Potpourri .. A Mixture of Stuff

It's that time of year again.  Sleep is a pastime that escapes me at every turn.  I can usually fall asleep pretty well, unless there's something stupid running circles in my brain.  It's STAYING asleep that's the problem.  I can wake up in 90 minutes and think it's time to get up.  ALL NIGHT LONG.  It was the perfect time to finish this book.  It seems all those conspiracy theories were right after all!!  Maybe .... 

I was still pretty bleary eyed when the sun came up over the horizon.  I'm pretty surprised that we have been having nice sunrises every morning.  

Along with ice ... lots of ice on my nice green lawn.  Thank goodness I finally crawled under my rig to drain the tank and low water valves.  It probably wouldn't freeze, but I don't want to take any chances.  I kept busy for the next few hours doing laundry, cleaning and eating.  Eating is a nice pastime.  Especially when it involves dessert.

That's when I found this picture.  It's not my beautiful baby Caitlan, but it certainly looks like her twin.  She came from my days managing a hunting preserve.   She was a purebred hunting dog supreme ... that loved absolutely every little living thing.  She would follow the ducks and pheasant around like they were her best friends.  You could shoot a bumper halfway across the field and she would go get it.  If you shot a bird however ... it was a no go.  Sweetest dog ever!  

I tried for another walk around the corner (I didn't get far), to discover an Angel had appeared on the fountain.  You should see it lit up at night.  These folks like Christmas!!  I'm beginning to think I should put up some lights!

Finally, it was time to do something with the toilet guts on the counter.  It's been sitting there for two weeks.  I got everything undone with no disasters, and installed the new one.  It was all working perfectly ... until it was wasn't.

Oh it shut off okay, but water continued to pour from the big blue top.  About the time the tank was going to overflow on the floor, I shut the water off and went through the whole rigamarole to take it out.  I took it apart, adjusted everything and tried again with the same result.  Wouldn't you know, I would get the only defective part in the store!  I'll return it today when the store is completely packed with Christmas-gift-looking people.  

I thought I might get some nice Christmas light pictures, but that's harder than it looks.  This neighbor is in a decorating war with three other neighbors.  I love it ... except now there are two completely dark houses ... mine being one of them.  These guys felt sorry for me .........

So they brought over this beautiful little tree to light up my little corner of the world (bottom left).  I'll get better pictures today since I was distracted with the pink sky.   I laughed when I went outside ... it's very small, sad and lonely looking with no other lights around, so of course I had to get on the internet and find something to liven it up a bit.  Wow ... for some shaped wire with a bunch of lights ... this stuff is EXPENSIVE!!  Hopefully it arrives BEFORE Christmas!

What I REALLY wanted was a picture of this sunset.  Weird, because this is looking the wrong direction.  The sun is setting behind me.  Pretty fabulous for this part of the country!

I actually do have a couple of things to do today, but at this point I can't remember them.  I need a second, and maybe even a third cup of coffee before my brain kicks in.  I'm taking a day off from the bean counting.  Maybe some Christmas shopping will be in order.  And baking ... I'm out of bread and my favorite COOKIES!!