HAPPY THANKSGIVING

 Yes it has been awhile since I posted.  No particular reason other than ennui.  Not much exciting is happening nor have I gotten much done.  

Husband had a tooth pulled 2 weeks ago and was given medication to avoid an infection – so last week we had to run to our doctor as he was allergic to the medication the dentist had given him.  Which of course meant that he spent last week taking meds to offset the allergy problems from the first med.  He is feeling better now.  

Bought our Thanksgiving turkey last week – a lot of turkey for 2 people!  Went out later in the week after I wrote a list, of course) to buy the other items needed for Thanksgiving dinner and fill in a few items we were low on in general.  

Now I have to clear out our dining room so we can have dinner there next week.  It is filled with our excess food storage due to still being concerned about Covid and its coming back now that it is getting fcold again and people will be inside more.  I will say this is always a problem since it is the least used room (other than general walking through to the rest of the house from the kitchen/den/basement and getting/storing excess food items in it) in the house.  

What are your Thanksgiving customs?    My husband and his family used to go out for Thanksgiving dinner, while my family ate same at home or at one pair of my grandparents.  It used to be “our holiday” - the one when we had both families come to us for dinner.  (This stopped as did most of our normal activities when we had bed bugs.)  Being of mixed religions we picked Thanksgiving to make as “our holiday to have everyone over” as it is the only one which both families celebrate.  


Thought of the week -
Do you have people in for Thanksgiving or other holidays or do you eat out?  Come on – someone must be reading this as I see the number of people who have done so rising all the time – answer me and let me who is out there!

No matter whether you do or don't, a Happy Thanksgiving next week.

MISSED ANOTHER POST LAST WEEK - SORRY, BUT SO OVERWHELMED ALL OF A SUDDEN

 My apologies for missing last week's post – seems to be happening more and more.  Amazing how staying home a lot more (almost all the time) results in not getting things done in the house.  Always thought if we stayed home more (instead of going out daily for lunch at Wendys and wasting time walking around in stores for no particular purpose other than for husband to get out of the house) I would get so much more done – ha ha!

I was caught up last week in preparing for Thanksgiving,  For about 30 years I made Thanksgiving dinner for our two families.  Then when we stopped having our families (or anyone else) in our house due to having had bedbugs (and not wanting to EVER have them again) I made  Thanksgiving dinner for the two of us for 8 years with no problems.  Last year and this year husband has helped me with dinner – which for some reason leads to problems making the meal and finishing it on time – and a much bigger mess in the kitchen.  

Never buy a turkey bigger than one's baking pan – go smaller, not larger.  Husband has a particular market chain (two locations in our greater area) that he likes to buy the turkey from as we can get a fresh turkey instead of frozen – less figuring out the logistics of turkey cooking if one does not have to deal with defrosting.  Normally they have several categories of turkey sizes – this year they had two – 12 lbs and 20 lbs.  I had checked my notebook of past holiday dinners and knew we should buy 14-26 lbs (and even that I a lot for 2 people) and suggested a 12 lb turkey.  “NO NO!  That will be all bones and not meat!” I was told.  Rather than get into an argument in the store – we bought a 20 lb turkey, though I knew it was too big to deal with.  Somehow it all worked out though the turkey stuck over the end of the pan and its weight collapsed the rack it was on.  His solution - “We need to buy a big roasting pan and not use your baking pan.”  Oven floor is a bit of a mess and needs a cleaning from the drips.

In addition over the past several weeks we have taken my mom to the doctor 3 times (with another trip tomorrow).  This is the doctor with the office I call “the office from hell” as nothing ever goes right on their end (yes, I would take her elsewhere, but my sister insists on this doctor, who is her husband's doctor).  Though these 3 visits the office was not overcrowded and we did see the staff person we were seeing in a very reasonable time instead of multiple hours of waiting we experienced before the pandemic.   We also visited our doctor twice – once for blood work (before Thanksgiving of course) and our annual checkup this past week.  

At the same time I have my usual 2 year end urgent projects to deal with. I have to take courses (online) to be able to prepare tax returns in 2022 and I also have to complete the paperwork for a senior partial exemption of our real estate taxes.  These courses have to be completed by December 31.  Real estate taxes here are rather higher than elsewhere as same is just about the only taxes collected for our township and our county and costs are high here.  In other counties in the state each township handles this exemption with a minimum of paperwork.  Our county handles the exemption paperwork and determination of exemption.  I usually end up dropping off the application in two stacks of paper as I cannot figure out how to attach it all together  - over 100 pages.  This paperwork has to be completed by and at the county assessor's office by January 2 – which means by December 31, especially since January 2, 2022 is on a Saturday.  We drop the exemption papers off in person as one year there was a great deal of confusion, in general, about whether or not exemption papers had been received from people, so basically these papers have to be filed, in person, before December 24.

I have finished in advance a good part of copying the items I need for the tax exemption and have only the proof of expenses and income for our 2 businesses (which each make next to nothing) to finish copying and then I have to assemble all of the papers and add my summaries to it.  So, I started working on taking the exams online.  I have 2 of them finished – 5 credits of 20 required.  

It suddenly dawned on me that I HAVE to get the exemption papers done much sooner than I was thinking – as I said before December 24 if we are going to drop them off in person – and I have to switch to getting same done and prepared to start finishing it up do so today – but a new situation popped up.  I had to write and email out the newsletter/meeting notice for my embroidery chapter – and that took preference – and all 3 versions of it are out (members, prospective members, region newsletter editors).  

I also have an unusually large load of laundry to get done – normally one load of general clothes, this week 2 loads, plus a load of jeans.  Not sure why so many clothes – we did not dress any differently than we normally do or for more days.  

But yet – I have stopped to make sure I do not go 2 weeks before posting to all of you.  

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

When overwhelmed – stop, step back, figure the order things have to be done by and pick the one with the closest deadline.  

WHAT A DIFFERENCE HALF AN HOUR OF CLEARING THINGS UP CAN DO

 I have probably mentioned that my husband and I are crafts artists.  One of the reasons we bought this house is that there is a family room off of the kitchen through a large squared off arch. I could cook dinner while working in our “studio” and we could (back then) turn the kitchen TV around to watch it from the studio.  Of course like every other room in a house it becomes a mess and needs organizing – again.

Early last year I had been working on clearing it up – and then Covid-19 hit.  I stopped working on the room.  I ended up bringing my sewing machine into the kitchen to sew our masks – and of course the patterns and fabric for it were dropped on top of paper cutter on one end of a storage dresser near the entrance to the room.  It had already had my various embroidered and sewn items from when I lived with my parents tossed onto my worktable – along with projects in progress.  

When the room is maintained it serves its purpose well.  We can easily get to supplies, tools, books, magazines and storage. But when it is not maintained – well, you know that how it is.  

We were doing okay with the room basically usable and then this past Thanksgiving was approaching.  I wanted – no, needed to have Thanksgiving in the dinner as normal. In addition to wanting to make it as normal (and as nice) as possible, we need our kitchen table clear to be able carve the turkey, put things we will need for dinner and so on.  But when last May we had ordered food delivered we had no place in our small house to store the canned, bottled, jarred and packages of food in the quantity we had purchased it. Our dining room table was covered over with towels and the canned, bottled and jarred items were put on the table.  Food in packages was put into very large plastic containers on the floor and smaller ones on the table. There was no way we could have Thanksgiving dinner in the dining room as it was – but where to move it all – especially the items on the table?  

Of course, they could go on my work table in the studio - if was cleared off of course.  So I did a quick job of clearing items off of work table – some, such as husband's sewing machine, were pushed onto his worktable, others stacked on the chair I use at the table and items put on the floor.  My work table chair area backs to a wall with with some storage, so there was not a lot of room there.

This all worked okay for Thanksgiving… - for Christmas husband's weaving items including loom were added to what was stored in the studio - and Christmas…  and New Year's, but it has become a giant mess in the studio.  When doing some household sewing I had to lean over a good deal of the mess to get out a different color of thread – and managed to drop the holder on which all (well, mostly) the started spools are stored onto the floor – behind the mess.  Luckily I could read a spool of light gray and since it was a work item I was making, that was close enough to the light blue I needed.  

But this cannot go on.  It is one thing not to be able to use my work table, but not to be able reach and find the items I need is not alright.  But like everyone else I look and sigh and think  - oh my!

A couple of weeks ago I went to work on a laundry basket in our studio. It held various toys and other items husband's niece used to play with when she would come here one day a week for us to watch for her mom.  This is back when she was maybe 4 plus or minus – she is 19 now, she will not be playing these items again.  I went through the basket and sorted it out.  I threw out items which were, well, actually garbage even though she played with them - no, we did not give her garbage, but children, well they find items to play with which are not toys – for example, the first time she came for us to watch her it was just after my husband's birthday.  He had received a HUGE birthday card.  She loved it and carried and carried it around the house and drew on it – garbage – out it went. Some items are things we want to keep – such as toy train set of my husband's which she had appropriated, some stuffed bears and such.  They were put upstairs in “the teddys” room to find a permanent home.  The other items, mostly stuffed toys are not something we want and are not garbage.  They have been set aside so that when the corona virus is under control they can be donated as they are in excellent condition.  The laundry basket was washed and dried and put in the basement as a spare, well, laundry basket.  

This week I went to work on one corner of the room.  This corner has a bookcase with our needlework and sewing books, some related magazines, and the bottom shelf holds the cookbooks I kept after a purge of cookbooks about a decade ago (and no new ones added since),  It also has loose shelves – wire ones that husband uses to dry woven items on after he finishes them and wooden boards we use as shelves at craft shows.  Also stored on the floor here are a few plastic bags with framed cut paper pictures that my husband made and exhibits – though no exhibits in a few years.  There is room for all of this in this area while still allowing access to the book shelves.  But of course, until the area was cleared out of unrelated items which had been dropped there – the books shelves have not been easily accessible in years – the books and magazines which had been pulled out had been stacked on a Ellison cutting machine – so, of course the Ellison was not that easy to use as it could not be accessed.  Once the book shelf area was cleared out – the books and magazines were put away where they belonged.  The paper cutter mentioned before had also been moved to this pile (on the opposite end of the same dresser) to put our studio Christmas tree. It was put back where it belongs.  

