A Little Breathing Room This Week

I finally won at Canasta! Third place, but it was a win. I needed that to salve my battered ego with being low the Saturday before. I won't be going back to Jennifer's anytime soon, she's finished hosting, but I am doing the 5K Run Thru The Woods with her on Thanksgiving morning.

I had an eye doctor appointment Thursday morning and then I picked up Gerre for the Newcomers Luncheon. It was a nice lunch with a great speaker on wine. I thought this wouldn't be real interesting to me but she was very good. I learned a few things and wouldn't hesitate to use her shop if and when I needed to purchase wine for a specific meal or person.

There were money prizes, centerpieces and wine gifts given away. Eight women were at our table and three of the ladies won four of the prizes. Guess who one of the five that didn't win was? Me! Gerre won a great gift basket from the wine shop and one lady won TWO of the money prizes.

Friday Rebecca came to clean and I prepared all my bunco packets through March 2013. We've all picked our hostess months so I printed out that sheet and attached all the scoring sheets needed. That way, when the bunco bag is passed to the next hostess, she just takes the next packet with her name highlighted and she has everything she needs. This group runs like a clock and I love all the women who make it work.

Then I wrote our Christmas letter. I caught so much flack this past year over not including our usual letter in my cards last Christmas. Apparently at this age, if you do something differently, they assume you are dead or dying. So I worked on the letter and was able to include several photos from throughout the year.

Last night was the Lighting of the Doves and the arrival of Santa Claus along the waterway. We went with Gerre and Barry to walk through the festival. It has become more and more a Children's Festival but they were so much fun to watch. They have snow hills for sledding, snow for playing in, bounce houses and something new was huge clear balls the kids are put into and rolled onto water to bounce around. I wanted to try it! The kids were making ornaments, having their faces painted and having a good time. We watched two ice carvers make a sleigh that they filled with presents carved from ice and a big Santa Claus to stand next to it. Santa came down the waterway and once he passed us we left for dinner so we wouldn't get caught in a rush.

We went to Chili's where Barry bought our dinner as a thank you for watching Tucker this week while they are gone. That certainly wasn't necessary but was appreciated.

Today we went to church early because I am going to climb into the attic to get down the few Christmas things I'm going to use. We will be gone the next two weekends and by then it is December 4 and I need to be finished or it won't get done at all.

He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree. ~ Roy L. Smith