End of November

Where has this month gone? Did you have a good Thanksgiving?  Did you get to spend time with family?

DD has a major deadline coming up next week, so we didn't get to see her this holiday.  It'll be Christmas soon, though, and I hope she has some vacation time left and can spend more than just a couple of days here.

We did have a couple of visitors, though.  Well, Tandi and I did. Tandi wants them to play, but I think they come by hoping I'll go back to giving them treats again.

The black and white dog loves to chase cars, and I'm worried one day she'll get hit. This was just as a car was coming up the street.

The brown dog is shyer, but has the sweetest expression in her eyes. I'd adopt her in a heartbeat if we didn't have Tandi.

I don't know to whom they belong, but I think they're the reason Tandi got fleas earlier this summer, so I don't encourage them to stick around.

As for me, I had 4 days of PDO to use or lose by Christmas,  so I took one day last week, and will be spacing the other 3 out during the next few weeks.  Since I was off  Mon-Fri night, I decided to go ahead and cook, even though there were only going to be the two of us, and one of us is on the South Beach Diet. 

Challenges can be so overrated.

I did try some new dishes off Kalyn's Kitchen website:   baked artichoke hearts au gratin,  Double Berry Jello salad, and SBD-friendly Pumpkin Cheesecake Pie with a crushed pecan crust.  Oh, my, goodness.  That pie was SO good.  Jack had dressing with gravy, and pecan pie, but he liked my cranberry salad better than the canned jellied stuff he usually prefers.

My weight loss has ping-ponged between 31 and 33 lbs for the last 3 weeks, and I think I'm going to have to go back on phase 1 for a few days just to get back in the right mindset. Now that I've lost enough to be comfortable in the next size down, I find my motivation to be slipping a bit. In 2 weeks I go back to my doc for repeat bloodwork and I am expecting much better numbers and a pat on the back. Maybe that'll help. I haven't told DD yet, and she hasn't seen me since July, so there's another reason to keep plugging.

Outside the weather was beautiful the last 2-3 weeks, with temps in the low 60s, until a cold front came through on Fri., and now the nighttime temps are below freezing. The Bradford pears are the last to change colors and drop their leaves, holding on to autumn as long as they can. 

They're also the first to announce that spring is on the way, with hard little buds appearing as early as February.  It's as if they know their time on earth is limited and they don't want to spend any more time sleeping than Mother Nature makes them.  One of them is struggling mightily, and I don't know if it will last the winter, or collapse with the first ice storm. Maybe we'll get lucky and not have any ice storms this year.

Sure.

My manager at work asked if I'd head up the Christmas decorating of ICU/Telemetry this year, because I "had such a fantastic Halloween display".  Pure flattery, as he didn't see it himself, and besides, being able to do Creepy and Macabre does not guarantee one can do Comfort and Joy.  But I'm a sucker for flattery, so I agreed.

Since themes seem to help me stay focused, I made an executive decision and chose "An Old-Fashioned Christmas".  We have a lot of elderly patients who will enjoy it, and I think it's something most people can relate to, whether we've experienced these ourselves, or watched "The Waltons" on TV or seen Norman Rockwell's work.  

Here's hoping I can pull this off--but if not, someone else will get asked next year and I'll be off the hook, right?