Friday, December 14th - just a few more days to get ready

It's a cool -3' this morning with a few clouds but we should warm up to +3' later with some sun so not a bad day in store again today. The last couple of days have been beautiful - cool but very sunny and bright. Perfect weather for getting out there and getting the last bits of shopping done. I'm doing what I can a lunch times but the stores are busier now so I can't accomplish as much in an hour as I did a month ago - too much time standing in checkout lines. But it's getting there. I'm hopeful to have another productive weekend. I've even asked if I can take this Saturday off but the jury's still out on that one. Hopefully I'll find out today.

Lloyd is still quite under the weather with a really bad cold but hopefully he'll feel a little better today. He did eat some supper last night so it looks like he might be on the mend. Better to be sick now than over the holidays I suppose.

The other night when I got home from work, the outside Christmas lights were up as I mentioned earlier. It's the first year we've had lights outside since moving here. As I drove down the road, it looked so nice and bright. When I got inside I thanked him for putting them up for me and his response was "I think we need some candles in the upstairs windows".  I was slightly taken aback at that comment because he's always been somewhat of a Bah Humbug kind of guy! Did I just hear those words come from you?  Sure enough. So not to be discouraging of this new found Christmas spirit, I picked up an electric candle the next day. Only trouble was I forgot that the window upstairs at the front of the house is actually two together so I needed another candle. I picked up a second one yesterday so it's all starting to come together.

I stopped at Brenda's last night to drops off some things to her and she has a new candy cane decoration that's made by a fellow who lives closer to town. It's wooden with Christmas light on it and it's painted red and white. It's really nice and looks great at their place. Now that I've really had a good look at it, I'm surprised at how many of them there are around. The fellow who makes them does a really fine job and it's nice to see that his efforts are being supported. It's quite an ingenious design that can be hung on a wall or put onto a stake in the ground. I'll have to get some pictures of it one day when I'm over there.