And then it was Thursday

 

I think!
Does anyone else have their days mixed up?

Christmas in Coosada?

Despite there being no snow, our 'town fathers' were kind enough to put up holiday lights last week.

 

I enjoy seeing the glow from my bedside.

As is customary, we attended Christmas Eve candlelight services.  Tom predicted it might be the case, but I was sure surprised to see our little church packed to the rafters.   Earlier this year (as a result of the disaffiliation debacle), the local Korean church lost their sanctuary. After some gentle negotiations, they've begun using ours each Sunday afternoon.   It was nice ... just different, hearing prayers spoken in different tongues.

Afterwards Tom zipped up his heavy leather jacket and grilled some pretty steaks.  Even canned asparagus is darned tasty when combined with lots of melted butter.

🎄

Knock wood(!), I've not fallen prey to the nasty bug that's going 'round. Nevertheless, yesterday I woke up with a bout of 'soul flu.'  Even this season's network commercials -- usually so memorable -- seem to have missed the mark. (*meh*)

Are any of y'all familiar with Donna Ashworth's writings?  I've begun following her on FB and something she penned sure gave way to what I was feeling.  In part ....

Sometimes I wake up sad. For no reason.

And I know, as soon as my eyes open, that today, I am sad.

I can choose positive thoughts, have a cold shower, run on the treadmill, but I will still be sad.

And counting my blessings, on days like this, makes me even more sad.

How lucky I am and how tenuous that is.

How others are not so blessed and how unfair that is.

And I’ve learned to accept these little bouts of sad, or soul-flu, as I have now come to call them.

They are not within my control, this I know.

I don’t fear them anymore, they can’t harm me - because I don’t ‘become’ them.

I just let my ‘sad’ in the door and say “hey, how are you, take a seat…but don’t stay too long please, I have things to do.”

🎄

  

Thankfully, by Noon we were over the river and through the woods to son and family ...

... where Penelope lay telling her secrets to grand-Pops (aka Santa)

As usual, Lois outdid herself in the kitchen.  I mentally told my Keto self to sit down and shut up ... and yes, it was worth it.  (Not something I want to do every day but heck, life's short!)

Pops and Gammy

Daddy Robert and Chloe's best girl

By unspoken agreement, Tom and I no longer exchange gifts; we'll probably buy something for the house and call it good.

What do you know?  These must have fallen off Santa's sleigh when he made a sharp right to avoid an incoming F-35.

 

No, I've no idea where that "A" came from!  Sent via Amazon by a long-time friend, maybe D. meant 'Alabama'?  

Troy hit it out the ball park this year!

See, more than 50 years ago following (my) surgery, 4 year-old Troy brought me a fuzzy, neon-green Tweety pillow.  How I loved that thing! ... and in fact, used to travel with it.
... Until one weekend I happened to leave 'Tweety' in a Ft. Worth hotel room ... never to be recovered.

I'd no idea he remembered, but ya. What a giggle we enjoyed!

🎄

Sitting here sipping on left-over pork chili stew while a cold rain falls outside, I'm not so inclined to do much.
Yet, there's a prescription needing picked up -- and despite all the containers of turkey, stuffing, green bean and sweet potato casseroles, banana pudding AND pumpkin pie that Lois sent home, we still need eggs and milk.   What first-world problems, right?

Color me, feeling richly blessed!
Like a quote from Max Lucado, "Gratitude is like dialysis because it flushes the self-pity out of our system.

Thank you, dear hearts!

Hugs, Myra