Festival of Northern Lights Friday @ TDD - C&C

[trissie]

Triple Dog Dare!

Pick 3 things
Do them
Post your TaDas!

»»—-Cheers! WTG! Ygg!—-««

Don't think about it. Just do it!
~~ I Triple Dog Dare ya! ~~
Good Morning!
»»————　✼　————««[*]

[trissie]

The Festival of Northern Lights is a large award-winning display of Christmas lights in Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada. The celebration runs from mid November into January and it attracts 20,000 people each year. The Festival is a brainchild of Marie Walpole in 1987.

Approximately 25 kilometers of light strings and 400 lighted designs are displayed at the harbour, along the Sydenham River's course through town, on city streets and in parks like Harrison Park. It has been named one of the top 100 festivals in Ontario for 2009 by Festivals and Events Ontario, an industry organization.

In its 21st year in 2008 it was gradually converted to LED lights from traditional incandescent lights out of respect for the environment. This effort aimed to reduce operating costs allowing the festival operators to expand the magnitude of the festival. Because it can be viewed while driving, the annual display was erected in 2020, early in the COVID-19 pandemic. The following year communities were allowed to decide to hold public events or not and Owen Sound held its customary opening Santa Claus parade.

Parents who viewed the displays as children bring their own offspring to view them.

[Kittykatt]

Good morning, Trissie, and thank you for starting is off with such a cheerful festival.

Laura, thank you for the explanation of jello salad!

L.Ann, are you getting up early to go Black Friday shopping as usual this year?

Today I'm meeting DF PL for coffee at the community shop. The forecast is supposed to be dry and reasonably mild, so I would also like to feed my pots on the patio. It would also be good to get the rest of the ingredients for the Christmas cake weighed out9xed.up and in the oven. And there are lots of admin type jobs that really need to be done today. DH has choir practice this evening, so could I wrap a few presents then? I really need to work on my shoebox as that's due in a couple of weeks. And the next couple of weeks are also going to be busy, so whatever I can get done this weekend would be good!

[Kittykatt]

Today's list:

Cuddles on the bed with Matilda, Jude and Freddie
QT
Physio exercises
Up, shower, personal care and dress
All cats fed
Take Freddie out? ( If he wants to go!)
Breakfast and meds /supplements -me
Rubbish down to bins
Go for my walk
Run hoover round downstairs?
Quick dust sitting room?
Garden time - can I feed pots? A little deadheading?
Lunch
Delicate /wool wash
Clean shoes
Polish bag
Fold laundry and PA
Clean sheets and towels out of the airing cupboard
Does DH have choir practice?
Cats' supper
Our supper
Bed at a reasonable time!

Extras:
10 am meet DF PL for coffee at community shop
Weigh out I ingredients for Christmas cake
Mix everything together and add soaked dried fruit
Spoon into prepared cake tin and bake!
Start work on shoebox?
Banking- look at standing orders
Ring bank re query
Message MD about women's breakfast- can we meet at our community shop? ( dog friendly)
Message MD about Christmas lunch - 25 of us, send pictures of crackers so she knows colour scheme. Can we have fairy lights round the font?
Feed pots on patio (weather permitting!)
Healthspan order
Clinique order
Animed order (dried food Jude, wet food Freddie. Anything else?)

[trissie]

Happy Friday!

I hope everybody had a good Thanksgiving, or at least a good Thursday if you don't observe Thanksgiving or your date for it is different
We don't observe it, so it was just a Thursday with all of its Thursday madness, and today is Friday, with its Friday business, and it's less than 4 weeks till Christmas and I am trying to not freak out about it so I am concentrating in my mind on Festival of Northern Lights Friday instead of Freak Out Because Christmas is Coming Friday
Working from home, if I apply the butt glue dissolvent now, I can squeeze in at least 30 minutes of cleaning before I need to log in!

kittykatt, the Christmas preps are picking up speed, aren't they?

TaDas
- morning madness
- snacks for kids
- permission slip for DBD
- dressed to shoes
- kids and DH off the door
- started a load of wool

