News and Notes, November Blahs Edition

Well, it's November.  The weather has felt like November for weeks, it seems.  Cold, rainy, and generally crappy.  When we get a sunny day it feels miraculous.  We lucked out with a warm-ish evening on Halloween, and it was pleasant on Saturday.  It's actually warm-ish again today, but windy.  But it's rained a lot, at least some almost every day, and it's getting old.  Not that I want snow, either, but this is already getting depressing, and the leaves aren't even off the trees yet.  They're rapidly starting to fall, though.  I'm just bummed we never got out to see the leaves this year!

Last weekend I got to spend Saturday with my parents.  I think I was craving some old school time with my mom by going to the bazaar at the church she grew up in.  I have fond memories of going there with her and my grandma, so it's always nice to go back.  I also needed the dish scrubbies that I know they always sell, so that was a nice bonus!  We did lunch with my dad and then my mom and I went back out to a large indoor garage sale and then down the street to a shop that's owned by my dad's cousin and his wife that's essentially a massive garage sale itself.  I think it gets a lot of estate sale leftovers, but there was literally a little bit of everything!  The place had so much stuff that it actually made me a little anxious.  I've become very sensitive to "stuff" lately.  I mean, you'd never know it if you looked around my house, but clutter is really bothering me these days.  Of course, wastefulness does too, so I'm not one of those people who gets a dumpster and clears out the house, but I crave efficiency and organization so when the house is a mess, it's unsettling for me.  When the house was clean for the party last week, it felt so good and I felt so content.  Things are now back to a bit of chaos (there are hundreds of Legos on the floor, for example), but I just need to keep up with things as much as I can and slowly but surely work through the bigger problems.  We need to go through all of the toys and books sometime before Christmas so we can make room for new toys we're sure to get.  There are some younger toys and things that don't get played with much, so it's a matter of packing away the stuff we don't need and moving things around if there are things we'd like to get more use.  It was good to see the creativity come out when we had a clean, clear floor, and I think we just need to find ways to let that continue.  Anyway, it was sort of validating to walk through that store with everything and not feel compelled to buy anything because we have enough!

Speaking of Christmas, I can't even begin to think about how I'll be putting up a tree in less than three weeks!  I'm trying to get organized with my gift list, and if I'm lucky I'll actually start buying stuff one of these days!  It's going to be a bit of an abnormal holiday season.  My mom is having shoulder surgery in a couple weeks, right before Thanksgiving, so that's going to impact that holiday (and yes, I offered to cook, but my mom figures she'll still be miserable and declined), and she probably won't be able to do all of her usual Christmas decorating either!  After that we're hopefully taking a little trip to Toronto, which will be great but will impact my usual decorating schedule, which always throws me off.  We also have a potential weekend of fun coming up in December courtesy of Craig's work (but at the moment I'll believe it when I see it) and an early Christmas celebration with my brother and his kids.  It'll be a very busy time, but the kids are already getting excited and to some degree, I am too!

I was only able to blog today because I'm home sick.  I woke up congested yesterday and it only got worse as the day went on with a headache and post-nasal drip, and by the evening it was clear it wasn't just a fluke and my usual zinc regimen wasn't enough.  I had an important work thing tonight so I opted to stay home today so I could rest up and be fresh and ready for that later tonight.  And yes, I voted along the way!  Hopefully this will be short-lived, though--mama ain't got time for this!  A quiet day home alone isn't the worst thing in the world, honestly, but this was definitely not how I preferred to do it!  Especially because I'm already working around all of the days off the kids have been in the midst of lately!  They had a half day and full day a week apart for parent-teacher conferences, then Veterans' Day on Monday and three days around Thanksgiving.  We're still figuring out who's with them when, but it's nice to know we have a little break, too.  I still have a lot of vacation days to schedule, but too much work to do, so we'll see what I can cram in!  I do feel much better tonight than I did this morning, so either the zinc or a full day of rest did a good job.

Tonight we're just watching the election results and seeing how the next two years might shake out.  I've pretty much settled as an Independent (if you could have seen my ballot tonight...), but no one really seems to full represent me so it's still a tough decision.  But really, I just need to go to bed.  Sorry this wasn't really a riveting update--guess no news is good news?--but I like to check in once a week anyway and this is what came out.  Hang in there, everyone...