Mission Impossible!

My mission impossible: starting decorating; Graham's mission impossible: getting over here without the girls or his little brother seeing him! I decided yesterday that I wanted to get started on my decorating today. This means lots of cleaning and since I was having to clean up after installation of our heat pumps I decided that this was a good time to "get started cleaning and decorating. Those who know us and those who have followed the blog over the years know that I do quite a bit of decorating at Christmas time...it takes me quite a long time (the older I get the longer it takes me!). This year I am having my ladies' Sunday School class here for brunch the second weekend in December so I really need to get started on it and sort of want to have at least part of the mess out of the way next week when we have Thanksgiving. Today's mission was to get Mr. Snowman out and in front of the fireplace. He is a good draft blocker of the cold air that manages to get by the flue in the chimney (this air leak is something that we hope to correct in some of our energy saving efforts) and out our fireplace doors. The other mission was to get our corner tree up in the family room. That has been Graham's job ever since we have gotten it (I don't even know how to put the tree stand together.). So we plotted a plan to get him over here. It was time for the next sleepover so we called it a "Mission Impossible" and I slipped a note to Graham telling him to sneak over to our house after he finished lunch and his school work and to make sure that none of his siblings knew about it. Nor let his cousins and their friends who were visiting know either...too many girls for him anyway! I had gotten approval from his mommy before suggesting this. So Graham says that getting away from home without any one of the girls or his little brother knowing was the hardest thing for him. He finally managed an escape and came over and knocked on our back door to sneak in. We have had fun. He and Goosey (Woody) made his mission note self-destruct...they burned it on the front porch (Grammy did not know about this part of the day till after the event!). Then Goosey and Agent Graham went up to start the mission impossible of getting the tree out of the Christmas closet. Graham got it put together and then our next impossible mission was finding the box with the ornaments in it for that tree. The one mission that we haven't accomplished is finding the ornament hangers...oh, well, we will find them eventually! Graham got the ornaments on the tree that had loops, etc. already on them.

Woody walked his four-mile route today. He also worked on blowing and mulching leaves. He blew all the leaves off our driveway so the shingle truck could see the driveway to negotiate it to drop off the shingles. I did a LOT of cleaning this morning...cleaning some the vents in the floor, mopped the kitchen floor, and did a lot of vacuuming both up and downstairs(cleaning up bits and pieces of plaster, etc. that the workmen missed...they did clean up...but it needed my touch!)...even vacuumed out the fireplace (that is a creepy job to me...never know what might be lurking...lots of spider webs...I hadn't done this job in a while...only one live wasp!). Anyway, I have sort of pushed myself today! We had ham stuffed potatoes and Italian corn for supper. Graham said that it was a good meal. Woody made us Blueberry Dump Cake earlier in the afternoon. We won't ask Graham how many helpings he has had both this afternoon for a snack and evening for dessert...TOP SECRET!!!! Graham was disappointed that we didn't have any broccoli! Graham is very much into "spy stuff." We have been looking up items on the internet this evening...items that he has added to his Christmas list! It has been a good day for Mission Impossible! Only negative part of the day Woody's work on clearing the leaves from the driveway was for nought...shingles weren't delivered. We got a call from someone who has something to do with the roofing to see if they had been delivered and if they get delivered in the morning then we are to call to see if there is time for them to get a crew together! Eventually this job will get done! I've got to stop Graham wants to see if I can find a map for Treasure Island to print out!!!!!