84 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 12-15-18”

  1. First! That’s quite an interesting Christmas decoration. 🙂

    I’ve always thought Siamese cats rather interesting. If I were ever to have a cat (no danger of that), it would probably be a Siamese or a calico, because Siamese are interesting and noble (and, I hear, dog-like . . . so I’ll just stick with dogs) and because calicoes are really gorgeous and definitely the best part of cats is their beauty.

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  5. I don’t know a Siamese cat from any other, but it’s a fearsome c ritter to me.
    Good morning everyone. Cheryl, Donna & Aj posted and went to bed;.
    nobody knows what Jo might be up to.

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  6. I was watching the “Snow” song on yesterday’s thread. Crosby and three others I couldn’t identify. Anyhow, the thing that struck me was the way the beautiful women were made up.
    I don’t know what it is, but both would be out of place in a shopping mall.

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  9. I am thanking God for the unexpected treat of finding Peet’s French Roast coffee as a selection in the family waiting room of ICU this a.m. Art was required to have a C-Pap for breathing issues so that necessitated him being in ICU. He had the best male nurse last night who I think is Christian because he told of his wife’s first kidney stone episode being on her first night of college at a Christian gathering. Art is in a lot of pain and he is scheduled to discharge. It seems iffy to me that he will get to go home. Wesley is the fortunate one getting to drive our new to us car. We are trying to keep a sense of humor throughout this ordeal.

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  10. Bruce is a beautiful cat. I have always loved the Siamese cats. Their meow is distinct and that is the only thing I would change about them.

    Calico cats are so striking and they can be really sweet cats. We had a peach/cream/gray calico which was beautiful but may not be the type Cheryl mentioned. Tortoise (sp?) shell is more common.

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  13. Good Morning. My company Christmas party was last night. We spent the night in Pensacola. The hotel is near the water so the wind has howled. We are downtown so there is traffic noise. I never used to understand why adults wanted to be home in their own beds. Now I think I might.
    The party was fun.

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  14. A beautiful pre morning here. The roosters are crowing. Is it because they know their end is near? My fire has not started, I will have to send eleven year old out to chop some kindling. She likes to do that and does it well.

    Husband should get home today! He leaves tomorrow.

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  15. Linda, they look noble. I’m not a cat person at all. To me, they are lovely to watch as one might enjoy watching any other wild animal. They’re elegant and graceful, and some of them are really beautiful. But I’ve researched the possibility of having a pet skunk or raccoon (two other strikingly beautiful animals) and pretty much determined no wild animal makes a good pet. (I’ve heard too many cat stories from friends who “have” cats to see them as anything but a semi-wild animal that might be useful to have around if you have an otherwise unsolvable mouse problem and if you aren’t allergic. I don’t have mice and I am allergic.)

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  16. Chuck & Linda came over to visit.
    Chuck says he tired of winter.
    I broke the news to hm.

    Seriously, in Hendersonville, there was a weather man who explained the seasons. Calendar winter, summer, etc. do not correspond to meteorological seasons. So? Real winter started some time ago and will end sometime in February.

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  17. Chas, official winter doesn’t start till next week. Me, I always consider all of December, January, and February to be winter, but in the Midwest all of March sneaks in there too (though we may or may not have more snow). April and May are spring, June through August summer, and that leaves September through November for fall. In 2016 and 2017 spring began in March–the beginning of spring coinciding, in my mind, with the first opening tree leaves, the first bulbs (crocus doesn’t count), and the early wildflowers. But those are the only two years in the Midwest I have seen spring before April; I have seen it wait till May more often than I have seen it start in March, and in my opinion waiting till May is almost cruel. We should have it one to two weeks earlier here, and fall lingering one or two weeks longer. The beginning of spring is much more easily defined than the end of summer or fall, but three or four extra weeks of “warm” weather is something I need. I detest the Midwest pattern of trees being without leaves at least six months, sometimes nearly seven, so an extra few weeks of green (and MORE green than we had up north) will be a welcome blessing. Snow-covered trees have their own beauty, but by March the weeks of waiting for spring have grown long.

