My mother will be 88 very shortly. I’ve probably said that fifty times in the past six months. It’s amazing to me that she will be EIGHTY EIGHT!
About six or seven years ago, Dear Husband and I went to New Orleans for a few days rest and relaxation. We had dinner in a fabulous restaurant called “The Courtyard of the Two Sisters.” We enjoyed our elegant dinner so much, we returned for lunch the next day. Ever since, I have been trying to persuade my mother to hop a plane for two days and a night in the Big Easy to celebrate her birthday at the “Courtyard.”
This year, she announced that if she made it to ninety, she wanted to celebrate in Paris! I like a woman who thinks BIG! *G*
Since we are not going to Paris this year, Mother has decided to do an open house. Two of my nieces work for a major grocery chain, and they are organizing trays of finger food from their deli and bakery departments. One of my sisters and her daughters will be coming for the weekend, and she’ll organize the flowers and give me a hand getting ready. I’ll be adding things like shrimp trays, beverages, and holiday decorations.
To that end, we will begin decorating tomorrow. I have ornaments to hang from the chandelier, and I’ll swap Christmas themed wall hangings for those that normally cover our walls. I have evergreen swags and bows to put up on the carriage lights, and I plan to buy garland to drape at the front door.
I have one wreath, but I need four more. I use a lot of dried flowers and weeds when I make up wreaths, and sometimes I add silk flowers to the mix. Most of it is pretty understated and mellow. We’ll put up a tree in Mother’s sitting room, but the tree in our living room will have to wait until closer to Christmas.
I’ve tried for years to get Dear Husband to trim the roof line with white lights, but it’s never going to happen. We finally resorted to hanging the icicle lights in the front windows, and some years an angel made of grapevine, covered with tiny white Italian lights, greets our visitors.
So, tomorrow will be the start of our decorating season. Just call me Martha.

Dear Husband earned his halo today. He took the day off. I think this is the first time in 18 years that he has not gone to work the day after Thanksgiving. Since it was raining, it was a wise choice. He was spending a lazy day until I came back from my errands.
“Sweetie, could you give me a hand bringing up the Christmas decorations?”
I bet he made a dozen trips. I’d go through a box or two, and hand him what needed to be taken up the stairs, and he’d make the trip. I need to spend a morning downstairs repacking the Halloween and Thanksgiving decorations for the year, so that when the Christmas stuff goes back down, it won’t be so difficult to reorganize it.
Dear Husband has been muttering that he shouldn’t sit and watch TV after dinner. My solution to that is to have him join me in the basement, organizing what needs to be saved, and collecting what needs to be thrown away. I think he’s delayed that chore because he knows that he will get to carry the trash upstairs.
Wait until he discovers that I have five or six boxes of mismatched mugs downstairs. I’ve been saving them incase we should ever open a coffee house. Maybe it’s time to learn to make coffee.
We need a conveyor belt! I think I’ll go browse on e-Bay….

Friday morning, I went to my computer to check my mail, and discovered that it wouldn’t boot up. It would get part way into the process and then stick, beep a signal at me, and then start all over again. I didn’t have the faintest idea what had happened since the night before. When I’d closed the computer down and gone to bed, it was working.
Luckily we were expecting number three son to visit, and he’s been given the IT position in our household. So, I practiced my patience. His first question was, had I added any new programs, or had I deleted anything the night before. Nope. I told him that I was having some problems with the computer recognizing my DSL line, but otherwise, there was nothing I could tell him that might guide his search.
He tried booting up, and noticed that an error message was being displayed for one second. He rebooted repeatedly, getting one word of the error message at a time, until he could determine that the problem had to do with the keyboard. We swapped keyboards and, sure enough, it booted right up.
I contacted Dell, and they were willing to order a new keyboard for us, but they needed several pieces of information. It took me until today to supply all the information, and I can expect a new keyboard in five to seven business days.
Their response was very timely, but five to seven business days if the keyboard is in stock, seems to be pretty slow service. I’m lucky that we have several computers in the house, both new and old, so that we can swap parts.
It’s a bit awkward, having to go back to an older keyboard, but it works. I’m relieved that I was only out of contact a day or so.
Thanks #3 Son! We appreciate your expertise.