It is a little unnerving when I look at the calendar and realize Christmas is in three weeks. We haven't done any shopping. Nada. Zilch. I haven't even bought cards, much less gotten pictures ready and envelopes addressed. I make it sound like this is not the norm, but it is. Before we had kids we did all our shopping on Christmas Eve. It was more of a challenge. Now, we feel like we have to have things ready ahead of time. One week is ahead of time, right?
I love Fridays. The kids don't have homework, and our evenings don't feel rushed. Jacob was pretty excited because he got a Mario ball out of the treasure box at school today. They earn coins for behaving well at school, and on Fridays they use their coins to get something from the treasure box. Joshua is wearing his jacket that we thought was gone forever. He lost it at school several weeks ago. Everyday we would ask him if he looked in the lost and found. He insisted it wasn't there. I had given up and decided we would not see it again. A few days ago he brought it home. He said they had taken all the things from the lost and found and laid them out on tables so it was easier to see everything. That pretty much confirms my theory that he hadn't looked very hard for it before. I am just glad he found it. 
We don't have much going on today. I am pumping the water off the pool tarp. Luckily, John loosened the straps and allowed the tarp to rest on the water. That means that when it rained the grommets didn't have as much pull on them so they didn't rip from the weight of the water. We are learning. As much fun as John was having making new holes and putting in new grommets I am glad we found a workable solution. The tarp may last for a few seasons after all.
Tomorrow night we are going to my work's Christmas party. I am looking forward to it. Today several coworkers were discussing some of the outfits people wore last year. A completely orange suit with matching hat was mentioned. Someone said they are certain there will be at least one all white suit and one all purple. I am thinking I will have to take my camera.
My cat may not make it through the festive holiday season. She is not being kind to the tree. Yesterday I locked her in the laundry room to keep her away from the tree. I went in there a few minutes later and found an open drawer, but no cat.
Apparently, she had opened the drawer and crawled through it to get to the cabinet below. She was resting comfortably on some old towels.
On Monday, Jacob came running into the kitchen to tell me that it was raining little ice. I know the child has seen sleet before, but he acted like it was all new to him. It came down pretty heavy for a few minutes. You can see the little white dots in among the leaves on the deck. It has been quite chilly the last few days. Today it got up to near 70, but the wind was brutal. I can handle the cold, but I don't much care for the wind. Hopefully, it will not be so bad tomorrow. 
The boys had fun swimming in a pile of leaves yesterday. John had them clear the leaves from the driveway. I still love the trees, but they are creating quite a mess. You can't walk outside without hearing the crunch of acorns and leaves under your feet.
We had a busy weekend. John replaced the heater core on the truck and fiber glassed the dash. He has spent quite some time arguing with Dodge to no avail. Just for the record, I love my truck. The only issues I have are the huge cracks in the dash. The Internet has many forums devoted to problems with the plastic Dodge used in their dashes. We looked at buying a new dash, but it is hard to spend a minimum of $400 when there is no guarantee a new dash won't crack just as bad. There is no evidence to suggest that Dodge has corrected the original problem. Plus due to the magnitude of the problem the dash is on back order. Anyway, there are several companies that make an aftermarket cover to hide the unsightly cracks. The only problem with that is the dash continues to crumble underneath the cover. I am not much for hiding a problem, I want it fixed. The best solution we could find that wouldn't cost a fortune was to fiberglass the existing dash to keep it from crumbling. It isn't the prettiest solution, but it works. We will now purchase a cover to hide the fiber glass. 
