This Week's Fun

In my brain, the holiday season began Monday night. Once it is Halloween it seems like the holidays are upon us, and it is time to switch gears, get ready for Thanksgiving, then head full force into Christmas. 

Monday: I finally got my Halloween decorations out. I am one of those who has a kind of creepy front porch with chains and tattered cloth and a big "bloody" BEWARE sign on the door, with skulls, skeletons, bats and rats  decoratively placed around the small porch.  There is more going on there than I like to dodge for more than one day.

My biggest joy? I took a "grabber" from Mom's house when we were cleaning it out to sell. By using it, I did not have to lug the ladder out to hang the lights and chains (styrofoam but they look like rusted metal). Instead of taking me about an hour, climbing up and down, I was able to do all the decorating standing flat on my feet, and was totally finished in less than 30 minutes! Score!

Tuesday: I loved seeing all the kiddos who came trick or treating. We had 84 by 7:15 then I ran out of candy and had to shut it down early. This obviously ticked off some "spooks" who decided if I was not handing out candy when they came around, they should take my potted mums instead. I hope they enjoyed them.

Oh well!*

By 8 pm I had removed all signs of Halloween from the house, packed it up and had it on the bottom step waiting for my next trip upstairs to put it back until next year.

Wednesday: I was able to volunteer at Independence Place, otherwise known as my happy place. I can't begin to find the words to say how much joy I get from being with them. I alternate between teaching them to make savory and sweet dishes. This was the sweet cooking day and they were extra excited to taste what they made.

Thursday: There was not a lot going on other than getting ready for our weekend guests. I suppose the joy was having everything finished and ready for them, so there was no real last minute tidying. 

I did go ahead and begin my Christmas gift wrapping. I had a couple of shipped items and the boxes were really bothering TheHub. "What's in that box?" Rather than have him wondering or even snooping I decided to go ahead and wrap every single thing I had bought so far.  They are not tree ready because I do not bow or tag them until the Christmas tree is up and they are about to go under it. Instead I have a double secret coding method (Sharpie drawn symbols on the back of each package) which correlates to my also double secret gift list.

Friday: Before anyone got here, I went upstairs for one last check to make sure things were guest ready. While up there I got out my fall/Thanksgiving items and readied the house for Turkey Day. (Who am I kidding? I only put minimal stuff out, and only in the foyer and dining room). Some of the Halloween things get to do a double duty which is also nice. The small white pumpkins and small green pumpkin shaped gourds go into the cornucopia along with pomegranates and apples. The apples will be replaced as need be (as we eat them) and the pomegranates will turn into pomegranate syrup once Thanksgiving is over.  Hopefully the gourds will dry easily and I can use them again next fall. If not they will probably end up in the compost pile

Son3 and DIL3 arrived in the afternoon and TheHub came home a bit early also. We had dinner at a restaurant, then Son3 and DIL3 left to pick up one of their friends from the airport. Toney was one of Son3's roommates while he was in school. We had met him once or twice before and were happy to have him come for a visit. He had never been to a college game, so he was in for a little baptism by fire, because the game was going to be the biggest one of the season (thus far). 

We stayed up much too late talking and laughing.

Saturday: Game day! We woke and had a communal breakfast. I am not a breakfast person but it was great to sit with everyone and have more conversations before we started watching the morning games. Alabama did not play until the evening game, so there was lots of flipping channels back and forth between 4 different games before the crew going to the game left. DIL3 and I were here for a while then DIL2 came over and joined us to watch Alabama vs. LSU.  I love spending time with them!

It was a fun game to watch and the LSU quarterback is worth seeing even if you do not like football.

Thankfully Alabama won, and everyone at our house was happy.

BTW, the young man pictured above is the former roommate and guest that was here. If you happen to watch Billions you will recognize the character, Phillip, who never smiles. Quite contrary to the personality of the off camera Toney. Imagine his character saying this line from the show, which is the actual line he said. "For the record, I bleed Crimson Tide". It was not referring to football but to a submarine movie, however we are taking exception to that since we seemed to truly make a Tide fan of him. I actually found a gif of the scene from the show, but because of my technical skills (or lack thereof) it did not make it to the blog. Oh well, I tried!

Have a wonderful week and look for your joys, no matter how small. They are always out there.

May all your weeds be wildflowers.

Anne

*We discovered the mums were not taken but just knocked off the porch. They look kind of bad but are salvageable