Didja?

Didja know?

Didja know that it's only 20 shopping days left before Christmas???  Guess I really didn't have to tell you that huh?!

The time passes so quickly when a holiday is coming up.  Everyone has so many things to do and not enough time to get them all done.  That's what happening to me.  So I've decided that I'm making a plan so everything will be "easy peasy".  Let the brainstorming begin!!  Of course we all know that 50% of the time will be spent in thoughts on what to put in the plan.

Here's the plan:     (remember FOCUS)

 1.  Put the Easter decorations away finally.  That bunny was beginning to think he was going to live in the living room for the rest of his life.

 2.  Begin looking for the Christmas decorations which are buried underneath the Valentine stuff and to the left of the halloween masks left from when the 40 year old kids used them.  And behind the prom dresses left from their junior year in high school.

 3.  Look up grandma's old Christmas platter and make sure it doesn't have any turkey scraps dried on it from the last time it was used.

 4.  Guess the shopping needs to be started.  Need to shop for all 4 presents I plan to buy since money is the best....it fits, it's the right color and they can't take it back to exchange it.

 5.  Sit and visualize what the Christmas table should hold and look like.  Does it need a turkey or a ham?  Does it need mashed potatoes or potato salad?  I say "anything but a turkey"!  After eating the four pounds of turkey salad and five turkey pot pies just a couple of weeks ago, I've seen and eaten enough turkey until Thanksgiving in 2014.  The grandkids won't want to come to the table to eat a formal sit down meal, so why not do a brunch.  Oh goodie no formal table, which means the good silverware and china doesn't have to be washed.  Let's have a buffet with ham, salads, pickles, appetizers, cookies, cake, pie and a whole lot of shrimp!  Nothing like a bunch of shrimp to celebrate the holidays.  Start that master grocery list.

 6.  Meal planning and shopping is done so on to cleaning.  I guess I better plan to run the vacuum a couple of times before the big day.
Once before the tree goes up and once after the tree is up will be enough.  The floor will just get dirty when the presents are unwrapped on the big day.....so why exert the effort when the dang floor is already pretty clean from Thanksgiving.

  7.  Drinking a few brewskis with friends might be in the plan during the days before the big day so I'm putting it right here!

 8.  Figure out what can be baked ahead and frozen.  And keep your hands out of the "goods".

 9.  Go over the budget to see if there will still be money left to buy food for the rest of the month.

10.  See if you want to send on Christmas cards, keeping in mind that if they send you one, you send them one....otherwise no one cares a diddly if you send them a card with a note about what's been going on in your dull life in Timbucktoo Illinois.

11.  Make a note to clean out the refrigerator.  It still looks empty to me since that 20 pound turkey had to fit, I had to throw away enough stuff to feed the whole Army and maybe the Navy too.

12.  Make sure the drawer has a lot of extra batteries.  You know how the kids forget to buy batteries for their kids' toys.

13.  The big day is almost here, so start getting the pans out and the tablecloths and the extra chairs and the napkins and the plates and the cups and whatever else will be needed to set up that easy to manage buffet. (easy to manage for whom I might ask....surely not me....maybe everyone else who will come and put their feet up on the footstool and sit back and relax).

14.  On the big day, get up early.  And do last minute things.  And try to think of everything I forgot on this list.  Take a shower, get dressed in my old Christmas blouse with the storks dressed in Santa hats as I forgot to buy a new blouse to wear....dang it.

15.  Open those presents.  Open those money cards.  Watch the faces when they realize that their part of the inheritance wasn't included in the Christmas envelope...they will just have to wait until I'm pushing up daisies out at Elmwood cemetery to get that inheritance.

Then it's over.  My plan is done.  My schedule is complete.  Wonder how much I forgot.  Oh well.

Old Stuff

 

5th and Adams in Springfield early 1900's.

These arches used to be decorated with for the state fair

 and the holidays.

 

 

 

 

 

Westenberger's downtown on 6th Street

between Monroe and Adams, east side of the street in early 1960's.

Back in the mid 60's high school girls bought angora yarn here in numerous colors to wear wrapped around their boyfriend's

class ring.... it was then brushed or some girls painted the angora

with several coats of fingernail polish.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An old newspaper article about the above Barnum Circus which

appeared in Springfield in 1884.

 

 

 

This week I saw where the Feds were looking at our every email.  Wow.  I hope they learn a lot. 

 

Yikes, if they saw that stupid email I sent about the two alley cats screaming in the middle of the night, they will probably think I'm ready for the looney bin.  Or, maybe they read that email  I sent which said how happy I was to have seen that a dear friend was celebrating a 50th wedding anniversary. Will they think I'm planning to do away with these people just because I sent them an email.  What good do they think reading my emails will do for the government.  Perhaps they think I'm giving away government top secrets.  The most they will find I'm giving away is an old family recipe.  Geeze....if it's not one thing, it's another....government control.  But.....I guess we could be in Iran or Iraq or someplace like that where there is no freedom of anything.

 

 

 

Thanks for coming to my blog.

Hope to see you soon!