Today is November 18th - perhaps a bit early to begin decorating for Christmas, but not unreasonably so. These pictures, however, were taken on Monday of last week. Yes, November 6th my daughters were decorating a Christmas tree in their room...thanks to Grandma! My mom has two trees already up and decorated, and the girls really wanted to get in on the action. Since I will have to spend all my time after I put up my tree trying to keep Malcolm from pulling it over, I was not anxious to put it up just yet. This small tree in their bedrom was an acceptable compromise! Malcolm likes blueberries!
What is this gross mess? This is my freezer after three days without power. On Wednesday, a wicked storm blew through this area, and we lost power at 2:00. That first night it was a bit of a novelty; we ordered pizza, ate by candlelight, went to bed at the same time as the kids and read by candlelight. The next day the novelty was wearing off; we packed up some stuff as soon as it started getting dark and went to my brother and sister-in-law's house for the evening. Now for those of you who know our situation, you may wonder why they had power and we didn't, seeing as we live about 3 blocks from each other. Well, their power did go out, but it was back on by 4 in the morning on Thursday. What's worse is that the people kitty-corner from our house had power restored then also. And the people directly in back of us had power restored then also. Everyone around us had power, and we didn't. That was the worst part - when everyone's in the same boat, you kind of grin and bear it, but when you're in the boat alone, it's easier to feel ripped off. So, anyways, our power came back on just as I was packing our bag on Friday evening to go back to Greg and Becky's place. You really appreciate stuff more when you've been without it for a while, even just a short while. And the messes you see here are mint chocolate chip ice cream on the left, and a pink popsicle on the right. Lovely. But apparently it was the motivation I needed to clean out this freezer and my deep freeze, both of which look much better now.