Day 490, Tuesday

My project for today after work was getting the lights on the tree and start decorating it.  For some reason my motivation and enthusiasm has been waning and I just haven't my normal burst of energy to get it done.  Tonight after dinner I will get started and at a minimum get the lights on.

Half the tree with lights

The lights actually went on pretty easy and quickly. It only took about 40 minutes to get the lights on and then came the ornaments.  Usually my tree is around 11' but this year it is significantly smaller.  There is no way all the ornaments would fit, which was fine with me it, meant less going on and less coming off after Christmas.  I put in my favorite movie, A Christmas Story, and started hanging ornaments.  Around 10:30 pm my movie was over and I was done for the night.  I only had a handful of ornaments on the tree but it was a good start.  I could finish the tree tomorrow.

The Chickens had laid 3 eggs and I'm glad to have the Americana's laying their blue/green eggs again.

I was in bed by 11 pm and ready to sleep.  Tomorrow I have an early meeting and I'll have to be out the door by 7:10 am.

Day 489, Monday and back to work

Where did my weekend go?  I can't believe it's another week and another Monday.  Work was steady and nothing out of the normal.  I skipped my lunch and busy the entire day.  I really needed to have something to eat, but when I'm busy I just forget about.

At 3:45 pm I headed to the gym.  Realizing that I hadn't eaten I grabbed to trail mix bars that I could eat on the way.  First off I hit the treadmill to warm up and I started off at a nice run at 7.5 and then worked my way up to 8.  Again I felt pretty good, but I had a tightness in my airway that wasn't there last time when I ran.  After I quit I started coughing and wheeze just a bit.  It was my first trace of asthma in months.  I still felt pretty good and my trainer put me through a great workout.

During the day I had received an email from Justin that I needed to meet with Anna and pick out material for the seats in the Traveleze sometime this week.  I scheduled the meeting on Wednesday and they want to get the seats in to the upholster as soon as possible.  I'm hoping this is the week that I see some significant progress.

A classic, Charlie Brown Christmas

Tonight on TV is Charlie Brown's Christmas and I'm sure I will be texting my brother,  no matter how old we get we still love the classics.

Day 488, The second Sunday of Advent

It was another beautiful frosty sunny morning and I just laid in bed and looked out over the back yard and the horses enjoying the morning.  I never get tiered at looking at the horses and enjoy them when the pastured in the front fields so I can see them from the house.

I got ready for church and headed out the door cutting close as usual.  I don't know what my problem is, but I am always one of the last ones arriving at church.  Today is the second Sunday of Advent and I am sure the choir will be singing lots of Christmas chorals today.  I really enjoy going to church and especially during the holidays.

Immediately after church I was picking up Tracy to go Christmas tree shopping.  My Dad also wanted to meet us at the lot and help pick out a tree for them that I could deliver in my truck.  Tracy this year wanted to try a Noble Fir, something she has never done, as she enjoys the bushy cultured Douglas Fir's.  This year she said she was ready for something different.  She walked into the tree lot and the guy had a tree in his hands and she that's it.  4.2 seconds and she was done.  My Dad and I took a while longer to find taller trees and we finally came up with two that would do.  They were not exactly as tall as we would have liked, but they were good looking trees and do just fine.

Dad headed home and I took Tracy back to her place and got her tree put into a stand and watered.  I let her get to decorating and I headed to my house to drop my tree off before heading to my folks.  I helped get my parents tree up and watered and put their lights on for them.  I figured Mom could spend the day hanging ornaments and Dad could help with higher up ornaments.

Reindeer at Operation Santa Clause

On my way back to my house I stopped off at the reindeer ranch and buy a tree for the potting shed and to of course checkout Santa's reindeer.  The reindeer ranch was once North America's largest reindeer heard but it has been reduced to a small heard after the Mad Cow scare prevented them from traveling out of state during the holidays.  It was still fun to see them even if they are just down the road from me and I see them almost everyday; there is just something special about seeing them during Christmas time.

I decided to get the lights up on the big spruce and it took the 12' ladder and the my 15' extension pole to put up the lights up on the tree.  It wasn't the best job but the tree has just gotten a bit too big, but I still enjoy the having the lights on it.  Once the tree was done I got the potting shed tree put up and then spend an hours vacuuming out the shed getting looking nice.  Once that was done I then got my big tree in the stand and the living room.  I spent the next hour cleaning up the garage and put all the Christmas light boxes put away.

It was a productive weekend and now I was feeling like I wasn't so far behind the decorating curve ball.

Day 487, A beautiful Saturday

I started with the front and then the lights

Wow, did I sleep like a rock I actually woke up at 8 am!  I rarely sleep that late and with two cats, one of them is usually standing on me well before than to get me up and feed them or give them some quality time.  I spent the morning puttering around the house and cleaning up from the week.  At about 11 am I started putting up the lights or at least tried to untangle the mess I had created last season when I just dumped everything into boxes.  It took me about an hour to untangle and check for bad bulbs before I was ready to start hanging the lights.

After about 5 hours almost all the lights were up except for the big Spruce tree in the back yard and thought maybe this year the tree is just too big and I will skip it.  I was also short an extension cord after I cut one in half with the electric trimmers this summer.  As the sun started to set and the timers came on I realized that the back yard just looked dark without the Spruce tree lite up.  Tomorrow I'll have to buy another cord.

