Other random November things.

Not much else happened in November.

School.

Work.

Sleep.

Repeat.

My days are busy with the tasks that come with having a job, and my evening and weekends are busy with the tasks that come with having a family, and so those moments in between, the bloggable, instagrammable, facebookable moments seem a little less frequent.

I could talk about work.  But there's not much to tell.  I answer phones.  I mail out invoices.  Sometimes someone will bring in donuts or bagels (about twice a month) and that's about as exciting as it gets.  Excepting of course when people visit me for lunch, like the time Maddie felt like making macaroni and cheese and so John and the kids visited me.

(Of course we learned that no matter what the recipe says- 1 Tablespoon of salt is never correct. If I didn't already put much stock in pinterest, it's things like this that make me lose faith in Pinterest.  Who the heck thinks any recipe needs one TABLESPOON of salt?  Or maybe they should learn the difference between a "T" and a "t".  They also thought it needed a "T. of pepper" as well.  But even given the fact that her biggest problem is blindly trusting a random recipe she found online, Maddie is a much better cook than I was at her age. )

Maddie went to her first Thespian Festival.  She loved every minute of it.  The theme this year was Dr Seuss, so she had to wear her "Thing 1" shirt from Halloween, and then had a bit of a freak out when they were selling "Tech 1" and "Tech 2" shirts.

Oh, I did get new glasses.  It was time.  It was way past time.

We're Thankful

♫♪♫ Count your many blessings, name them one by one...♪♫♪

Every year I think, next year, I'm going to do something beautiful and visual to prompt thankful thoughts in our family, something that lasts all month long.  Something I found on Pinterest, but that takes effort, and planning ahead all that fun stuff.

So we made do, and procured a large poster board and we brainstormed ideas of things we were thankful for.  My sweet kids were really into it, and worked on it for quite awhile.   The things they were thankful for ranged from the usual like "A Home, Food, School, Family, Music, and Friends",  to the spiritual like "Church, Jesus, a Prophet, the Temple, and Scriptures", to the somewhat ridiculous like "Capes (as in superheroes, not the bodies of water), Netflix, chocolate, pizza, and the TARDIS."

We had the usual Turkey dinner,  and even if Nick were here to help us eat it all, there would have been too much food.  

Once again, we were able to have our turkey cooked in a pit, although I fear this year may be our last chance to rely on their generosity, as the family with the big turkey pit is moving.  Apparently all the kids are grown and moved out and it's too much home for two people.  I wonder if the new owners would be interested in cooking my turkey next year?

All in the family

So I don't know if I mentioned it before, but the company I work for, Metro Fire Equipment, is a family owned and operated business.  Like, half the people here seem to be related in some way or another to the guy who started this company 40 years ago, or at the very least related to somebody else.  Like one of my friends is the sister of the daughter in law of the owner, and her daughter and son in law also work here.

Anyways, I mention that, because I think it is a very viable possibility that Christopher could end up working here.  It was purely coincidental that he became obsessed with fire alarms (and we all know he has always been obsessed with safety) at about the same time I started working here.  I think he started becoming interested in them just so he could figure them out, so they wouldn't seem so scary when they had fire drills at school.  (Which apparently is monthly.)

So, because he started watching all sorts of youtube videos and talking about various things like "pull down stations" and other random terminology I am unfamiliar with (I just answer the phones and then connect the caller with the person who can actually help them), I asked a guy at work if they ever had broken "pull down stations" if they could put one aside for me.    The very next morning, I found this waiting for me on my desk.

You would not believe how ridiculously excited I was to bring this home to Christopher.  He loves it.

Of course since it is broken, his Christmas list includes "tools to fix alarms".  He has big plans to wire our house, and put in other random pieces of equipment like strobe lights and heat detectors.

I've already talked with VP of alarms (who happens to be the husband of the friend who said "Hey! Go work for Metro!" and Christopher has a job just as soon as he's old enough.