Yesterday was Sefton’s second birthday. Thom and Katie had some activities planned for the day and they didn’t think Sefton would mind waiting until today to celebrate with us. We shared a video call tonight and were able to watch Sefton open his birthday gifts from us. We also heard him say “Grandma” and “Grandpa,” practice his alphabet, identify colors, and read the numbers on the toy cell phone we gave him. Obviously, he’s one of the world’s eight smartest grandchildren. (Do I need to mention that Ted and I have eight grandchildren?)

After celebrating with Sefton, Thom and Katie took us on a video tour of their new house, and it was fun to see where they’re living and what everything looks like. Ted and I are eager to see it in person, but this was the next best thing.

While we were video chatting, I discovered that I could take screen shots, so here are some pictures I took of Sefton while we were talking with him.

This picture is blurred, but you can tell he’s having fun with his birthday balloons.
Happy second birthday, Sefton.

Oh, happy day! Today we had a snow day with a total of 11+ inches of snow. At 33 degrees, the snow was too deep and soft for sledding, it was too wet for snow angels, and it packed too hard to have a snowball fight (it made ice balls), so snowblowing was my choice of outdoor play.

This was the view from the kitchen window when we got up this morning.
The holly bushes were snow-covered.
It’s time for me to get to work.
Happiness is . . . . Notice that it’s still snowing.
Once I cut a path, we could use our official NWS “Snow? How Much?” ruler to measure it.
When I finished, it was still snowing. We had another inch+ before the storm moved east of us, but the temperature was above freezing, so the additional snow melted on the cleared concrete.
Then it was Ted’s turn to play. He took the snowblower across the street to clear our neighbor’s driveway. Jim has difficulty walking, so we’re glad to play in his yard too.
Meanwhile, the kids across the street built a giant snowman. There was plenty of snow for it!
I built a snowman too, but on a smaller scale.

This was the fifth heaviest snowfall in St. Louis weather history, and next weekend might include another snow day. Yea!

We better put an extra blanket on the bed. It looks like we’ll set a record low tonight.

During one of Kari’s holiday shifts at Great Skate, there was a private party. Kari said it was an unusual group because all the adults skated. Most of the time, she said, the kids skate and the adults watch.

As a surprise for their dad, the family asked if the DJ could play some Elvis songs in memory of their mom, an Elvis fan, preferably near the end of the party so the family wouldn’t feel too sad during the rest of the evening. They had an Elvis costume and asked the DJ to wear it and to skate with the family in memory of their mom.

The costume was too small for the DJ, and the two teenagers on shift with Kari didn’t know any Elvis songs. Kari, however, grew up listening to the Elvis records I played on the stereo (what can I say?–he’ll always be The King). As the only viable Elvis impersonator in the house, she put on the costume and skated around the rink with the family following her. As part of her act, she lip-synced “Hound Dog,” playing air guitar during the instrumental portions. What a ham!

Kari’s impersonation was such a hit that the family videographed her performance and took group pictures with her. The only picture Kari herself has is below.

Here’s Elvis (Kari) backstage in the Great Skate kitchen. Uh, thankyou, thankyouverymuch.

This afternoon, I was looking for a form that I knew I printed, but couldn’t find, so I had to rummage through my inbox files to see if it was there. That’s where I throw stuff from my desktop if I don’t want to deal with it immediately, which meant I’d be cleaning out my inbox clutter. I don’t clean the boxes often, but I always find something interesting when I do. Today it was old photos of my siblings and me.

