Scattered Thoughts . . .

W e decorated the house for Christmas, inside and out, on Thanksgiving weekend as we usually do.  Hmmm...  well, sometimes we do the outside of the house the weekend before Thanksgiving especially if the weather is unseasonably warm but this year we decorated both inside and outside on Thanksgiving weekend so everything was done over the long Thanksgiving weekend. We usually have a few downed fir branches around the house by the time we decorate so that provides plenty of boughs available to make a large wreath for our front door.  This year, however, we didn't have a single downed branch nor did we have any that needed pruning so we purchased a small wreath instead.  We lose so many branches due to storms that I didn't want to unnecessarily cut down additional branches and especially not for one wreath. We hang small wreaths on all the windows as well as the kids' playhouse and our trash shed and that always looks nice but we like to put a large three foot wreath on the f

O nce again, I have fallen behind in writing here.   My health has been really lousy...  the fatigue has been brutal and then I spent most of today in the bathroom.  I just can't seem to get much of anything accomplished.  Things have been lousy and leaning toward miserable (especially today).   I have a lot to get done this week and it's beginning to look like I will not get everything done before Christmas at this point.  I'm hoping that my health improves through the night tonight so I can jump on a few things tomorrow morning.  Honestly though, at this point, I don't think there are enough hours in the day to get done what I need to get done this week before Christmas.  Add in the fact that I need to sleep a few hours every afternoon and this means it is less likely that I will get everything done at this point.  To say that this is frustrating is an understatement.   Anyway...  I shot a few photos of our outside Christmas decorations a few days ago but forgot about

A fter checking the weather forecast for the next 10 days, we decided that today would be the best day to be outside putting up our outside Christmas lights.   We started by trimming a couple of trees around the house.  Some of the branches were touching our roof after our last snowfall a few days ago so these needed to be cut back.  On the positive side, these branches were now available to be used to make a big wreath for our front door.  We make a large wreath every year out of the branches that need to be trimmed off the trees.  So, the first thing we did today was to cut some branches and make a wreath.  This is the most back-breaking work so I wanted to start with this and get it out of the way first.  My spinal injuries have been screaming since moving some snow the other day.  It's been keeping me up at night and I cannot get comfortable.  Well...  not even close to comfortable...  at rest, the pain is around a seven on the 10 point pain scale.   We don't use the front

Back around Labor Day, Lukey came over and we brought his trains outside to the backyard.  Gee's new office is in what was the train room so we currently lack the space in the house for running trains.  Besides, bringing these trains outdoors also provides nicer backgrounds and lighting for photos. This particular day was overcast and dark clouds were moving in very quickly but we figured we had an hour or two before the rain would start.  I was not feeling all that great on this day...  I was feeling lousy enough that I vividly remember feeling lousy on this day.  I had significant breathing problems, I was nauseated and holding back vomit, and I generally felt lousy.  I also had significant spinal pain that was probably adding to the breathing problems and nausea.  We still managed to get the trains up and running in the backyard for a little while though... One of the great things about bringing the trains outdoors is that I can capture some nice photos.  The lighting is realist

Shot through our laundry room window... and through some frost on the window! Well, Christmas is upon us but we are so far behind in everything that I highly doubt the Christmas Spirit will catch up with us until sometime in January or February.   We did manage to get some Christmas lights strung up outside.  We don't have as many as anticipated, but we have enough.  Actually, very few of our neighbors have any Christmas lights this year... our street is unusually dark. Very strange... perhaps we are all in the same boat this year... Stringing up Christmas lights outdoors was a bit frustrating this year. First off, the weather was frigid. That always makes for a frustrating time. Next, approximately 1/2 of our Christmas lights went into the garbage this year because they were no longer lighting up. Frustrating, huh? We ended up using all of our indoor light sets just to fill some of the emptiness outside. So, now we need to get out to buy some Christmas lights for indo

The kids came over again today on this long snowy Thanksgiving weekend.  (I just realized that I had also written just a few short months ago about a snowy Memorial Day weekend... will we ever catch a break?) The grandchildren spent some time this afternoon out in the backyard building a snowman with Grammy. Their attention was split between building the snowman and the sailboat sitting under a few inches of snow.  Eventually, their attention went to the kayaks standing tall and strapped against the house. Those boats seem to constantly call their names whenever they visit.  Today was no exception. A note of interest here:  I was the same at my grandparents' house... the boats always beckoned... I can still smell that home on the water and hear the waves lapping at the boats, dock and bulkhead. There is just something excitingly intriguing and special about boats, trains and airplanes... especially to kids. We did the usual "Sunday dinner" at the house this evening.