Ya gotta feel for 'em

Rushed time of year. Temporary drivers. Temporary trucks.

This is what showed up at our place about 10:30 a.m. yesterday:

It was UPS. Not our regular driver. The guy spent about 10 minutes sorting through stuff. Finally he brought a medium-size package into our garage. Then he brought it out with him again. He searched through boxes for another 5 minutes or so, like he was trying to find something. Then he grabbed a couple other packages and brought them into the garage... and left them. He searched some more, looking frustrated and talking to someone on his bluetooth headset. Then he grabbed up the first package again, closed the truck, got into the cab with the package and drove off hurriedly. I went out to see what he'd left me... and thankfully, they were the packages I was expecting. Hopefully the poor guy got things figured out and had a better rest-of-the day!

Thermos to lamp

What do you get when you take an old vintage thermos,

break out the glass and drill some holes,

stick in a cord,

and add a bulb at the top?

You get a lamp, of course! And if you're lucky, you found a pair of thermoses...

... and made TWO lamps to decorate your office with, like Jess did!

The perfect bulbs had just the right filaments to give the lamps an extra bit of interest!

Whodathunkit, huh? :)

Cincinnati trip highlights

We ate. A lot. :) Being there over Thanksgiving, we of course had turkey and all the trimmings. Just look at this bird! It was smoked on the Big Green Egg grill, and done to perfection. It was so juicy and delicious, I think the best turkey I've ever eaten!

We ate in their lovely "grand hotel" (so dubbed by me) dining room. So pretty!

There was, of course, dessert, too!

The toppings were each delicious on their own, but nearly overpowered the pumpkin pie. I ate my second piece (the next night) with only whipped cream. The cinnamon crumbly stuff was yummy for snacking, which we did plenty of (there was about twice that amount to begin with) because the recipe made a huge amount for just one pie! Grandpa decided on the addition of the grated chocolate.

We spent a lot of time in front of the fireplace which contained a brand new gas insert. Jess will probably want you to know that it's not finished yet. She's going to paint the rest of the bricks black (after the mortar cures) and add some 'stuff' around the base of the logs to make it look more realistic.

During our week there, this was my view quite a bit:

We drove around to many places, one of which was the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington. Unfortunately, there were very few horses there at the time. No photos. It was also quite chilly walking around. We did, however, wander through the horse museum, which was nice and warm and also interesting. During our week, we also took in a distillery tour, a craft show, a couple of antique shops, did some other shopping, etc., etc.

Oh, yeah... we ate some more along the drive. :)

We purchased and put up the Christmas tree...

... which made for such a cozy scene in the parlor.

The outside lights were also hung...

... so their house is ready for Christmas! Now if only mine were. So much to do... so little time. Don't be surprised (or worried) if I don't blog a lot between now and Christmas.

We had a great time which went by much too fast. That's all the photos, except for one interesting project Jess and Grandpa worked on. I'll show you that later.

While we were gone

Since we were gone a whole week, I was kind of concerned about my wee kittens. It got mighty cold, like -10° or so! But they were well cared for by Courtney's daddy, and he was even kind enough to fashion a workable door to keep more of the cold out of the building for them and to keep them from escaping and getting lost. I was delighted to see how much they'd grown while we were gone, and they are so healthy-looking, waddly-fat, and wearing such thick luxurious winter coats!

My assistant was here yesterday, so I had her help me take some more photos. We were losing daylight pretty fast, but it sort of worked out great in that I love how the colors stand out and make the rest of the photo almost look like black-and-white!

Are they adorable or what?!?!

They're 7 weeks old now, and they get around pretty fast. Their climbing abilities are good enough to make it over their "threshold", too!

My favorite photo:

I think I'll call them my "miracle babies", because being born so late, I sure didn't expect them to survive the winter, but I think they've got it made now.

All the others are doing really well, too!

Now... where was I?

I was here:

Back home now. Safe trip, despite many miles of nasty roads on the way down... freezing mist, blowing snow, ice and slush. But loved the 68° on Sunday!

Now I'm trying to catch up... mostly on sleep. More trip details later!