We brined and roasted the turkey, entertained the guests, and are now working through the leftovers - the standard Thanksgiving. My immediate goal is to get to the gym with greater regularity since my ability to find reasons to skip exercise seems unlimited.

Today we can celebrate the birthday of Sir Winston Churchill (1874) with fond memory of a quote from John F. Kennedy when making him an honorary American citizen: "He mobilized the English language and sent it into battle."

Good morning!

Great observation by Kennedy. The English language continues to fight the good fight.

Morning. About to take the boy to school and then go for a run before work. Woo?

Definitely Woo Shannon!

Dagmar

I have a 4 day week this week. My car has to go in for another major repair and the Hyundai service department apparently doesn't do those on Saturdays. So I'm taking Friday off to get the car done.

In the past I would have borrowed DH's car or rented one and gone to work. I'm going to stay home and do Christmas stuff instead to get a bit caught up. I'm finding the winter more and more daunting every year - the cold, my increasing sleep deficit, etc. - so this will be a chance to have a small break.

I will lose a day's pay but I can live with that.

Dagmar

Good morning!

Thankfully we have only one more night of Thanksgiving leftovers before it is all gone. There may be a little turkey still, but I'll snack on that at work this week. Back to salads at lunch. Maybe some of what I gained in the past few days will leave soon.

Busy work week for me as today is the end of the month and we've opted to do year-end bonuses this week.

Just another hectic week, but it's only 4 days because I had the foresight earlier in the year to take all the Fridays in December as vacation days. Every day I think more often that it was a smart move! Meeting with the financial advisor on Wednesday afternoon; the purpose of that one is to understand the ramifications of finding somewhere else to work ASAP. I'm pretty much ready to live in a trailer rather than stay put where I'm at - I could qualify for early retirement in about 9 3/4 years, but there is just no way in he!! I could see myself doing that.

Not a 4 day work week for me, but only 15 more work days this year!

Leftovers are gone. I only had a small amount of leftovers one night so damage was minimal. Was up 3 pounds-- 2 already gone.

Dh has his surgery Wednesday. So much prep work ahead of time that I hadn't thought of. He doesn't know how long he'll be incapacitated so he has ben trying to ready things-- picked up leaves, cleaned the gutters, replaced windshield wipers-- you name it. He is so worried about his surgery-- he doesn't do medical stuff well and doesn't tolerate anesthesia well so he is a mess. Couple that with his being off anti-inflammatories and alcohol and he is a joy to be around. He is insisting that he will be okay Thursday and Friday alone while I work. I hope he's right. We took the crutches out last night to show Ellie and she freaked. We will need to introduce them more slowly apparently! Or she will just have to figure it out....

Had my girls home which was nice but it is also nice to have the house more back to normal. At least till Wednesday.... not sure how my eating and exercise will be affected then== especially exercise but we'll see....

Not a four day workweek for me this week, either. Though I have some repair work to my sink scheduled at some point, so may work from home that day.

Michele - what is DH having surgery for? I can't remember.

I don't often sell things, but I am getting my parent's old dining set and, therefore, have to sell my existing china hutch and pool table. So I listed them on a local FB garage sale group and on Craigslist for $500 each. Does that sound reasonable? The hutch is 15-20 years old but looks like new and the pool table is maybe 8 years old and except for some stains on the felt, it looks like new as well. I can't for the life of me remember what I paid for either one.

Wishing I could take a day off this week. Yesterday I did the yearly bonuses for the guys and did end of the month billing. The rest of the week I'll be busy gathering information to close the month of November to get the files to our CPA.

Michele, I want to pass along something my sister told me. You didn't say what kind of problems your DH has with anesthesia, but my brother-in-law wakes up from it and is crazy. Off the wall, agitated, irrational. It happens every time. It's compounded by his being very strong.

The last time he was in the recovery room, a pediatric anesthesiologist happened to be present, and he said, "Give him a Coke." A full-sugar regular Coke! And by gosh, it brought him around.

Children sometimes have severe hypoglycemia after general anesthetic, but this is rare in adults. Rare doesn't mean it never happens, though, as shown by my brother-in-law. If the pediatric guy hadn't happened to be there, they might have never figured it out.

He just has nausea issues.... They won't let him leave if he's barfing....

He is having knee surgery. A partial knee replacement plus a cruciate ligament replacement. He has an ice machine contraption plus crutches and a brace, all of which we have to bring tomorrow. We are hoping that when we get him home we can somehow get him upstairs...

Michele, it might be better if he stayed downstairs. It sounds too risky to try to get him upstairs.

OK, last night I dreamt that all of us who are regulars in Maintainers were on a road trip together, crowded into a big SUV/station wagon-type car. We were having interesting discussions about things other than food or weight. For example, saef and I were talking about my challenges with speaking diplomatically rather than bluntly in business settings. We were all having a good time, like a group of old friends.

JayEll-- that is hilarious! Our brains do the weirdest things sometimes with dreams.

I'm waiting to hear how the surgery went. He was supposed to start at 9:45 and they said it would be 2.5-3 hours. I called at 2 pm my time and he is still in surgery. Yikes! Not sure when they started though. Looks like he won't go home until late tonight at the earliest....

This made me laugh too.