1952 when I had only two brothers. That’s Denny (3) on the left and me (5) restraining Steve (1). I remember those halter tops.
I have three brothers in summer 1956. It looks like we’re ready for bedtime prayers and no, we didn’t all sleep in the same bed.
Late summer 1956, before Russ was born in October. I’m holding/wearing a vintage 1940s Kodak Brownie Reflex Synchro model camera, handed down from my mom. Denny is apparently the geek, with his shorts pulled up high; Steve is the cool one, with the rubber sunglasses (you could pop the lenses out) and the Hawai’ian shirt.
Here’s baby Russ! It’s Winter 1956 and the three boys are in matching pj’s. Mom bought yardage and made all their pj’s from the same pattern and the same fabric. Russ and I might also match–I can’t tell for sure.
Winter 1956 again. Tom, Denny, and Steve are in the back; I’m holding Russ in the front. Steve’s baby picture is on the end table in the corner.
1958. I loved that dress! It was a two-piece, very in-style chemise. I wore it to the 4-H awards ceremony and had my picture in the local paper for being named the outstanding 10-year-old girl in the county. I’m wearing my gold 4-H award pin.
Fall of 1962. In the old days, before gender equality, I had to help Mom at home in the summer and on Saturdays, and the boys had to work with Dad at his Allis-Chalmers dealership and maintenance shop. Check out Steve’s “barn” lunch box and Denny’s more modern square one with the shorter, squat, wide-mouth Thermos that stood along the side instead of resting in the lid. I don’t recognize the people on Tom’s lunchbox, but I’ll bet he remembers who they were.
1963. We’re growing up. Steve (12), Tom (11), and Denny (14) are in the back and Russ (7) and I (16) are in the front. Mom spread out my skirt so it would look nice in the picture. My high school boyfriend liked that red dress, but I can’t believe those glasses were in style!
1967. We’re starting to leave the nest. It’s Denny’s high school baccalaureate evening and I’ve finished my sophomore year at UW-Madison.
July 2004. This is the most recent picture I have of the four of us–Tom, Steve, me, and Russ.
Denny died in 1977. The framed photo on the bookshelf is Kari and Dean holding Sky, their first baby.

Just for fun, here’s one more picture I found. It’s a sibling picture of my dad and his three brothers (he also had two sisters). My mom noted on the back of the photo that “They are singing some song they made up.” Dad’s given name was Wilton, but he was called Pete; Ken’s nickname was Beanie; Harold was always Arch (middle name Archibald); and Bob would answer to Duck. Don’t ask; that’s just how it was. Ken and Arch are still living in Wisconsin and are in their 90s.

Probably sometime in the 1950s. Left to right, it’s Pete, Beanie, Arch, and Duck.

Tonight I finally had time to play with my Christmas toy. For many years, Thom and I have exchanged a small Christmas Lego set. I don’t remember exactly when we started doing this but, given the number of Christmas Lego sets I’ve received from him, it was a long time ago.

Here I am, building my 2018 Christmas Lego set from Thom.
Note: Look at the red bell on the Christmas tree in the lower left corner of the photo. This was a childhood ornament of mine. My mother passed it on to me after I had my own home and my own Christmas tree. Two of my brothers also had bells like this. One was red like mine and the other was silver.

When Thom and I started our Lego exchange, the sets were sold at the check-out counter. They were small, wrapped in a cellophane envelope, had about 15-20 pieces, and cost $5.00 or less.

These are two of the early Lego sets I received from Thom. The candle and the elf were separate sets, so I received them in two different years.

Lego has evolved over the years and the pieces have become very specialized. In addition, a lot of people apparently like the Christmas Lego idea, so the individual holiday pieces have become multi-figured scenarios. They now sell for a lot more than $5.00 per set.

This is my completed 2018 Christmas Lego scenario. Compare it to the simple individual pieces in the photo above. There’s a big difference!

Every year, I enjoy selecting a new Christmas Lego set for Thom and I look forward to the one he sends me. Thank you, Thom. I love our Christmas Lego tradition.

It was a dark but pleasant evening. After dinner, I felt like taking a walk and working off some energy. Kathy offered to walk with me, and we had a very enjoyable walk and talk. Soon after we got home, I reached up to remove my necklace and discovered that the chain had broken and the pendant was gone. Surely someone at the dinner table would have noticed that the two ends of the chain were hanging down from my neck, unconnected and without a pendant. Since that didn’t happen, it seemed likely the 52-year-old chain had broken in some mysterious way while Kathy and I were walking.

I thought there was little chance of finding a pendant that’s only a half-inch in diameter in the dark, so I decided to retrace my 1.5-mile route in the morning. Between evening and morning, the overnight rain in the forecast could wash the small pendant down a sewer drain; a vehicle could drive over it and damage it; someone else could find it and pick it up; etc., etc. The pendant was a birthday gift from a man I dated during my freshman year of college and it had my birthstone (aquamarine) mounted on it. It wasn’t valuable, but I always liked it, I wore it frequently, and it gave me joy. I didn’t expect to find it, but it was worth a try.