In doing this I found a package of paper towels near my work table.  A mystery solved.  In January husband saw me replacing a used up roll of paper towels and asked how many more rolls we had (remember he thinks we use about 10 times more of everything we use) and I told him that we had at least 2 more rolls in both size sheets we have.  To me this means “we have plenty” to him this means “we are about to run out of paper towels any minute now”.  I reminded him that we had also bought a new package of paper towels, but of course could not find it when he asked where it was. So we bought a new package of paper towels – not the brand we like as it was out of stock – when we went out to pick up prescriptions.  As I cleared these items out of the studio I found the package of paper towels I knew we had bought under some of the mess and of course showed it to husband to show that I was right.  Both packages of paper towels are now in the basement in the area where we keep replacement paper goods.  

I plan on continuing working on getting the area around my work table cleared out so even if I cannot actually work there for now due it being a food storage area, I can at least get to and use the various supplies stored next to it in the corner of the room and under it without any problems.  

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

It is amazing how moving something for temporary storage can cause problems that seem huge.  In less than half an hour  of work last night, I now can access my bookshelves and books, can use our Ellison machine and our paper cutter, and made a big dent in the clearing away of items temporarily stored  and blocking access to supplies and tools.   A HALF AN HOUR!  That was all it took.  Can't wait to see what the next half an hour of clearing away stuff manages to organize and clean up.  

CARS, MAIL, HOLIDAY DECORATING, AND YET MORE TURKEY

 Well, we have had leftovers from Thanksgiving twice again this week – did have to add some side dishes and we are almost out of turkey gravy – he doesn't like the jarred gravy, only the canned and we have one jar left and one package mix.  What is left at this point will likely be used in a soup or a turkey pot pie.  Last week I asked husband what we should we make for Christmas Eve and for Christmas Day dinners – I suggested ham.  (I know he does not like home cooked roast beef.)  Nooo, he wants turkey – again.  

I have set up some of the Christmas decorations in the kitchen, dining room and hall after storing my (much fewer) Thanksgiving decorations.  Husband has finished his weaving project and we stored his big loom folded up in our studio.  I still have some small items to put away and have not figured out what I will do with his (heavy, wooden) gate leg table.  I am working on ideas.  

We were planning to go food shopping next week, but due to rising number of corona virus cases and fear of people clearing the food store shelves, refrigerators and freezers again we have moved up the shopping trip to tomorrow.  I inventoried the food in the freezers and fridge, as well as canned, bottled, jarred and packaged foods.  I entered the counts in a computer spreadsheet.  Tonight we sat down and went through the list – we change the number of items we have of each item to how many we should buy and deleted the items we are not buying – whether because we have plenty or do not want the item again.  I then printed out the list to use while shopping.  

We discussed the idea of splitting the shopping into 2 trips into the store (my idea).  We end up with a huge number of items when we shop these days (as we try not to shop more often than monthly and have made a month and a half between trips sometimes) and it  hard to deal with all of it in the shopping cart and then ringing it up (we prefer self checkout even before Covid-19) and bagging it and getting all the bags into the cart.  My suggestion was that we go through the store and buy all the items which are not refrigerated or frozen, then ring it up and bag up and take it out to the car.  We will then go back into the store and buy the remaining item and repeat the process.  While it may take a little longer, it will be easier to deal with ringing up and bagging the items this way.

Tonight we made a trip to the gas station (less people, if any, around late night) and filled our van's tank as well as two gas cans for our snow-blower.  There has been talk on and off of snow coming and we figure we would be rather be ready and not need it, then not be ready. When we got into our van and husband started it and released the parking brake – the brake light did not go off and the brake pedal was at the bottom.  Earlier in the year our mechanic told us we are not driving the van enough and for the brakes, as well as the engine, it needs to be driven more.   We used it as we needed it for the gas cans, but no one was around and husband drove very slowly and carefully.  

The main reason we out tonight is to post outgoing mail – yes, we normally do that on Sunday nights.  We have an Etsy site of some of our craft items.  We have most of the inventory not listed now as we don't want to have to go to the Post Office to ship items out.  We left listed items which are mailed with regular postage in a regular manila envelope as they can be dropped in the outgoing mail box and downloads.  After all this time since the pandemic and stay at home started, we sold our first item of the year and had to mail it out to the customer.  (We did also have one download this year.)  So as long as we had to go to mail same, I paid the bills for the week and we mailed them out also – unless something comes up we won't have to go out Sunday night to post mail.

With all of this excitement I did not get a chance to post until rather late – around 2 am on what is actually Thursday not Wednesday night, hence the shortness of this post.  

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

As we head into the holidays, please continue to be careful – wear a mask, avoid crowds and so on as we wait for vaccines to be made available.  It is more important that we all are still here when we can again live life normally.  Take advantage of the time you are stuck in the house to go through various items and see what you can get rid of.  Straighten up a small area  - and then another.  Use the time you are stuck in the house to get some decluttering and organizing done.  One step at a time is all takes.  

For those who like me celebrate it – A happy Chanukah – may your candles shine brightly.

THANKSGIVING IN A YEAR WHICH IS NOT NORMAL

 First, a big OOOPS – and an apology.  For the first time since I started this blog in October 2015, I missed posting last week.  I may have otherwise posted a day (maybe 2 days once) late, I have not missed any other full week.  Even worse, I did not realize that I did so.  I was starting to write this post and since it about Thanksgiving last week, I looked to see what I posted about our holiday last week – and there was no post for last week.

I have mentioned before that husband and I used to have both our families for Thanksgiving dinner from 1984 through 2008.  I have probably mentioned that since we are of different religions Thanksgiving was the only family type holiday that both families wanted us to come to them for dinner.  (Meaning his family for Christmas, mine for Chanukah, his family for Easter, mine for Passover – plus mine for other Jewish holidays which are big family meal occasions.)  The first several years we generally ended up with husband's family for Thanksgiving.  

But in 1984 we decided to try something different – both families would come to us for dinner.  My husband thought the idea was crazy.  We lived in a small 3 room apartment and between the 2 families (including grandparents)  and us there were  about a dozen people (his sister and brother in law were on their honeymoon).  I had thought it all out.  His parents had 2 large folding tables – we could set up the 2 tables as one running the length of the living room.   My good china, glasses, silverplateware served 14.  (The china pattern was discontinued after we started buying it and we bought 2 extra settings in case anything broke.)  It could work if we borrowed some extra folding chairs in addition to the tables.

But the menu?  Surveys taken in the U.S. of what people have for Thanksgiving dinner all sounded the same - “turkey and all the fixings” until people were pressed in later surveys about which “fixings” they have.  It was then discovered that while turkey was generally a given (short of vegetarians or such) the side dishes varied greatly by the part of the country people were from, as well as their ethnic backgrounds – some even had chicken instead of turkey.  While my in-laws had been going out for Thanksgiving dinner for a number of years, when they had the dinner at home of course there was a macaroni with tomato sauce course and Italian pastries for dinner.  My family when Thanksgiving was at home would have chicken soup and then turkey, vegetables, mashed potatoes, stuffing, pies... My family though, for some time had been going out to a kosher deli for Thanksgiving dinner as an aunt was kosher.  Since mom would make a turkey for dinner (with lots of leftovers for other meals) a couple of times a year, when confronted with dinner in a kosher deli – my sisters and I went for corned beef sandwiches as we did not get them as often as turkey.  So compromise was needed in the dinner menu.  We settled on a traditional menu – turkey, corn, green beans, stuffing – I think the first year was the year I tried to make my own stuffing which included chestnuts which I had never cooked before – mashed potatoes, and I baked pies for dessert.  Somehow it all worked and worked well, so we continued making the Thanksgiving dinner.  We moved into our house during October – finishing up October 31 and still made Thanksgiving dinner in our newly bought house.  There were adjustments – dining room would not hold the two long tables end to end or next to each other, so we built a setup of plywood which clamped to our old kitchen table (which was in the dining room as it was too large for our small kitchen) to make a large, square table.  (Eventually we bought a dining room table which fit 14 if we squeezed in.)  Nieces and a nephew joined our number along the way.  Once or twice husband's best friend from high school joined us.  Husband's sister's mother-in-law joined us.

The annual dinner came to an end the year we had bed bugs.  Of course that year we could not have anyone as the house had been recently treated for the bugs and was in disarray (real disarray – sofa cushions and such all over the floor clothing, towels and fabric out – all due to the treatment) and we did not have the families in for Thanksgiving and we went to an inexpensive restaurant for our dinner.  Since then we have not felt comfortable having people in the house as we cannot deal with having bedbugs ever again and terrified of getting them.  After a few years of going out for Thanksgiving dinner, we started cooking dinner for ourselves.  

This year was a challenge.  Our dining room table was covered with the excess canned, bottled, jarred, and packaged foods we have due to the pandemic.  Husband suggested we eat at the kitchen table this year.  I pointed out to him (and after the holiday he agreed) that we needed the kitchen table for carving, filling bowls, storing items waiting to be used as we have very little counters pace and only 1/3 of it (about 30 inches long) would be available to use.

So I had to clear off my work table in our studio (dining room is on one of the kitchen – studio on the other side) and move all the food there.  Two evenings work – but everything was going well.  I even managed to put out my Thanksgiving decorations (not all of them are bears) including paper ones my niece made for me decades ago (she is 30 now).  

