No Shopping In My Plan Today

Other than enjoying that I don't have to go to work the day after Thanksgiving for the first time in many years I don't really have a plan for today. If I did have a plan it would not include shopping. I admire people who get up really early and  have the courage to fight the crowds to get a great bargain. I am not one of those people. I don't like to shop in the best of circumstances so I'm sure I would not be very good at fighting someone for the best bargain at the bottom of the bin. 

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Just as I was enjoying a piece of pumpkin pie for breakfast I heard on the news that it would take 56 times around an ice skating rink to burn the calories from a piece of pumpkin pie. The little skating rink in our town is smaller than the norm, so it would probably take more times around than I could count to burn those pumpkin pie calories. Besides, I have broken my tail bone too many times to make ice skating a good idea.

I guess I could try a ride in one of the horse-drawn carriages that they have in the area around the skating rink. I would probably have to be one of the horses for that to do me much good calorie-wise.

The town library is right across the street from the skating rink.....that sounds like a much more likely activity for me today.

I just hope I don't hear anything about how many calories a turkey sandwich with cranberry sauce has or what I would have to do to burn those calories

You've Gotta Love The Knife

A nice Thanksgiving picture by one of my grandchildren, saying "Would you want to be the turkey?

But you've gotta love the knife. 

I Knew It!

One of my favorite things that I have been able to do since I stopped working full time last summer is taking Dodger for a long walk every morning. We usually walk for about 45 minutes, with the first 10 minutes or so dedicated to Dodger doing a lot of sniffing and taking care of other business. After that we complete the walk at a pretty brisk pace. I always take my pedometer along in my pocket so I would have an idea of the length of the walk on the various routes we take. When I would check the pedometer when I got home I always felt like we had gone a lot farther than it said. Anyone I mentioned that to just gave me a sort of "yeah, sure" look.

Well.....this week I tested the pedometer. I took it with me to the rec center where the big sign on the wall says 10 laps = 1 mile. That is surely not something the rec center would lie about, so I put the pedometer in my pocket and at the end of 10 laps this is what it said.....

.61......just a little over 6/10ths of a mile.

I knew it, and I did it twice just to be sure.

I don't exactly know how to do the math, and I don't really know what difference it makes at this point, but I'm pretty sure that I have walked somewhere around a gazillion more miles than I thought I had.

Friday Fragments

My two daughters are almost 6 years apart in age and my youngest daughter's two girls, Hope and EJ,  are also almost 6 years apart in age. Sometimes being the little sister can be a little rough........

EJ: Mom, I have to clean up the whole mess, Hope doesn't even have to help.

Mom to Hope: How did you swing that one, Hope?

Hope: Per the contract. 

That is a hard one for a 4 year old to argue with.

When a 4 year old has a 10 year old sister who sings all. the. time., they sometimes pick up songs that are a little beyond their years. I'm sure you have heard this one way too many times, but the video is only about 30 seconds long. 

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Thank you to everyone who has expressed concern and asked how my grandson, Justin, is doing after his trip to the hospital on Tuesday. He only had to spend one night in the hospital and is on the mend at home now. A bad respiratory infection caused his larynx and trachea to suddenly swell and inhibit his breathing. Many thanks to the school staff who acted quickly to get medical help for him. He said riding in an ambulance is not so fun.....they just poke you with stuff the whole time. 

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Thanksgiving is kind of sneaking up on me. I will only have about 15 people here this year, fewer than usual, and everyone will help with the food, so it should all be okay. I just have to make sure that this year I get a turkey that will actually fit into my oven.

To participate in Friday Fragments visit here.

A Big Scare

I got a scary call about 8:30 this morning from my daughter, Jill. My 9 year old grandson, Justin, had developed a breathing problem shortly after he got to school and it got so bad so fast that the school called 911. My daughter got to the school to find Justin surrounded by paramedics, not able to get enough breath to even answer their questions. They got him stabilized enough for an ambulance ride to the hospital where they continued treatment and tried to figure out what was going on.

Justin had felt bad for several days and went to the doctor yesterday and was diagnosed with a sinus infection and given an antibiotic. They said he would be fine to go back to school today.  The first thought was that the problem was a reaction to the antibiotic. As of now it looks like a sinus infection was a misdiagnosis and that he has a tracheal infection. He will spend tonight in the hospital to make sure his breathing is back on track and that they have a firm diagnosis and treatment plan.

Justin is normally a healthy, active kid who will rarely be still or quit being silly long enough to take a picture. Seeing him in an ER bed, looking pale, hooked up to wires and being given oxygen was quite a shock....and, yes, if he grows into those feet he will be one big boy.

He hasn't gotten too grumpy as of this evening, other than complaining about the IV in his arm. I will be glad when he feels good enough to get grumpy about all the hospital hoopla.....then I will know he is on the mend.

Moving On

I hope everyone is moving on after the campaign season and the election. Like most everyone I am glad it is over, but I have been been dismayed by the vitriol I have continued to see and hear from both sides, even though it is a done deal. On Wednesday I spent time with two different friends, of differing opinions, and I couldn't believe some of the things they were still saying regarding the candidate they opposed. These are both good friends and very nice women and it was hard for me to listen to either one of them. In the spirit of moving on, I  won't even mention what I thought about some of the stuff I saw on Facebook.

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So, moving on for me has involved a lot of shopping and I am a person who doesn't like to shop. I especially don't like to shop for things I know nothing about like door handles, hinges,  vent covers, light fixtures and lots of other things that I don't even know the names of, but that is what I have moved on to this week. Now they are all sitting on a workbench in the garage waiting for our hapless handyman, Robert, to show up to get them installed. Actually he installed a few door handles and hinges yesterday, but it is a roll of the dice as to when he will show up again to semi-complete the job. 

I added a few new mysterious pieces of hardware to this stack today. 

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I was in a Starbucks today between trips to Lowes, Home Depot and various other hardware establishments. I saw a little white haired lady sitting alone at a table with a big cup of coffee at her elbow, and with her head hanging down, chin to neck, looking as though she was asleep. My first inclination was to feel a little sorry for her for being alone and asleep in that setting. That was before I looked a little closer and saw her hands going a mile a minute on the i Pad on her lap.

Note to self-never assume.

An Election and a Little Catch-up

I know I promised not to talk about politics here, but there is one election I can't help commenting on. My granddaughter, Hope, 10, got a call from her school yesterday and it turns out that 100% of the constituents (ie. 5th graders) voted early and Hope has been elected the new student council president. If arguing her side of things is a criteria for the job Hope will do great. Way to go Hope!

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I worked all last week.....yes, five whole days in a row, so I am doing a little Halloween catch-up.

We started with our traditional Jack-o-Lantern Pizza

It must have been good since these guys couldn't stop eating long enough to look at me for a picture.

I finally got them to at least look at me.

Then it was off to trick-or-treating with a witch with braces and a wart,

A princess with Crocs,

and a little lion who did his best to keep up with the big kids.

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I am looking forward to the coming week......I won't be working and we will finally see the end of the horrible election ads, at least for a while. Whoever the winner is, I hope it is a decisive result.