Saturday, Nov. 3

Up at 7 a.m. to get ready to go to the art gallery to conduct two sessions of a graham cookie Christmas house workshop.

The plumber arrived around 8:30, and worked until nearly 9:30 getting the pipes to the downstairs toilet rooted out. The potty works now, but it looks like we'll need to get the septic tank pumped. And since the plumber extracted a bunch of roots, indicating a broken pipe, we might be faced with replacing one under the concrete slab in the sunroom. Yikes! I don't even want to think about it.

Daughter and two great-grandchildren arrived around 9 a.m. Daughter stayed with Mother today, while the rest of us went to the gallery. We were scheduled to be at the gallery at 9:30, and we just made it by that time. The arts council director wasn't there yet, so we had to retrieve the key to the gallery from the shoe store next door (the proprietor of the shoe store also owns the gallery space).

The four of us got busy right away setting up for the workshop...putting foil covered cardboard, milk cartons, bowls of candies, pretzels, graham crackers, etc., and wax paper of icing at each place.

Kids and their parents began arriving about ten minutes early, and by the appointed hour, eleven kids were ready to go to work. The arts council director was supposed to be there at 9:30, but didn't arrive until after 10 a.m. She'd misread her clock and thought she had more time than she did. Folks tried paying me the $3 fees for the workshop, but I didn't have change for the twenty dollar bills they handed me, so I was really hoping the director was going to arrive, and was glad when she finally did!

My great-grandkids were really helpful at both sessions. They also had time to make Christmas houses for themselves.

After the first session, we stopped by a grocery store to buy a few more supplies for the afternoon session, and then came home for a sandwich lunch, followed by brownies for dessert.

The second session was scheduled for 1 p.m. to 2:30, but most of the kids were done by 2 p.m., so we cleaned up and were back home before 3 p.m.

The great-grandkids wanted to watch "Polar Express," so I started the show for them, while I did some other things, including gathering the necessary materials for three other great-grandkids to make Christmas houses at home. Unfortunately two of those great-grandkids who were supposed to be here today were unable to come, because a great-granddaughter is ill.

It wasn't long before the great-grandkids who wanted to see the movie were sound asleep. They'd been up a long time, because daughter had picked them up after she got off work at midnight, took them to her house, fed them, and then went to bed around 2 a.m. Then they had to be up around 6 a.m. for the trip up here. Fortunately, Daughter napped while we were at the workshop, so she'd be alert to drive home later.

After a busy day, I was in no mood to cook supper, so Hubbie went to a local fast food place to pick up cups of chili, which we had with crackers and a choice of cheese or peanut butter. More brownies for dessert.

Daughter stayed to visit for a while longer, before leaving around 6 p.m. for the two-hour trip home.

Afterward, Hubbie and I watched our favorite college basketball team play to a disappointing loss. I'd recorded the game on DVR.

Mother, who spent her evening in the living room enjoying the "white" Christmas tree, headed to bed around 7:30, and Hubbie and I finished the evening watching TV.