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  18. Classy looking kitty!

    Our best cat, Cleo, was a Siamese “dark unknown stranger” mix. Smart, clever hard on Bibles and hater of the George Washington Bridge. She lived to 16, lived in four states and visited at least 14 states.

    I loved her but still have a fingernails-on-the-chalkboard reaction to those dreadful Siamese cats in The Lady and the Tramp.

    Our second cat, a tortoiseshell calico, Kali, was mean and ornery all 21 years we owned her. But maybe that was me? She was born in Hawai’i and lived in only three states, visiting four.

    She was beautiful.

    And now we have the big fat, sweet Tasha who just left my lap. 11 pounds, 4 ounces, the vet yesterday announced she needed to lose a pound.

    Sigh, so now we’ll have a clever, onery, whining cat for a while . . . it’s all about food for her.

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  20. Cheryl, you were blessed to have the wonderful Misten. I am so glad that you had that experience. Dogs can be great, but some are not so great. So much depends on how they are treted by their owners. The people who love their cats have another sense of them in addition to how you see the animals. I can’t really guess why people have these strong feelings about their pets. I have never really liked how many dogs smell, especially if they get wet. Many years ago I would drive downtown at night and let our dog, Smokey, ride with me to pick up Art from the office. He would have to use the security exit. A security guard would often be out by the building and Smokey felt intimidated. She put out the most offensive smell I have ever been around. I suppose it was enemy repellent. I was the one who suffered inside the car. Cleaning the cat box with the mingled smell of litter freshener and droppings has never smelled so badly.

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  26. My laptop is ‘done,’ I’ll pick it up today. He said I won’t believe how fast it is now — it’s virtually a new Mac inside with all the software updates.
    New hard drive, a lot more ram, whatever that means. Cost $250 (new ones are now over $1,000), so worth it to me.

    Our cats were mostly gray toms, with names like Smokey and Tom (always strays we took in), though we had Nancy, inherited from a neighbor who died (she was terrified of everyone but a pretty cat, not sure what kind she was) and Liz, an adorable black and white kitten with 6 toes on each front paw. We lost her after only a few months, though, to a cat ‘fever’ (as it was then generically called) that was almost always fatal back then. She was funny and I was heartbroken (I was probably 10 or 11). She died the night our Girl Scout troop left for a weekend at the ranch where we were taking horseback riding lessons, I remember being so sad on the bus ride going up there. But the weekend away was good for me.

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  29. DJ – Well, I see you looked it up before I could get here to answer that the other actress was Vera-Ellen. She was also in one of my favorite movies, On the Town.

    She and Rosemary Clooney sang that “Sisters” song so many times in White Christmas that I would sing along like this: “Sisters. Sisters. There were never such annoying sisters.” 😀

    https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0893584/?ref_=nv_sr_1#actress

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  30. Nightingale worked second shift last night, meaning she got home probably after midnight, or later if there was a delay in finishing up (which there often is). The day before, she worked a double shift, 7am to 11:30pm or later.

    Since I was childsitting last night, The Boy slept on the couch down here. It is after noon now, and Nightingale is still upstairs sleeping (or maybe just waking up). She rarely sleeps this long, but she must be exhausted. I’m hoping she isn’t sick.

    I have fed both her kids (The Boy and Puppy Janie) their breakfasts. (We went up quietly earlier to get Janie.)

    In other news. . .Did you know it is possible for an eight year old boy to talk almost constantly for hours on end? He is playing, but keeping up a running commentary, as well as talking to me in general. (So much for my quiet day off. Good thing I love the little bugger.)

    Just as I was finishing typing this, Nightingale appeared.

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  32. My father once offered to pay my brother to be silent for ONE MILE while we drove in the car. Never had to pay a dime.

    That same brother is about the only person who can outtalk me–we spent a week traveling together in China ten years ago and I’m not sure we EVER stopped talking! LOL

    Maybe your little guy will end up a salesman like my brother? 🙂

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  34. Michelle, my younger sister and I both worked at McDonald’s at about the same time. (She worked there before I did, and I worked there after she did, but we overlapped in the middle for a few months.) One day one of the managers told her she must never in her life have gone a half hour without talking, and it would be impossible for her to do so.

