Backsies Is What There Is Not: December 2023

I know the REAL December didn't begin until Friday, but PRESCHOOL December began Monday. Thanksgiving is over, and all they care about is Christmas. I decorated the room Thanksgiving weekend, decking the walls with candy canes and gingerbread men and women, placing Christmas-themed toys and Santa hats in the centers, setting up a small tree for them to decorate, and planning numerous crafts and projects to keep them busy for the next month. Let's all hope I survive it!

On to the thankfuls.

Parks and Recreation. What a gem of a show!

Vanderpump Rules. I finally made it through all 10 seasons. Sandoval is a jerk. Schwartz needs to grow some balls or get his back from Katie. I have loved Ariana from day one. Lala is insufferable. James continues to make my skin crawl. Raquel is dumb like a fox, as my dad would say. I'm glad Jax is no longer on the show, but I miss Brittney. I also miss Stassi's one-on-one clips, as she has a wicked sense of humor, but otherwise, she's mean. Scheana has finally grown up a little since she had a baby, but she still thinks she is a fabulous singer and she clearly isn't. Even Lisa Vanderpump is not immune to the natural aging process, and that is comforting. Now I wait for Season 11!

The weather is finally cool enough to make caramel popcorn.

I have purchased exactly 5 Christmas gifts so far, but it's better than NO Christmas gifts so far.

My daughter in law matched her top Fellowship choice at Children's National in Washington, DC. She will be focusing on vaccine development with the FDA. So very proud of her and her hard work!

The winter weather gear is in a basket in my entry hall, and Nora has wasted no time trying to bring every hat, scarf, or pair of mittens upstairs to my bedroom. I do not know what drives her to do this, but it's pretty entertaining, especially since she sorts through the basket and chooses what she wants to bring to me. We always know she's coming with something, because she says "MRRRROWLLL" the entire trip, all while carrying a treasure in her mouth. One day, she brought me five hats. FIVE.

Speaking of cats (especially QUIRKY cats), in a last-ditch attempt to find a litterbox that would force Finn the Fearful to keep his booty INSIDE the litterbox when he availed himself of the facilities (in other words, he backs over the edge of the box and pees and poops on the floor). I found THIS beauty at PetsMart and it has been everything I hoped it would be (except awkward to carry through my very narrow bathroom door to empty on trash day):

The new poo box

Bonus is it fits in a corner. Does he do his business right inside the lower "entrance" and hover dangerously close to the edge? Of course! But he's not tall enough for anything he has to give to miss the box. Big win!

Peppermint Stick Ice Cream.

I took my dad to a doctor's appointment on Friday morning, and when we left, we took a little side trip to look for a branch location of our bank that we had never noticed before. It's on a 4-lane road with a center turn lane as it goes through a fairly congested retail area, and as we were toodling along, we saw a car pull out from a parking lot at a pretty good clip (and may I add there was quite a bit of traffic) and right into a silver car. The silver car was pushed sideways into the oncoming lanes, which meant directly in front of me. I hit the brakes HARD and our vehicle (a very heavy Tahoe) came to a stop at the passenger door of the silver car. Our airbags didn't deploy, but the other two cars' airbags did. Many people stopped to help, and ambulances, fire trucks, local police, and the Highway Patrol arrived shortly. We don't know what kind of injuries there were, but they didn't seem to be serious, and the best news out of this is I DIDN'T HIT THE SILVER CAR. Can we all be thankful for anti-lock brakes? AND for the behind-the-wheel instruction of my high school Driver's Ed teacher, Mr. Noland? It LOOKED like we were right against the car, and the vibrating of the car as the anti-lock brakes did their thing led us to BELIEVE we might have hit it, but there was an ENTIRE HAND'S WIDTH between our car and the silver car. Glory be! That's a tremendous thankful. My dad and I both were convinced we were going to hit it and when the car stopped, were convinced that we HAD hit it.