November 2024 Reading Wrap-Up
Monthly Archives: November 2024
Thanksgiving 2024
Days off together are uncommon and special, so Donald and I like to make the most of them when we can. This Thanksgiving day, Donald woke up before me and put on the America’s Thanksgiving Parade (from Detroit). I had mentioned that watching the parade(s) in the morning was a childhood tradition (and to this day, Mom still loves to watch the parade as she gets the Thanksgiving meal started).
We were running low on groceries (I need to grocery shop more routinely), but Donald was still able to make us coffee and a cheese omelet for breakfast.
We had a slow, peaceful morning watching the parade. It was fairly bright outside with some blue skies peeking through, so we opened the door to be able to enjoy the view from the couch. Even just our storm door was pretty good at keeping the cold out, which we were thankful for since it was in the upper 30s for a high today.
We got ready and headed over to Mom & Dad’s for Thanksgiving dinner. We got to nibble on crackers and cheese spread as an appetizer — I really love the Chicken in a Biscuit crackers with the sharp cheddar spread! While we were hanging out, we upgraded Dad to YouTube Premium, so he wouldn’t have to deal with ads any more. I think it was the best present we could have gotten him!
Dinner was ready just after 4 pm. It was a pretty typical Thanksgiving meal for us: roasted turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole (although this year, the topping was a bit different – a pecan praline), low-carb Hawaiian rolls, asparagus, cranberry sauce, deviled eggs, and stuffing.
After dinner, Mom washed the dishes and then read a book in the living room, Dad and Donald watched some YouTube videos of people playing guitar. A bit later, Clint, Donald and I played a round of Marvelous Heroes.
We left after midnight to head home, having filled our bellies and hearts with goodness. We are thankful for a lot of things, to be sure, but we are most thankful for the people in our lives. We hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving with friends and family as well!
Love, Jenn & Donald
Front Storm Door Installed!
The view we have all been waiting for! Our finished street view! We painted our house yellow earlier in the summer/fall and on Thursday the security door was installed. It’s a quite sturdy steel door, painted blue on the exterior and white on the interior. We also installed a new storm door with full view glass (so you can see the pretty deep blue color of the door more), and a built-in retractable screen. On those rare perfect spring/fall days where it’s warm out, but not hot enough to have the AC running, we would like to be able to open the house up to a nice cross breeze and some fresh air.
I think…. this means that we are finally ready for winter?! Pretty close to it! Donald is still feeling a bit under the weather, so once he has recovered from his cold, I’ll ask him to bring in the Christmas decorations from the garage and we will start decorating the house for the holidays!
How early do you start decorating? What are some of your favorite holiday traditions?
Love, Jenn & Donald
New Front Door!
We had our first snow of the season today! It wasn’t too much, and it didn’t last very long, but I’m quite surprised that it waited until the third week in November! We’ve had a very mild autumn so far. This is what it looked like – just a dusting on top of the car.
Today, we had our front security door installed! It was a little bit chilly outside to have a gaping hole in the house, but we stayed in our offices and worked while Phil installed the door, and the rooms stayed fairly warm.
At this point, the door was held in place with these temporary pieces of wood, but it was starting to give us an idea of what the finished door would look like – so exciting!
And… HERE IT IS! There’s still some finishing touches left to be done (trimming off the foam that you can see on the bottom after it has set a bit), but it looks great! We’re very happy with the lever and lockset that we have selected as well! I didn’t think that the door would make that much of a difference to the feel of the living room, but I think that it looks like a whole new space! Donald is already thinking about other things we can do to update and decorate the room! (New ceiling fan? Crown moulding?)
It was a bit too dark outside once everything was finished (Grrr, Daylight Savings Time changes!), so I’ll take photos once it’s light outside again. Let us know what you think of the new door!
Love, Jenn & Donald!
Paroxysm of Giggles / Critical Mass 