    She doubled the time and went the next hour without talking. She was working the second booth in drive-thru (we were one of the first stores to have two windows, since we were the busiest McDonald’s in Arizona and I guess we were a good place to test how helpful it was). For that hour, she nodded and smiled at customers as she handed out their orders, indicated to fellow employees what she needed by pointing and pantomime and maybe even a note or two, and in general proved to that manager than one should never dare my sister to do anything unless you actually wanted her to do it. I’m guessing a few customers thought she had laryngitis or she was mute, but most probably didn’t even think about it.

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  35. I have been experiencing the cold and snow of winter since the end of September. It actually rained here yesterday. Rain does happen sometimes in December in southern Ontario, but it only served to disorient me further, having become accustomed to continual winter weather. It has been perpetually overcast since I came home, so I still am not seeing the sun, and dusk occurs later in the evening, which is bewildering to my sense of time, as I was getting used to it getting dark by between one and two in the afternoon.

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  36. Janice, Misten had no doggie odor unless she was wet. I’m not just going by my own sense of things, but more than one person who didn’t live with me told me she didn’t. I personally can’t handle the odor of cat waste, and even people who love cats talk about them bringing dead rodents as gifts, peeing in shoes or beds if they get mad at you, and so forth. I’ve seen the destruction a cat can do if it hasn’t been declawed, and I know that there’s a lot of pressure not to declaw cats today. And I don’t want a pet (dog or cat) on furniture, so even if I were not allergic, cats would be out. But I know that a lot of people enjoy their cats.

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  37. Funny.

    Yes, I agree, the ‘Sisters’ routine was heavily over-used in White Christmas.

    Cute the first time, but by the time Bing and Danny were doing it too, oy vey!

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  38. Kizzie, I think Tiny Niece would have the Boy beat for running commentary. I was speculating with Second yesterday, as we listened to Tiny Niece narrate her play, about how James Joyce, the ‘stream of consciousness’ author, would have done trying to include small children in his novels. Tiny Niece has a vivid imagination, but being only two, her narratives are very short and simple; yet they continually run together, in an effect that Second observed resembles the disjointed pattern of one’s dreams.

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  39. The fifties’ women’s look always strikes me as looking completely uncomfortable. They are wearing stays to make those close fitting bodices look smoothly fitted, and those skirts are only standing out because they have crinoline and wires underneath. Their hair is heavily curled and hair sprayed to give it that perfectly smooth and glossy look, and the amount of cold cream, powder, and paste necessary to give them those perfect complexions doesn’t bear thinking about. No thank you, no desire to return to those uncomfortable old days.

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  43. Kizzie, I did not know that an 8 year old boy could do that, but I do know that a 6 year old boy can talk non stop, as my son does every minute I am home. Miguel shakes his head in amazement, as he reports they sometimes don’t even talk for hours. Even when I wasn’t working like I am now, we still had almost a running conversation every day.

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  44. I have had cats all of my adult life. I actually like cats better than dogs, as dogs are so needy. (I will probably be banned from the blog now). We have 8 outdoor cats at this time. They all come when I call. They like the amount of affection I offer. They usually do the job they are there for. My first husband had a siamese kitten when we first married. He used to get in between us at night and pull out my earrings. She got mad at me once when we lived at the ranch and pooped on my robe. This was a cat who never had an accident in the house. I do agree with Cheryl about calico cats. They are beautiful.

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  45. Donna @ 1:28.
    Thanks I just came back to say this:

    What do you do on a cold, rainy Saturday afternoon when you can’t go out and there’s no football game?
    I played Donna’s 1:28 and enjoyed it, but not special.
    But at the end, I had the option of seeing Hank Snow and Marty Robbins, two of my favorites.
    Then, I got Mary Robbins and Chet Atkins.
    All together, I had almost an hour of my favorite musicians.
    Thanks again.
    It’s utterly amazing what Chet can do with a guitar.

