FINALLY after 2 ½ weeks, our washing machine is fixed. All the money we’d saved on our water bill after getting the front loader was spent at the Laundromat. Oh well, at least it was under warranty.

organize pantry
clean out fridge
defrost freezer
start holiday baking
do “pre-Christmas decorating cleaning”
put Christmas lights up outside

Those are just a few of the things I’d had planned for the week beginning November 17. But, the kids and I ended up being sick, so I spent several days doing their chores (since they were sick), watching videos, taking naps, and driving my sick self to the Laundromat.

The following week (Thanksgiving week) they were better, but I ended up with bronchitis.

It is tradition for me to make a bunch of pies before Thanksgiving. I freeze what we don’t eat, and we have pie for breakfast on Christmas morning. Well, I was not up to that AT ALL, and Czarina & Hoodie Girl spent the day before Thanksgiving rolling out pie crusts and making TWELVE PIES. Apple, pumpkin and cherry. (They possibly would have made more, but they ran out of pie plates.)

I slept most of Thanksgiving. I got up in time for the WONDERFUL dinner Prince Charming prepared. He even cooked the sweet potatoes I’d purchased, and he doesn’t like sweet potatoes.

After dinner I watched the kids put up and decorate the tree, then I went to bed.

Now, I had not gotten my pre-Christmas decorating cleaning done due to being sick, and things in the living room and deteriorated pretty badly from us all being sick. But when I woke up on Black Friday, the living room was BEAUTIFUL. Czarina and Hoodie Girl had cleaned the living room AND decorated it. . . including putting out the deluxe nativity scene and other Christmas decorations.

I think I will keep them. . .