On Christmas Eve, I was able to hand out all except the two I had originally prepared for! I was able to drop those off at their house today. Blessings galore! There's nothing fancy, just stuff like Chex mix, caramel puff corn chocolate chip cookies, etc. It was fun and a worthy goal for the week!
Today's only Friday and I've finished my one thing! I may get started on next week's goal . . .
This was definitely the focus for my week! I didn't get everything done that I had hoped to . . . (no fresh baked cookies for stocking stuffers, etc.) but we had a lovely gathering yesterday!
I love my family so much! I told them that my gift was having all of them over together and that happened. We had a bonus - Olivia! She took our family photos. Here's the "silly" one after my cherished "good" family photo. We told Olivia to go ahead and take it with Titus' butt in frame.
I joke that food is my love language, but it is a way that I try to say "I love you" to my family. We got to eat plenty, play games, read books, and just generally enjoy our family Christmas. On Christmas day, we'll host the Somers family. All of our sons have other plans that day. The extended LaMoore Christmas is in January at Leech Lake, but not all our "kids" can make it to that, either. I absolutely love when we can all get together!
Wow. For two weeks in a row, I've not been successful with the thing I identified as my "One Thing." This is not an encouraging trend . . . So I'll write about what I DID get done.
I put up the oversized outdoor bulbs on the evergreen tree on the east side of our driveway. Louie had asked me to wait until he had trimmed some branches and I did. It's silly to do this, but it makes me happy. I also took down the "spring" lights over our indoor stairwell and put up some Christmas lights. This also makes me happy. But with a day and a half of "home" time, I neglected to put up the Christmas lights on the porch. I will still do it when we get home from the lake! But it got colder and I subbed yesterday. I don't think I'll ask Louie to do the lights up on the garage, etc. It's already mid-December!
I spent a chunk of one of my home days sitting in front of the fireplace, sorting through Lou's papers. I'm getting closer to the end! I found about a cubic foot of empty cards and envelopes. I joked with Kathy Kendall that I'll have to come visit so she can help me sort and organize them!
This topic has been on my to-do lists for over a decade. It's frustrating to me that we have not yet gotten our "ducks in a row." Death is part of life and we want to prepare for our children before it's too late.
We did meet with a paralegal to get more info about trusts. This was a follow-up to the dinner we went to in early November. I have a book from the library about DIY wills with not much info about trusts.
Our current plan is to talk with the boys (as we still refer to our adult sons) to get their take on this. We've heard the adage "pay now" (trust) vs "pay later" (wills). Sigh. I just want to get this done. I wrote my own will (and one for Louie) about a decade ago but didn't get them notarized . . . I keep thinking we'll hunker down and get our paperwork done. And we keep not doing it. I do have my own Health Care Directive!
So, I like to post about something I DID complete, so here it is. We talked about the fact that we last went downhill skiing about a decade ago. It was funny that someone asked us where we found our "retro" ski gear! We originally bought it brand new in the 1980s. Grin.
Once Louie agrees that we can get rid of something, I'm on it! I emailed Play It Again Sports on October 12 and got this response: "Thank you for the message Jeanne....unfortunately the ski equipment you mentioned would be too old for us. Consider donating it to a thrift shop like Goodwill, Unique, Savers, etc."
My photo angle is weird and makes the boots look larger than the skis. Ah well, on to the next thing.