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  46. Clean out the shelves behind my chair with an accumulation of different people’s important stuff that they have not missed since the last time it was cleared out.
    And restack the firewood to make room for a couple of cords being delivered.

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  47. I put up the bronze hooks for my hanging plants on the front porch.

    Watered the hanging poinsettias that will hang from them (in cute bronze plastic hanging baskets I found to cover up the white ones that they came in but really don’t go with the house); also watered some of the other potted plants, we’re supposed to get rain Monday … but maybe not. It’s sunny and cool (69) today after a string of very overcast days.

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  48. RKessler, it definitely depends on the dog whether it’s needy. Misten wasn’t, probably a combination of breed and training. I hear people on here talk about their cats insisting on being fed, and I forget whose cat even waking her up during the night to be fed, and that isn’t something I would like.

    I fed Misten at 10 a.m. and again in the evening. The 10 a.m. feeding was set that late on purpose so she wouldn’t be neglected if I happened to oversleep, and so that she wouldn’t bug me. She was not allowed to put her face on my bed until I woke and looked at her; she was not allowed on any of the furniture, and she was not allowed to stare at me while I was eating. Some dogs stay “glued” to their owners, but she didn’t. She might lie next to me for an hour, but then she’d get up and stretch, maybe come to be petted, and then move into another room for another hour. For a few months she never even asked to go outside, just let me put her out a few times a day, and she was maybe two or three before she ever “asked” about mealtime, and that in the most polite way possible. If it got to be half an hour or an hour past my usual time to feed her, she would simply look at me. In our last house she had a spot where she could sit in the living room and make direct eye contact when I was in my office (20 or 30 feet away); she’d sit there and look at me, and when I got out of my chair, she would assume I was getting up to feed her (as was often the case), and she’d turn and walk into the kitchen and let me follow her. My pastor’s wife dog-sat her if we were out of town, and she once told me guiltily that she forgot to feed Misten one night, that Misten was staring at her and she thought she wanted to be petted, so she petted her, but didn’t realize till the next morning she hadn’t fed her. Misten had a mischievous streak and could be a little bit stubborn, and of course her coat took a fair amount of care (not as much as one would think). But her “neediness” extended only to needing to be put outside two or three times a day, feeding her twice a day and making sure she had fresh water, picking up after her periodically, and brushing her a couple times a week. She was known to bark too much, but nowhere near the extent some dogs do. Collies can develop separation anxiety and so I carefully trained her to accept me coming and going, and as a result she didn’t even get excited when I came home unless I was gone ten or twelve hours. Less than that and she would come into the room to greet me, and she’d wag her tail politely (not excitedly) when I greeted her, and then she would go back to whatever room she’d been in before I came home.

    Some people like high-need breeds, but I don’t. I like affection–and sometimes wished Misten was a bit more affectionate–but I don’t want a dog following me from room to room or whining for attention, and that wasn’t her style either.

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  50. My dogs are very undemanding about food — today they were fed a few hours later than usual and they never made a peep. Cowboy did, however, nearly make it to the backyard with a full bag of tortilla chips last night.

    I spent about two hours watering, wearing a T-shirt and sandals, shielding my eyes from the sun. Coastal California in winter does have its perks.

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  51. We were stacking the firewood in shirt sleeves, but needed the boots for walking through the snow and mud. It was warm here. Probably mid thirties. These Idaho winters have their perks. And the guy did not bring just the two we bought, he donated two more!

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  52. It wasn’t cold here. If you had driven past my house you would have seen me using the lawn mower with the bag attached. It was the best way to get the leaves up, yet still leave some as mulch. I never use the bag in summer, as my mower mulches the grass. But the bag is handy for getting the leaves without the back-breaking of raking or the noise of the leaf blower. I did use the blower on the drive, though. That took over an hour alone. Long driveway, big yard.

    Now we’re awaiting the arrival of D3. She finished her classes for phlebotomy, so we’re taking her out for pizza and meeting some friends.