ToDos
- morning routine
- 30 on cleaning
- get started on work

Braindump
work
- SB materials
- BoD excerpts
- BoD tasks - record in excel
- BoD agenda for December
- final proofreading of A-guideline
- reply to RL re: draft D-affidavit?
- reply to T re: defitions
- save F&P testing paperwork already received
- mailbox work
- start working on IDD research
routines
- midday routine
- afternoon routine
- evening routine
food
- dinner
- bake something sweet
- freezer cooking
- make doughs for cookies
organization
- status update - warranty claim on vacuum cleaner
- call re: wrong printer cartridge delivered
- email to school
- call seller re: do they have power of attorney yet?
- house insurance status?
- rework contract with DS14's therapist
- review meds and order
- book order
- homework and backpacks
- DBD's speech therapy
- 15 on filing
cleaning
- mop kitchen
- clean living room
- clean office
- spiff up twins' room
- spiff up DBD's room
- spiff up DS13's room
- spiff up master bedroom
- spiff up master bathroom
- spiff up downstairs bathroom and hallways
laundry
- load of cleaning rags
- load of lights
- load of colors
- ironing
- folding
- mending
- laundry put away
me time
- 15 of exercise
- Bible study
- reading
House&Holidays - I kinda really should do something about it
- week 1 deep cleaning - office
- week 3 deep cleaning - DBD's room
- week 5 deep cleaning - DS14's room
- week 6 deep cleaning - twins' room
- week 7 deep cleaning - master bathroom
- week 9 deep cleaning - living bathroom
- week 10 deep cleaning - kitchen
- week 11 deep cleaning - pantry
- week 13 deep cleaning - storage spaces
- week 2 Christmas tasks
- week 3 Christmas tasks
- week 4 Christmas tasks
- week 5 Christmas tasks
- week 6 Christmas tasks
- week 7 Christmas tasks
- week 8 Christmas tasks
- week 9 Christmas tasks
- week 10 Christmas tasks
- week 11 Christmas tasks
- week 12 Christmas tasks
- week 13 Christmas tasks

[Kittykatt]

Trissie, you're right! This week I've gone from "There's loads of time," to "There's still a month," to "There's less than four weeks and you need to make the very most of quiet days and get "ahead " with the prep, so you don't fall behind and get frazzled when things really pick up socially!"

Yesterday was just a."normal" Thursday for us too, but by starting the Christmas cake I feel I've started the Christmas baking. I just need to follow through now and actually finish things!

[Smile*Lee]

Good morning!

trissie ~ thank you for the start and the Northern Lights Festival info/history. Many arboretums in the US have a Winter Lights display, possibly from hearing about the original.
kitty ~ more jello salads!
• lime jello, slivered carrots, diced celery, diced pineapple - my mom's
• pistachio jello, cool whip, pineapple, walnuts - famously know as "Green Stuff."
I gave up on jello salad a long time ago because of the dyes that were in jello. I've not looked in a long time to see if they've been removed.
There are lots of other variations that have been served at the extended family gatherings when I was a kid.

Had a great time yesterday. Didn't extend myself too much on the eating, but as always, more than I should've. But, it was delicious! Today, we're meeting with Gary's dbro & wife driving over from Ohio. We'll have a late lunch, chat, and then drive home later afternoon. Also going to run over to the family farm property that's in the process of being sold. G wants to see all the building progress that's going on.

Okies... gotta scoot! Have a good one!

[Kittykatt]

Thank you for the jello salad information, Smilelee! I hope you have a lovely lunch.

I weighed out the dry ingredients for the Christmas cake before met DF PL for coffee. When I got back home at midday, I mixed everything together, spooned the mixture into the tin, decorated the top with nuts, and it's now baking in the oven. It's going to take a long time to bake right through, so I'll take the timer with me when I go out in my garden after lunch. We've had a dry sunny morning, and although it's clouding over a bit now, I'm hoping it will still stay dry.

[Kittykatt]

Today's list:

Cuddles on the bed with Matilda, Jude and Freddie
QT
Physio exercises
Up, shower, personal care and dress
All cats fed
Take Freddie out? ( If he wants to go!)
Breakfast and meds /supplements -me
Rubbish down to bins
Go for my walk
Run hoover round downstairs?
Quick dust sitting room?
Garden time - can I feed pots? A little deadheading?
Lunch
Delicate /wool wash
Clean shoes
Polish bag
Fold laundry and PA
Clean sheets and towels out of the airing cupboard
Does DH have choir practice? Yes!
Cats' supper
Our supper
Bed at a reasonable time!

Extras:
10 am meet DF PL for coffee at community shop
Weigh out ingredients for Christmas cake
Mix everything together and add soaked dried fruit
Spoon into prepared cake tin and bake!
Start work on shoebox?
Banking- look at standing orders
Ring bank re query
Message MD about women's breakfast- can we meet at our community shop? ( dog friendly)
Message MD about Christmas lunch - 25 of us, send pictures of crackers so she knows colour scheme. Can we have fairy lights round the font?
Feed pots on patio (weather permitting!)
Healthspan order
Clinique order
Animed order (dried food Jude, wet food Freddie. Anything else?)
[/quote]

[helia]

Have a good day working from home and keeping up with everything else, trissie! I'll join you in the laundry room. That Festival in Ontario sounds amazing!
Sounds like you're having a lovely time with family, Smile!
Will you bake the fruit cake today, Kitty? --Oh, I see you're baking it now. How long will it bake?