In the morning light, Kathy, Annette, and I started walking, keeping our eyes on the road and scanning the concrete for my pendant. After a little more than a mile, I spotted my pendant lying face-up and undamaged in a hollow spot on the road surface. I shouted, “There it is!” and the three of us went into happy mode. We were all surprised but grateful that our hunt was successful.

Today I bought a new chain for the pendant and I wore it home from the jewelry store. It gives me joy again.

We had some weather excitement today: a wake low. I wouldn’t have known a thing about it if I hadn’t watched the TV weather report while I ate my lunch.

I learned that a wake low is a very special meteorological phenomenon, because: (1) only modern weather technology has made it possible to detect wake lows; and (2) they have been observed only in the Mississippi River valley (us), Florida, and the Great Plains.

A wake low occurs when there is a small low pressure area behind (i.e., in the wake of) a squall line, which is under a higher pressure area. As the squall line passes over low-level warm air, the air behind it cools (rain-cooled air). A wake low forms as a result of a unique rate at which the rain warms and cools the air, combined with a unique pressure difference between the high and low pressure areas above and behind the squall line. An identifying characteristic of a wake low is strong winds.

For those who didn’t see the noon weather report and therefore didn’t know we had a wake low, that means we had strong winds gusting at 50+ mph this morning in St. Charles County (us) and northern St. Louis County (Lambert airport), resulting in flight delays, some downed trees, and minor property damage. We didn’t have downed trees or property damage at our house, but we did have property movement.

This is our normal winter placement of four lawn chairs that we leave outside for sunny afternoons and firebowl evenings.
This is the wake low placement of our chairs this morning. Three of them found new positions.

I can’t believe it: I have my own internet domain! This is so cool, technology-wise, and I’m easily excited about getting and working with new technology! I was excited in the 1970s when I bought my own electric typewriter, and again in the early 1980s when our family had one of the first Apple IIe computers. The thrill continues. In 2016, I bought a tech device Jeff hadn’t even heard of (because he didn’t need it), and last September, I changed a command in the root drive. Now I have my own domain name. I’m a hip, tech-savvy baby boomer (with Jeff’s help).

Readers, take note:

If you want to continue reading my blog, as of today, it is at https://dctrd.com. In case the string of consonants appears confusing, think “doctor d” and take out the vowels. Doctord, drd, and docdi were already taken. There must be people just like me out there, because I had the same issue with my personalized license plate which is also DCTR D for the same reason.

Now, the background story. Jeff has generously been allowing me to post my blog on his cyberschroeder.com domain, but he is going to retire that address in August. As a result, he had to select a new domain for his own blog, personal email, etc. and so did I.

I offer thanks to Jeff for setting up my new domain and for making everything work so that, for a transitional period, if you go to https://diane.cyberschroeder.com, you will automatically be re-directed to my new domain. This will be true until August when cyberschroeder.com ceases to exist, so if my few (think “select group”) readers want to keep reading my musings, change your bookmark for this blog.

As I told Jeff, I probably could have done this myself . . . with step-by-step instructions and phone support from him. For Jeff, who has all kinds of domains, it’s no big deal, but I never expected to need or have my own domain name. Thanks, Jeff, for keeping me cool!

Kari’s family opened their gifts at home this morning and then came to our house in the early afternoon to join Kathy, Annette, Ted, and me to open more gifts.

Dylan created two new games to give as his gifts to us and to Kathy / Annette.
Dylan was excited about his new pocket watch. It’s gorgeous, but challenging. There is no battery–you have to wind it; it’s analog, not digital; and the hours are shown in Roman numerals. Dylan is confident he can handle these challenges.
Teddy found happiness in two new pigs and a pig nose.

Ted and I saw some prank gift boxes while we were Christmas shopping. We immediately knew two people who “needed” them. Annette was the recipient of a Roto Wipe (box).

Note that this device is Number 1 in #1 and #2’s.
It’s ranked with 5 stars, beating out the car wash sprayer (3 stars) and the elm/maple leaf (1 star).
The mini version is even portable!

