed, notes attached and stuffed and sealed. Just have to put on stamps. Do have to do our annual 'letter' for some yet. I may work on that this evening. Have a bunch of addresses I'm going to have to change -will do that next week. I'm way ahead of my usual pace.

Did go out for a short walk earlier -trouble is, it's windy enough that I have trouble breathing in it.

Thinking of so many of you -Sunny and DH, Okay & family, Indiana, Harriet....and the list goes on.

I'll probably get everything cleaned up and packed this evening so we'll be ready to vacate as soon as dbil/dsil are ready tomorrow morning. We've had MUCH better vacations -b y a long shot.

Think I'll try walking out toward the Gulf -it's only a couple of dozen steps -can see the waves and a long ways out from our room as I type.

I'm printing off newsletters. Also searching the Net for gifts. Ds wanted some Pears soap so I thought I'd buy some. Nope. They changed their formula a year and a bit ago and the new one is awful according to people. The ingredient list convinced me that it was, the old one didn't have chemicals. Dad used to use it and had a case of 12 that ds grabbed when we shut down the house. That's gone now.

There was a book I went to buy ds at Costco before remembering he's using the K indle now and finds reading possible with that. So went to buy the ebook today and, of course, it isn't available as an ebook. Sigh....

So there's two good ideas for ds that are shot to heck.

Edited to add: I've finished printing the first 30 copies of the newsletter. We'll need 50 before we're done but I'm hoping the ordered colour toner will arrive before I need to print more since the ink-jet photos are pretty yucky looking. I got a black ink-low warning after finishing the first 60 pages but managed to the final 30 pages printed without it running too low to affect print quality (like it was on Monday when I started this process.) So a $12.50 cartridge seems to be good for about 100 legal pages almost completely full. That's 12.5 cents per page, which is pretty expensive for just black ink printing (I'm not figuring in the colour ink costs.)

I'm still not wide awake. I am reading documentation. At least the caffeine at lunch is working, it is the first caffeine I have had in weeks. I have called the boarding kennel, they have Dcat18's letter of health (required only for geezer kitties). I have called to find out where a Christmas open house is. I have also realized my eat at church plan may not work depending on when I can pick up Dcat18 from vet. If it overlaps, I will miss the dinner. I can have cereal if necessary, I have not done that in a while. I am hoping to get something in boxes put away tonight. I also need to do some exercise bike or my knee will start to hurt. I really do want to eat at church, it keeps me from going home and moping.

Getting ready to shut down -hope to leave early in the morning so won't be booting up until we get back to DD's. Have a good night and an even better morning. Waving to you all............

Harriet: Enough time has passed that the old stock is gone. Some sellers still use the old packaging but indicate the 2010 version of the soap. I did see three bars for $45 but that's not gonna happen.

I had a frustrating phone call with the minister. Last night the Board of Trustees met and they were all shocked that I had ceased to be a trustee. Gee, when I was asked to serve as Presbytery Rep, I agreed as long as I could give up trustees. And thus traded a committee with 1 meeting a year for 18 meetings a year. NOT a fair exchange. My name was removed from the list and the nominating committee put forward the slate of trustees for 2011 at the congregational meeting. The congregation accepted their slate of candidates. Done. Except no-one acted upon that so apparently I'm still a signature on the bank account. No-one has asked me to sign anything so I assumed I had been removed. The first indication I had that I was still considered a trustee is when someone phoned me for a ride last night and I pointed out I was going because I wasn't a trustee. Now they want a formal resignation from me. I refused, saying the congregation voting to accept me off the committee had to be enough and if no-one bothered to attend the meetings or read the annual reports (where the issue is covered) that's not my problem.

Actually, I'm questioning if I have to be on the church board in order to be a Presbytery Rep. The board meetings add 9 of the meetings and are awful. I'd be happy to report to my local church board but I'm not rep for the Joint Board so see no reason to have to attend those meetings as well (except, since I'm a board member for my local church that automatically makes me a board member for the joint board.)

I don't mind the Presbytery end of things (9 meetings a year plus I have to a volunteer roll at Presbytery which I fulfill by being at the Resource Centre.) But I do mind the church board end of things since we are having a hard time making quorum so I do work for a meeting that then gets cancelled and my work (currently, producing a brochure to be in the pews) doesn't get implemented when it should (i.e. when we had 100 guests for the concert.)

Grrrrr. And I still haven't done much today. I really need to either go to bed and get up at 6 or bake some squares tonight.

I'm home dinner is done dish washer is going.
House looks great!

H. is thinking the Realtor was a no show b/c they left no card and there were no foot prints.

The cold weather is effecting his achey muscles he's not in a very good mood ~sigh~ oh well.

Kathryn, your church work sounds very complicated and very extensive.

They've asked me to be secretary of our committee and I've tentatively agreed. I only have to send out some group emails and produce an agenda and minutes 4 times a year. We have over half of our committee leaving this January and others coming in. One moved away, one quit, and the others have used up their 6 years. They must be off 1 year before rejoining if they want. We haven't had any funeral meals to prepare recently or meals for sick people, so the work load is doable. However, sometimes it gets really hectic. I can't believe I've been involved for 1 whole year already.

Where does the time go? This past year flew by.

I still have my HGP in a section in my HH notebook. Suppose I should get it out and look at it! I've got the cart before the horse, as in my mind I'm making plans for NEXT Christmas, when I should be thinking of this one!

All usual routines done. Lunch made for tomorrow. Pot of black beans soaking for tomorrow's dinner. Couple loads of laundry folded. I've been sewing. I stuck my finger badly with a safety pin and boy did it bleed. Hard to sew with thimbles and bandages on!

Dee, I hope you have a safe trip home tomorrow.

I am thrilled to report that dd2 is officially out of the house. She just needs to pick up 2 boxes of outgrown childrens clothes to donate to Goodwill and will do that tomorrow.

The electric blower worked great. I told dh that I wanted to keep it handy, so he said he will hang it just inside the garage door for me. I wore my ear protectors that I use while mowing. I took a bucket of warm water and paper towels out there and after wetting them, I threw them on the stick spots. After letting them set a few minutes, I mopped that up. Then I used a sponge mop and mopped. It looked nice. You can tell that is not on dd2 radar, she didn't notice but my dh sure did.

The loan officer called today and our closing costs are over $4000.00 cheaper than the initial Good Faith Estimate papers stated. They over estimated the insurance cost by $1000.00, then we didn't have to pay any extra property tax because tomorrow starts the next 6 months of taxes. Then she said we received some discounts on other costs. I am definitely not complaining and I'm thrilled it turned out that way.

I better go and change out the laundry twins.