Lights on the potting shed

At 6 pm I headed over to my folks for dinner.  They had invited me to go out after I was done with my lights and I was really hungry.  My mom wanted to go try the new Cafe' at the resort as she had heard they had good pizza's.  The resort was hosting Santa in the lobby of the hotel and they were giving away cookies and hot chocolate, so as we waited for the pizza I enjoy desert first.  The pizza was very good, freshly made and it hit the spot.

Day 486, Friday and going home early.

All week long I have been saying I am going to go home early and get my lights put up on the house.  I'm hoping today will be the day.  It has been a long productive week and I am so ready for the weekend.  I feel like I am falling behind in the Christmas rush, but I know I can get caught up this weekend.

Getting Rolls ready for Airport Duty

At 2 pm after everyone had finished there lunches I decided I was going home.  It was a full day off or even a half day but I was very happy to be going home.  I didn't have a lot of time before it was getting dark but I manage to dig out all my Christmas light and some of my decorations.  I figured I could get the inside decorated and start on the lights tomorrow.

At 9:40 pm my parents were flying in for the holidays.  I pulled the Rolls out of the garage and got it ready for airport duty.  The car needs to be driven at least monthly, or it will have some kind of issue from sitting.  I think it is a riot to pick them up in the car and give my mother the Queen treatment and she doesn't seem to complain.  At 9:30 pm I looked out at the sky and to the north and I could see their flight coming in right on schedule, so I got in the car and headed to the airport.  When I was about half way there my folks called saying they had just landed.  By the time I got to the airport curbside they had collected their luggage and walked right out.  The timing was perfect.

Getting out the Christmas decorations

I got my folks home and settled in and then headed home.  I spend the rest of the evening putting out Christmas decoration and enjoying some sounds of the seasons.  At about 11:30 I realized I had clean sheets on the bed and I was exhausted from the long week. 

Let the weekend begin.

Day 485, Sons of Norway Meeting tonight

Tonight is the Son's of Norway meeting at 7pm.  The lodge is kind of fun, but there is some lack of meeting guidelines, so they often get off track and it prolongs the meetings way too long.  My friend Tracy is the new in coming Treasurer for the Lodge so we planed to meet up for dinner in Bend.

Tracy had a meeting that got out at 5:30 in Bend and I was going to meet her at McGraths for dinner.  I got there a little after 6 pm and we quickly realized that we didn't have time to eat there. Instead  I grabbed a burger at Wendy's and she had a power bar.  I hadn't eaten a Wendy burger in years and it actually was really good.

At the lodge members were busy working outside on the float for the big Bend parade this weekend. Inside there was a good turnout for the meeting and as expected the meeting went long and lasted an hour and half.  It drives me crazy when meetings get side tracked and we end out talking about something that is not for the good of the order, but I survived.  The funny part was my brother in Portland was texting me the entire meeting sending me pictures from Santa Clause is Coming to Town.  My brother and I have never grown up and we still love all of the holiday classics.

Following the meeting they were decorating the tree for the lodge, but I had to get Tracy back to her car, which we left at McGrath's.  She had an early meeting in the morning and needed to get home.  I was starting to get tired, so I was looking forward to crashing.

Day 484, Mid week

The high light of my day was my workout.  I went to the gym at 4:30 and wasn't feeling like I had the energy for a hard workout.  I even joked with my trainer that she needed to take it easy on me.  I should know better to say that, because it just makes her work me harder.  She had me start of with  lunges to get warmed up and then she told me to go run on the treadmill for 5 minutes as fast as I could.  I usually run at about 6.5 with a 1 percent incline, so this time I cranked it up to 7.5.  I ran for 2 minutes and had no issues at all so I cranked it up to 8 and was running perfectly.  Usually my lung capacity comes into play and I have to slow it down.  It was really weird I was breathing smoothly and my legs didn't have any issues either.  My trainer came over and looked at me with a puzzled look.  I looked at her and said, "can you believe this"?  I think we were both shocked.  I had enough lung capacity to talk too.  Normally I'd be gasping for air there would be no way I could talk.  She had me quit at 5 minutes and do some core work and then back to the treadmill for another sprint.  I ran another minute at 8 and again I felt great.   Last year at this time I was gasping for air with asthma issues and now I can run full out, all this torture has paid off.

Joy from the Lodge selling sweaters at Costco.

I stopped off to see the trailer on my way home.  There was no progress on the Traveleze and from the sound of there wont be any this week.  It is looking hopeful that next week the Traveleze will become the center of attention.  It will be so nice to not be behind other trailers and being sidelined.  It has been 17.5 weeks since I bought the Traveleze and 6 months since they picked it up.  I believe good things come to those who wait and  and even more so I believe in the work of Flyte Camp.  If there has been one thing I have learned about restorations is that they take a lot longer than expected.  I have been waiting nearly 5 years to have my Packard overhauled and I think I am actually moving up on that list too (maybe this winter).

My next stop was at Costco and I ran into Joy from the Son's of Norway.  She was there selling Norwegian Sweaters. She has been there all week and has been having a great time selling sweaters.  We talked about the success of the Holiday Village Market on the weekend and she already has plans for next year.  It's always great to see her and tomorrow we have a meeting at the lodge so she will be there.