December is here!

I am having trouble realizing that it is already December. Normally the house would be decorated and here I am just starting to decorate today. I got up and hit the floor and headed to decoration boxes and started taking some downstairs to their appropriate room. Last night I did start decorating the corner tree in the family room. I wasn't able to finish it because I hadn't unearthed the ornament hangers. I have the dining room table opened to its full size and put the table pad on it and am putting things that I have out during the year that are to be replaced by Christmas. That way I have blank surfaces to decorate. Then after I get decorated I will use some of the empty boxes to store the things that I have put on the dining room table.

I took a break from decorating and Joy came over and read to me out of a Dick and Jane book. She is the third to go through the Dick and Jane series of books (we have some and the church library has some). She is loving them like her brother and sister did before her and I am enjoying the memories that they bring back of me learning to read. After Joy read, Esther came over and we made some words with the movable alphabet (Montessori method of learning to sound out words).

I spent the rest of the afternoon decorating (the corner tree is finished) and making White Chili. While I was finishing up the chili, Kathy came over to trim Woody's hair...he needed his sideburns, neck, and over his ears trimmed...his first hair cut since he lost his hair due to the chemo that he had this summer. This morning Woody went to the Credit Union and went to the grocery store. It has seemed like Saturday all day to me...a bit hard to get back into a routine after a trip!

I took tonight's blog picture out the car window on the way home yesterday. I ended up making it a black and white picture with my photo software, but it was almost black and white without using the software. You can see the heavy clouds. I learned today that some of the areas that we traveled through yesterday got tremendous amounts of rain yesterday...some close to 5 inches...there was some flash flooding but we saw none and just "sailed" on down the road. We did take a state highway from Memphis to home rather than the interstate, as Woody doesn't like to be passed by trucks on the interstate when it is raining...not that any of us do! It was very pleasant driving through the countryside and through all the towns along the way. It is a shorter way, but takes longer since you have to slow down in all the towns, etc.

Again, I will say that we really had a good time in Arizona...glad that we were able to make this trip and glad to be safely home.