To have and to hold

Rather than get a tree today, after realizing we just didn't have our hearts in it, we took a ride and I let my husband drive. He does fine as long as we aren't going too far and he remembers the roads. He has a really good sense of direction, which helps too.

We wanted to take George for a walk. Not a terribly long one, but just something that leads down a different path other than the ones we take at home all the time.

Where we used to live, you see, we could walk for miles and miles. In fact, we'd lived on horse farms all our lives and every single one had miles of hiking trails. Where we live now doesn't offer that same sort of thing and people think we're 'isolated' up here on the hill. But we know that we're far from it. There's urban sprawl all around us, and although I'm not complaining about it in the least, I'm just saying that to walk anywhere, you have to get in the car and drive to it.

I'm having a little trouble getting into the Christmas spirit, too. It could be the money thing, but then again, it could just be my heart.

Today, I found most of the Christmas bins from the garage. I'm still missing one and I've decided to call it quits on the search. It's buried deep and I've decided not to let it bother me. In my quest for the Christmas decorations, I stumbled upon a box my husband had packed before we moved the first time back in June. It was a box full of flannel sheets and in the center was the crystal vase of my mother's. It was labeled "hall closet and a vase" which is why I opened it in the first place. I'd been missing that beautiful vase for awhile now and finally it's been found.

Legend goes that it was smuggled out of Poland during the war and somehow it ended up in my mother's parents home and then in her own home. While I was packing up my mother and father's home in Florida for their move to my sister's in California, the crystal vase was the only thing I wanted and was the only thing I took home on the plane with me, wrapped in a small handmade quilt that had been in the family.

So today wasn't too much of a loss.

Happy Birthday to my co-worker, Rich!

Until tomorrow, my friends . . .