Weekend highlights

I'm sick. I started getting a scratchy throat on Thurs. Fri morning I woke up very congested so I took Claritan-D and went about my task of writing and addressing my Christmas cards. Sat I felt and sounded worse, but I could feel the 24-hour Claritan-D kicking in on its wonderful, time-release schedule. Sun I sort felt like I was in a fog, but didn't let it stop me from what I wanted to do.

Sat afternoon we went to our friends' George & Steve's for their annual Christmas tree trimming party. They had a tall natural tree in their family room and a shorter artificial tree in their living room. They hauled down what seemed like an endless chain of plastic storage containers full of ornaments, old and new, from their attic and we unpacked them and hung them on the trees. Of course there was food and drinks, Christmas music, and friends to chat with. This is our 3rd year going, and we always have a nice time.

Spouse had made a beef stew in the crock pot before we left for the tree trimming party, so dinner was done when we got home. Rick & Nick came over for dinner, which was nice, simple, and easy. They noticed our crystal chandelier still in the box in the dining room and asked why we hadn't put it up yet. Spouse & I looked at each other and he said "We've been busy" while I simultaneously said "We've been lazy." We all laughed, and Nick volunteered to hang it for us so we said "Sure!". It was done in less than 5 minutes, which really made us feel stupid that we'd put it off. However, I'm sure if we had attempted it multiple things would have gone wrong and it would have taken us 3 hours.

Sun we did some light housecleaning, hand delivered Christmas cards to some neighbors, then made a trip to Lowes for more ornament hooks (we had about 8 ornaments still waiting to be hung) and two dimmer switches. When the chandelier was installed it seemed rather 'bright', so we are going to put it and the living room light on dimmers before our holiday party on Sat.

From Lowes we met Rick & Nick at Deb Appleby's glass blowing studio for 'Delaware by Hand', a collection of artists who show and sell their art/jewelry/pottery/glass/etc. We went to this lat year, too. We bought a beautiful vase from Deb's imperfect collection. From there the 4 of us went to Millsboro to the grand opening of BJ's Wholesale Club. It was fun to look around but we decided not to join, as we felt we can often do as good or sometimes better on prices by shopping the weekly sales at the grocery stores without having to purchase a membership.

When we got home I put up the last of the ornaments and unpacked Joe's Christmas cookie jar collection. We ate dinner and watched "The Poseidon Adventure" on cable. We love that movie! It was a great way to wrap up the weekend.

Crush du Jour: Matt Bushell

Friday fragments

Last Sat it was 70 degrees during the 'Join the Impact' rally. 4 days later it was 33 degrees and we had snow flurries. We are getting snow flurries again today. I suppose it is that time of the year.

Work has been super-busy this week. One of my colleagues is "no longer with the company", and when our manager and other colleagues tried to transition her work, they found all kinds of 1/2 done stuff and stuff that should have been done but wasn't. They found all kinds of hand written notes on her desk with various bits of client information. Yeah, a real mess. So I have been trying best I can to help out with the clean-up.

Since work has kept me busy non-stop during work hours, I've not been able to visit and comment on many blogs. I was going to do it last night, but Spouse got a little irritated so I didn't. "You're on the computer all day long. How can you be on there at night too?" I'm sure this seems like a logical argument to him, but not to me. Using a computer for work and using a computer to visit and comment on blogs are 2 entirely different things to me. Anybody else's spouse give them a hard time about evening/night computing?

This weekend weekend we'll be preparing for having company over the Thanksgiving weekend. We need to do a super duper housecleaning, go grocery shopping, make the guest room beds up, and be sure that guest baths have towels, TP, soap, etc. Real exciting stuff!

On Sat we're going to glass art show and sale. Our friend and glass artist Deb Appleby is having her annual holiday open house. Last year be bought this as our Christmas gift to each other.
I doubt we'll buy anything this year, but it is always great to look at all her beautiful glass work.

The garage called today regarding my baby's check-up. I gave them the go-ahead to proceed with the work. It'll be at least a week before she's ready, because the new exhaust has to be special ordered and then shipped to the garage. But I can be patient because I know when she comes home she'll be purrin' like a kitten.

