Scattered Thoughts . . .

We awoke this morning to a light, but crunchy, layer of snow covering everything. Our Christmassy weather has finally begun! Sheila and I are both feeling pretty good this morning so, in the spirit of our newfound Christmassy weather, we might take the grandkids out Christmas shopping this afternoon to see where their interests lie at age 4. This will give us a better idea of what to get them for Christmas this year (in addition to the usual staples of trains and dolls... which we've already purchased for this Christmas).  After shopping, we'll come home and I'll make a nice meatloaf dinner for Liza and the kids. Sheila hasn't eaten at all in a few days so hopefully she'll find something she can tolerate today because her stomach is grumbling for some food! I'm hoping for a really nice and pain-free day today...   EDIT:  We've been to Toys 'r Us with the kids this afternoon...  followed by some New York style pizza in South Burlington. Th

Other than picking up a Christmas card or two at a local store and maybe some last minute wrapping paper and some tape, I do believe we finished up our Christmas shopping tonight. We headed up to Burlington and Williston tonight to pick up some more supplies for Lukey's train set that I am building for Christmas. We had a few stores to visit and then we walked through the Christmas decorations at Maple Tree Place in Williston. After shooting some photos of the Christmas decorations, we had a really nice dinner at The Longhorn.  It was a really nice night... although far too warm for this time of year... and it was really nice to get all of the Christmas present shopping out of the way.   Here are some photos from this evening... I shot all of these images using manual focus lenses only... I seem to be turning to my manual focus lenses more and more lately and I am enjoying the results... At the big Christmas tree...

There is just something about supermarkets and grocery stores that causes major health problems for me.  I don't know if it is a cleaning product that they all use regularly that somehow triggers mast cell degranulation in my body...  or all those horrendous, dangerous florescent lights...  or maybe exhaust fumes from the loading dock being sucked into their HVAC system...  or some unknown trigger for me....  but, my health crashes more often in a grocery store than any other place. I had a pretty good morning yesterday.  I did some light work on our master bedroom hallway.  I temporarily moved some electrical wiring for the furnace to make room for a pocket door.  I removed some studs.  Then I ran out of energy and figured it was time for lunch and then a nap. When I awoke from my nap at 5pm, I felt like my abdomen was on fire.  It was a really weird sensation.  I felt like I had been put in a microwave oven or like radiation was centered on my abdomen.  Within a half hour, we