I made it! It’s the last day of November!! My last NaBloMoPo post! I was afraid I’d give up halfway through the month, and I’m so proud of myself for making myself post every day. How did the rest of you do? Did you make it? If not, what happened? There are a lot of things that could potentially go wrong this time of year to keep someone from posting. I know my sister-in-law going into the hospital almost stopped me from posting for a couple of days.

We got our daughter’s cap, gown & announcements ordered yesterday, so at least that’s finished, even though we’re $115 poorer now. It seems to never end!

Anyway, we have a huge storm coming in tonight, we’re supposed to get over a foot of snow in the mountains. I’m not sure of our elevation here, so I have no idea if we’ll get snow or not (the weather forecast says we probably will). I’m thinking we need to get our Christmas decorations out of storage in the morning, if the weather isn’t horrible by then.

I’m cold sitting here by the windows, so I think I’ll head up to the front of the house & work on the kitchen some more. Have a great day!

The living room is looking really good after yesterday’s purging. I need to vacuum in there today & then I can start on the kitchen. I also got the dishes all caught up yesterday, after I finished the living room, so all I have to do as far as that goes are the dinner dishes from last night & whatever Troy used this morning for his breakfast. I think I’m going to start with the counter tops, get them scrubbed down really well & bleach my sinks, then I’ll work on that table that everyone thinks is a storage unit, then the floor.

I really wish I could do something with my clothes in the bedroom, but my dresser, which is built in, is falling apart & I have drawers that I can’t use now and too many clothes. I really wanted to put a small tree on the dresser this year, I even bought one, just for that purpose.

