Saturday, Dec. 10

Up at 7 a.m. to get ready for a visit from Niece and Daughter. Niece arrived close to 10 a.m., but daughter didn't get here until noon. Along the route she'd chosen to take, an 18-wheeler turned over, so emergency personnel had halted traffic. Daughter decided to take an alternate route that was a long way around to our house.

Since the two women were longer than expected in arriving, Hubbie and I went ahead to a boys ranch craft fair around 9 a.m. to pick up cinnamon rolls. I'm usually not a real fan of cinnamon rolls, but these large yeast confections are too mouth-watering to pass up. The rolls are snapped up early, so folks who want them have to get to the craft fair soon after it opens. We bought a dozen of them.

I served the rolls with the soup/chili/deli sandwich lunch. Just as we were finishing lunch, there was knock on the door. A neighbor man alerted us that a young woman in a pickup truck, driving erratically, missed her turn onto the road that runs along the west side of our property and instead drove onto our lawn and into a tree.

The man said she'd been swerving on the highway and nearly took out a fence near the curve, before driving onto our lawn. He parked in our driveway and rushed down to see if the woman was hurt. She was not, but he said she was acting crazy. He told her to put the truck in park, and as soon as she did, he snatched the keys out of the ignition and told her to stay in the truck until police arrived.

He said she was acting "out of her head crazy." The police arrived in a few minutes and gave her a drug and sobriety test, which she passed. It was determined that she was having a bad reaction to an anti-psychotic drug.

I snapped pictures of the mishap. There was quite a bit of damage to the front end of her truck. There was headlight debris on the ground in front of the tree she hit, and the bark was scraped off the lower part of the tree trunk, but otherwise there was no damage to our yard.

Once the police had completed a report, and the truck was taken away by a member of the woman's family, Niece, Daughter, Hubbie, and I went to the boys ranch craft fair. It was a nice day for an outing...crisp, but sunny. We were disappointed that there were no horse and carriage rides today, but we enjoyed touring the crafts booths. Neither Niece nor Daughter bought anything. But I bought a cute cardinal bird Christmas tree ornament, and a pine cone ornament fashioned into a penguin. I also bought a small bucket of turtles candy.

The crowd wasn't as large this year as in past years, and I didn't see a lot of folks buying stuff. I guess that's why I picked up a few items...if the vendors don't sell their wares, they'll quit renting spaces at the craft fair. I think we need to support our local crafters. But in this down economy, I can understand why folks are careful with their dollars. Hubbie bought a package of peanut brittle. Like me, he felt sorry for the vendor, who offered samples of the candy, but who didn't seem to be selling much of it.

On the way back home, Daughter commented of how comfortable the mesh back support in her seat was. Niece tried it, and was impressed with it, too. She said the chiropractor's office sells them for $35. She was excited when she learned we paid only a dollar apiece for the three we bought. She and Daughter wanted to go by the everything's a dollar store and buy some for themselves.

Back home, we visited for the rest of the afternoon. Niece left around 4:30 p.m., and Daughter stayed until after supper. She headed home about 6:30.

After she left, I helped mother take a shower. Mother went to bed around 7 p.m. While I was helping Mother, Hubbie watched our favorite college basketball team play to a disappointing loss. Since I was busy, I caught only snippets of the game.

After that, we watched one-hour shows until bedtime.