Ready or Not!

    Christmas is coming, ready or not! I'm not the type to have everything ready two weeks before Christmas, and even though I wish I could, it has never happened. One of the hardest things is to select gifts. 

    However, we are prepared for our trip, which begins tomorrow. We have our boarding passes and a reservation for parking near the airport. I plan to do some laundry in the morning and then pack our bags. Our flight leaves Indianapolis at 6:15 for Phoenix.

    On Thursday, our bridge group met early for a pitch-in lunch. We had a delicious spread, and none of us went away hungry. 

My Everyday Life - December 15-21, 2024

    We enjoyed watching the Colts win today. Although the team may still have life left, realistically, we are waiting until next year for a better season.

    Did any of you watch the College Football Playoff games yesterday? I think it's interesting that all the teams playing on home turf were the winners. We must wait until New Year's Day and the bowl games to see who advances in the series.

    Merry Christmas to all! I'll be seeing some of you very soon.
 

Two For One

    I began a post a week ago but never finished, so this post will cover the past two weeks. On a Saturday afternoon, we went shopping at Walmart. We usually shop at Kroger to get gasoline points, but I wanted to purchase some candied fruit for baking, and Walmart was the only store that carried it. We loaded up our cart and saw that they only had self-checkout. When I tried to use the wallet on my phone, I learned that their card readers weren't set up for this technology. We dug out a plastic card, but that didn't work, so I went out to the car to get another credit card, but that didn't work either. Finally, a third manager came to help us, and she reset the card reader, just like rebooting your computer when it isn't working. We finally were on our way home. I still prefer Kroger when shopping for groceries. Some of Walmart's prices are better, but Kroger's checkout is easier!

My Everyday Life - December 1-7, 2024

    After our church service this morning, everyone was invited to the Fellowship Hall for a Christmas party. We enjoyed watching the children dressed in costumes and listening to the Christmas story. In addition to cookies, a special cake was served to honor our organist's 20 years of service. 

    After the Christmas party, we stopped at Joe's house. Kylie, Jayden, and Dustin arrived a little later. 

    Tanner is sitting on Kylie's lap. Ten years ago, Kylie's grandmother, Christy Wildmone, was ready for a new puppy after losing a dog. Tanner was Christy's puppy until she passed, and then Tanner was cared for by Andy, Christy's husband. Not long ago, he also passed, and Dustin rescued Tanner so he wouldn't be sent to a shelter. 

My Everyday Life - December 8-14, 2024

    The Colts imploded in the second half of their game today and are out of contention for a playoff berth. Purdue basketball also had a challenging game against Texas A&M on Saturday and lost. This week's big question is how IU will play against Notre Dame in the college football championship series. 

A Big Change

    We've had a significant change in the weather. The weatherman has been predicting much colder temperatures, but after above-average temperatures this fall, we find it hard to adapt to below-average temperatures.

    On Friday afternoon, we headed to Joe's house with the turkey breast I had prepared in a slow cooker. Shortly after arriving, Dustin was called to work. A few flurries were in the air, but we didn't get any snowfall. In my opinion, his supervisors were overly cautious when asking on-call employees to come to work. Of course, they didn't realize it was Thanksgiving Day for the Martin family. 

    We enjoyed reminiscing with Joe about the snowmobile trip to Yellowstone Park. That was about 30 years ago when Kylie was only five years old, and she still regrets not being allowed to go on the trip.

Joe's dog "Steelo"

    In addition to my turkey breast, there was an assortment of food, including ham, loaded potato salad, corn casserole, green beans, rolls, deviled eggs, and more. The dessert menu had even more options. 

We had many dessert choices.

My Everyday Life - November 24-30, 2024

    Since it was lopsided, we only watched part of the IU-Purdue Old Oaken Bucket game. IU prevailed 66-0. The Colts defeated the New England Patriots this afternoon. It wasn't an easy game, and it came down to the last minute to win. During Manning's years, the Patriots were hard to beat, with Tom Brady as their quarterback. 

    I'm trying to stay calm, knowing that Christmas is coming soon. With Thanksgiving late in November, it seems we have less time to prepare for Christmas.