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  53. Christmas lights
    – cool or warm white?

    Warm works best on my house these days but I loved those cool colors when they first became so popular 🎄

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  55. I like the multi, too. They’re lost in my garage.

    Just picked up my *new* old computer, pretty amazing. He said it’ll last me at least another 5 years.

    Such an improvement!

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  56. We are home tonight. It is not easy, but it is good. Wesley picked us up at the new tower, and he almost thought he went to the wrong place because there was another Valet parking across the street, but I had just walked out and flagged him over to the corner to where he needed to be. Emory keeps getting bigger and bigger. There are so many pedestrian bridges between buildings and parking lots. Wesley really likes the newer car.

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  57. I like the traits that Miss Bosley displays that seem similar to a dog. I think she is needy because of losing her mommy cat at such a young age (she bonded with me in that regard). I loved when she played fetch with us just as I loved playing fetch with Smokey the dog. She loves to be groomed or brushed which I associate with dogs more than cats. She has never had accidents in the house. I think she would be quite different had she been raised as an outdoor cat.

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  58. Annie’s rather dog-like.

    In general, cats do tend to me more independent, they’re really a lower-maintenance pet compared to dogs who have to be walked and are generally more people connected. Dogs bond with people more after generations of domestication, which makes them more connected and that can be interpreted as neediness. We’re important to them. Cats, we’re not so much important to them 🙂 The ‘territory’ is important to them. Or so the theory goes.

    Annie bonded remarkably quickly to us, including the dogs — she’s never been afraid of them, though has learned to duck and evade Tess’ attempts at herding her. But I’ve never seen her hiss or take a swipe at the dogs. Cowboy’s a sweetheart, he’ll let her rub up against him (though he’s not real fond of it, based on his expressions and his moving away quickly as soon as she’s done).

    Cats are supposed to be “indoor-only” pets here, now (according to animal rights and shelter folks), but I really don’t think that’s particularly natural or healthy for them or us. I have a friend with numerous cats, all indoors, all the time, and her place is beginning to be really stifling, I’ve noticed. She doesn’t open windows (doesn’t want animal control alerted plus she doesn’t get alone with her immediate neighbors) and there’s just no fresh air circulating. It’s also really, really dark.

    I realize there’s a risk in letting cats out, but a cat like Annie was an outdoor cat when I adopted her. Her quality of life depends, I think, on having a certain amount of freedom. I do keep her (and the dogs) in all night, but otherwise the doggie door is open for business. Annie’s also not a wanderer, she sticks very close to home when she is outdoors (mainly in the backyard/patio). Best I can tell, she spends most of her time indoors.

    I walked the dogs tonight for the first time since my knee sprain, good for all of us. The lights this time of year are so pretty. My house is very modestly decorated by comparison, but I’m happy with it. 🙂

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  59. Praying for a good first night home for Art…and you, Wesley and Bosley….may Art heal quickly and the pain subside….
    I like warm white lights…I have “rice lights” on my real tree….they are tiny and very warmish…my favorite…
    Blessed to hear you had a lovely night of sleep Kare….I now have a “stupid” sinus infection…will be heading to the clinic in the morning…I’m rather miserable this evening…pressure, headache, jaw pain….ear pressure with this one as well…ugh……

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  61. Let us know how Art is feeling, Janice, hoping tomorrow will be the start of a quick recovery. Glad Wesley is there (and Miss Bosley too 🙂 , the comforts of home make such a big difference to our spirits.

