There’s Plenty to be Thankful For/Here Comes December-Dan’s Almost Daily Journal
Volume 46-Reflecting on Thanksgiving/Getting Ready For the Holidays
Welcome back. It’s been a while. My almost daily journal. Hmm. I must say I’m behind on my entries. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. We all have a lot to be thankful for. I know I do. Our family is expanding as my grandson is now 7 weeks old, and my granddaughter will turn 5 this Saturday. Grandkids are heaven-sent. They are your reward for a life well lived. I feel very fortunate to have them; I wish everyone could.
I realize Thanksgiving is a very busy holiday and can be stressful. All the meal preparation and cleanup. And we all know how dealing with family can be at times. But in the end, hopefully, the day was enjoyable for you and your family. In my experience, most times, all the effort is well worth it.
In these trying times, sometimes it may not be easy to be positive. With our nation divided and inflation soaring, people are feeling more stressed. Thanksgiving is a great day to reflect on what we do have, mainly the people in our lives and how much comfort they bring. Despite the issues we face in this country, we are still fortunate to live here in the United States.
Shifting Focus to Christmas
Today is the last day of November, already. As soon as the calendar changes to December, our focus automatically shifts to Christmas. At least in our house. Now that we are retired, my wife and I are fortunate to have more time to get ready for the holidays. I got most of our outside decorations up before Thanksgiving. That helps tremendously as then we can focus on the inside of the house.
I recently wrote about the many benefits of decorating for the holidays and how it is a great activity for retirees:
Dealing With Wind and Indoor Flooding
Today was an interesting day, for sure. We had and still have a wind advisory as I am writing this. Tomorrow will be whippy as well. The wind has now shifted from the South to the West and continues to blow at 20 to 30 mph with gusts to 40 mph. I didn’t turn on the deck lights tonight since I have 3 inflatables which wouldn’t fare well in the wind. I had a tree on the front porch tip over even though I have 3 guy wires on it. It is back up tonight and working OK. I also have an old-fashioned Santa that I brought in from the porch today as it was tipping over. That is back out also tonight since the West wind doesn’t hit the front porch as much as the South does.
Now for the flooding, yes, indoors. Well, kind of. When we get wind events, I normally fill 5 or 6 5-gallon pails with water in case the power goes out. We have a generator, but it can’t run the deep well pump. It does run the furnace, refrigerator, and freezer, and the TV and some lamps. So I filled the pails this morning and put them in a spare bedroom.
Late this afternoon, my wife went into the spare room with just her socks on and said she got wet feet! At the time, we were getting heavy rain, wind, and even sleet mixed in. I went in to investigate; one of the 5-gallon pails was empty. So I got out the carpet cleaner which does a good job of extracting water. I was able to get a lot of it cleaned up; I also used towels to blot some of the water. Hopefully, it will dry quickly and not harm anything. The pail had a tiny crack in the bottom about a half-inch long. Unreal. My almost daily journal. Sometimes exciting!
Now Let’s Focus on Decorating
Yes, we do get carried away with decorating. We have 6 or 7 full-size trees and quite a few small ones as well. All different themes. I will post photos as we get the trees up. Outside we now have 4 inflatables, and we added a new deer/sled this year in the side yard. I blame it on the grandkids. A good excuse to get carried away. Today we did make progress as we got the kitchen/bar area finished. Tomorrow is the big tree in the family room. The 9-footer. You know, the heavy one that’s in the attic.
Stayed tuned for more updates as the adventures continue. Many more photos to follow.