The other lucky (?) recipient of a prank box was Laralee, who enjoys jigsaw puzzles.

Only 12,000 pieces. The shiny box made a reflection in my camera lens. The entire sky is really a single shade of blue.
The 12,000 pieces are micro size (1/4″, according to the box) and require a tweezer (included) to place them in the puzzle.
If you like this puzzle, here are four more to enjoy. Again, each puzzle was a single color, without shading. (I need a better camera.) My personal favorite is “Summer Night Sky” with the two stars shining in the blackness.

Of course, the boxes did not represent the real gifts inside, although we included a small jigsaw puzzle to make Laralee’s box sound more authentic. After all the gifts were opened, it was time for a snack.

Well, if we must . . . .

Merry Christmas to all!

The St. Charles Christmas parade was so much fun last year that we–Kathy and Annette, Kari’s family, and me (Ted wasn’t feeling well)–decided to go again this year. Last year, the weather was very cold and blustery, and there was snow on the ground. We were more comfortable this year with sunshine and a temperature in the low 50s. We started the afternoon with lunch at Pizza Hut, which is always a hit with Kari’s boys. After that, we headed to Main Street for the parade. Perfect timing–we had five minutes to select a good viewing spot before the parade leaders came into view.

Since pictures of the period characters in the parade look very similar from year to year, I decided to “people watch” instead.

Yes, the carolers are colorful, but check out the guy in the red and white striped jacket on the right.

This family must be related to Mr. Burst. They came in their Christmas pajamas.
We were near the end of the parade route (closest to the riverfront for the Santa send-off), so we were among the last people the parade marchers saw. A number of them gave a thumbs-up to the lady with the camera for having the tackiest Christmas sweater along the route. It was covered with large Christmas lights that flashed.

Santa and Mrs. Claus in their horse-drawn carriage are the last people in the parade. The parade-watchers fall in behind Santa and follow him to the bandstand at the riverfront.

We were in the middle of the crowd, so this shows about half of the attendance. Santa was in a hurry this year. He’s usually the last item on the short program agenda, but this year, he was first. If you look closely, you can see his red suit in the bandstand and he’s already saying farewell to the crowd.
By the time we arrived at the park gates, Santa and Mrs. Claus were in their carriage, leaving to go home to pack the children’s gifts for Santa to deliver tonight.

The parade and send-off were finished, so we went shopping in a few of the Main Street stores. Fun, fun, fun!

Ted started feeling a little bit sick on Saturday, December 22, the day before Kathy and Annette arrived for Christmas. He is still running a low-grade fever today, so he wasn’t able to go the St. Charles Christmas parade with the rest of us–Kathy, Annette, Kari’s family, and me. He doesn’t have much energy and feels achy. He should be feeling fine by the time our family Christmas is over and the girls have returned to their homes.

Symbolic picture of how Ted is feeling.

Kathy and Annette arrived today for their Christmas visit, and Kari joined us for dinner after her shift at the skating rink.  Kathy and Annette brought unstuffed pepper soup and a salad for the main course, I made a cherry pie for dessert, and Kari brought cookies and candy she and the boys made for the holidays.

Kari and I previously decided we didn’t want so many cookies and so much candy this year.  We agreed that we’d each make a full batch of two specific cookies we enjoy (cherry and chocolate freezer cookies for me; cut-out cookies and scotcheroos for her) and we’d each make a batch of the single candy we most enjoy (bon bons for me; turtles for her). Together, we’d divide the batches to increase our individual variety and to share the bounty with Kathy and Annette.  We didn’t know that Kathy and Annette were also going to make some cookies and candy to share with us.

The pepper soup and the salad were delicious, but they paled in comparison to the desserts we had available after dinner!

Here’s the Christmas cherry pie I made with Door County cherries from Wisconsin and Ted’s mom’s cherry pie recipe.

The table groaned when we covered it with the cookie and candy selections.  There were so many choices, and every one of them was tempting.

In November, when the St. Louis area was hit by a 4-7″ snowfall (depending on where you live), I posted a front-page St. Louis Post-Dispatch photo of Mr. Burst , shoveling his driveway in his bathrobe.  I was surprised Mr. Burst didn’t even take time to put on his pants before going out into the cold.

