Trying to catch up...

We're in November already.... and what have I been saying for decades now.... once Labor Day comes and goes, the rest of the year disappears in a heart-beat.

I've been decorating for Christmas... the first floor is done, the third floor is done... all that's left is the second floor. Just whose idea was it to have Christmas trees in every blessed room? (Okay. It was mine.)

An extremely organized schedule has gone up in smoke. Puppy-smoke. Savannah comes first, with her puppy needs and wants, and she always needs to go out when I'm in the middle of something, or she wants to play when I'm trying to get things done. We're still on puppy time in this house, but it has been getting better. Much better. Gone are the nights when Savannah was waking me up between two o'clock and four o'clock in the morning. Now she is sleeping through the night, and doesn't even budge from her very cozy dog-bed until after I have fed the cats and cleaned their litter boxes. It's so nice to be able to sleep through the night again.

We've taken Savannah to the Dog Park twice now... she loves it. She loves it so much that on the second day we took her there, she literally flew into the back seat of my husband's car without hesitating. This from a puppy who was petrified of walking past a car, much less get into one. Puppy-wonders never cease.

I'm way behind on wrapping and boxing up Christmas gifts... they're getting done little by little, but by this time of the year, everything is usually packed in mailing boxes, Christmas cards have been written out and ready to mail after Thanksgiving, and I'm in the middle of re-reading my favorite Christmas books. Even my reading time has been over-shadowed by puppy time. Savannah has a lot of puppy energy and she needs to be walked... so out we go, at least four or five times a day.

The pecan trees are filled with nuts this year...... I've picked more pecans than I know what to do with and more than I have room to store them all so they'll keep fresh. I've been giving bags of pecans away, and will probably put together cute little cellophane bags of pecans and use them as place cards for Thanksgiving. One of the prizes at our Halloween party was a huge ceramic pumpkin filled with just-picked pecans. Luckily, the winner of that prize didn't have pecan trees in her own yard.

Thanksgiving will be here in a heart-beat, and we've already asked friends to have dinner with us here if they've no place else to go. People shouldn't be alone on holidays. It goes against everything human. I keep thinking of the words of a wise old man I read about on "Humans Of New York" --- "When you have more than you need, build a bigger table instead of a higher fence." Definitely words to live by.

I've been sending cards to my cousin P in Chicago every week...... he had a massive stroke a couple of months ago and his life has completely changed, as has the day-to-day life of his wife and his family. The stroke was sudden and unexpected, as I suspect all strokes are.... my cousin is younger than I am and was always very active. If he wasn't doing something around his own house, he was fixing or building something for his neighbors. All of that has come crashing down and now everyone has to do everything for him. It just breaks my heart because of all the people I know who wouldn't want to be helpless, P is up there at the top of that list.

We all need to thank our lucky stars that we can put our own two feet on the floor every morning and walk on our own two legs and do whatever we want to do every day without anyone's assistance.