By now the setup is repetitive – I know which bowls and platters I will use for serving which food.  I know I need to add one board to our dining room so it is large enough to hold the bowls and platters.  I baked the pies the night before.  I got up early (well, for us) on Thanksgiving and took the turkey out of the refrigerator and turned on the oven to preheat.  Back to sleep for an hour and then down again to put the turkey in the oven and then back to bed again.  Everything was going according to plan – as it always does.  Each item being cooked at the time it needed to be – or so I thought.  

The turkey had come out and cooled off.  We were almost ready to eat.  Husband asked me where the mashed potatoes were – uh oh!  Normally I make mashed potatoes from scratch and use boxed stuffing mix.  This year as we are avoiding buying fresh produce due to the corona virus and not wanting to get items which were unwrapped when purchased and had been touched by others we had decided to go with instant mashed potatoes.  Well, at least they and the boxed stuffing were quick to make when we realized I had not made them – and while we were waiting for the water for each to boil – husband noticed that we had not heated up the (canned) gravy.  Yes, there is a reason I was so disorganized this year – actually 2 reasons – I had not bothered to periodically check my list of what I was making.  (I keep the list each year for each holiday dinner I make in a spiral notebook – I filled it front to back and am now using it back to front – the list was there, I just did not look.) The other reason – while this year husband is bored from staying in so that we don't get Covid-19 and decided to help. In telling him what I needed him to do, I lost track of what I was doing.  

Of course it was a great meal anyway.  So far we have leftovers for dinner 3 times and he had a turkey sandwich once.  2 people, one turkey is a lot of leftovers including turkey broth made with the carcass late Thanksgiving dinner.  

Every item used was washed that night & air dried in 3 groupings, some help with drying on the first 2 groupings.  The dining room was back to its prior state by the next day.  The good china, etc, was put away by then also.  

I have spent the week since clearing up what was around in the dining room before we started – reenacting items not stored in their box benches, stuff from my family house sitting on extra chairs as we did not know where to put it.  Small amount of stuff to go back out to our RV as we brought them to use them in the house in the past year.  Excess pans and racks which had been removed from the oven over the past year.  Dented food cans that husband still not will get rid of and we want to keep away from the ones in the studio that are okay to use are in a line under one of the box benches in the dining room.  3 large boxes of food still in dining room – I will try to move them to the studio, but need to move things from the living room there first or we will not be able to put the tree and other decorations in the living room.  If worse comes to worse, the food boxes can stay in the dining room (perhaps a table cloth over them?)  Yes, the dining room is back in better organization than it was before the holiday so that I can decorate it for Christmas.  

Next I start on the living room.  Husband has until the middle of December to use it as his “loom room” for his weaving (our agreement is he gets it from mid January to mid December as his loom room and I get the other month for Christmas decorating), but I can get started moving out his inventory and the large DVD chest (latter stores in the dining room for the holiday against the side wall and he made it on wheels so it is relatively easy to move) in the interim.  Since last year we did not get around to decorating in the house – I know if we don't this year, we may never do so again.  

Outdoor lights went up the day after Thanksgiving.  We found ourselves short 4 strands of lights  - they had expired last year or in the interim – one set only half the bulbs lit.  We did not want to the store (as we go out rarely these months for health safety) so decided to work with what we had.  Our the trees on each end each have only 2 strands not 3, the bush next to one tree has only the lights from that tree traveling over its top on its way to the electric outlet.  On the other end – we normally wrap red lights (with white wires) around the white post of our mail box – this year instead those lights are on the bush in front of the mail box.  On the other side of the front steps (back towards that first tree) are the remaining set of lights.  Not bad considering.  Our door wreath lights with batteries and is up on its magnetic hook (left from last year) and is lit up.  The battery candle lights are in the front windows on their timers.  

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

This year we need the holidays – whichever holiday or holidays one celebrates this time of year – more than ever to try to spark some joy (and a bit of almost normalcy) in our lives.  If one can not put up/set up everything one normally does, we must do our best with what we can setup.  It is a year like no other in the memory of most of us.  We must try to do what we can to make our holidays as normal as we can while staying distant and safe so we will be here for next year's holidays and celebrations.  

NOTE -

When I went to publish this post – I found  I had written a post last week – but since it duplicates part of this weeks post – I have deleted it. 

COVID 19 #26 - PLAN NOW FOR THANKSGIVING APART FOR THIS YEAR

 Well, Thanksgiving is coming (in the U.S.A.) in 2 weeks.   Yes, family is important, but family staying well and alive is more important.  Please don't have (or go to) a big family gathering this year.  Have a dinner with those in your household.  

How about a long distance (or short distance if family lives nearby) extended family celebration on Zoom– perhaps even set up a monitor (yes, this would be exception to the “no TV, no computers,no phones at Thanksgiving dinner rule)  where everyone having dinner at your house can see the screen and have your extended family members do the same.  Make an agreement for what time to have dinner which works for everyone – then all can share dinner across the Internet and still be safe.  

Have Aunt Mary send a copy of her secret recipe for her pumpkin pie (will you find out that she uses the one on the can of canned pumpkin?).  Have Cousin Susie her recipe for the stuffing and so on.  Everyone can make the dishes for their family (or not as they choose – perhaps Uncle Dave adds a bit too much “fun” in his rum cake?).  If everyone has the same foods it will seem like everyone is eating together.  Or, just let everyone make the dinner they want – perhaps next year your sister-in-law's vegetable soup (a dish I always make for Thanksgiving) will be the new family favorite that no one has had before, but when she made it for the dinner she and your brother had with their children – it looked soooo good and her children asked for more – yes, more vegetables  - and then you will all asking her for the recipe.  

The holiday is something which can be celebrated across the miles -  or across the street – so that all stay safe and well.  I am sure that you all would prefer for grandpa Jack to be with you at future Thanksgiving dinners than this be his last one due to his catching Covid-19 from someone at the dinner.  

My husband and I used to have both families at our home for Thanksgiving dinner – it was “our” holiday.  10 years ago we had bed bugs – we have not have family join us for the holiday since.  I still cook the same foods for the two of us – just a bit less than I made for the families.  I set up the dining room with the “good” china and silverware.  I use smaller serving bowls than before, but we have a nice holiday.  We do this annually now – and I only suggesting your family and friends have this one Thanksgiving apart – so that hopefully you will all be alive and well for next Thanksgiving to be together again.  

I am writing this column now – 2 weeks before the holiday so that you have time to plan with your extended family to have your holiday apart, while still joining together in some way over the distance so all will survive the corona virus and are here to be there for next year.  

Me, I have to figure out what to do with the all the extra canned goods, bottle, jars, and packages which are currently residing on my dining room table – taking up the entire table plus there are 3 huge plastic boxes of foods,which might attract vermin if it was just out, stacked next to the table.   I figure I have to clear up my studio worktable and move the food from the dining room table onto it.  (This will also allow me to decorate the dining room for Christmas afterward which I never had a chance to do last year.)  Husband has said to have the dinner in the kitchen,but I know from the past we need the kitchen table for related things – such as carving the turkey.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

For the Jewish holiday of Passover one of the prayers is “Next year, may we all be in Jerusalem” - for Thanksgiving let us all stay apart and safe and say “Next next Thanksgiving may we all be at Aunt Anne's” (or wherever you normally celebrate Thanksgiving) and survive this pandemic to do so.  

A little planning is all that is needed.

Let us also remember on this Veteran's Day all of those brave people who have fought to protect their country in the various wars which threatened our country as well as, including those in other countries who share the memory of Armistice Day when World War I (the Great War) had it truce.  If not for them we would not be living in the world we have now (meaning of course the good things of our world.)  Tell a veteran (or two) that you appreciate their service.

SORRY FOR LACK OF POST OF THIS WEEK

I am so behind this week – mom has needed some additional doctor appointments plus making Thanksgiving dinner for husband and myself– that I do not have a post for this week. My apologies and I assure you that next week I will be back with a regular post.

For those of you in the US – I hope that you have had a good Thanksgiving.

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK –

Things happen and must be dealt with – we deal with them as we need to.

STILL TOO MUCH NEEDING TO BE DONE

That was a short week!  We have taken mom to two doctors in the past week.  One was a happy checkup with the doctor who replaced her pacemaker.  The other was a not as happy appointment with the doctor who did cancer surgery on her.  There is still some cancer and we have to take her to an oncologist.  Treatment recommendation by this doctor was based on mom's age – 90 – and the fact that it is a slow growing cancer.  I should mention after complaining about another doctor's office, both of these were great with helpful staff and no hours of waiting.  We still have to take her back to the doctor about her leg scan (the one with the awful office/staff setup) and then there are about another 4 doctors she needs to go to.

In between these appointments I have been trying to get our senior real estate tax exemption worked on and I should have all or almost all of the paperwork I need.  I will have to check each section's numbers against the paperwork for it and we have to copy all of it and I do so with a page that has our names, the section, block, and lot number of the property and the year the papers apply to written at the top (with the computer).  This page is put behind the items I copy as I do so that so that the finished copy will have this info at the top in case any pages get separate from the others – I am glad I have a heavy duty stapler that staples thick stacks of papers as there will a lot of papers.  I have already done our 1099s & similar and our medical expenses.  I have to mostly deal with our businesses expenses – I will do the joint expenses first (car expenses and some other ones have to be split between our two businesses and also from personal use), then husband's business as it is easier and finally my business. This has to be there before the end of December and I figure the earlier the better.  I was getting all this done quickly and early when I found out that they had added need for proof of business income and expenses. 

I also have to renew my permissions to prepare tax returns from Federal and state governments.  Federal mailed in already and I did the state application online – the only way it can be done.  I still need to finish the required tests for the Federal paperwork.  One test for 1 credit done, 19 more credits to go.  It will be done – it only one test for 6 credits that always concerns me as it has a time limit. 

