November 9

The sun is stealing away for the night as the weekend comes to a close. It's just the Mr. and me and all of a sudden it is very, very quiet. It's that same old strange feeling I get when all the guests have gone and it's just the two of us and the very loud silence. All the housework is done for the night, and we are ready for the first real cold front of the season, waiting in the wings to take it's place on stage in the morning. I have closed the doors to all the excess rooms, i.e. laundry room, Alyssa's room, extra bathrooms, so we aren't trying to heat empty rooms. I have put the door snakes in the gaps under the doors, I have upped the temps in the mini splits downstairs. I came upstairs and made a declaration to the Mr. as he looked up at me from his chair. I struck a pose and said dramatically...The batches are hattened!! He looked somewhat confused as it dawned on me that something wasn't right with that statement. We laughed. I corrected myself. Ahem...I mean, the HATCHES ARE BATTENED! 

It has been a full weekend. Alyssa came home from school on Friday morning. She and I did some shopping and she cooked for her weekly Friday evening guests. 

Saturday, usually spent doing not much, just taking things easy, was spent cleaning every inch of this old house, and getting ready for the dinner and Thanksgiving Powwow with the Williamson Family. When I say Powwow, I mean we had a five minute chat over dinner about when to have it, and what to eat, and who would bring it. After that we played games and laughed ourselves silly. One of the games we played was called Imposter. This was a game in which everybody at the table got a category, in this particular instance it was professions, and all but one person got a specific within that category. This time it was mechanic. Everybody takes turns describing without saying, what the specific is. The imposter has to figure out by what everybody else says what the specific is in the category. Sometimes the imposter is found out almost immediately, but sometimes they are able to fake their way through it until the end, when everybody points to who they think the imposter is. I earned the immediate ire of everybody in the room when the profession/mechanic clue came around to me by saying undereducated! I got four sets of stink eyes on me, especially the two former mechanics in the room, and I swear Mike Rowe was sitting heavy on my left shoulder, whispering his Work Ethic Creed in my ear. I'm a big believer in his trade skills gap work, so  I really couldn't defend myself, but it was kind of funny. The next time it was my turn, I said lube job! Which made everybody in the room fall out. Then they changed my name in the roster. From then on until we stopped playing, I became officially Lube Job, instead of Julie. They left around eight, and I retired to bed fairly quickly, after the finishing clean up touches in the kitchen. 

This morning we were awake early, although not six AM early. We got up and got ourselves dressed and picked up the girls. We went to a new/old church, one I used to attend a long, long time ago. This was the girl's first time in any church other than the one we have been going to for about three years. I was a little nervous. They have never been to Children's church. I wondered if Arya would be Ok, she seems withdrawn sometimes, and doesn't like noise. 

I need not have worried. From the minute she met the teacher, she took a liking to her. Almost too much of a liking. The teacher had a mole on her neck and Arya couldn't stop talking about it. The teacher was sweet about it, but we are going to have to have a talk about respecting boundaries. Usually she is far away, but today she was all up in the teacher's grille. The teacher held her hand as they went into the classroom. I think this is going to work out. I hope so, anyway. Claire, on the way home, was not so happy. I asked if she wanted to come back. She said NO! I tried to pick her brain but she wouldn't come out with it at first. I just don't want to! Finally it emerged that Arya had introduced her as her "baby sister" to the Sunday school, a big no no in Claire's book. For some reason this really bothers her and it's not the first time she has voiced that. So we discussed it and impressed up Claire that Arya was actually trying to be loving, wasn't calling her a baby, and impressed upon Arya, that although she didn't mean anything by it, it still bothered Claire, so maybe you can introduce her as your younger sister, next time. 

After dropping the gals off we came home and just hung around and I may have dozed off in my chair. Then all of a sudden the Mr. decided we needed to go to the grocery store. He was up and out there like a rocket, but I was much slower moving, it took me a few minutes to put on some public worthy clothes and catch up. 

We came back and brought in all the best plants that wouldn't survive the freeze. I noticed that Alyssa had gone back to school, thus the quiet feeling in the house. Nothing to do tomorrow. No early wake ups. No school duties. Will be too cold to work in the yard, so maybe tomorrow I will work on that paint by number, or better yet, finish up the Toilet Paper Christmas Choir, so we have it for display in just a few weeks. A FEW WEEKS? WHAT??? 

Slooooow dowwwwn 2025. You are moving too fast for me. 

Lube Job. I'm still laughing. Mike Rowe, you have all my apologies. 

Thank you Lord for family, games, good food, and friends. We have certainly been blessed.