Housewife, 54

 Back in early October when my DiL suggested a sunny get-away vacation with them sometime in January or February, of course I said YES!  She started hunting for cheap flights to different locations and after finding out that friends of theirs were going to go down to the same city she was considering, the date was set for the week of January 10-17.  I thought that was a bit early, but it seems there is a slump in tourism just after Christmas and before the Spring Break holidays start later in February, so she found good prices.  And after the deep freeze temperatures we had had since Christmas, it felt really good! We had enough time to clean up and recover from the Holidays and get ourselves organized for take-off.   I had been concerned about my house/pet sitter situation, but then remembered that I had a young friend here in town that could be trusted to check in or take over in an emergency.  When I contacted her to ask if she could be emergency ba...

 Just for the record.... After all, this IS my "diary", such as I ever do a diary. Christmas was nice.  Nothing terribly fancy, just ourselves and the DS the Elder and family. I got the little sweater finished for Baby Girl.  Even though she is 2, the size is 12-18 mo.  We had Christmas Eve at our house, with soup for supper and cheese and snacks sent from DS the Younger from Wisconsin.  Oh, opening some gifts and Christmas Cookies, too. Christmas Day was at DS the Elder's house, so kids could play with new toys at home. A delicious dinner! DIL did a great job on the roast! Grandma (me) made the hot rolls. The next week we tried to get back to some kind of normal, but didn't quite make it.  No school, so we had DGS the Eldest full time, and one afternoon, I got the Littles from daycare early so they could have time at Grandma's House, too. The tree came down on the 26th, but not the rest of the decorations. They stayed up until the next weekend. Trying out ...

 December has been an interesting month so far. We got more outdoor decorations up than we have done previously here. along the front walkway And I re-strung the lights for the star over the garage. Both of these outdoor projects took extra work as the old lights had outages and we had to get new lights and re-work the star as well as the Tree outline.  The deer are new, but after a heavy snow and some fierce winds, we have had to re-set them a couple of times! Indoor decorations have been set up in stages.  Wth my birthday on the 10th, we have had a tradition of not getting into Christmas until after then.  So on the 11th, I got things going! I am loving small table-top trees!  My heavy Georg Jensen ornaments look nice hanging from the curtain rail! For the Nativity this year I decided to forego the stable. It is huge and we can't see out the window when it is up here!  I tried to find a lightbulb for the star, but they are sold out...and ones I ordered fr...