I have still been heating the paperwork from my family home in small groupings in our PackTite heater (for bedbugs).  I found out that among the papers my sister gave me is my parents income taxes – back to the 1950s as well as the papers related to the purchase of the house back in 1958-9 and my dad's release from the military paperwork.  I commented to husband that I know their old taxes are no longer needed and I should just check through them and shred them – but – dad always told me that one keeps copies of client's taxes as long as they are clients and then at least another 3 years, so by that logic I should keep them.  I have discussed it with husband and will scan them into the computer and shred the originals. 

I got behind with the laundry last week – it was done, but not all was folded or put away, so I had to do same tonight before I started this week's laundry – first load is in washing now, when the ringer in cell phone goes off, I will go down and switch to dryer and put in another load to wash.  Just happened – will be right back – feel free to talk among yourselves until I do.

Back again. 

As I have mentioned in the past year, I have been having a problem keeping track of papers – something I have never had before.  In October our reenactment unit had an event.  I know and remember that the unit commander (club president) had asked me if I had brought the checkbook – which I didn't as it is safer to keep it home. Since he did, I assumed that he had given me a bill for something for the unit to reimburse him for.  ¾ of the way through the day it had started raining and we along with most members had brought their stuff inside our headquarters building and then at the end of the day I had brought our van back to the area where we had been setup and we packed it quickly to avoid getting things wet.  Two days later I started looking for the bill that I had to reimburse the commander for.  I could not find them.  We did not actually bring the stuff in from the van until the end of that week.  I went through everything again and climbed under the seats in the van looking for the bill.  Husband than threw another thought at me – at an event the unit did in September the place wrote the check payable to the commander personally instead of to the unit – and husband said that what I was remembering was probably the commander giving me his check as we had told him to deposit the check and then write the unit a check.  So was I missing the bill to pay him for?  The check he gave me for the that event?  Both?  A week in I had written him an email explaining and apologizing and asking him to let me know how much the unit owed him.  (I did not mention the check he owed the unit.)  He did not get back to me.  I have been “sick” with the idea that I lost a bill to pay, as well as maybe the check he wrote to the unit.  I brought the checkbook to the meeting this past Monday to settle up.  Whew! Nothing was lost.  He had asked me about the checkbook in reference to another matter that did not materialize and he told me that not only does the unit not owe him money, but he owes us the money from the check that he deposited.  It was a wonderful relief to know that I had not been careless and lost neither bill nor check. 

I have to complement and thank my husband.  He has been insisting on helping me with my mom and the doctors.  My mom is well, a 90 year old opinionated woman who does not hear well.  (One of the doctors we still have to go to is for hearing aids – but the other doctors are more urgent).  He has been wonderful with her.  One advantage to having him along is that he speaks “medical” and can talk to the doctors on a different level than mom or I can.  (He was the head of a mental health agency and had doctors working under him.)  He understands what the doctors are saying better than either of us and knows when and how to ask questions.  Part of why he comes is I helped with his mother when she needed same (although his sister handled the medical and I handled the financial), especially since he butted heads a lot with his sister and mother over how things should be handled, so I sort of ran interference by going while he was at work to help her.  Part of it is he does not like being home alone.  Part of it is that he know he can help a lot. 

We still have not really done any planning for (American) Thanksgiving.  Since he has become lactose intolerant (or so it seems) since last year, two of his favorite dishes may not be made for him, especially since I like neither – pumpkin pie and Colonial Williamsburg Sweet Potatoes (no marshmallows, of course).  The former uses evaporated milk and the later uses regular milk –  1/3 of ¼ cup of same (original recipe for 3 lbs sweet potatoes, I make him 1 pound).  We will see.  We are debating if I should make the vegetable soup that I used to make for the family for Thanksgiving dinner – I figured out how to cut it down and make ¼ of the amount of soup I used to make or even 1/8 of same, but it is one that we like and gets better reheated.  (I would make the entire recipe and reheat over the winter, but it has potatoes in it and they do not do well with being frozen, so I need to cut it down to what we can manage to eat without needing to being frozen to keep long enough.)  The alternative is to make a different Pennsylvania Dutch soup called Chicken corn soup.  We will see which he prefers.  Our normal menu was the Vegetable soup (cooked on the day before Thanksgiving as it takes a while to cook), turkey of course, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, the sweet potatoes, and gravy.  I did not cook the turkey as husband liked it better from a commercial oven – he says it is crisper.  When we started (I had never cooked a turkey) we found a local place that cooked turkeys with a hot pick up just about when we needed it – my sister and her family would stop and pick it up on the way here for us.  Three years ago we had run places to go to for Thanksgiving dinner for just the two of as we were no longer having family in for same, and I had to cook the turkey.  I did so and it was fine.  The following year I cooked it from the same place following their directions and it did not cook through, we ended up cutting off pieces and cooking them separately.  I figured out that the packaging had 2 different temperatures and I must have used the higher one first year and the lower one second year.  Last year I used the higher temperature and put the turkey in upside down and turned it over part way through and it was cooked through and I will remember to do so this year again.  In the old days there would have been the pumpkin pie and I would bake an apple pie and Venetians (rainbow cookies).  No need for so much dessert for the two of us, especially since neither of us should be having same at all.  

(And I will have to find time to post the night before while I am generally cooking.)

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

As it says in the “Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe” - DON'T PANIC!  Things seem to work out in the end.  We managed to get the appointments we needed to get right away for mom.  The real estate tax exemption will get done and in on time.  The exams will be taken on time.  Laundry will be caught up tonight.  The missing papers were not missing.  Thanksgiving dinner will get a menu and will be cooked. 

REPLACE THE REFRIGERATOR?

Well the ants were resolve as of last week.  I have been very careful - I wash the dishes, etc immediately after we eat, then dry them and put them away, then dry the drying rack, dishpan and sink.  So far, so good.  (Fingers crossed.)

The refrigerator is a different story.  I have spent weeks now watching the thermometer in it - it is a remote read so I don’t have to open the door.  I understand that there is some play in the temperature of the fridge and I sort of know how it works.  For food purposes it has to be kept at 40F or less and for insulin related reasons it has to be kept at 36 F or higher.  It can go as high as 46F, but since the food has a lower top limit, I basically have to keep the fridge (house or RV) between 36 and 40 F.  I try to keep both at 38F and between 37 and 39F to allow some play or in case the thermometer is off. 

I know how to adjust the temperature - turn the knob colder if the temperature is too high until the compressor just clicks on, it if too low then turn the knob just warmer so the compressor clicks off.  I am at good at this.  In the RV I have been known to jump to the back when we stop for gas to make a quick adjustment. 

Recently our house refrigerator has been acting wrong.  I look at the thermometer and it is 37F.  I leave it.  I look again maybe 10-15 minutes later and it is 40F.  It should not jump that much that fast or without seemingly hitting any temperatures between.  It is then hard to get the temperature back down to where it belongs.  I am not adding large amounts of food at all, let alone food that is not already cold.  I thought I was just missing the adjustments and started setting the timer in my mobile phone to go off every 15 or 20 minutes to remind me to check the timer.  Still missed the jumps.  Husband and I have been discussing what to do.  For what a repair would cost, it would not pay. 

So we have been looking refrigerators online and in stores.  Since we have a small house, we have a small kitchen and a relatively small fridge.  When we moved into this house 30 years ago we owned a refrigerator that we had used in our apartment and brought that with us.  Sending the one that came with the house (from the prior owners) to the garage (which did not have electricity) where its main use was to have our, then, Christmas tree stored on top of it.  One July 4th week we were away and came home and found that while we had been away the fridge had died.  As we threw out most of what was in the fridge, we thought to and tried to plug in the fridge in the garage - it no longer worked.  So we bought a new fridge. 

For our apartment we had bought a 15 cu ft refrigerator.  Due to confusion the company that we bought it from took about a week to deliver it to us - and they delivered an 18 cu ft one - with an ice maker and told us to keep both when I called that they were wrong.  (Apparently they kept mixing us up with another customer which led to them claiming that originally they tried to deliver and I was not home - I was home and on the phone, by coincidence, at that time.  We bought the fridge in 1982 for the apartment.  I know this as I was working on a piece of embroidery at the time, worked on it all work while stuck in our apartment waiting, and it is, yes, dated 1982.  I am not sure of when we bought the first one for this house or its size.

When we had our house treated for the bed bugs in 2009 we found afterwards that the refrigerator which we had replaced that one with was no longer working.  Since we found several individual bottles of water in the fridge and its freezer which were not ours, so apparently the bed bug crew had stashed their water bottles in our fridge (it was a major heat treatment) and had been opening the doors all day - so our fridge died. 

At that time we bought the fridge that is currently in our house.  It is 20.9 cu ft.  Like all of our other ones it is white and a top freezer.  I did not particularly like a number of things about it, but we were in a rush and bought it - it has served us well.

Monday night we decided that we had to replace it.  We both looked online and found that there seemed to be 3 possible replacements of about the same size.  Tuesday we went to a major house/hardware chain to look at what they had. None of the 3 excited me.  They had oddly arranged shelves (all were actually from different companies - not just the same company with different nameplates) and such.  Husband had heard about fridges which allow one to set an actual temperature and the fridge will keep that temperature - not the usual turn the dial a little this way or that and stick a thermometer in the fridge to check the temperature.  I found one that was “only” $300 more than what we were looking at - or to look at the extra price another way - it added the equivalent of 50% more of the price to the price.  This was something he REALLY wanted.  He had given me measurements at home before we went out and this one did not seem that much larger in size and we left it in consideration.

We then went to the other major house/hardware chain to see what they had.  Basically the same, but the model that we had seen and husband was interested in, was slightly different - or at least it’s number was. 

We have bought large appliances from both in the past and based on same decided that we wanted to buy from the first company, but decided to go a different store in the chain which was larger and “maybe” would have something different.

