So Here's the Plan

It's that time of year when my regular to-do lists have a lot of extras added to them for the holidays. The good news today is that I've already accomplished a few things: I knitted for 30 minutes on a Christmas gift for The Tim, went to a dr appt, returned something I'd bought for his birthday that was the wrong size, exchanged something else for the right size, and picked up a package from the Amazon locker. I am one of those people who are just extremely happy when I can develop a route from one place to another that allows me to do multiple things.

I just finished my lunch, which was delicious. The little market near our house has "Sushi Wednesdays" when their prepared sushi is $5.00, so I stopped there after the Amazon locker because it is almost next door. It was pretty tasty, and now I'm giving myself a little break. Then I'm planning to spend an hour unpacking some Christmas decorations, which I'm sure I will have a lot of assistance doing. We got a tree this past Saturday, and right now it's still bare, but I want to try and get the rest of the non-tree decorating finished before the weekend so we can concentrate on that then. Needless to say, the tree in the stand has provided a lot of hilarity for the cats, what with ambushing, attacking, and batting the branches. Though Esme is still SHOCKED that such a thing would come into the house! 

Then I am going to make some potato-cheese soup to have for dinner with some fresh bread that The Tim baked yesterday. I love soup anytime, but on a cold day, it seems like an especially cozy meal. 

Tomorrow I'm meeting a couple of friends and former yarn store workers for a festive lunch. We wanted to get together before things got really crazy, since they both travel/have lots of guests during the holiday season. I'm looking forward to it since we haven't been able to get together since sometime in the summer. They are both a lot of fun, and always have stories that are fun to hear.

So that's what's happening around here, along with the usual things like cleaning up, doing laundry, etc. The nice thing is that since we don't have guests coming to stay or anything like that, I don't have to get things done right now at this minute, so it's all more doable and enjoyable for me.

I hope your week is going well, and that if you are busy with holiday preparations, you are able to enjoy yourself. Time for me to get moving! 😊

Goodbye November

Good morning (or hello whenever you read this!) on the last day of November. One of my most favorite months of the year, but also bittersweet. It's the month that my father died, and every year I am more aware of all of the things I have gotten to experience that he missed out on. It makes me feel bad, but it also makes me aware that my life has a lot going for it, even if there are blips along the way. 

This past November had a lot going for it. There was our weekend trip to New York, lots of sunny days and good walks, good knitting time, of course Thanksgiving, and then yesterday - finally after years of waiting for it to happen - our roof finally got fixed!! No more mini-Niagara Falls experience from the ceiling in the bedroom when it rains, no more buckets to have to maneuver around when getting to the closet. The work crew showed up yesterday around 7:30 a.m., and they were finished by 2 p.m. It was a wonderful way to end the month, and since yesterday was my middle sister's birthday, I told her that we were celebrating a new roof in her honor. 😂

So today I have some laundry already underway, and I want to put away the few fall/Thanksgiving decorations that we have. Then I am planning to do a good cleaning of the first floor. Today or tomorrow I'll sit down and pay some bills, so as you can see, glamor is still a large part of my life ...

In knitting news, I started a scarf for The Tim, which I hope to have finished by Christmas:

There are five sections of the scarf, and this is the first section completed. Now it's time to change up the red color to a navy for the next section. It's kind of an addictive knit, so I am hoping that fact will make it all doable over the next couple of weeks. If not, it will be ready for next Christmas, so it works either way.

Do you remember the story of the former co-worker/friend who sort of inexplicably sends us homemade cookies every year for Christmastime? Well, just like clockwork, the package of cookies arrived yesterday, and to say The Tim was excited is an understatement. For someone who never even met this co-worker, he really counts on her coming through every year! I'm grateful that she sends them (they are so good, she is a former pastry chef, so they are nothing like the cookies we make), but it still amuses/puzzles me when they get here. It's nice to have a friend who you never really realized was a friend, I guess.

That's it for now. I hope you have a good last day of November, and that you enjoy many more Novembers to come. The timer on the washing machine just dinged, so time for me to move some things around and get going on the rest of my day. I'm the sort of person who likes to get things done earlier in the day, and then have some time in the afternoon to myself. Tonight is The Tim's turn to cook, so I don't even have to figure out what is for dinner (and I also know if he is cooking, it will be something yummy!).

I'm Just Wondering

Maybe I'm the only person wondering about this, but do children have any chores they are expected to do these days?  The reason I'm wondering is because of a commercial I keep seeing for a grocery store chain that has online selection and pick up/delivery available.  The woman in the commercial is extolling the virtues of being able to have someone else do her shopping for her, and all she has to do is pick up the bags of groceries and put them in her car on her way home from work.  Later in the commercial, she is seen eating dinner with her husband and children, and mentions how the "grocery fairies" made her life so much easier.  Then she says "If only there were dishwasher faires."

Ahem, dumbass - you have a husband and kids.  Also, you have a DISHWASHER, which ostensibly means that none of those delicate flowers seated with you at the table would have to put their perfect hands into actual dishwater.  Is your husband unable to determine the complicated configuration of a dishwasher?  Are your children - who do not appear to be babies or toddlers - too precious for any type of household labor?  Or, are you - and I know so many people like this - a victim of your own self, because no one else knows how to do it "the right way," so only you can get things accomplished?

I did a Google Images search for "children's chores" and hundreds of images resulted - from chore charts, to templates for said charts, and of course the ever popular clipart examples like below, which shows these poor enslaved young people happily doing their assigned chores.  Clearly they have been brainwashed.

I mean, my parents were hardly strict at all, but we were expected to make our beds everyday, take turns washing the dishes (no dishwashers in our house until I was in high school!), and "other duties as assigned," so to speak when requested by my parents.  As we got older, we were expected to help with laundry, cleaning the house, and even some of the outside chores.  

Was it annoying?  Yeah, sometimes.  And of course, it NEVER seemed fair!  I mean, there were my parents coming home from working all day, fixing food for us to eat, and they expected US to do work??  

The Tim's background is pretty much the same.  He comes from a family with 5 kids, who are all fairly close in age, so they were all expected to do their share as well.

Having said all of that, I did used to have a work colleague who came in one day and said she was really unpopular at home.  She had decided that she'd  had enough, so she set a schedule for the family where each night someone was responsible for dinner after getting home from work, school, whatever.  Her kids were teenagers, and the rule was that if it was your turn to cook, you also did the cleaning up.  She said she told them that no meal had to be elaborate - hot dogs, grilled cheese, soup, etc. were all options because she realized that they may not really know much about how to cook.  

Fast forward to the second week.  I asked her how it was going.  She said, "Oh that's all done.  They didn't know what to do, and ___ (husband) wasn't doing things like I wanted anyway.  So it's back to just me cooking every day."  

Well,  you know what?  She's the only one to blame in that situation.

What about you?  Did you have chores/duties/jobs growing up?  I'm curious if most people experienced what I did, or if they didn't have to do anything in particular until they lived on their own as adults.