Post Thanksgiving and December stuff
Hello. It's me. I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. We went to our hometown (where his family still lives).
It was a quick trip. We started the 13 hour drive Monday (11/24) afternoon, stopped at a hotel when he couldn't keep his eyes open. Got back on the road Tuesday (11/25) morning and arrived. Discovered a couple things around the house that needed to be done and fixed them. His mom is a widow (her husband passed away in January) and has a mentally challenged young adult grandson living with her. (he is now talking about moving to DC to attend college). So there is no male figure to take care of even the minor stuff. Found out the weekend before we arrived that her heat wasn't working! She's been heating her tiny old home with the stove and a little space heater! We were later told she'd been without heat for a month! She hides a lot and tells you what you want to hear- not to worry anyone. Which is understandable and yet shows us she doesn't need to live by herself. So we had a repair man there- three out of the four days we were there because they would leave and it'd quit working again and they couldn't figure out what was wrong. (update-now that we're back home they've been out an additional time and it needs an expensive part- we're weighing the options of new one and she's using a couple more space heaters in the meantime). Thanksgiving was good. It was all about having the family together because you never know what can happen down the road. Got a precooked turkey from Honeybaked Ham. It was the perfect size and easy to heat. Husband and I ran the kitchen and fixed the simple meal. We had about a dozen mouths to feed. Plenty of food and turned out well. When we opened the oven to baste the turkey a pillar of smoke came out. Apparently the throwaway tin we put the turkey in had a hole so the juices had been dripping to the bottom of the stove. The smoke alarm sounded and then the house alarm. Mother in law panicked and couldn't remember her code to turn the alarm off. The company called to ask for a password and she couldn't remember that. Needless to say the fire truck came and husband had to explain. It was a blessing in disguise because we resolved that problem while we were there= she now has a new easy code and password and we wrote it down where she'll remember where it is. We hit the road Friday afternoon (11/28) and drove straight through, arriving home at 1:45am Saturday. The weekend we recuperated.
Man I sound so whiny. Sorry! I'm PMSing and I get those winter blues. This year seems tougher I think due to the economy and everything that is happening in this crazy world. What a catch-22 when a person is depressed about life and the economy and then the person can't afford to go to the shrink! LOL. On a good note I have completed what little Christmas shopping that needed to be done. Going to run- Bye for now :)