They did not.  So I made the decision.  As much as I would hate the fancier fridge - it was side by side and I was not even sure a turkey would fit on the tiny shelves and we had to take it in stainless as white add another 50% to the price, it made sense for the problem we have with keeping the temperature in such a small range.  We bought it.  To be delivered and set up on Friday.

We then went home and measured the front door - it was about an inch too small, but we figured that they could take the fridge doors off as there was a measurement without same and it would fit. 

One thing husband had read about is that the freezer in this type of fridge has a small “door” to the main compartment which opens and closes to take cold air into the freezer and it makes the main fridge section warmer.  We have a small freezer in the basement - from when we used to grow vegetables and I would actually shop at sales to buy food and would store the extra in this freezer.  Now it is mostly empty  - when I went to see what was in it - everything had a date to use by in 2016.  I tossed them out.  I then took all of the items in our fridge’s freezer downstairs to the freezer. Only things I left in the upstairs freezer are some of those liquid filled plastic things that one freezes and puts with food or meds to keep them cold in transit.  I then turned the fridge’s freezer temperature almost all the way to the warmest temperature.  (We would need to move the frozen food to same anyway as it takes a day for the new fridge/freezer to reach temperature.

Overnight the same thought came to each of us - the fridge also had to pass through 2 doorways in the house - and they were narrower.  Then husband went downstairs and laid out the measurements of the fridge we ordered - it was huge!  It would not only block part of the entry into the kitchen from the dining room, it would also block access the (only) light switches in the kitchen.  I measured the old fridge and came in about 3-4 inches smaller front to back then he had measured.  We went back to the store and canceled the order. 

Now what to do?  Well, the fridge had been working okay since yesterday (Tuesday).  Maybe it would keep working - at least until we return from a trip next week.  The sale on the various refrigerators continues to July 10, so we could still get the price when we came back.  We looked at the 3 fridges in the right size and decided which one we would get - but we figured we would buy it after we returned from our trip.

Husband decided he wanted a chicken pie we had in the freezer.  I went down and took it out.  Temperature in the fridge was 37F - great!  I put the pie in to cook and was playing games on my cell phone.  I wanted a glass of soda - in taking out the bottle that was there, I notice we would need more and added a bottle - a room temperature bottle - to the fridge.  When I looked up again the temperature was 45F??!!!  By now we have several thermometers sitting in the fridge - the one we normally use seems to always be the odd one out.  In this case the others all showed the temperature to be 40F - could it be a thermometer problem?  We have spare of the remote read and I set that up and took the first one out - same problem.  Even with the temperature set to the coldest setting  - it was not getting colder, the compressor did not seem to be on.  We unplugged the fridge and then plugged it in again (it seemed to help twice before since the weekend).  No effect. 

Extremely s l o w l y the temperature dropped.  After dinner, we went out and ordered the fridge that we had decided to order next week. I don’t love it - but hopefully it will work and it is better than the huge side by side husband wanted - and it should fit through all the doors it needs to.  It is suppose to be here Friday. 

Now for logistics -

We have an automatic ice maker to old fridge - as we had one before, we had bought it again.  We are not getting one for our new fridge - we rarely use ice and end up tossing out the shrunken cubes that are in the freezer.  We can do it “the old fashioned way” and have frozen trays of ice in the freezer.  But we have to shut off the water to the fridge and get rid of the water in the line.  Husband found it and turned it closed as far it as it went.  I threw out the shrunken, dried cubes in the ice bucket and turned the ice maker on to use the rest of the water in the line up.  We either have much more water in the line than we thought, the ice maker uses much less water than we figure - or the water is not actually off and has a leak in the tap as we keep getting more ice cubes - right now they are just shells of ice, but they keep coming.  Just heard more drop.  We bought a “cap” for the end of the water line - just in case the water is not and cannot be shut off completely. 

Freezer, as mentioned, is basically empty.

That leaves our fridge section.  There is an open package of American cheese slices, an open package of cream cheese, 2 hot dogs, and 6 eggs in it. I have 2 of husband’s insulin pens in it.  If we cannot keep them below 46F, I am not going to worry about it as they will need to be used within 42 days - and they are 20 days worth, plus husband is in the middle of pen - so they should be used up long before the 42 days.  The rest of what is in there does not really need to be in a fridge “to keep” - soda, sealed bottles of ice tea, condiments (no mayo), and similar.  Our RV is currently plugged in to charge the batteries (done twice a month, just happened to be doing it now) and we will turn on the fridge in the RV tomorrow and put the food from the fridge in it until we can move it to the new fridge.  (Hot dogs could just be frozen and put in the basement freezer.)

I soooooo hope that this is the last of the stupidity that has been going on.  (Well, I do have to make a 3rd call to an insurance for our reenacting unit - so, still repeating chores over and over.)  I really cannot take any more!


THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

When one thinks that everything is resolved - something isn’t and will need to be dealt with and redone.

Oh, and things always break at the wrong time.

Oh, and when all these things are going on and one goes down to do laundry and pours water out of the dehumidifier all over the basement - the laundry can wait!

 

THANKSGIVING IS HERE AGAIN

For those of you in the U.S., Thanksgiving is tomorrow, at least as I write this (by the time you read this, it is probably today or yesterday for you).  Rather than retell the story of organizing for Thanksgiving past, I will post links to my prior Thanksgiving posts at the end of this post.

This year is rather worse than even most recent years.  Until this past Monday we were still debating - cook dinner or go to an Asian buffet (they do put out a turkey for carving - and each person carves their own serving). 
On Monday we bought our turkey.  It is from the same specialty supermarket that we bought from last year and the year before.  Due to our letter about our problem last year  with the turkey not being fully cooked (the breast was blood raw) after following their directions, they sent us a gift card for about 3 times the price of the turkey.  So this year’s turkey (and next year’s and part of the year after’s turkey) was free.  Due to the warnings this year about problems with turkeys and salmonella, I was concerned about putting the turkey - even though it is still in its packaging - on the right hand top shelf of our refrigerator, the only one tall enough to hold the turkey - even though it is lying down.  So I was going to put it on one of my platters - but then realized that they are pottery and might absorb any leaks and any salmonella in the leaks.  I thought and thought where I might have a large enough glass plate to hold it.  So it is sitting on a lovely large dessert serving plate that we received as a wedding gift.  (Yes, we have used it to serve dessert over the decades.)  That left 2 small corners at the front of the shelf to put anything on it.  Husband, a few weeks ago, had decided that the caffeinated diet soda he has at lunch made his shoulder/arm feel better.  So we have a started bottle of decaf soda and one of caffeinated soda in the fridge.  I put the decaf one on the right corner of the shelf.  I then went to put the caffeinated one on the left corner of the shelf - I had forgotten that one of the reasons I hate this fridge (even before we bought it, but it was the closest to what I wanted that we could find in the emergency situation of our old one - around 30 years old - dying) is that the light bulb is in the front of it - in the middle of the fridge and one cannot put anything tall there - so the soda bottle could not go there.  I managed to balance it - 3/4 of it on the center of the shelf and the front end sticking off.  I warned husband - so he would be careful not to knock it off the shelf  - and made him repeat to me what I said - so he cannot say I did not tell him.  Of course right after this, he stopped drinking soda and switched to ice tea, so I have been drinking the decaf soda to get rid of the extra bottle.  It is down enough that the bottle can lay on a lower shelf as there is so little soda left, it does not reach the neck of the bottle while it is lying down.

Yesterday (Tuesday) we went out shopping for the other things we need for the dinner.  Of course the stores (we went to 2 different supermarkets and a Walmart) were jammed and out of things.  I am annoyed that since we waited this long items - milk, stuffing, eggs and such - that I would normally buy in Walmart as they are cheaper there, had to bought at the supermarket and we probably blew at least $5 on the difference.  (I think I have said that I am cheap.)  We had to go out again today for items we did not find yesterday - another Walmart and a different supermarket.  I never did get the mixed (green) beans I wanted.  Somehow everything we picked is what he wanted, the mixed beans were what I wanted - plain green beans it is. 

I have not cleared out the dining room yet.  Nor have I cleared off the kitchen counters to have room to work.  I guess whatever is in the way in the dining room will be pushed to far end - hey, it’s only us, I would like it nicer, but between dealing with his shoulder and the RV winterizing mess (which will be continued next week) I am soooo behind in getting ready.  In reading my prior Thanksgiving posts (I found I already repeated myself at least once, and not repeating myself was why I read them) I was reminded that I have to go to the basement, move all the boxes of Christmas decorations in front of the very small closet that has our gas meter, a blanket cut in half for reenactments (in sealed plastic bags and rarely used kitchen stuff and get the platter for carving out and wash it.

I don’t know if you go shopping on Thanksgiving or Black Friday, we do not.  Never found anything worth getting.  I have to wonder if people buy new TVs every year as that always seems to be the big draw.  Then again, as I have mentioned, we do very little gift shopping, as well as little shopping for us.  For us if we are shopping something needs replacing or there is something very new (and not expensive) that husband has decided he needs.

Remember that what you buy has to be paid for and you don’t want to be in debt forever for something that is gone in a year or two or less.  Also - everything you buy has to be stored - either by you or the person you give it to - think about that when buying items for yourself or as a gift. For example husband decided last week to buy a chair at Ikea. It is a small kitchen table chair and it has a low back and is smaller than our regular chairs.  He had noticed the chairs at Wendys where we have lunch are more comfortable for his shoulder and arm - after jokes about maybe since we go there so office we can borrow/rent a chair from them, he decided to look in Ikea after dinner last week.  Now, we are the type of people who can shop for a package of hair pins for a week or two, but he sat in several chairs and then announced one was perfect (and “only $39") and we bought it and assembled it that night and he loves it. This left me with the chair he used before (and hopefully will again).  It is now in the dining room against the wall (we keep furniture against the wall in the colonial “room at rest” manner) - out of the way until we need it again and looks decorative.

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -

Those of you in the U.S. - have a nice Thanksgiving. 

