Well, Hello There

Well, hello there, December.  It's nice to see you again. 

Look what came in the mail today!

  

My first Christmas cards of the year!  One came all the way from Australia, too!  They gave me the impetus to get out and get my outside lights up.  I mean, I'd planned on doing that anyway, but receiving the cards nudged me on out the door. 

Just a piece of advice, check to make sure your lights work before you put them up onto the house. It will save you many trips up and down the ladder.  

I can neither confirm nor deny that the word pendejo passed my lips just a few more times than was strictly necessary.  

Be that as it may, the errant string was eventually repaired and re-strung, and now all the lights work.  Yippee!  I got the bright idea to try something different this year.  I kind of thought if I strung white icicle lights with the multi-colored lights it would almost look like lights strung on a snowy house. 

Not sure why I thought that, but here it is. 

I wish that I had taken the icicle lights out of the box earlier and straightened the wires, but I didn't have sense enough for that.  Oh, well, maybe by next year...I'll need to pick up one more box of lights tomorrow, because I didn't have quite enough to cover the porch.  Then, maybe after Christmas, I can pick up enough on clearance to do the rest of the house. 

Back in the day, I used to listen to a podcast called Talkin' Cowboys on DallasCowboys.com.  I loved the podcast, but there was a downside and that was that I was tied to my computer for the hour that it was on.  This was back in the day, when I only had a desktop, and it was in the office/snake/craft room -- of my old house, of course.  

One day, I decided I was tired of sitting there when I had so much stuff I needed to be doing.  As soon as Cody got home from school, I told him, "Go get in the car.  We're going to get iPods."  

"Really?" he asked.

"Really!"  I replied. 

So, into the car we got and off to Walmart we went.  We ended up getting Sony Walkmans, and I have gotten so much use out of mine.  In fact, I still use it to listen to my Christmas playlist when I don't feel like dealing with the endless ads on YouTube.  I have some speakers I plug into the earphone jack and it works a treat.  The only issue is the battery will no longer hold a charge, but if I keep it plugged in, it plays just fine. 

Well, last week when I was heading up to Memphis to spend Thanksgiving with Cody, I was trying to make a playlist on my phone using Prime Music.  

I don't know about you, but to me Prime Music leaves a lot to be desired.  

On a whim, I ran -- not literally -- and got my Walkman.  I plugged it into the USB port on my car, and wonder of wonders, it worked!  

I could listen to my Christmas music through my car speakers!  Not only that, I could control it using the buttons on my car dashboard.  Huh, seven years I've had that car, and I never knew it would do that.  I guess you really do learn something new every day.

Ignore how dusty my car is.  Ever since they re-graveled this road, it's impossible to keep it clean.  

And finally, happy first day of winter!  Meteorological winter, that is.  I think I'll have some hot chocolate to celebrate.