Only 28 days

...until Christmas. Can you believe it? I suppose we should really start working on purchasing all of our gifts. We got our tree this last weekend. We went to a new place in Lake Villa called Gengel's Tree Farm. The tree we picked out was taller than we had intended to buy. Usually I want a really tall tree that goes as close to the ceiling as is possible. But to be quite honest it just makes it more difficult to decorate. You have to use a ladder and it takes more time and effort than if the tree were shorter. So we went to buy the tree with the intention of getting an 8' tree and the one we picked out didn't look so tall but when we got it home, it's at least 9'; so maybe next year we'll get a shorter one.

Our Thanksgiving was really good. The turkey I cooked on the grill came out REALLY good. I think it's the best one I've ever made. Then on (black) Friday I went out shopping early in the morning. I was waiting in line at Circuit City at 3:15 am waiting for them to open at 5 am. It was 20 degrees outside and I was number 172 in line at that time. By the time they opened there was six or seven hundred people waiting. I was able to go in and get everything I wanted. I got an LCD monitor (Merry Christmas to me!) Then I went across the street to the Staples and waited in line there as they didn't open until 6 am. I got everything I wanted there too including a new 400 Gb hard drive for only $60. That's about half price. The monitor I got was almost half price too.

So I saved a lot of money but most of what I bought was for myself. Is that selfish? Probably, but it sure was fun. And I love my new monitor. The only thing I haven't figured out yet is how to get the screen resolution to stay. Every time I reboot my computer it defaults to 1024 x 768 and I have to change it to 1680 x 1050 every day. It's annoying; granted I have a new monitor, but nonetheless annoying.

I got the grass mowed on Sunday after church and mostly before the Bears game. I ended up with 6+ yard waste bags full of grass and a lot of leaves. I don't know where the leaves come from in the front yard as we don't really have any trees - at least not mature ones. But I got them all cleaned up and the grass looks good. Now if I could just get the other things on my "outside" to-do list completed I might not dread spring so much. There isn't much left. I really need to dig up my dahlias as they will die in this cold weather we've been having.

The Bears actually won this weekend. I was really surprised after how they played in the first half, I almost wasn't going to watch the second half because there were other games on that looked good, but I started watching and they all the sudden were doing better so I stuck with them.

Grace is officially old enough (alright: tall and heavy enough) to be out of the car seat in Julie's car. So we got her a booster for my car and put the car seat from my car into Julie's. So now she has a few more freedoms in the car and since we just picked it up yesterday and used it for the first time today, I'm not sure how well this will actually go over with Grace. So far she can't do the buckle by herself and she's already discovering that she can move around more and reach things while she's in her seat. But at least she's getting in her seat quickly. That's one thing she does that drives me batty. She will get in the car in a normal amount of time but then she just stands (or sits) there and won't get in her seat. Same thing happens when we get where we were going; she just continues to sit in her seat and doesn't get out. It doesn't help us get places in a timely fashion I'll tell you that.

Did you hear about the safety from the Washington Redskins that they're telling us got shot during a home invasion yesterday? His name is Sean Taylor; and he was only 24 years old and he died today. Very sad. He was too young. Obviously they haven't released many details about the circumstances, but what they are saying is that it's related to a home invasion that occurred about a week ago and that I guess they broke in again and this time he was shot in the groin area and lost a lot of blood and they attempted to do surgery and save him but they couldn't. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the Redskins family as well as Sean's family.

That's about all for now. I hope you had a good Thanksgiving too.