Decorations

Jason and I did get some Christmas deco-rations up today. Here's a picture of our mantle. There aren't any on the tree, yet. Zara has been batting at the lower branches, so we'll see how tomorrow goes since Jason and I are at work all day.

We watched a couple of Christmas movies today as well. It's nice when Jason gets to be home on the weekends. We did have "thanksgiving" again today. We made turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, gravy, and pie. We didn't have any leftovers from Thanksgiving at Jason's parents, so we decided to make our own! It was really yummy and will feed us for several days. I was even able to freeze about eight cups of turkey after measuring out what we needed for hot and cold turkey sandwiches and turkey tetrazzini. I'm pretty sure Jason has decided he's eating the rest of the leftover stuffing for breakfast.

Zara also decided to "help" me with the quilt I am making. I laid the fabric for the backing on the floor to make sure I had enough, and Zara decided she needed to tackle the fabric, then wrap herself in it. She's quite entertaining! I'll have to make one just for her someday.

Survival

Ames survived it's first snowstorm. It started snowing Thursday afternoon, then by five, the snow had been driven on enough to melt it, but the streets were cold enough to refreeze the driven on snow. Yes, that's right, icy roads. It was bad enough that the police department and DPS (department of public safety) closed some streets and CyRide suspended service for a few hours. I made it home with no difficulty other than someone in front of me wanting to stop halfway up a hill. Jason ended up staying an extra hour and a half at work. It was a long night for him. But, we survived and the ice was gone by the morning.

On another note, Jason got his car fixed and sold! It's nice having the entire driveway to park in. The extra money helps out with bills too. We are very thankful that we were able to fix it without spending too much on it. We are also thankful we could sell it to someone who really needed it. (The guy has a motorcycle. Not so good to drive to work to in the winter.)

Tomorrow we're going to try to put up our Christmas decorations. We're going to put up our tree and see if Zara will not try to climb it this year. I have my fingers crossed! I don't think we'll actually decorate the tree until we find out if she will try to climb it. I don't want to take the time to decorate it if I'm just going to be undecorating it the next day. I have decided we will not be sending out Christmas cards this year. There is to much stress here to add one more. Not sending out cards does NOT mean we are not thinking about our friends and family. We pray that everyone has a good holiday season and that things are going well! You are in our thoughts and prayers!

Organizing

I spent Tuesday evening re-organizing my kitchen. Jason's family was nice enough to give me new pots and pans for my birthday. Jason and I decided to throw out some of our old plastic containers as well. I now have a box of kitchen stuff to give away. I did have some help with the re-organizing. Zara had to examine each cupboard before I could move stuff back in. She even checked for dust bunnies under the stove for me. She had cobwebs covering her whole face! She didn't find any of her mousie toys, though. I had to give her a bath Wednesday, and she spent the evening running around the house being a spaz.

It also snowed today in Ames. Some of it actually stuck! It made driving terrible. It turned icy for a while. I was lucky to be home by then, but Jason ended up working late.