All of you - think before you shop during the holidays (and in general) before overspending or buying unneeded items which will quickly be unwanted - by yourself or as gifts.  One of the movie theater chains we used to go to had a trailer to sell its gift cards for holiday gifts.  It has people receiving gifts that were not appropriate and of course those who received their gift cards were happy.  I will never forget one sequence - a man receives a sweater as a gift.  The sweater is huge - his arms are lost in the sleeves and the sweater covers him to below his knees and he is so sad and upset and shaking his head.  You don’t want to be the person who gives a gift like that!  (And no, I am not pushing movie gift cards.)

Prior Thanksgiving posts -
http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2015/11/thanksgiving-and-other-holidays.html
http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2016/11/
http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2017/11/semi-unorganized-thanksgiving.html

HALLOWEEN HERE - HOLIDAYS COMING

Well it is Halloween.  For the first time in many years (at least a couple of decades) we are home and not in Pennsylvania.  We normally go away for my birthday as I don’t like all the Halloween stuff being associated it with it - including not being able to go out for a nice dinner other than at an Asian restaurant - and while it is everywhere, there is a lot less in the area we go to and we can walk into local restaurants and not be served by a science experiment gone wrong covered in blood - ick.  Since husband’s shoulder still has not healed he could not drive anywhere near that far and he cannot ride when someone else drives, so here we are.

What surprised me the most was the total lack of trick or treaters.  Even when we were home for Halloween we had no trick or treaters until the woman next door to us had her son and his family - including his young daughter - move in and then she came by for a couple of years until they moved.  Then the house beyond that one had a new family move in - they had 3 children and we had the children and maybe a couple of their friends come by for maybe 3 years.  The street is 4 lanes, so the family that lived across the street never came here - too dangerous to cross the street.  We live on a main street with only these children on it in the past and since we did not know the families on the streets near us I figured that we did not have trick or treaters as they did not know us. 

But now there is a new family in the house on either side of us and I figured that they would come by.  They did not.  What surprised us even more is that when we driving home from running errands and lunch - around 3:30 pm (which is when I would have been out making the rounds as a child) and later when we went out to pick up Chinese takeout for dinner - we did not see one child (or adult) in costumes walking around. 

Later, after dinner, I read the regional newspaper (yes, I still read the “dead tree” newspaper) there was an article on how most of the neighborhoods no longer have trick or treaters going around.  Parents and schools have apparently decided (and rightly so) for safety in today’s world to have parties at the schools or what is called “trunk and treat” at the schools or other location rather than the children going around house to house.  This eliminates the danger of children out alone - and possibly in the dark - as well as what strangers might give the children.  In thinking about it I realized that I had not seen any of the usual - “Bring your candy to the hospital and we will X-ray it for you.” 

For those of you who might not know about trunk and treat - groups of families get together in parking lot  at a school, park, or shopping center.  The cars are decorated for the holiday and the trunk (or hatch) is open and the children go from car to car for their trick or treating and possibly other activities.  Parents know who the other participants are and the children have fun and are safe.  The first time I saw this was the Halloween 2 days after Superstorm Sandy.  There were few people out and about and we had gasoline shortages and major electric outages.  Sidewalks were not safe to walk on due to trees and limbs - and wires which had fallen down.  I thought this a great idea for the children. I did not know at the time that it was something being done otherwise than the storm. 

Have you noticed a lack of trick or treaters in your area in recent years - or is this area an anomaly?

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

If it is Halloween than the start of the end of the year holiday season is starting - if not already started.  As we head into the end of year holiday season, think.   Don’t overdo.   Think “less is more”.  Buy less items (oh, the retail industry will hate me) but think more about what you do buy.  I tend to be very conservative in gift giving and have pushed husband in that direction. 

His sister goes the opposite way and buys each of her two daughters, umm, I mean Santa brings each of her two daughters 64 gifts.  Huh?  Yes 64 gifts - and I don’t mean small ones.  Sister in law has some idea stuck in her head that she received same each year as a child - I knew her then, she did not - and feels she must do this for her daughters.  I have even seen her give duplicate gifts to them as she forgot she already bought the same or very similar gift the same year.  Their grandmother (on their dad’s side) goes into debt that she cannot afford to buy them even more.

As a result the girls do not value what they have received - or even remember what they have received.  The two girls are adopted from China.  When the older one was younger (she is a teenager now) we bought her an Asian faced Cabbage Patch Kid.  Her grandmother also did so.  A couple of years later she was at our house and I was playing with my Cabbage Patch Dolls with her. (No children, so dolls and bears are my substitute - when I play with the dolls with our nieces I am the nice aunt, if I play with them alone, I am “the crazy lady”.) Niece said to me “I wish I had a doll like these.”  I told her that she two of them - and she was shocked. They were “on the pile” at home and she did not remember them.

So as you start the season keep in mind that less can really be more.  Stay on your budget.  Buy items with meaning or is something that the person wants.  Don’t go overboard because other family members do. 

Watch what you spend on what I calling “buying garbage” - huh?  When you buy wrapping paper and ribbon it is basically buying something that will quickly be garbage and thrown out.  My rule for Christmas wrapping was $1 for 50 square feet for decades.  I will now spend $1 for 40 square feet as price adjustment over time.  I buy inexpensive curling ribbon and make long tendrils that I put on gifts - in expensive, one does not feel the need to “save the bows” and they don’t get crushed when traveling.  I have a ribbon shredder to use on the ribbon, which makes it look even nicer. Christmas cards are the same.  They are opened, maybe displayed and then thrown out. Shop wisely and one can get very nice cards inexpensively - and don’t forget the end of the season sales which seem these days to start right as the season starts.  Think about this - my sister had a friend whose father owned a small chain of upscale card and gift stores.  The girl’s gifts for my sister were always wrapped in Sunday color comics - never wrapping paper.

THANKSGIVING TURNING INTO CHRISTMAS

I hope you all had a pleasant Thanksgiving (if you are here in the U.S.) last week.  Did you run out to shop during the day or the night - or did you at least wait until “Black Friday” to shop?  Or are you waiting still to start shopping?
                               
We had our Thanksgiving dinner, the two of us.  I managed to bang my head - not once but twice - on the corner of the dining room table while putting away a table cover which should have been put away months and months ago - I bent over to put it in a bag and hit my head.  I really screamed.  Husband came in, “are you okay, and there, there’d” me and then gave me a lecture on making sure it was clear in front of me before bending over.  He went back to cooking in the kitchen and I took 2 steps back and bent over again to put away the cover.  I hit my head again on the same corner and same spot on my head - just less of the corner and got to listen to the lecture again.  Worst of all it was the same spot on my head that I hit last month in our RV. 

It was relatively easy to take out the china and items we needed.  I had gone through the cabinet where it is all stored last year and donated a lot of items we did not need.  Instead of needing to take out stacks and stacks of items, only one or two had to removed.  How pleasant.  I plan to work on the serving pieces stored in the living room next - I have better uses for the storage space there than bowls and platters we bought or received as gifts and have never used.  Hmm, maybe I can finally get husband to hang two handled cups from when we were each a kid that match which are stored in the living room.  He had the juice cup, I had the orange juice cup - but they match.  They must have been popular cups for children back then.

The turkey had directions on it - basically we were to cook it at 325F, when the little popper popped we should test the breast with a thermometer and make sure it was at least 180F.  There were also instructions to tent the turkey with foil and then remove same, and brush will oil a few times.  Also on the turkey wrapping was a list of times to cook the turkey - only this said for a turkey cooked at 350F - 25 degrees higher than the instructions said to cook at.  We discussed this - for a quite awhile.  In the back of my head it seemed to me that I remember the same problem with the turkey from the same place last year, but could not remember what I did. We cooked it at the 325F with the logic that it could always be cooked more, but cooked not be cooked less if it was overcooked. About a half hour longer than the chart said (for cooking at 350F) the popper popped and I checked the turkey breast with a thermometer and it was 180F and rising.  We took the turkey out and set it aside on the kitchen table to “set”. 

In the interim we finished cooking other food items and had our soup.  Husband then went to carve the turkey.  The turkey breast looked wonderful as he carved into it - but as he went beyond the breast - the turkey was terribly undercooked.  He finished carving the breast - moving it to another platter to do so.  He then cut up the rest of the turkey - wings, legs, dark meat - and we placed it all on two oven trays to heat it further.  I ended up with the 2 extra trays and 2 extra platters as a result of all this.  We are not sure what went wrong - should we have cooked it at 350F instead?  But the popper popped and it was the correct temperature on the thermometer.    Husband has written a letter to the supermarket’s owner (this is one of those of stores where the owner’s photo is all off and he does the ads himself and is actually involved in his company day to day) asking what happened. 

The dishes and all were washed Thanksgiving night.  I have put all away.  When I put my large platter back in the basement, I took out my “everyday” Christmas dishes and glasses.  I washed them and we are using them.  I move some of my normal everyday dishes higher in the cabinet - where I can’t normally reach stuff - to make room for these to fit in. 

We had the leftover turkey etc for the second set of leftovers tonight.  There is at least one dinner’s worth of turkey left - but that is all.  It will either be eaten early next week or will be frozen.

We do not go shopping on Thanksgiving.  We don’t go out for Black Friday sales either.  Okay, one time husband wanted a small laptop that was going on Black Friday sale at a chain electronics store and we went and waited in line for it.  He did get the laptop, but then again, it was still on sale at the same price - and in stock - the following week.  It was not worth standing in line in the freezing cold.  This store was rather well organized.  There was a line.  Items which were limited had coupons for them handed out to people by employees walking along the line, so the coupons were handed out to people based on where they were in line. 