Crush du Jour: Bryan Thomas

Pomegranate weekend

Sat morning after breakfast the Newlyweds, Spouse & I walked into town for the arts and crafts show (again). It had a nice variety, from ceramics to jewelry, to watercolors, to stained glass, to acrylic oceanscapes, to wood carving, to hand-blown glass. The 4 of us agreed the prices were very expensive, but the quality was definitely there. (No planters made of painted popsicle sticks.) The advertisements indicated over 130 artisans, mostly locals. Speaking of locals, our neighbor George had a booth to show his watercolors which were just gorgeous. I didn't even know he painted.

After finishing our fruit-flavored shaved ices, we started to walk back home when we noticed a van with a bunch of bumper stickers on its tinted windows. As I began to read them I felt as if I'd discovered the vehicle of my kindred spirit! Fortunately Jamie had brought his camera so I asked him to take pictures of the stickers for me. (Photos may be clicked to enlarge.)

Aren't these fantastic? I'd like to have T-shirts with each of these on them so I could wear a different statement each day. Oh, I'm kind of a liberal if you hadn't noticed.

After arriving back at the house we ate lunch before going to play putt-putt golf. This is sort of a tradition when the Newlyweds visit. During a past visit I told the Newlyweds that I enjoy putt-putt but Spouse couldn't care less about it so we never went. Michael said he enjoyed putt-putt too, so we always make a point of playing while they are visiting. It was fun, but hot. For some reason, the always present breeze appeared to be 'off for the holiday'.

When we returned from putt-putt we had a light lunch, which included pomegranate/blueberry juice as yet another installment of our pomegranate weekend, and decided to go for a swim at our neighbors' Alan & George's pool. They have a sparkling blue in-ground pool in their backyard, surrounded by years and years of meticulously tended gardens. There is no grass in their entire backyard, just the pool, concrete pool deck, and thousands and thousands of gorgeous plants, flowers, and trees. When we arrived we found Bill & Dean, Tom & George (the artist), Nancy (George's mother), and Michael & Carl (Tom & George's weekend guests) already at the pool. We enjoyed a refreshing swim and jovial conversations with our friends.

After showers we enjoyed pomegranate margaritas as the final installment of our pomegranate weekend. The Newlyweds had brought the pomegranate margarita mix (they know me so well) so we enjoyed a lovely little happy hour before dinner. Even Spouse, who usually doesn't drink, had 1/2 of a pomegranate margarita, probably for the 'health benefits' of pomegranates.

After a lengthy discussion about where to eat, we walked into town and to our favorite Lewes restaurant Striper Bites. Unfortunately even at 8:00 there was a 30-40 minute wait, and the high ceilings make it rather loud, so we decided to pass on dinner there. We found Jerry's Seafood to be much more suitable for conversation and there was no wait for a table. Michael had curry chicken and corn soup and a crab cake sandwich, Jamie had beet bruschetta and a hamburger, Spouse had the same soup as Michael and a flat iron steak, and I had pan-seared scallops over creamy fettuccine with asparagus. We all enjoyed our meals.

Since the 4th of July fireworks were cancelled due to the storm, we thought they'd likely take place Sat night instead, so we walked back home and put a few beach chairs in the trunk before driving down to the beach. Sure enough we saw fireworks going off as we set up our chairs and blanket. The display was rather nice, especially considering it is not Lewes-sponsored but completely provided by volunteers at their expense.

Sun morning after breakfast the Newlyweds packed up and left shortly before 10:00. Spouse & I just relaxed and watched TV for a while, with the idea that we'd go to the beach with Rick & Nick in the afternoon, which is our typical Sun routine. But around 1:30 the sky became very cloudy, by 2:00 it was raining lightly, and by 2:30 the thunder and lightning cancelled any further thoughts of going to the beach that day.

Spouse & I just relaxed, spent time on the computer, watched TV, and rested for the remainder of our pomegranate weekend.

Crush du Jour: Carlos Ponce