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     Guess how any blog posts I have done?

    If you guessed 4,317 you are correct.  Well, t least you will be when this one is done.

    Honestly, if iI could write this regularly every day, I would have 4 published books!

     A former student of mine published a western on Amazon.  I should order it.  Maybe that will inspire me to do something besides sit on the 3 I have written.

    Mine are more on the novelette side.... only about 140 pages.  I think they are good, but I am biased.  I don't think anyone else but me has read any of the 3.  I don't know if it is fear of failure or if they are really, really good and I should have written. more.

    Christmas will not be snowy this year.  I guess Bing won't be singing.

    I do miss some snow, although I don't like it all at once.  I still have a pile at the end of the driveway.  

    I made stew yesterday.  There is enough for Tuesday night.

    But I did not know what to do for supper tonight.

    Fate intervened. 

    Portillo's had a buy one beef, get one free.

    Since I was heading up to visit my sister in law in the rehab center, I figured I could swing by Binny's for tome Bailys and then hit Portillo's.  

    I was strolling along the alcohol aisles when I heard a voice call my name.  A fellow Rochellian was also getting some holiday spirits.

    And I had a nice visit with my SIL and her daughter.  Memory is improving, balance is better, but she still has some work to do.

    Slow but steady progress.

Peace and Love

piles

 I am working on cleaning my desk

    I have a piles of books I am reading.

    I have a pile of magazines I want to read.

    I have a pile of things happening in 2026.

    I have a pile of paper with strange notes.

    At least I am dealing with piles now.

    Someone asked me how often I won at 2 suited spider solitaire.  I said I thought about 40 % of the time.

    So I decided to keep track.  On one piece of paper I won 8, lost 17.  Another sheet had 6 and 21.  That's 14 and 38, which is tad less than 40 %.  

    Jackie always mentions I spend a lot of time reading the paper on line.

    I told her I also go through e mails.  To prove my point, one morning I deleted 321 e mails!  Granted, that was a 2 day span because I had not deleted the previous day.

    We have 2 email accounts.  One we use for ordering stuff.  That is. the one with 321 e mails.  Most of them are unread, but they still have to be deleted.

    I have a note abut children being held in the ICE crackdown.

    If you are under 18,  there is a 20 day limit on a child being held.  After that point the child is supposed to be placed with a parent, relative or a guardian.  Over 400 children have been held longer than the 20 days and 5 have been held 168 days.  We should be ashamed.

    My niece Cindy got our Christmas card.....but it was empty inside!  She only got the envelope.  Must have been raccoons. 

    Talked to my cousin in Alaska tonight.  We spent a lot of time moaning  about the problems that come with growing old.  I used to cringe when I was younger and older folk talked about that stuff.  What goes around, comes around.

    He also said it was going to be below 0 for the next 2 weeks or so.  I told him we will be in the 40s and 50s later this week.

    In 1967 one January day it was something like 67 in Chicago. The next day 18 inches of snow fell.  Or was it 18 feet?  It was a lot.

    A couple of months ago Jackie ordered some Christmas presents. One of us put them away, my guess is it was me.

    We've been looking for 3 days.

    I even checked my shoes.  Nada.  Zilch.

    Gotta be here somewhere.

    Tonight is the longest night of the year...... the solstice is upon us.

Peace and Love

OMG!!!!!

 We just finished watching the Bears

    To be honest, I thought about doing this little missive with about 2 minutes to go in the game.  But I am so glad I stuck it out.

    What an exciting finish!!!

    Speaking of exciting, I got all the houses lit in the Dickens Village.  Yes, I got down on the floor.  And yes, more importantly, I got back up!

    The new power strip may be the clue....but at the end of the season I will test each bulb, each wire, each strip because I am not going through this again.

    And I got my train ornament tree up!!

    Two major accomplishments in one day!

    I have 3 things to do over the next few days:

        organize the pantry....again

        make shortbread

        clean the damn desktop and den

    If I get any one of those done, I will consider it all a win.....like the Bears today!!

    And as much as I like watching football, having games on Christmas Day just does not seem right.  There shouldn't be any football, basketball, racing.....it's a special day and should be spent with family.

    That's all I will say about that!

Peace and Love

dang it

 I have had some on line ordering issues 

    My first issue was with Astoria Jewelry.  Jackie ordered some things, they did not look the same as the pictures, wanted to return them, could not load the picture, return window closed.......a tale I have told before.

    Yes, I still e mail them and I still go on their FB page and comment "Buyer Beware!"

    We got our Kohl's bill and there was a charge for $14 from a store in Ohio.

    Since we have not been to Ohio for a while, we thought the charge might be a mistake.

    Jackie called.  Lucky she called, because I could not understand  a word the service rep said.

    She gave us another number to call, and we could barely understand the new person.

    Turns out I ordered an apple peeler.  The peeler was sent from a fulfillment center in Ohio, he once the charge from Ohio.  

    We had never seen that!  Evidently it is SOP for that to take place.

    I ordered a winter coat for Beth, one that does not require me to turn her into a contortionist to get her lets trough the holes.

