Scattered Thoughts . . .

I don't know why for sure but Thanksgiving and Christmas really caught us by surprise this year.  My internal clock is feeling like it is only early autumn. It isn't like we've been busy with a full schedule of events or travel.  We've been home.   The summer was wet and pretty much non-existent.  It doesn't even feel like we had a summer.  Summer and fall have been filled with waiting for our new water main to be installed and hooked up to the house.  And, more recently, we've had nothing but problems with that hook-up to the house which is needlessly sapping me of what little energy I have these days. I'm trying to think back on what messed up our internal clocks.  This year started with a few months of COVID yet again.  Since the beginning of the pandemic, I've been sick with COVID from January through March/April every year.  This past year I picked up the virus in Manhattan just before Christmas and was sick and continually testing...

S ometime last night, I realized that I had not yet captured any photographs of our Christmas tree and ornaments this year.  I figured I should jump on that since I won't have any time between now and Christmas so, if I don't do it now, then Christmas will have passed by the time I can get to it again. We (mostly "I") feel like the tree is missing something and I actually feel the same way every year with every Christmas tree even after adding a little more to it each year but I've had difficulty figuring out what still might be missing.  I'm not a fan of most types of garland and I definitely hate tinsel so I know it is not missing these things.  It is possible it needs more ornaments in the way of more styles of decorative glass ornaments.  Our Christmas tree will most definitely never have items/characters from movies so that is out.  I'm not a fan of 'crafty' or 'country' type stuff either.  Maybe I'll figure out what is missing one...

Church Street in Burlington, Vermont Back in early December, our good friend, Frank, asked us if we were available on the Sunday before Christmas to visit Burlington. Fortunately, this day was still open for us and we jumped at the chance for another Christmas in Burlington so we put the day on our calendar. We missed an opportunity to get up to Burlington during Christmas last year so we were pretty excited at the thought of getting back up to Burlington during Christmas this year. Our plan was to do a little barhopping and to get some photos on Church Street while it was decorated for Christmas. We set out at lunchtime for our short trip north to Lake Champlain and Burlington. There were plenty of shoppers which made for a lot of traffic and parking scarce. Fortunately for us, all these people were actually shopping and not venturing into the restaurants and pubs that line Church Street. It was nice to be able to choose a place to go and then find available space at the b...