Election Night.

There must be a lot of Election Night parties in our subdivision. There are lots of cars parked on many of the streets, and you can tell which house has all the company.... every light in the house is on. I just turned on the television news, but it's too early to tell if there's a clear winner. I'm hoping whoever wins is just that-- a clear winner. I'm also hoping that you-know-who goes back to Alaska when the winner is announced.

I never thought of having an Election Night party, and that's one party that I wouldn't even want to have. Too many differences of opinion when it comes to politics, and there's no way that every person is going to be happy with the decision. I don't see how that could be a happy party, unless you serve a lot of mixed drinks and beer, which we just don't do.

Speaking of parties.... I've written out the invitations to our annual Christmas party, so that's already a work-in-progress. I won't give and/or mail them out till mid-November, but at least they're done and ready to go.

We've also made plans for Thanksgiving... some of "the usual suspects" (as my husband says) will be here, along with our at-the-corner neighbor, who was very happy to be invited because she would have spent Thanksgiving alone this year. Her family will be here for Christmas, but they didn't want to travel to Texas for a turkey dinner.

Our friends C and R will be in their new home in upstate New York for Thanksgiving, and by Christmas time, they will be more than settled in their northern neighborhood. They already have a snow-plow company lined up for their first snowstorm. R was born and raised in Michigan, so she's quite used to northern winters, but C is a Texas-grown guy, and has no idea just how cold it's going to get up there this winter. We joked with him that he may just decide not to come out of his house till Spring of next year. They invited us to fly up for a visit, but we told them we wouldn't do that in any of the months when snow could still be on the ground, which probably limits us to June, July and August.

All of the Halloween decorations are tucked away now, and I've started to take out some of the Christmas decorations. It takes me nearly a month to decorate this whole house with Santas, tree, angels and reindeer, so I don't bother much with Thanksgiving decorations. By the time the turkey is set to come out of the oven here, only the dining room table will look like Thanksgiving... the rest of the house will be totally Christmas.

Still warm and beautiful..... 80 to 85 during the day, 60 to 65 at night, and not a raindrop in sight lately. Now that the clocks have been turned back, it's dark by seven o'clock, which is ridiculous when it's still so summery outside.