    Unfortunately, I ordered an anxiety coat instead.

    Called Chewy and ordered a new coat.  The service rep had a. terrible phone connection, lots of static and breaking up.  But I could understand nd him.

    Long story short, we are keeping the anxiety coat and donating it to Tails in DeKalb.

    Finally, I ordered a new light strip for our Dickens Village.  It was supposed to be here today.  Nothing arrived.

    I went on the Amazon site to track the order and it said it was delivered yesterday.

    That's when I realized the package Julia got was actually our light strip!  I could have relit  the village today if I had known that.

    Now I am searching for gift ideas for a young girl and a 21 year old.  

    But I figure Christmas isn't until Thursday, so I don't have to start looking until Wednesday.

Peace and Love

almost disaster

 I thought we lost Beth this morning

    She was out in back and chased a squirrel up a tree.  She sat there and baked and barked, them started back to the house.

    Lisa, one of our morning helpers, got a short video of the mutt barking up the tree, with the squirrel perched on an upper branch.  Understand, it is not a big tree.

    Beth was halfway to the house when the squirrel took off.

    Beth took off in hot pursuit.

    They both ran on the east side of the house.  The underground fence did not seem to bother her one bit.

    I put shoes and a coat on and ran out the front door.  She was nowhere in sight.

    I called and called a d looked on the east side of the house.

    No Beth.

    I decided to get my phone, call Julia and Emily, and get on the golf cart to go look for her.

    When I went back in the house, there she was!

    Lisa had raced out the back door while I was getting shoes on.  She found Beth on the east side of the house.  I suspect the squirrel scampered up the red oak over there.  

    While I was out front looking and yelling, Lisa was coming in the back door with the dog.

    Honestly, I felt sick to my stomach when I could not find her in front.

    The lesson I learned is to check the yard for squirrels before I let the dog out!  Also, mabe I better change her battery in the collar.  

    Jackie always asks me why it takes me so long to read the paper on line in the morning.

    It's not just reading the paper.  It's deleting all the e mails that come on that account.  I had not gone through them since Sunday, and tonight I deleted 324 e mails!  Granted, some were ones I had read, like the Trib, Adam Kinzinger, Heather Cox Richardson, Lady Canarvon, but most of them were ads. And a lot were donate to my campaign ads.

    Honestly, I was shocked at how many I deleted.  I guess advertising picks up right before Christmas.

    Tomorrow there will not be that many.  I just need to clean up the inbox a couple of times a day.

    And I should clean up my wooden desk top at least once a year!

    2026 is rapidly approaching, maybe then.

Peace and Love

downtown

I made my annual pilgrimage to the Christmas market  

    Luckily the weather was mild, or at least not freezing.

    Julia, Emily, Missy, Sherri and I checked out the market and Field's.  Happily the windows at Field's were  more Field's than Macy's.  

    The displays traced the history of the iconic department store and some displays even had movement!  They were like the windows Field's took such pride in creating.

    I will let the pictures do the. talking.

    On our way home, traffic was pretty heavy.  I remember passing Mannheim Road. and maybe seeing some of the Naperville exits, but when I woke up near Rochelle it was noted that my snoring was pretty loud!!  That and a coffee means I won't sleep well tonight.

    But I am tired.

    And my step counter just told me that after all the walking I did today, I am a 4 minute walk from closing my loop.  BS!!

Peace and Love

The birds even visited baby Jesus!

Birds of a feather flock to keep warm

Cups were an odd shape for drinking

My schnitzel I son the right, back.

The tree was even decorated to honor Field's

I'm fed up

 I am in a pretty negative mood tonight

    Yes, some of it is my fault.

    For example, I had 72 cents a gallon in HyVee rewards.  The  rewards expire  today.  I filled the car last Thursday and learned about the rewards Friday.

    It was so cold, I did not go anyplace Saturday or Sunday.  Monday I went to Rockford to visit a relative in the hospital.  Today I went to DeKalb.

    I used about 1/4 of a tank.

    The HyVee rewards are good at Casey's.  So I stopped at the Casey's in Creston to fill up and save 72 cents a gallon.

    I don't know what I did wrong, but I did not get the discount.  It normally shows, but this time did not.  I should have hung up the hose and started over, but I didn't.

    I put 5 gallons in, which is about $3.50.  But the gas was 17 cents a gallon more than stations in town, so I spent another $1 or so, meaning I wasted $4.50.

    I know, big deal....not even a coffee.

    It's the damn point.  I should have been more aware.

    I'm still fuming over Astoria Jewelry.  I could not post the required picture and eventually the return period expired.  I have contacted them several times but their answer is the same:  Tough toenails!

    Those damn lightbulbs.  How can they all be bad?

    Last night I quit the computer at 9.  Planned to go to bed early.  Finally made it at 11:45!  What the hell did I do?

    The only bright spot of the day was a Cubs hat cousin Bob sent.  It's a replica 1911 hat, maybe,  but it looks great.  

    Anyway, I am in a big grouch today.  Tonight.  Whatever.

    Hoping tomorrow is better.

Peace and Love