I was even more surprised to see today’s paper.  In a special section titled “The Year in Pictures,” Mr. Burst made the front page again.  The November photo of Mr. Burst was used as the cover shot for the special section.  What a guy!

 

Ted and I spent ten months of 2018 looking forward to our six-week trip to Bali, Australia, and New Zealand.  In preparation for leaving on November 26, we did our Christmas shopping and gift wrapping in October, had a few holiday lights strung in the front yard by early November, and had selected a lot of the summer clothes we planned to pack . . . when we learned we would be canceling the trip.

I experienced some digestive problems for most of the year and was hospitalized for the problem in June.  The symptoms continued to worsen, which led to the inevitable series of specialists and tests, culminating with three specialists agreeing that my best option for a long-term solution was surgery.  I was given the choice to delay the surgery until after the trip, but I knew I wouldn’t enjoy myself and it seemed foolish to spend the money on the trip, only to spend my time in pain in my room or in a foreign hospital.  Ted and I decided to cancel the trip, and we filed the travel insurance claims for a full refund.  We plan to re-schedule the same trip for next winter.

None of the doctors knew exactly what the surgeon would discover, which was a little scary to me.  Not knowing what to expect, Ted and I put our travel plans on hold but agreed that, depending on what kind of follow-up treatment I needed, our “consolation prize” for canceling the six-week Bali-Australia-New Zealand trip would be a shorter trip to Hawai’i as soon as I was well enough to travel.  The surgery went well and my recovery is progressing as predicted by the doctors, so Ted and I sat down last night to book our Hawai’ian getaway.

Unfortunately, it quickly became obvious that if we want to go to Hawai’i during the Missouri winter, we need to book our flights months, not weeks, in advance.  We planned to use our frequent flier miles to go back and forth and found that, except for a single first-class flight, the only remaining seats require an overnight stay between the connecting flights in both directions.  (No airlines go directly from St. Louis to Hawai’i.)  We have the miles we need to fly business class, but neither of us has enough frequent flier miles to go first class.  As he put the travel books back on the bookshelf, Ted sadly remarked that “Maybe it’s a sign we should stay home this winter.”

 

Last week I had a holiday lunch date with four retired women friends from the college.  Today, I had a lunch date with two other retired women friends from the college.  These two were both on my staff.

Jeanette was the first person I hired to help with the administrative work in my department.  Until then, the Adult Education and Literacy (AEL) program was a one-woman show presided over by me.  Over the years, Jeanette and I became close friends.  We work in such similar ways and think along such similar lines that other people sometimes said Jeanette and I shared a brain.

As time went on, the AEL program grew in size and, several years after I hired Jeanette, I hired Gail to work as a lead GED teacher.  She and I share an almost identical teaching philosophy, based mainly on “What’s the best thing to do to benefit the students?”  We always worked well together and, in addition to being co-workers, we, too, became very good friends over the years.

The three of us enjoy getting together regularly for lunch and have been doing so for several years.  This time, before we left the restaurant, Jeanette said, “We need a picture,” so we did the selfie thing.  Here we are:  three good friends.

L->R:  Jeanette, me, Gail

Last night, Ted and I went to Teddy’s first orchestra concert.  To anyone without a loved one in the orchestra, it wasn’t much different from Sky’s and Dylan’s concerts in previous years.  For us, though, there was a grandchild change and an instrument change.  Sky and Dylan both played cello, but Teddy is learning to play the viola.

Ted and I arrived 10-15 minutes before the concert began, knowing that Kari was saving us seats with her family.  We would have arrived earlier, but the orchestra must have a bumper crop of musicians compared to previous years.  Traffic was backed up about a half-mile to enter the school property.  When we finally reached the parking lots, we joined many other attendees trolling the lots in search of empty parking spaces.

Even the auditorium was packed, with the bleachers filled to capacity and staff members scrambling to set up folding chairs around the margins of the gym.  Kari had seats saved for us, but another lady pushed Kari’s coats aside and sat down.  When Kari mentioned she was holding two places, the lady said, “Well, we only need one more,” and then that person sat down, leaving no room for Ted and me.  We joined the rest of the overflow crowd on folding chairs (which were probably more comfortable than the bleachers).  The photo below shows our view of the concert.  About a dozen people were even farther back than we were.  The sixth grade orchestra is partially visible.  Teddy is seated with the fifth grade orchestra on the other end of the gym.