Today I plan to spend as much time as I can cleaning the living room & getting everything put away and ready to start decorating for Christmas. I’ve been far too lazy about the house over the past year or so & I need to stop doing it, I love my little house, even though it’s a beat up & in a trailer park, and I have to start showing it some love. Tomorrow, I’ll start on the kitchen, which will, very likely, take me through Friday to get it all cleaned up to where I want it. It seems to be the place where everyone puts things down when they come into the house & it just stays there until I do something with it. *sigh*

~~~~~~~~~~

For some reason, I keep hitting the “save”  button & not the “publish” button & everything goes to drafts. Sorry about that!

Troy & I went out this morning & cashed that settlement check, then we went & bought the cats some new beds, because we only had one. That wasn’t nearly enough for four cats, they all seemed to be waiting to use it all the time. We bought a couple of different ones. We also picked up a couple of Christmas gifts for our friends’ children, Dylan & Helen. I had already gotten a personalized book on tea party manners for Helen, so I picked out a cute little tea party set for her to go with it & some glow in th dark Magnetix for Dylan. Troy got a new t-shirt (It says, “Who’s Your Santa?” on it) & I got a book on pumpkins & such.

We took Dawn out for lunch & then we had to go to the store, because she wants me to stencil a shirt for Mark (a friend of ours) for Christmas and she needed to get the shirt & paint for me. We wandered around awhile and were basically just enjoying the time out together, then we dropped her off, I dropped Troy off & headed out to pick up my daughter from school.

This afternoon, I took my daughter shopping for her fiance’s Christmas gift from her, we got him a couple of movies. One is an anime & the other is a horror flick. I hope he likes them. I had to put back $110 from Troy’s check, because we have to order her cap, gown & announcements on Thursday, so I’m thankful we didn’t spend it all when we were Christmas shopping.

House was really good tonight, I was surprised & pleased with how it ended!

We got a really nice surprise in the mail today. A long time ago, we got a notice for a Class Action suit that we qualified for versus H&R Block, regarding refund anticipation loans and the fees that were charged to get one through them. We signed up & figured we’d see about $20 or so & promptly forgot about it. We got a check from the suit today for $150.00! Troy almost tore it up unopened, because he gets so much junk every day, he just assumed that the letter was another piece of it.

I love getting money that we aren’t expecting, you know? It just makes everything so much nicer when that happens.

In less happy news, I’m sick again. I told Troy a little while ago that I’m not going to Dawn’s this coming weekend if anyone over there is sick. I was doing really well & then I went over there & Cherokee & Justin were sick, then Dawn started feeling bad again, and I woke up sick today. I went out awhile ago & stocked up on Lysol & then sprayed everything down with it & use the Neutra-Air stuff in all the rooms, too. I’m tired of being sick.

Sereena called me a few minutes ago, and she’s at home. There was no epilepsy, just a severe concussion. She’s really tired still, but I know I never sleep well at the hospital and I’m sure she didn’t, either. We need to drop by there in awhile because her clothes are in my car & she needs some of it. I’m just thankful that she’s doing ok, we were all very worried about her. Her oldest daughter is really mad at me because I wasn’t siding with her after my brother didn’t call & tell her about Sereena. He was wiped out, he couldn’t think about anything but his wife right then. He was scared, worried and upset. He was exhausted like the rest of us. I don’t even think he thought about it, I certainly don’t think he was avoiding it, like she acts. She could have called him at any time, he had their cell phone with him, after all.

Anyway, I’m hoping to entice Troy into a little Christmas shopping this afternoon, so I think I’m going to go & talk to him about that.

Thank you Kat & Margie, for the comments about my sister-in-law, Sereena. I haven’t heard anything today, so I’m going to assume that’s good news. I’m still so exhausted, I haven’t even managed to get dressed yet & my whole body hurts. I was going to work on getting the house ready to decorate for the holidays this weekend, but haven’t been able to get anything done with it at all, yet. Maybe if I can get my head to stop hurting, I can work on the living room awhile this afternoon.

I’m still trying to figure out what to get my dad for Christmas, he’s done such a fabulous job on the RV they gave us, I want what we get for him to reflect our gratitude to him for that, you know? I know he has a serious need for good tool storage, but I have no idea what that type of thing costs, or if I can even afford any of it. He loves jigsaw puzzles, football and reading, too, so I may see what I can find in for him along those lines.

This is going to be somewhat short, I’m emotionally & physically exhausted. My mom called me at 2:30am. My sister-in-law passed out & hit her head as she fell at 2am. She was in the bathroom. She had several seizures after that & was knocked out for over an hour. She has a concussion, at the very least & is getting an MRI & an evaluation by an orthopedic doctor to see if her spine is damaged. They’ll be monitoring her after the anti-seizure meds run their course to see id the seizures continue.

We’re all very concerned about her & we’re all very tired. We could use whatever good thoughts, prayers or whatever you can muster right now.

Thank you.

We had a really great day, today. The only family drama wasn’t really even drama, it was just my grandma. My grandma has advanced Alzheimer’s & today wasn’t a good one for her. Most of the experts (or at least those who write the books telling the rest of us how to deal with it) will tell you that you have to find the humor in the situation, if you can’t, then you’re lost. My family can find the humor in almost any situation, so needless to say, we did a lot of laughing today.

Erin called me this morning so that I’d come & get him when we left, in spite of the fact that he didn’t want to go & was afraid he’d feel out of place. He was afraid there would be issues with him being a vegetarian, or his politics, I reassured him several times that no one was going to care, but that everyone loves him & misses him & just wants to see him. He seemed to have good day & everyone, especially my mom, was thrilled to see him there.

We visited, ate, drank wine, played games, laughed & pretty much just had a terrific day. My brother & SIL didn’t leave until 7:00, which in the past few years was almost unheard of. Erin went with them, he was getting tired & was ready to go. I think seeing my grandma like she is now took a pretty big toll on him today, because he hasn’t been around much the past year & hadn’t seen it coming. Troy left at 6:45, so he could get to work & let the day shift go home a few minutes early, to get a little of the holiday for themselves. My daughter & I came home at 7:30, because we knew her fiance would be at our house shortly afterwards & it’s too cold outside to make him wait.

Now I’m tired & cold & think I’ll get my PJs on & snuggle into my bed so I can get early in the morning. No, we won’t be doing the Black Friday thing, just our regular grocery day, unfortunately we have to do this every year.

I’m looking forward to tomorrow. I don’t get to spend nearly enough time with my family theses days & the holidays give me a chance to. We’re taking a huge, round loaf of sourdough bread with us, I hope that it’ll be enough of a contribution. I had forgotten that Thanksgiving was before our next pay day & didn’t buy anything specifically to take over there. We saw the big loaf of bread the other day when we were getting stuff for French bread pizza, so we bought it. I’m really just hoping that we can get through the day with a minimum of family drama, at this point.

It’s really cold here, today & my feet feel like they’re freezing off!  Two days ago, it was warm enough to be out in short sleeves & flipflops, now it’s 36 degrees. I’m not complaining really, since it finally feels like Fall, but it was a fast change & I don’t think I was quite ready for it, yet. I need to move into the Fall mindset & switch my wardrobe around, so I’m not freezing my rear off all the time.