First Big Snow and other events

So, the dreaded big snow has finally found us.  Mom has been obsessing about it for 6 months now, so she has been vindicated I guess.  This is a shot of my across-the-street neighbor's driveway.  If she could get out in her little 2 wheel drive Toyota, I'm sure my new CRV can handle it too,  I had a remote start installed this week, so I'm feeling pretty smug about being able to warm my ride without even stepping foot out the door. 

I've been spending lots and lots of time with the mom, yesterday I put in a good 7 hours.  I arrived with stuff for her crock pot, which hasn't been used in the last several years.  She washed the appliance while I browned the chuck roast, then we loaded it up and cranked it to "high".  And of course she worried about it being on all day long.  "Shouldn't we turn this down" or "off" or something, about once an hour.  She has a real "thing" about using electricity, because as we all know, she doesn't have any money.  This litany has spilled over into Christmas concerns too.  There was a time not so long ago that she would hand out envelopes to each of her children and to each of their spouses and to her grandchildren.  Those envelopes contained $500.  Now she is adamant that only the grandchildren will get money, and $20 will have to be enough.  All of us reassure her that we don't need money, that she needn't worry about Christmas, and that everything will be alright.  And we all know it's just a symptom of her disease.

Last Sunday while she and Ed were out for the afternoon, I went out and bought a lighted holiday ribbon, took it over and strung it along her mantle.  She was thrilled with it.  A couple of days later, she decided that it would be ok to go upstairs and bring down her little fiber optic tree.  And she is thrilled with that too, as she is every year.  I used to have a couple of different fake trees, but had to give them away after Butterball proved to have quite an appetite for them.  She would chew the branches and then throw up on my bed.  So, here is what we have now.  And we love it.

I'm squeezing the most fun and pleasure and love out of this holiday season as I can.  Cause, as you may have read in one of my previous blogs, you never know when "the last time" might be.  Blessings to all of you, my friends.