 

Ted walked to the other end of the room and managed to get a photo that showed Teddy playing his viola.  Follow the red arrow to Teddy’s adorable curly hair.  If you could follow the other red arrow far enough, you could see me sitting on a folding chair, waiting for Ted to return.  Notice the other people on folding chairs along both walls.

 

Kari’s family joined us after the concert and we exchanged greetings and hugs with all the family and took a better picture of Teddy with his viola.

 

Ted and I love these concerts and we’re already looking forward to the spring performance.  We plan to be there earlier to avoid the unexpected parking and seating issues.

Kathy sent me a care package to cheer me up after my surgery.  One of the things she included was a jigsaw puzzle with a modernistic image of the Eiffel Tower.  Her accompanying note reminded me that, even though we had to cancel our Bali-Australia-New Zealand trip, Ted and I will be going to Paris next July to celebrate our 50th anniversary.

I wasn’t sure how far I’d get with the puzzle after Ted’s and my aborted puzzle experiment, but 300 pieces was far less intimidating than 1000 pieces.

Getting started–Turning all the pieces over and finding the edge and corner pieces.

Voilá!  I thought of Paris all the while I worked on the puzzle, and was further inspired by the Swarovski Eiffel Tower Ted and I bought in Paris in 2016.

Plan A for November 26, 2018:  Plane tickets from St. Louis to Bali.

 

Plan B for November 26, 2018:  Movie tickets at our nearby mall.

 

This was a disappointing change for Ted and me, but not life-changing.  My successful surgery will have a far greater impact on my life.  We’ll go to Bali, Australia, and New Zealand next year.

This picture accompanied the headline on the front page of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch the day after our big snow storm.  Apparently, Mr. Burst was in such a hurry to get his driveway cleared, he didn’t even take time to put on his pants.  Maybe he couldn’t wait to try out his kind of neat two-handled pusher shovel.

Since Ted has our yard cleaned up for the winter, he and Kari decided to spend this warm afternoon (mid-60s) cleaning up the leaves from her yard.  Ted loaded his chipper into the car and headed to the work site–Kari’s house.  Dylan was the official on-site photographer.

Kari takes a turn, . . .

. . . Ted takes a turn, . . .

. . . and the job is a team effort.

Dylan noticed that even the cat was on-site to snoopervise the work.  Since he’s a cat, he did no actual work, but he most likely needed a nap when the job was finished.

Kari invited Ted and me to join her family for Thanksgiving dinner.  She prepared our family’s traditional Thanksgiving ham dinner and, of course, everything was delicious.  I’m thankful every day for all the blessings I have in my life, but Thanksgiving Day is a special time to acknowledge them.

Ready to eat the delicious dinner.

Later, we had pumpkin and/or apple pie with whipped cream.  When Kari said “pie,” the boys came running to help serve it.  They were ready for dessert.

 

After dinner, Sky and Dean disappeared for awhile and Kari, Ted, and I continued visiting in the living room.  Soon, the front door opened and a surprise guest (Sky) joined us with his escort (Dean).

Dean bought molds and made this costume out of fiberglass for Sky.  Sky wore it for Hallowe’en and was the hit of the neighborhood.  Groupies along the trick or treat route asked for selfies with him.

It’s just as authentic-looking in the back.  This is definitely the. best. Hallowe’en. costume. ever.

Like the groupies, I needed a picture of myself with my grandson / stormtrooper ready to protect me.  He’s getting so tall!

 

Spending Thanksgiving with our family is one of my best blessings.

During my recent hospital stay, my friend Liz sent me a pot of mums to cheer me up.  It worked!  They are beautiful in our kitchen bay window.

Today, the NWS had a winter storm warning out for the St. Louis metro area, predicting snowfalls from 4-7 inches, and we had about 4 inches at our house.  All the K-12 schools announced their closings on the 10:00 p.m. news last night.  The snow stopped around 3:00 p.m., the sun came out, and the temperature shot up to 46 degrees.  The melting has begun.

The snow looks like a soft cushion on the lawn chairs.  In spite of that, no one is sitting in them.