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  62. Christmas lights – When I was growing up, we had tree lights with the larger screw-in bulbs, and foil reflectors to place behind each light. We always used multi-coloured bulbs, and matched the colour of the reflector to the colour of the bulbs – I can remember us siblings carefully spacing the colours of the bulbs so we didn’t have two of the same colour in the same area. The connecting electric line got older and older and started shorting out – more than one light bulb exploded (what can I say, my family does not rush to replace things and my father always tries repairs first) – so we finally went to the smaller multi-coloured light strands. A couple of years ago, we switched to multi-coloured LED strands, although I found them somewhat dimmer. The new tree came pre-wired with LED lights that can be either warm white or multi-coloured, in a variety of combinations including several potentially seizure inducing alternating ones. The multi-colour setting on steady makes it hard to see the ornaments on the tree, so we have been using the warm white setting on steady. It is a complete change from what I have been used to, but it gives the tree a warm glow and brings out the beauty of the ornaments, which are our chief purpose for having a tree. We have treasured heirloom antique glass ornaments that once hung on my mother’s childhood tree, handmade ones by beloved friends and family members who are no longer with us, unique and collectible ornaments given to us as gifts by other friends and family members, and a very few that we have made or bought ourselves. Each ornament has its own history, which I noticed that Second In-law has been asking us to tell him this year.

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  63. The family heirloom Christmas ornaments were one of the things that got “lost” following my mom’s death and clearing out of her house. My cousin and her 2 girls came down from Northern California/Sacramento area to help out during that time (as the cousin’s mom, my aunt, was living with my mom so that was a major piece of the puzzle that needed to be resolved). She cleared out much of the house and garage, which was an enormous help to me as I could only take so much time off work (and most of that was taken in the immediate wake of my mom’s unexpected death).

    Anyway, I always was sad that the Christmas things got lost in the shuffle somehow — perhaps mistakenly tossed or put in with the giveaway things — and I’d hoped they’d still turn up a year and a half ago when I was cleaning out my own garage that was stacked with many of my mom’s things that had been sitting in a paid storage for so long but were moved to my garage when I bought this house. Alas, they never turned up in her things that we’d kept and stored. 😦

    I remember the big multi bulbs with the reflectors, too. As the years wore on, most became coated with spray-on canned “snow” (we’d honed this look to an art form in LA during the 1960s). One year, my father, inspired by an idea he’d heard from one of the factory gals at work, insisted we should use cotton to lay on the branches for the “snow” look.

    My mom was not a fan of the look, which she thought looked gauche, and there was quite the debate that year about it. Back and forth it went for at least a day or so. I liked it so in the end my mom was outnumbered and it stayed.

    It was a one-year wonder, the cotton tree decor had vanished by the following Christmas and the subject wasn’t raised again. The spray-on snow also had fallen into disuse. I’m not sure if they still sell that, or if there’s some newer ‘flocking’ product people can use at home these days. I do know that flocking in pink and blue and other crazy colors became popular at some point, probably also in the 1960s, but we never (thankfully) went that route, my mom was a traditionalist when it came to Christmas trees and decorations.

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  64. Oh, I see they still sell ‘canned’ Snow at Amazon:

    Christmas Artificial Snow Spray Pack of Two 13 Oz Aerosol Decoration Tree Holiday Winter Fake Crafts Winter Party Snow

    Wheee.

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  65. My mother remembers the bubble lights of her youth with nostalgic affection. Her father was a silent and shy man – I remember him as seldom speaking and a bit gruff – but he loved to decorate for Christmas, and the bubble lights were always put in the greenery that decorated the archway. Despite the fact that my mother had far less growing up than we did (she only would get one present under the tree), her memories of her childhood Christmases always sound even more sumptuous than ours. Less is more.

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  66. Everything is good for now. We have lots of laundry to do. It’s great that Wesley is home to help. This has been his first experience with after surgery care. Although we all got extra sleep this a.m., I still feel tired and draggy. Art lost ten pounds which he transferred to me. I think when he was in surgery that they did a bit of liposuction and while I was asleep they gave me an IV full of liquid fat cells.

