Christmas is Almost Here!

We have been very busy lately with all of the festivities of the Christmas season. On Saturday we had a progressive dinner, which if you don't know, it is a multiple-course meal and all the courses are at different people's houses. I had never heard of them until we moved down here but then I realized that it wouldn't be very practical in Maine. We started at our house and had our appetizer, basically some finger foods. At the next house, we had French onion soup, then baked garlic chicken at the "entree house." We had quite the selection of desserts at the last stop. It was a lot of fun and the most we had to drive between courses was 10 minutes.

I was invited to a tool sale last week for employees of TTI, who makes Rigid and Ryobi tools. It was held at one of their warehouses and everything was at least 50% off. I loaded up. I bought a jointer, a belt sander, a biscuit jointer (nothing to do with baking), a chainsaw, a couple canvas tool bags, and a router table. Once I got it all home, my messy shed became full and messy.

So . . . my project these last few days has been to get my shed cleaned out and useable. I built a 10 foot long workbench against one wall and started to organize everything. It looks much better now and it's fully useable. I even built something today that used most of my tools. I can't tell what it is; it's a Christmas present for someone. I'll add a picture later (probably Friday).

Thanksgiving to Now

So the last few weeks have been busy. Sarah's brother and his wife came and visited us for Thanksgiving last week. We had a great time with them visiting. Of course we ate a ton of food and had a great time. Other than cooking and eating, I spent most of my Thanksgiving watching football and playing football.

The weather has been beautiful the last few weeks; it's hard to believe it's the first week of December. Sarah bought me a new jacket last week and I've been wanting to wear it but the weather has not been cooperating at all. The lowest it's gotten in the last week was 60. It's down in the 40s tonight so I finally got my chance to wear my jacket.

Today we went to the Biltmore Estate and got to see the Christmas decorations. It was VERY crowded as the Christmas season is always their busiest. It may be the biggest house in America (the house itself covers 4 acres), but it wasn't designed for 5600 people (the number of people arriving between opening and 1:00pm today), so it was a bit crowded. The decorations were very classy and the house still amazes me, even though this was our third visit.

We got to enjoy a rare day off together. Back to work tomorrow . . .