Saturday, November 26, 2011

'Tis the Season

Busy, busy, BUSY!!  Yes, folks, it IS that time of year.  Things at the office are still crazy-busy, but I have some time that I must take before the end of the year or lose, so I'm taking it a little at a time.  The college closed at noon on Wednesday for the Thanksgiving holiday, so I took the morning off, too.  This gave me a 5-day weekend, which was much needed and is being very much enjoyed!  :-)

I've really hated my sofa for a long, long time.  It was always too big for my small living room, but I'd just never done anything about it.  A friend called me to say that she and her husband were replacing a loveseat in their living room.  She remembered my moaning about the fact that I should have bought a loveseat instead of a sofa and asked if I'd like to have their loveseat.  Hurray!

So, I donated my sofa to a local charity, Haven of Rest, who not only does good work but were very appreciative of my donation and came to pick it up as scheduled on Wednesday morning.  I spent the rest of Wednesday chasing a few dust bunnies that had been hiding under the sofa and knitting a bit.  I also baked some delicious cinnamon streusel muffins that were almost worth the blister I burned on my finger testing to see if they were done.  Yes, I'm that stupid.

My friends delivered my new-to-me loveseat on Thursday morning, and it's the perfect size for my living room!  It's olive green microfiber with big cushy cushions, and I couldn't be more pleased!  I then made a broccoli casserole (Mom's favorite thing I make) and took that and some of my yummy muffins down to Mom and Dad's to share Thanksgiving dinner with them.  They don't care for turkey, so Mom had put two Cornish hens in her rotisserie.  The house smelled heavenly when I arrived!  Even though we'd discussed several times that she shouldn't cook lots of different dishes, the table was full as always.  *LOL*  And, as always, everything was delicious!

It was a lovely, restful holiday, enjoyed by us all.  Yesterday (Friday) morning, they had planned to visit Dad's Aunt Orpha, who turned 101 this week.  I asked if I could tag along for the visit, and they came by to pick me up (I live really near Aunt Orph).  She had lots of family visiting for the holiday, and it was so nice to spend time with everyone.  We left there just past noon and Daddy suggested stopping at Wendy's for lunch.  I had a Baja salad, which was really good.

When we got back to my apartment, Mom was looking at a stereo cabinet I had in my living room that I'd planned on giving to her.  I had two racks of DVDs and videotapes that I planned to pare down to one rack, then wanted to move it over to the former location of the stereo cabinet.  I'd already removed the stereo (an old one, still in working order, but never ever used anymore) to take to Goodwill.  Daddy looked at the cabinet and said, "Frances, where are you going to put that?"  She confessed that she had no idea; the cabinet was bigger than she remembered.

She asked if I couldn't just keep it and put my DVDs and videotapes into it.  At first, I didn't think I wanted to do that.  In fact, I actually made a call to a charity to see if they could come pick up the cabinet and take the stereo, too.  But there was no answer in the charity's office.  So I pondered; maybe if I could get Daddy to make me a couple more shelves for the unit I could make it work.  So I spent the rest of the afternoon moving all my DVDs and videotapes into it.  It held a lot more than I anticipated, and I was actually able to put ALL of them into the cabinet!  It had glass doors, so it actually looks nicer than the open shelves I originally had everything in.  I'll have to unload it when Daddy's ready to build the shelves, but that will come after the holidays.

I was pretty tired after getting all that done, and just hit the recliner for a bit.  When I caught my second wind, I dragged my Christmas decorations out of the closet and put up my little fiber optic tree.  I set a few Christmassy things around on tabletops and decorating chores were finished.

Today I've been a little draggy (after all it's been a pretty busy few days!), so I've not accomplished as much as I should have.  I've done a little laundry and still have a little more to do.  I think I'll just concentrate on putting away the totes that my Christmas decorations were stored in, maybe put some veggies in the oven to roast, wrap a few gifts, and knit awhile this afternoon.

Gotta love the holidays.....:-)  Hope everyone's having a wonderful weekend!




Friday, November 04, 2011

16,100 Miles

Google Maps says it's 16,100 miles from my house to the home of my Australian daughters (one daughter by birth, a second daughter by a stroke of very good luck).  Tonight, that distance seems unspeakably far.

My daughter Kris is in the hospital.  She had to have her thyroid removed a couple of days ago, and her hospital stay turned out to be longer than anticipated because of issues with her calcium level.  She called me early this morning (Friday evening her time) with the sad news that one of their beloved cats, Winchester, had been killed.

She was devastated.  Not only was she not home (where she thought she'd be by that time), but dear little Winchester was gone.

To make matters worse, tomorrow's her birthday.  In fact, it's already her birthday in her time zone, and she's still in the hospital.  And very upset about losing Winchester.  As she put it in a Facebook post, "Worst birthday ever :*(".

Australia never seemed so far away.