We made our first trip out to shop for Christmas today. We actually found a few of the things on our list! Unfortunately, not as many as we had hoped for.
One of the best finds was a group of small gift bags that we can use for the gift cards that Elegante Mother will be giving. That resolves a major wrapping issue for the year. I used to object to gift cards, because I felt that the giver wasn’t choosing something specific for the recipient. I’ve finally been persuaded that a gift card for a specific store is an acceptable gift. Still….I wish I had the ability to find the PERFECT GIFT for everyone.
Which brings me to an interesting question. Do you feel that a giver should be responsible for returning a gift that is a duplicate? Or should the recipient make the exchange? That’s assuming that the gift is a gift that CAN be returned, and that you’ve supplied the gift receipt.
I had to adjust to a practice in Dear Husband’s family when I joined them. The women of the family would call to discuss what was being given, so that there were not duplicates to exchange. In my family, you buy what you want, and the recipient decides what they want to do with the gifts. One year I received two Sony Walkman cassette players. And another year I got two microwaveable gel pads for my back. I kept all of them, and they’ve come in handy.
So….do you return the gift, or does the giver?

You can see the seven guys who worked on our roof. They started at the top and worked their way down, slipping reinforced forks under the shingles to pry them off. This is mid-morning on the first of the two days they were here.
There are tarps all around the house, protecting the plants and grass below, as they fling the shingles down to the clean up crew.

Black felted paper has been laid over the entire roof. The valleys have been reinforced with “Water and Ice” barriers and “baby tins” and flashing are in place. Next stop…shingles!

And THIS (ta daahhhh) is what the new roof looks like:

I was just over at WHUZZUP!, seeing what Eric had to say, and he made a suggestion that was SO sensible.
Go read what he had to say about comments on Thursday, November 17th, in the post on spammers. Just disregard the entry on the penis-enlarging pills, and scroll down.
Do you suppose he’s right, and that most of us have been doing this backward? After all, he has had a blog since 1998….a year BEFORE Blogger came along.
What do you think?

This week, the figures have been on the radio, on TV and in the newspapers.
40,000,000 people have HIV/AIDS. 2,300,000 of them are children.
It’s expected that 3,000,000 people will die of AIDS this year, and half a milllion of them will be children.
More than 25,000,000 people have died from AIDS since 1981.
Of the 6.5 million people in developing countries who are infected with HIV/AIDS, only one million of them are receiving life prolonging drugs.
More than 6,000 young people (ages 15-24) become infected world wide every day.
There are more than 1.2 million people in North America living with HIV/AIDS.
The statistics are chilling, especially those dealing with children.

I was talking with Dear Husband about something that has been taking place when we host my family at major holidays. My sisters, and their adult daughters bring “bread and butter” gifts. There’s nothing wrong with bread and butter gifts, but it seems as though the cost of these gifts has been rising steadily over the years.
Where someone might have brought a jar of something they had canned, or a candle, or a pot holder, now the gifts are getting up scale. At Thanksgiving, I received a beautiful bowl painted with a country style pumpkin design, a chocolate dipping pot, a jar of gourmet chocolate and two pound cakes, a pot with three of the most gorgeous poinsettias, and a gift basket with five or six items for Mexican appetizers and hot chocolate. And, my niece who was in an accident sent the most beautiful bouquet of flowers I’ve ever seen.
Has there been an announcement I missed that has stepped up the gift giving?
I routinely take gifts to my hostess. I’m sure there have been times when I missed, but generally, I try to show my appreciation for having been invited with a small gift. I’m concerned about this increase in the size or quality of the gift. Is this just a reflection of our stage of life, where we can afford to give more?
Dear Husband suggested that my family was just trying to show me how much they enjoy celebrating at our house. He went a step further and said that perhaps they were showing their love for me. How can I argue with that??
So…I guess I’m going to have to do a better job of shopping before we go visiting.

I just wrapped my first Christmas gift. Well, actually, it’s Dear Husband’s gift. He has a haircut tomorrow night, and wanted to take a gift to his stylist. We all recognize that wrapping gifts is not DH’s forte, so I lend a hand where I can.
While I wallowed in misery today (due to my cold), I spent some time ordering Christmas gifts on-line. I took care of three women who help me in my capacity at the office for our masonry company. One woman is our CPA’s assistant, and the other two are employed by supply companies. Dear Husband takes care of the gift certificates for our general contractors, and I take care of the support staff.
We had to make a trip today to pick up two lap quilts Elegante Mother had machine quilted. While we were out, I stopped for gift certificates at Panera Bread for our postal carrier and UPS man.
I found two gifts for one of my nieces, three for Dear Husband, and one for one of my sisters. I was really booking, despite the cold.
We had left overs for dinner tonight. I put the disaster potatoes back into the oven to see if heating them longer would help. It didn’t. DH thinks that there must have been something wrong with one or more of the potatoes that I used. The sauce was really tasty, but the potatoes still seemed half cooked.
Tomorrow, I’ll be mailing one of the Quilt Rooms in a Bag that I talked about in an earlier blog. We found a woman who had been sent to the Chicago area when so many were evacuated after Hurricane Katrina. I’m still looking for a recipient for the second bag. They showed part of an 80 mile stretch of the Gulf coast in Mississippi and Louisiana, and it looks like they’ve hardly made a dent on what needs to be done. I can’t believe the Federal government has not stepped up to help get them back on their feet.
Christmas decorations are very slowly starting to appear here. I took down the Thanksgiving wreath and put up one of fresh greens. I bought wreaths with burgundy bows to slip over the carriage lights. I need to decide whether I want to decorate the mailbox pillar, and if so…how.
Office work, laundry, dishes…you know the drill. I’ll be glad when I feel better.

I wrote about my niece being in a car accident the week before Thanksgiving. This is a picture of her car, after it had been towed. She described being sheltered by a tarp, with a paramedic checking her vital signs, while the firemen used the “Jaws of Life” to open her car door. I was rattled when I learned she had been in an accident. The next day, when I took her to collect her belongings from the car, I was afraid I would cry when I saw it. It wasn’t as bad as I had feared. Still…you hate to know that someone precious to you was wrapped up in something that looks like this.
On Thanksgiving we had a LOT to be thankful for!

I woke this morning (Monday) to hear a hard rain drumming on the skylights. If you’ve been reading my blog through the summer, you’ll know that my part of Illinois has been in deep drought. I’ve welcomed the rain each time it came, because it came so rarely.
I didn’t mind hearing the rain striking the glass. I’ve missed all the sounds that rain can bring. I rose early, and then snoozed after my first cup of tea. When we went to do the grocery shopping, the storm had passed for a bit, and we were treated to a day that reminded us of early spring.
I’ve been trying to beat back a cold. It seems to have settled into my eyes, and they ache and itch and weep, so I enjoyed the brief bit of warmth that came in the middle of the day.
Now the clouds have come back, and with it dropping temperatures. We may have snow by morning. They say that if you don’t like the weather in Chicago, wait ten minutes. That about describes our day.