Christmas Hopes

My very first step in getting ready for Christmas is to change the ringtone on my phone to 'I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas'.  It is not officially the Christmas season at our house until that happens.  Since it is just not right to start with anything Christmasy before Thanksgiving is over, changing my ringtone was one of the first things that I did yesterday morning.

I went through slightly over forty six years on earth before 'I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas' entered my life.  I don't know how I missed it, since the song has been around since 1953.  It it one of the happiest songs I have ever heard in my life.  It brings a smile to my face every time I hear it.

This Is Our Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Day started out on shaky ground for me ...

... First thing in the morning, I spilled a full cup of coffee on my iPad and MacBook.  And all over the floor.  It is amazing how far a few ounces of liquid can travel.

... I put in two cups, instead of the called-for one cup of buttermilk in the blueberry scones that I was making for our breakfast.  I spent a fair amount of time staring into the mixing bowl trying to decide if I should double the dry ingredients or syphon the extra buttermilk out of the bowl with my turkey baster.  I chose syphoning.

...  I then spilled used coffee grounds all over the kitchen floor.  I dislike immensely cleaning up wet coffee grounds.

I was not about to let little setbacks get in my way of a thankful Thanksgiving.  No sirree, Bob.

Just who is Bob anyway?

On most special occasions, I make a special scone for breakfast.  As I said, this year it was blueberry scones with lemon icing.  And mimosas, we always have mimosas on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years.

Link and Zelda Sittin' In A Tree

I picked up my shiny new, and very golden Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword game at GameStop on Sunday.  Even though the Seahawks were playing on national TV, I fully intended to commandeer the television downstairs and spend the better part of the day exploring the world of Link and saving Zelda. 

Have you ever heard the saying, 'We plan and God laughs'?

An Attitude of Gratitude

I am sitting in the living room on my end of the couch like I do every morning.  Randy is at his end, sipping Mountain Dew and reading whatever he reads every morning on the computer.

This morning he has made it to the news headlines and is up in arms about turkeys.  Mainly new government standards that allow turkeys injected with stuff to be called 'natural' because the stuff that they are injecting the turkeys with is 'natural'.

What's Cookin' Today?

I love cookies.  Absolutely love cookies.  Until last week, I didn't think that there could be any such thing as a bad cookie.

Little did I know.

It was one of those days where I just needed a little something sweet to give me a push in the right direction.  It wasn't the kind of day where I needed to wallow in a bathtub of sugar.  Just a day where something sweet would be nice.

Months back, I had made a mental promise to myself.  That promise was that if I was going to indulge in sugary goodness, I at least was going to make that sugary goodness myself.  In doing so, at least I would feel like I wasn't getting all the nasty chemicals and such that ready-made goodies contain.

For some strange reason, I had ended up with a box of Betty Crocker's Super Moist Party Rainbow Chip cake mix in my pantry.

For some strange reason, my mind went back to about a hundred years ago ...

Paths of Faith

Faith ...

... It is what I have when I turn on the faucet.  I know water will come out.  Unless our power is off, of course.  I am not likely to forget that lesson from last week any time soon.

.... It is what I have when I get into my car.  I know that I will have enough gas to get to where I am going and then back home again.  This was part of our wedding vows almost twenty five years ago:  Randy will always have clean and folded underwear in his drawer and I will always have a full tank of gas in my car.

Funeral For A Squirrel

A neighborhood squirrel met an untimely demise last Friday morning when he (or she) ventured into our local substation.  

I felt badly for the squirrel, I really did.  I also felt badly for our substation since the words 'significant damage' was mentioned by the nice lady at North R-Can-Sauce Electric Co-op.

To me, she really didn't sound all that optimistic for the power coming back on anytime soon.

What really bothered me was learning that without electricity we had no water.  Apparently, when the power goes out, so does the pump attached to the well.  My in-house electricity / well expert acted like I should have been fully aware of that fact.  

Unnoticed Gifts

The Faith Barista blog jam topic for this week is ...

What gift has God slipped into your life recently?

I have must have had a million of rough drafts for this blog.  Maybe a trillion.  Could be more.  I don't know what comes after a trillion, so I stopped counting.  I have, for days, typed, deleted, typed and deleted over and over again.

Good Things

Beautiful fall days.  That was yesterday ...  today, not so much.  It seems as though winter is telling us that it is just around the corner.