Quiet holidays

Today was a very quiet Thanksgiving. Since Mike and Amy and their little family moved to Memphis this summer, there weren't any kids at dinner today and 5 less people. Matt had dinner with his dad's family today too, so it was really quiet! He came over last night though and had crab legs with Meg and Steve. I'm not a big fan of seafood, so I had leftover soup. My house still smells fishy, ick. I missed having him with us today. I guess there were 6 less people than normal, I forgot to count him the first time around!

Anyway, another holiday down this year, I can't believe how fast the year has gone! I guess it's true, the older you are the faster times goes by, because this one has just whizzed past!

We had a good dinner. Smitty made the turkey and dressing. I tried a new recipe for a cranberry salad and it was really good! Of all places I found it in a church cookbook from about 1975 or so, it was very yummy. It was made with cranberries, strawberry Jell-O, apples, nuts, and marshmallows. It called for chopped celery too, but Steve hates celery, so I left that out. Meg really liked it, but said it would have been better without the cranberries! lol! Dinner was at 3 and we were home by6. I kind of wanted to go see the gingerbread display at the visitor's center, but nobody else seemed too eager to go, so that was nixed. Maybe this weekend...

Tomorrow is the day we traditionally buy our tree, but Steve hasn't said anything, so I don't know if we're going to or not. The place we used to get our tree was closed last year so I guess we're going to go to the other place in Ft. Calhoun to cut our own. I don't like their place as much, but it's only a tree, right? The other folks were so friendly and always had hot chocolate and hot apple cider, they'd visit with you after you chose your tree. I don't know, they just made it seem like so much more fun. The other place we went to last year just felt a lot more impersonal. I guess it's not that big of a deal, but it just wasn't as much fun last year. I need to figure out how to get all 6 dogs to sit together for a Christmas picture too. Last year I thought it was difficult with 4 - what did I know?! This should be fun...

This laptop is really ticking me off. In the middle of typing something the stupid cursor just takes off on its own and lands somewhere else in the document. At first I thought it was just me or the program I'm using, but it happens all the time. I don't think it's just me any more. I just lost this whole post and had to redo it. Grrrrr...

We had our first fire in the wood stove this weekend. I love it. The basement is so nice and warm, but it makes the rest of the house colder than heck. The bedroom is just like an icebox! Brrrrrr. Maybe we should move our bedroom downstairs for the winter. I was thinking of getting a double bed and putting it in the bedroom downstairs for a guest bedroom anyway. Then we could just use it for winter. I might have to think about that more seriously. Even the dogs are cold - all of them want to get in bed with us at night! If it was just me I'd let them, but 2 adults and 5 dogs in a queen size bed just is a bit much! Of course if we let one in bed, they all want to get up. Thank goodness Toby sleeps in the other room, or he'd want to be up here with us too! Benny is actually starting to burrow under the dog blankets on the floor, which he hasn't done up until now, so I can tell he must be cold. Poor baby.

I guess I'm allergic to the sticky stuff from the pads on the Holter monitor. I took the pads off today and took a shower, but now I have big itchy red welts where the pads were. I know I'm sensitive to tape and I can't use some patches, like the hormone patches I used after my hysterectomy, because I'm sensitive to the adhesive. I can't find my prednisone cream either, so I've spent most of the evening trying not to obviously scratch my chest while it itches like crazy. Add that to my list of allergies, I guess.

Well, I'm going to try to get some shut eye. I have to work tomorrow and Saturday. Now I only have a month until Christmas, so I need to get busy and get some stuff done around here. I already have a ton of presents to wrap, decorations to get out, cleaning to do... Makes me tired just thinking about it! Later!