Thanksgiving & Decorating

Thanksgiving this year (happily) turned out to be a calm and pleasant affair.  All of the kids came home, and... there has been no drama (hugely thankful for that).  We had a very pleasant day.  And, on Friday, everyone rallied together too to actually decorate the house for Christmas.  This is not usual, and it too was pleasant in all regards.  It is rather quite nice to have the house SET for the holiday so early.  It means that we are settled into our routine from yesterday (Friday) until January 6th, the day my wife and I will pack the decorations away.  

My youngest son brought a pecan pie he had made, and it was very tasty.  It was only the second pecan pie he had ever made, and it was very successful and delicious.  He has been into baking and cooking a lot the last several months.  It is rather interesting as when he was a young kid, he was rather impatient about our cooking meals and always wanted "fast food".  

We are expecting to receive between 5 - 9 inches (~12 - 23 cm) of snow between this evening and Sunday afternoon.  I really need to go double check to see if the snow blower is up to snuff or not.  But, unfortunately, it is rather too late to do much about it, if it is not.  So, I may simply stay in my office here, grading, and hope for the best.  I am very glad that about 2 weeks ago, during a thaw, that I remembered to pound into the ground the orange stakes I have to demarcate the driveway and sidewalk so that I can more easily shovel and plow the driveway.  I had forgotten to put them in earlier, when I should have done so, and the ground had gotten rather frozen.  I am thankful for the brief thaw we had, because those stakes/poles help greatly.  

With the start of Advent this week, I am truly trying to focus on the four themes of the season.... hope, peace, joy, and love.  I am hoping I am able to grow more into the person I should be.  My many failings are all too apparent to me, and I know I can and should be better.  I want to work to shed the failings I have.  

Due to Thanksgiving, I could not run my hamster loops on Thursday, so I went to indoor track this morning to get through my missed miles.  It feels good to have reached the mileage for the week, even though it is a day later than usual.  

I have been reliving in my imagination the delightful flavors, the sanguinity of my spirit, and the the beautiful nurturing of my neurons that the sole pipe provided me last Tuesday.  The experience was so vivid.

PipeTobacco