We have many times, including this year, while out on Friday to have lunch (at Wendys of course) and run errands gone past empty looking stores and malls by the time we went out.  I had needed to renew a medication at the Walmart pharmacy and figured it would be ready over the weekend, but we were called Friday afternoon that it was ready decided to see how bad the crowds were.  It was empty!  Items which had been put out late Wednesday sealed up until the sales started, were still plentiful for the most part - husband started rooting through the DVDs.  We have been in Walmarts again since then and still sale items are still in their displays - either less people came in than they thought would do so, or they intended for the sale items to be available long beyond last Friday.

When we woke up today I noticed the temperature was 61F - 61!  I pointed this out to husband and suggested that today was the day to put up our outdoor Christmas decorations.  He agreed.  We checked our box at the post office, had lunch at Wendys and came home.  We keep our outdoor decorations on a platform in the top of the garage.  We used to have everything there for Christmas, but as we have aged and it is not that easy for husband to climb on a ladder and get everything - much is heavy - down, I moved the rest into our basement.  He can now stand on his worktable (after clearing it off enough) and get the, only, two boxes of lights and wires, three potted artificial poinsettia, and 3 light up candy canes down.  No more balancing on a ladder to hand me things.  Much safer.  We have some wreaths, swags, and such in our shed, but are not putting them up any longer - maybe again in the future. 

We put the poinsettia in the same stands that hold our flowers the rest of the year.  Husband made these poinsettia in pots.  We bought artificial poinsettia which could go outside in the weather and 3 pots to fit the holders.  He then bought a couple of cans of spray insulation - the kind that is a foam and expands to fit what it is in.  He filled the pots and we added a poinsettia to each.  The foam was topped with fake greens and they look great.  5 minutes and they are out in place.

We put lights on our bushes and a dwarf spruce tree.  (The dwarf tree is now over 6 ft tall, I am so glad that I talked him out of a full size one.)  Of course two set of lights did not work when tested - one of the ones which goes on the bushes and one that is red and white and goes around the white plastic pillar of our mailbox a bit of a candy cane look.  We have in the boxes with the lights two electric boxes which stick into the ground.  One is placed on one side of the front of our house and the other is placed on the other side of the front of our house.  A long flat outdoor extension cord is plugged into the outdoor outlet and run across the front of the house, over the top of the stairs (under the door mat so no one trips) and the electric box on the side away from the outlet is plugged into it - and then the lights are plugged into the electric box.  The electric box on the side of the house near the outlet is plugged into the other outlet in the wall box and the lights on that side of the front of the house plug into it.

After we put out and plugged in the lights that worked, we drove to Walmart to buy replacement.  No white and red lights - no red lights on their own.  We came back, put up the new light set on the bush that was short a set.  Husband then took the red and white set into the garage, plugged it in and started shaking it.  One half started working.  So we wrapped the lit half of the strand around the mail box pillar and dropped the rest on the ground. 

The wreath we bought last year for the front door was in the basement with the rest of the “in the house” decorations.  The former one was decorated by husband as a copy of one we saw and liked at Colonial Williamsburg - only we used plastic fruit instead of real fruit so we could keep reusing it.  The problem is that it had to hung on the outside of the storm door as it did not fit between the door and storm door - this involved annually rigging strands of fishing line around screws in the storm door and trying to adjust it so we could still see through the peep hole of the door - and remember we both on the short side.  The new wreath has lights on it - lit by batteries with a timer so it is on for 6 hours every night at the same on and off time.  Went up in less than 20 minutes with a magnetic hook on the door - and it is out of the weather, unlike the old wreath which if got covered snow might break free and fall. 

So our house now looks presentable to the world.  Husband is still trying to figure out where we could put one of those projector decorations - but the front of our house is just not set up for it.

Notice that because fixed place for the Christmas decorations in the garage and plastic boxes to hold the lights, wires, and plug in boxes for them, as well as an assigned spot in the basement to hold the Christmas decorations, it was easy and quick to find everything and put it out.  The empty boxes in the garage were stacked on each other with the bags that the lights were kept in stored inside, relatively out of the way so that when we go to take down the lights - they will be easy to find again and then they will be put back up in garage along with poinsettia and the candy canes so that next week we will find them again.

Sometime next week I will put away my few Thanksgiving decorations in the house and then I will start putting out the Christmas ones.  This year the holidays seem to be going okay. 

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -

As you take out your holiday decorations and other items try to leave the packing in a way that it will be easy to find and put everything away after the holiday.  If it is all a mess  - try to figure out  while you unpack items how you can better store them away at the end of the season to make them either to access next year, while not being in your way all year. 

SEMI UNORGANIZED THANKSGIVING

Ah, the holidays are coming!  Is panic setting in?

Last week I put out my few Thanksgiving decorations.  A small setting of Pilgrim bear figurines going to Thanksgiving at a house in a tree.  (I painted the tree and most of the bears from kits - in one case while I was supposed to making and getting the house ready for Thanksgiving dinner.)  Other “human” Thanksgiving figurines and salt and pepper shakers and a pair of candleholders given me by a friend decades ago.  Husband took me to “Thanksgiving world” - aka Plymouth, MA decades ago and I bought most of the assorted non-bear items there in gift shops.

I am sure I have mentioned before, but just in case I did not, my husband and I are of different faiths.  I am Jewish and he is Roman Catholic.  As a result we did not have that “whose family are we going to” problem for most family holidays.  We went to my family for Jewish holidays and his family for Christian holidays.  But then there was Thanksgiving.

Growing up, as well as an adult, Thanksgiving was my favorite holiday - and not just because I am an eater.  It was the only uniquely American family holiday which was not religious based - it was/is a holiday for all Americans.  Also there were no gifts - gifts I received tended to have nothing to do with me or anything I was interested in - especially beyond my immediate family - and I had to smile and say thank you - and then figure out what to do with the item - this was not a problem with Thanksgiving. 

Now, it has been found that when the answer to what do you have for thanksgiving dinner - answer “turkey and all the trimmings” was further looked into, it was found that same varied greatly.  For a while growing up our Thanksgivings were celebrated with my mom’s family and her sister-in-law (my aunt) had become kosher, so we would go to a kosher delicatessen restaurant for dinner.  Mom would cook turkey during the year, so it was not what we wanted there. My sisters and I  wanted corned beef sandwiches!  The waiter would keep asking if we were sure and we were.  They had handed us the complete regular menu after all, and that was our dinner.  My husband’s family is from Italy.  They would have a first course of some kind of macaroni (what we Americans call pasta).  So while being the uniquely encompassing holiday, Thanksgiving is large enough to encompass all of various backgrounds. 

While dating and the first few years we were married we would juggle which family we went to - generally we ended up with his family.  One year I had the idea to have both families come to our tiny apartment for Thanksgiving dinner.  He was shocked at the idea.  Oh, one difference between our families is that my family tends (short of accommodating the kosher aunt) tends to eat at home for holidays, while his family eats out.  We figured out a menu, found a place that has hot turkey pick up on Thanksgiving, and went ahead.  It went fairly well - the entire living room filled with two long folding tables put end to end.  For 25 years we made Thanksgiving dinner.  Nieces and nephew came along.  My dad died.  A few times a friend or an in law of a family member was included.  We moved one year at the end of October from our apartment to this house - and we made Thanksgiving dinner - and used the good china.  It was the bedbugs which brought this to an end as we cannot bring ourselves to have anyone in the house.

Organizing? I see now how organized I was for those dinners.  Now the two of us have our Thanksgiving dinner alone.  At first we went to an inexpensive general food buffet restaurant and it was very nice as the manager made it feel party like.  Then he left and it was not as nice and then finally the place closed.  So on and off over the past several years I have made Thanksgiving dinner for the two of us.  What a mess! 

First of all, I never know if I am making dinner or if we are going out to an Asian buffet until the last minute.  Last year we waited so long, we almost could not get a turkey which was not frozen - and that would not have defrosted in time.  This year we bought a turkey this past Saturday. 

In the old days I had a menu from the past to work with.  We might change a dish or two, but basically it was the same menu.  I have a spiral notebook with almost every dinner we made for Thanksgiving and the other holidays we took a turn out with, mostly, my family over the years.  (I reached the end of the notebook using the right hand pages and now I am going backwards, using the left hand pages.)  The first week in November I would start checking ads and buying things for the dinner, so at the last minute items like milk which had to be bought fresh were all that was left to buy. 

Well, we went this past Sunday to the supermarket to start buying what we needed - without making a list of what we would make or what we needed.  It was as if there was a combination hurricane and major snow storm announced at the same time!  The parking lot was jammed.  The store was jammed.  We gave up and left.  We then actually made up a list of what we would have and needed so when we went back Monday it was not as jammed  - we actually went to another supermarket chain as they had items we were looking for on sale - and were able to buy almost all the items needed at the one supermarket, with a quick stop at the one from Sunday for 2 items we had not been able to get.  Husband complained about the crowds - I told him flat out - “This is why I used to shop the first week of the month!”

We have baked a pie tonight.  Everything else can be done tomorrow, Thanksgiving.  I will set up the turkey tonight so when I get up really early tomorrow to put the turkey in the oven, I can go back to sleep a lot quicker. 

While downstairs doing my regular Wednesday night laundry (I will not fall behind just because it is a holiday) I took out “the turkey platter”.  This is a larger platter than our others and has a chip in it.  We use it to put the turkey on to carve it and then use smaller ones for serving the turkey (whether for the family or just us).  I washed it as it is kept in the basement.  In the afternoon I brought a bunch of RV stuff (clean sheets, towels...) out to the RV so it is all out of the dinning room.  I moved some stuff into place in the dinning room. 

