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Good Morning, FS Warriors! I've been rather negligent in updating my journal. This is the busy time of the year for Santa, I mean me. Haha. Or I guess I should say, "Ho Ho Ho!" I took off Thursday afternoon and all day Friday to use the rest of my vacation time. It was quite a weekend. Friday, DD and I went on our annual shopping excursion. Even though I had already bought DW her main present, we still had to shop for the kids for the American Legion Christmas party, and for stocking stuffers and such. I usually manage to find something that tickles DD's fancy as well, and I buy it for her. This time, she didn't have a watch on because hers was broken. So, we were browsing watches that they had out on the floor displays. I think they were only $20 or $30 varieties. So, I told her to check out the watches that were in the jewelry cabinet, since they were usually higher quality. She really liked a couple of them, and they didn't have prices on them. I thought, "Oh boy, here it comes!" So, I asked the sales clerk how much they were. She told me. They were the same price as the ones out on the floor. I said, "How come these are as cheap as the ones out there on the floor?" She said, "Oh, I just periodically swap out the ones on the floor for the cabinet display; these are on clearance for 1/2 the price." Haha, I ended up buying her the two she liked the best, for the price of one of them that were out on the floor!" I love it when a plan comes together! I asked her what she wanted for Christmas and she told me that she had already told DW that she wanted a microwave; hers was on its last legs. We had already bought that for her and it was hidden in my den. The highlight of our shopping excursion is always . . . yeah, you guessed it - eating. For lunch we went to the Burger Barge, a place on the river that puts everything under the sun on their burgers, and lots of things that should never go on a burger. She had some concoction with a spicey sauce over various cheeses, peppers, mushrooms and of course a big burger. I was more civilized and had a burger topped with thinly sliced ribeye steak, grilled onions, cheese, and tomato. We both had a boatload of french fries, which I had to wash down with a bud lite draft. Not to fear, by the time we finished I am pretty sure any alcohol was out of my system. However, after walking that off for about 4 hours, we hit the Lonestar Steakhouse. I forced myself to indulge in a Porterhouse steak and baked potato. I'm thinking you guys don't want to hear all of this but, it's our tradition, even if I have to pay for it later - which I will.
Yesterday we had the American Legion Christmas party, where of course I played Santa. Since I have to fill the suit, I made sure that I ate my fill of roast turkey, green bean casserole, sage dressing and gravy. Are you recognizing a pattern here? It appears that the strategy didn't work anyway; the elastic was gone in the Santa suit, and the waist was twice my diameter. I was in a bit of a panic when I went to change. I had to hold the pants up with one hand, put the coat on, and try and fasten the Santa suit belt around the coat as tight as I could, hoping that it would suffice to keep the pants up. This was not an easy task. When I was all suited up, I pinched the whole works and yanked up on the pants beneath the suit to the point of giving myself a wedgie. Then, I had to let go and hope for the best because it took both hands to hoist the bag of gifts up on my shoulder, and afterward with bell in hand, I headed out the one door to make my entrance into another door, all the time feeling very loose around the waist, and dreading that I was going to burst through the door, with a healthy "Ho Ho Ho," only to have my pants drop to my ankles! I just know you're hoping that was what happened, but sorry, it didn't, even though it felt the entire time like it was going to, for sure. It went well. I made it out the door fully clothed, while breathing one big sigh of relief, thanking the Good Lord that He didn't choose that event to humble me.
Well, all good things must come to an end, and the joy of the evening did as well. Earlier that day, and before I got to the American Legion, DW had gone up the inside tall and steep steps, and tripped over the step at the top of the stairs. The last step is taller than the others, and she didn't lift her leg up high enough, and apparently went sprawling, landing on knee, hip, shoulder and breaking her fall with her left wrist. She had an ace bandage on it when I got there. We finished out the evening and I went to the ER with her. X-rays of everything, and though they couldn't tell whether the fine line on the wrist xray was a fracture or a shadow, they gave her pain meds, wrapped the wrist with a removable wrist brace, and sent us home. They said if it is still hurting in 4 or 5 days, we will have to come back in for more xrays. DW is supposed to have a day out shopping with DD today. Have you noticed that DD is making out pretty well?
OK, so this is my time for completing final performance documents for all my team, so I've been really busy, and probably will be right up until we take our break for the Christmas holidays. It's the best of times, and the worst of times. I've got a good group working for me, but politics always come into play when it comes time to defend the ratings. If you don't know what I'm talking about, don't worry about it; it's not important. Just suffice it to know that I have to have well documented justifications for the levels at which I rate my team members.
As you can probably tell, my eating plan is not going real well; I'm not planning; just eating. I'm still well under where I started at the beginning of the year, so that is something anyway. I'm about to start back up running, or at least a combination of running and walking. I don't, or haven't been, taking any pain medications, so we'll see how it goes. At least, I don't have any of the surprises that bring me to my knees, or I would have been incapacitated when I hoisted that bag of toys up on my shoulder. LOL! It's all good. Hope everyone has a wonamous day. Toodles!
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