Saturday, December 5

We were up early this morning, but I skipped my exercises so we could get ready to go to the art gallery to conduct two sessions of the graham cracker cookie Christmas house workshop. We did one in the morning from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30, and one from 1 p.m. to 2:30.

I actually thought the morning workshop began at 9 a.m., so we were at the gallery by 8:45. Daughter, Granddaughter, and Great-grandchildren were already there, waiting in their vehicle. We had no key to open the gallery, so we sat and waited for the director to arrive. She got there at nine.

We got things organized before the morning group arrived at 9:30. Seven kids made Christmas houses in record time, and were finished in about an hour. One of the children belonged to a photographer who was there to get snapshots of the event for the regional edition to the state newspaper, which meant that I didn't have to do the job after all. She also snapped pictures of Mother and me to accompany the article about the Christmas houses that will appear in the Thursday edition of the paper. Too bad that I woke up this morning with bed head and didn't have time to wash and fix my hair. Oh well, most of the weird crimp was on the back of my head, which shouldn't show in the snapshot.

When the kids had completed their projects, Daughter, Granddaughter, and Great-grandkids, along with Mother came home, so Mother could get the chicken noodle soup and sandwich makings ready for lunch.

The art gallery director and I cleaned up after the first group, and organized for the second group. In the meantime, Hubbie ran a few errands for me, including going to a craft fair to pick up a dozen yeast cinnamon buns. We look forward to these light, fluffy, perfectly seasoned treats every year. He also went to a grocery store that had boxes of cereal on sale.

He picked me up about 11 a.m. and we returned home for lunch. We had the soup with deli turkey and cheese sandwiches on flat bread, and cinnamon rolls for dessert, of course. After that, Daughter and crew opened grab bag gifts and Christmas gifts.

Daughter opted to stay home with the great-grandchildren this afternoon, while Hubbie, Mother, Granddaughter, and I went to the art gallery for the second session. Nine kids showed up for this session. These were older children, who took more time to carefully design their houses, so it was 2:30 before this session ended. This morning, Granddaughter spent her time helping her 18-month-old baby create a house, but this afternoon, she enjoyed helping the older kids with their projects.

While we were gone, Daughter and Great-granddaughter watched "Polar Express," and an animated feature, while baby Great-grandson snoozed. We got back home around 3:30, after cleaning up the gallery and visited for about an hour, and then had an early supper of lunch repeated.

Daughter and crew went home after that, and we got ready to go to the 6 p.m. Christmas parade downtown. We had taken the truck to the courthouse parking lot and parked it facing the parade route on our way downtown to the art gallery this morning. So this evening, we drove the van to the back of the courthouse and walked to the truck, taking afghans with us. Hubbie went to the truck first and started the heater before we got in it. So while folks standing along the sidewalk shivered and hopped up and down in an attempt to keep warm, we were comfy watching the parade from inside the truck.

The parade this year had a Dr. Seuss theme that inspired no fewer than nine Grinch floats, plus a couple of Cat in the Hat ones. One of the Grinch floats included the character barreling in his sled down Mount Crumpit toward the center of Whoville, where "Who" children sat around a Christmas tree. This was our choice for the winning float.

Back home a little after 7 p.m., we fixed ourselves cups of hot chocolate, and sat down to watch TV for a while.

Funny: on the way home from the parade, Mother suddenly realized that she hadn't remembered to put the boiled chicken into the noodle soup at lunch. If anybody noticed there was no meat in the soup, they didn't say so. I didn't notice it. But now we have a container of several chicken breasts that we'll need to work into another meal this week.

Funny: in my previous blog I mentioned that yesterday I didn't feel the needle going in when the nurse gave me an H1N1 flu shot. Well, last night when I was getting ready for bed, I decided to remove the adhesive bandage that had been applied to the shot area, but noticed that while there was a tiny red spot where I'd gotten the shot, the bandage that was supposed to cover it was about an inch below it. Apparently, even the nurse couldn't tell where she'd "shot" me.

Scary: during the Christmas house workshop, the art gallery director tripped over a cord she''d strung between her cubbyhole office and the CD player and fell to her hands and knees, knocking over a stack of CDs and startling everyone present. The director declared that she was all right, but I think she must have hit one of her knees pretty hard, because when she got up, she was limping. I hope she isn't too stiff and sore tomorrow.