Tomorrow I will add one board to our dinning room table, instead of the four boards that I used to add for the family.  I will cover it with a plastic/foam cover (I have them in sizes to fit all lengths of the table) and then my Thanksgiving tablecloth (much too large as it fits the table with four boards - so the ends of the table have long overhangs.   One board is needed so that the serving plates and bowls fit on the table.  I will take out 2 settings of my good china, one fabric napkin & one paper napkin, one of my good glasses & husband’s every day glass, and use my silver plate tableware.  I will cook the dinner.  I used to know - start the potatoes first as they will be mashed, and heated in the oven at the end, so get them out of the way as if they cool off it is okay.  No idea what to start with these years - we are making boiled potatoes instead of mashed.  No sweet potatoes this year - he likes them I don’t.  And we will have our Thanksgiving dinner.

After dinner the extra food will be put away, and when you are two people with a 14 lb turkey, there is a lot to store away.  The table will be cleared and I will wash (by hand) the dishes, pots, pans, etc.  The napkin and tablecloth will be washed and dried (by machine) and I will probably also wash the last load of regular laundry which is normally washed on Thursdays nights.  The garbage will go out to the can - no pickup until Monday. 

I really miss the juggling of which dish to cook when.  The baking Venetians (rainbow cookies) starting on Tuesday so they would be ready in time (jelly between layers has to sit weighted overnight).  I miss spending all day Wednesday cooking beef vegetable soup from scratch.  It used to be all so organized!  Now with less to do it is all so disorganized.  Well, at least I don’t have to clean well enough to have my (late) mother in law here.  (One year my sister actually wrote the year in the dust!)        

I do not go shopping on Thanksgiving - or on “Black Friday”!  There is nothing I have ever seen offered on sale that was worth the crowds.  Think about this - the more you buy, the more you have to deal with and organize. Do you really need this or that?

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -

I wish all a happy Thanksgiving!   

Remember it is just one day - there will be joys and problems (one early year we cooked, shelled and peeled chestnuts for hours, then while they were cooling on the counter, I dropped a glass I had washed and was putting away - next to them and they had to be tossed as we were not sure if we could get all the glass shards out.  The time with family - whether a large group or just two or even time alone - is what matters. 

Take time to be thankful for what you have - don’t look for what you are lacking, even if there is much you are lacking. Stop and breathe and think about what you do have.         

THANKSGIVING IS OVER - CHRISTMAS IS COMING

Well, Thanksgiving is behind us.  Now we move on to the December holidays.  While due to differences in religion, we celebrate both Christmas and Chanukah, 99% of the decorating is for Christmas.

Normally we would have put our outside decorations up this past week, but due to running around to find a turkey and shop for Thanksgiving dinner at the last minute, we did not get a chance to do so.  We are currently having rain.  We plan to put up the outside decorations on Thursday - it is not suppose to be raining then and it is suppose to go to a relatively “toasty” 59 degrees Fahrenheit. 

We put strands of lights on our larger bushes and 2 small trees in front of our house. We put a wreath (artificial) each on our front and side doors.  We also have swags (again artificial) which we hang from our light fixtures on either side of the front door.  Last year we added a strand of red lights around our white mail box post - gives the look of, sort of, a candy cane.  We used to have wreaths on our lower front windows and swags under them, but we cannot do so since we had our windows and siding replaced.  The outside lights are controlled by a timer.  We have one in our basement for the outlets that they are plugged into - since they are on their own circuit breaker this is a heavy duty timer, which works for the circuit.  We also put battery operated candles in our front windows which go on for 6 hours a night automatically.  We used to have plug in window candles, but when we replaced the windows, we found that there was a ledge of plastic on the inside of the window which meant that the candle had trouble staying on the window sill and leaned against the window blinds and would have melted them - so we replaced them with these LED candles -no heat so they do not melt the shades.

This past weekend I took out my Christmas dishes.  These are not fancy china to be used for company.  They are everyday dishes.  I use them for dinner during the holidays.  I also have Christmas glasses - they were a “spend this amount and get a gift” that I got when I bought a baby gift for a friend decades ago.  I keep the dishes and glasses in their original boxes in the gas meter closet in our basement and wash them before I use them each year.  I have only 3 glasses - the fourth one broke - and I keep a small 2 piece nativity set in the 4th space in the box, so the nativity goes out when I take out the glasses.  I only take out 2 of the glasses and 2 of the cups to the dishes as I am the only one who uses them. Husband has certain plastic glasses he prefers and I put one out for him as it not worth insisting that he use the holiday stuff.

Husband, as I have mentioned before, got a loom last Christmas.  It is a good size piece of furniture, 32 inches wide and about the same size deep.  It is set up in the living room as are various related items, including a small table and large plastic boxes of yarn/finished pieces.  It does not fill the room, but since it sits in the middle of the room, it takes up much of the floor space.  When husband set it up last January, I told him that I expected the living room back after Thanksgiving until January so that I could decorate.  I never really expected same, and I will be decorating around the loom etc. when I decorate as I got a blank stare when I asked when the loom was being stored for the season.  Our dining room has additional items for his weaving, mostly items used to wash the woven items after they are made (to draw the threads together into fabric) which is done in our kitchen.  At some point the items other than the loom will have to be moved somewhere - my guess is the walkways of our studio behind the kitchen.  The nativity mentioned above goes into a display case in a corner of the living room - normally it is the center of the shelf.  Right now it is on a corner of the shelf as I could not open the door to the cabinet due to the weaving boxes stored adjacent to the cabinet, but managed to get it open enough to put the nativity just inside the door.  I will move it when I move the boxes elsewhere - really, they have to moved or no tree.

The dining room also has stuff which needs to go out to our RV.  (This is all the stuff I had to move to use the dining room table last week.)  The last chance we figure to use the RV is this coming weekend and we are pretty sure we will not - then all will go out there for winter storage.  It is stuff that is used seasonally in the RV - mostly for cold weather travel - and has to be stored in the house when not being used in the RV.

Why does the dining room have to be cleared out to decorate the living room?  Because there is a good sized wooden box piece of furniture in the living room where the tree goes.  Husband made this some years ago.  It looks like what was called a “hope chest” for a young woman to store the items she made for when she got married.  This one, however, holds DVDs.  Instead of the top lifting the front drops down and drawers come out to hold the DVDs.  It is on wheels (we knew we had to move it back and forth to the dining room once a year) and is rolled to the far wall of the dining room (where the table normally is and all the stuff to deal with is now) and stays there for the season with the table in the center of the room where normal people put it all the time.

I admit to still having Thanksgiving decorations out.  I have a small light up “house in a tree trunk” which I painted some years ago and also painted a ceramic bear family and their guests coming to the house.  I have since added some small purchased bears.  Every year I set it up with the bear family at the house and the other bears coming there.  This year after the holiday I had the idea to turn the visitors around and they are now “on their way home”.  There are a few other small items to be put away also - it all fits in one box.  I plan on it all being stored by the end of the week - it only took 15 minutes to put out.

I have large plastic boxes of stuff to put out for Christmas in the basement.  We used to keep it in the garage, but we are getting older - hard to climb up and take out and store the boxes - and the boxes are getting heavier, so I found a spot in the basement to store them.  There are decorations for the living room, front hall, dining room and kitchen as well as the ornaments for the trees and my teddy bear Christmas village figurines, buildings, etc.

More on all that in future posts - or I would have nothing to post.  We bought a new snow blower Monday.  We cannot find anyone who does “residential snow removal” and have to be able to do it on our own.  Our old snow blower is probably around 30 years old and is large and heavy.  We tried starting it over the weekend and it did not start, although it did last summer when we tried it.  We had planned on buying this one anyway as it is hard to get to the other one in back of the house and this one, being smaller, we figure we can store it in a small plastic shed in front of our side door.  We still have to get the shed and assemble and try out (at least that it starts and moves) the new blower.  Husband is researching on what may be wrong with the old one as he wants it as a backup.  They were surprised at the (large home big box) store at which we bought the snow blower that we were buying one.  I guess everyone else waits until it snows - when it is too late.

I wanted to talk about holiday shopping.  Did you go running out on Black Friday or even Thanksgiving?  Visit your local stores for Small Business Saturday (started by that so warm hearted American Express credit card company)?  Sit all day at work on Monday for Cyber Monday?

We did none of these things. With the exception this year of a TV which husband thought was a good deal (not that we bought/are buying one) which is still on sale at that large box store everyone hates, we have never seen anything worth running for the deal.  In addition we don’t buy large amounts of gifts - or stuff for ourselves - for the holidays or otherwise.  Are we grinches?  No.  Husband’s 2 nieces (under 20 years old) always get Christmas gifts from us which we buy.  My niece and nephews are in the mid 20's and we mail them checks for Chanukah.  Some years ago we agreed with my family not to exchange gifts between the adults.  Every year I bought my sister a sweater at a reasonably priced department store (the one with the tool department)  with the return card from the gift she had bought me the year before and she would buy me something there also - I was pretty sure with the return card from the sweater I had given her the year before.  Gradually this mostly happened with husband and his small extended family also - which was an exchange of cash for check any way.)  Husband buys himself a few small items which catch his eye - I then wrap them and Santa puts them under the tree.  Generally I don’t get anything.  If I do it is a book or a bear item we found on sale during the year and put away until Christmas (one year I forgot we were doing so and read half the book before I remembered).  In case you have not figured it out - I have a passion for teddy bears and some of their friends.  I believe that a gift should be a token, not an overwhelming “LOOK AT THIS”.  The spending of more money for a bigger or more expensive gift does not mean that one is loved or appreciated more - just that someone spent more money, which chances are means they are further into debt than they should be.  Plus, more and bigger items mean more clutter in the house!

Speaking of clutter - this is a good time of year to pass along by donation items you no longer need or want which are taking up room in your house.  I am planning on donating my winter coat - I have not worn it in years and due to weight loss, I am not even sure it fits anymore.  I plan to add to it some dresses I never wear and if we get a chance to go through them - most of the luggage we have as we don’t use luggage with the RV.  We will each keep one suitcase and will also keep a rolling backpack.  The backpack and a soft bag should fit in the other bag. 

So as you are start getting ready this year - remember, whatever you buy or get has to fit somewhere in your home.