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  68. Thankful you got some sleep Janice! I heard a musing once that the lady decided her extra poundage was due to her using “extra volume” shampoo in the shower…I’m using that as my reasoning!! 😂
    I am now on antibiotics and Sudafed, ibuprofen, Flonase and acetaminophen. She looked in my ear and announced it appeared things were collapsing in there….yikes!
    And oh how I loved our Christmas Bubble lights when I was a kid…all those lights got so hot…it’s no wonder our trees smelled so delightful…they were warm!! 😳

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  70. She did not explain what she meant…I told her the pressure was awful in my head…my jaw, under my eyes, and it even felt as though my left ear was closed off….years ago I had one other doc tell me that it appeared my ear drum was collapsed on that side. At that time he said it was all dried and he couldn’t figure out how I could even hear….all I know is I feel rather crummy and cannot wait until the antibiotics kick in…this is the second sinus infection I have had in 4 months span…after never ever experiencing such in my life….

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  74. This was our family’s ‘go-to’ place in Iowa. My mom grew up going to “the lakes” and I was a frequent and early visitor after I came along during our visits the Iowa homestead. My aunt and uncle used to dance at the ballroom, my mom and I loved the roller rink.

    My mom remembered renting bathing suits there (wool!) when she was in high school.

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  76. Did Kizzie ever find her craft scissors?

    I bought a grouped package of them (for paper crafts, not expensive particularly) at a craft store for a friend who does a lot of scrapbooking. I’m thinking also of putting together some small gifts (work gloves, heavy-duty hand repair lotion, things like that) for her ongoing work in helping her brother put up a new fence in their backyard … with maybe a gift card for Home Depot as the reason they’re doing the work themselves is they can’t afford to hire anyone.

    At another craft place, they were selling hand soap and lotion in fun fragrances for $1 each so I picked a few of those up for gifts but those are light-weight, fun formulas, so thinking of giving them to other friends I haven’t found gifts for yet.

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  77. No, Kizzie did not find the right craft scissors. Nightingale did not want to take the time to look at all the options and figure out what she needs, so she told me not to bother – she’ll buy them some other time. That’s okay, because I figured out something else to get her, and this time she won’t know what it is.

    I had hated having to ask her about the scissors, because I wanted to surprise her with them. Gifts are more special when you don’t know what you’re getting ahead of time.

    Christmas tree lights – My parents had the old-fashioned kind that twinkled. A lot of the bulbs stayed on, but there were others that went on and off at different times, not all of them doing so at the same time, so they made a lovely twinkling effect. I miss that.

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  78. I so agree about how gifts should be unexpected, personal but always a surprise. I think that’s what bothered me so much about Carol’s “Santa” request (aside from the cost) every year, she’d pick something out that was really expensive, put in the request in October and then ask if she could just have it early, in November. Ugh. That’s when/where I drew the line and even though now she spends her own money on her own big “gift” for herself every year (so she has nothing left for gifts for anyone else really), I am much happier choosing what I give her and how much I’m going to spend and having it be something of a little surprise to unwrap.

    This year will probably just be the hand soap & lotion and an Amazon gift card for maybe $25. The comforter I bought her last year is now lost and I realize that living in those places, things don’t last long, for one reason or another. And the LL Bean socks I bought to keep her feet warm overnight pleased her but they ultimately didn’t work, she still has to wear her New Balance shoes to bed 😦

    The scissors I got my friend are more like decorative types that cut out jig-jagged or other kinds of border edges for paper crafts.

    But now I’m kind of getting into the whole idea of the ‘home depot’ box so I may just take the scissors back.

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  79. Friend just shared with me that one of her most special Christmas gifts from her parents — after she’d first moved out — was the Pyrex bowls with glass lids in all sizes, including many that were small and medium. Now, as a lifelong single, she’s still using those and loves them (and you can’t get them with the glass lids anymore).

    The first year I moved out, my mom gave me an old rocking chair — an antique, purchased from a older woman she’d been helping out and who was trying to get rid of things. It’s handmade, from the 1800s, painted black with some interesting and primitive carvings on the back slats — the carvings look like trees?

    Ironically, my roommate’s parents also gave her a rocking chair that first Christmas so we had 2 in our little apartment! She still has hers, too. 🙂

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  81. Ooh, just saw where one of our ‘locals’ is a golfing buddy of Gary Sinise 🙂 His brother was my (semi-retired) electrician who came over a few months ago and told me he thought my house was one of the first built in the neighborhood. I think he was correct!

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