We're almost done with our Thanksgiving hosting. Then, I can start thinking about Christmas in earnest. Our gifts lists/ spreadsheets need to be put up, but usually dd27 or J12yo does that. Also, RZ hasn't confirmed if he's staying with us or not yet. We can't do the shoe lists/ name draw until he does. It is confirmed that we are traveling to WA Dec. 29 - Jan. 2!! I can start by collecting my thoughts on gifts for myself; making a good list is helpful, with enough non-expensive ideas for those who aren't making oodles of money, like the girls and RZ and M.

We enjoyed our dinner last night! It was very good food -- and a lot of it. The Cs did not come but dropped off some food, which was very kind and generous of them. We had a lot of leftovers. We shared with M and dd27, who both left with 2 dinners worth of ribs and potatoes. Well, M didn't leave the house but went to her rooms downstairs. Dh and I froze 2 dinner portions of ribs for ourselves for the future. We put the rest in a leftover container in the fridge for dbro and dniece to eat today if they want.

Dd27 made really yummy GF dinner rolls; I couldn't even tell that they were GF! And she made a great pumpkin pie with some crust decorations. She made the crust as well; I might post a pic as it was very pretty! And tasty!

Dbro and dniece were up in the night and ate ALL the leftover mashed potatoes, half the pan of leftover brownies, and the cream cheese/ sausage mix that dbro made for the jalapeno poppers he made. We know because they left a trail of dishes and crumbs. That's kinda what it's like to host them. We cook/ bake a lot. They eat a lot. We clean up after them. Then, dbro sleeps. He basically was just sleeping or eating yesterday. It's almost funny - he got out of bed right before dinner, and then when we started clean up - and there was a lot to clean up - he announced that he and dniece were going to bed. It was classic timing. At 7:30 pm.

Today: It is 25F (-4C) right now. It's forecast to get up to 32F. Snow is supposed to start tomorrow afternoon and continue through mid-Sunday morning. It's been downgraded to 5 inches tomorrow and not sure about Sunday.I will not be shopping today. I will try to work on those items that have just sat on my brain dump list for months, like finishing washing Mom's clothes and working on Memorial thank you cards. We're going to a movie with dbro this afternoon. Not sure about dinner. We are not going to do a big cooking operation as we have done the last 2 nights. But - there are still dbro's jalapeno poppers, which are not lo-cal but maybe dh and I could share one. I'm thinking about putting out some green salads - we never ate the arugula salad that the Cs brought over because we had so much food - and slicing up the rest of the rotisserie chicken. There are also leftover sweet potatoes - at least there are right now; not sure what there will be by dinner time. A walk would be good too.

Next:
- some qt, while it's still quiet
- back exercises
- s2s and self care

Later:
- make the bed
- reclaim the kitchen
- make a list of Memorial thank yous
- progress writing the cards and prepping for the mail
- Mom's stuff load 6 w d f bag
- put away suitcase
- wrap niece's gift - the laughing farting unicorn; it could be for her birthday which is in 2 weeks
- lunch at some point
- movie with dh, dbro, and dniece - dbro wants to see "Rental Family"
- email reply to cousin J
- dinner: arugula salad, mixed veggie salad, any veggie leftovers, rotisserie chicken
- after dinner clean up
- duolingo
- update health apps
- reading for fun
- maybe - set up new magic puzzle
- maybe - get clean sheets on the bed
- maybe - give the main bathroom some attention; it's a bit dirty after dbro and dniece have been using it

TaDas!
- up; weighed self -- egads!
- coffee
- email deletions + weather website
- found and ordered pattern for baby bag to wear

WEEKLY ACTIVITIES
Fri Movie with dbro / dinner: out? Or salads and chicken?
Sat
Sun NO church bc of covid - also snow/ 6 host Sunday dinner?

Mon 1:30 - 3:30 payroll: teach AAS D4
Tue 10-12ish KS2J get together/ 5:20 payroll: phone call with director
Wed Critter Control 8-10 window/ 11-1 BD lunch for B/ 1:30 - 3:30 payroll: teach AAS D5
Thu 1-1:40 payroll: reporting on session conference/ 2-3 work out with trainer/ 6-9ish BFD holiday gala in big city with K, S2, and J (annual event put on by K's dh's job)
Fri 1:30 - 3:30 payroll: teach AAS D6
Sat 6-9ish payroll holiday party
Sun 3:30 - 6ish CG2? At B and L's place? / 6 - 8ish host Sunday dinner

November Brain Dumps
This Week - House
- clean sheets on bed

This Week - Deskwork
- make appointment with optometrist
- Memorial thank yous
- call pavers for driveway?
- reach out to JK
- email cousin J

This Week - Errands

General Brain Dump
- progress decluttering clothes - wip
- new phone eventually

Mom
- finish washing her clothes and blankets donation site -- Loads done: 5