Finally!  After three years, I had a chance to use my new snowblower for a snowblower-worthy event.  The snow was melting almost as fast as I was clearing it, but I had to play with my new (?) toy.

The weird part?  This is so early for snow in St. Louis that the trees still have most of their fall-colored leaves.

We have six inches of snow in our forecast for tonight and tomorrow.  Ted and I went out to dinner tonight and our waitress told us her mother would call this “french toast weather.”  Why?  Because everyone goes to the store to buy milk, bread, and eggs–the ingredients for french toast.

Snow accumulations in the St. Louis metro area today ranged from 1-3 inches.  We had about two inches of snow at our house.  This was the earliest one-inch snowfall in St. Louis in 27 years–since 1991.

Check the upper right center of the photo to see Ted getting the mail.

Our new trees look pretty with snow on their branches.

 

One of my friends recently told me that persimmon seeds can forecast winter conditions.  The Farmer’s Almanac agrees, and includes the forecast guidelines.

In Jefferson County, about 30 miles south of us in the metro area, the Jefferson County Extension office has been collecting persimmon seeds from the county and found the persimmon forecast to be accurate for 15 of the last 19 years.  Last year, they collected seeds from three areas of Jefferson County.  The seeds varied by area and so did the winter.  Amazing!

Persimmon seeds in our area have a spoon-shaped kernel this year, indicating a snowy winter.  Since we’ve already had two back-to-back snowfalls and a unusually heavy snowfall early in this season, maybe Ted and I will have a chance to use our three-year-old snowblower this winter.  So far, we’ve only used it for two very light snowfalls–just to make sure it worked before the warranty expired–so it’s still shiny and clean.

Ted and I were shopping at Von Maur and saw these holiday fashions for men.  I’m trying to picture Ted in the green suit and tie, but it’s not working for me.

We had our first snow of the season last night, . . .

 

. . . and our second snow of the season tonight.

The burning bush and the sweet gum trees in our neighbors’ yards are gorgeous right now.

Yesterday, Ted took the leaf blower in hand and cleared the front yard while I raked the leaves in the back yard.  Ted hauled all the leaf piles to our brush pile area to be chipped and bagged.

Here’s my favorite guy cleaning up the front yard.

Look at all the leaves!  And our trees aren’t even half bare yet!  (Check out the trees in these pictures.)

 

Last year, Ted and I jumped into our leaf pile; this year, we weren’t even tempted.  We’ve had so much rain in the last few days, there were more wet than dry leaves in the pile.  We can both attest that wet leaves are heavier to move around than dry ones.  While I was raking, I found a giant leaf.

My hand, giant leaf, and regular leaf.  I have no idea which tree in the area produces the giant-sized leaf.

 

Today, Ted put all those leaves through his chipper, which grinds them into pieces that range from dust to one inch.  Then he bagged them up for the lawn waste pickup tomorrow.

Ted and eight bags full.  I hate to think how many bags it would have taken if the leaves weren’t chipped.

 

A job well done. . . . And a job to be repeated at least once, maybe twice more before our trees are finished dropping leaves.

 

Ted’s and my polling place had longer lines than we’ve ever seen, even for Presidential elections.  We usually vote between 2:00-4:00 pm, because it’s pretty dead then–no before work, lunch break, or after work voters.  We walk in, sometimes wait for one person ahead of us, vote, and leave.  Today, however, it took us 45 minutes to get through the line and, when we finished, the line was longer than when we went in.

Other people in line were commenting on the large turnout as well.  One of the judges mentioned that the reason our polling place no longer accommodates two precincts is that the people in our precinct vote!  Another woman in line suggested that we put marijuana on the ballot more often.

The line ahead of us snaked across the room three times in an “S” shape before it reached the election judges’ table.  I counted over 75 people ahead of us–during the slow time.

When we arrived, we were at the door.  When we left, the line extended outside the door and alongside the building, and there was a line of cars arriving and hoping to find a parking spot.

 

It was great to see such a huge voter turnout.  Go, U.S.A.!

I found an anniversary card I’ve saved for years.  It makes me smile every time I see it.

Front of card

Message inside card

I suspect we had our last near-80º day of the season earlier this week (78º).  When November 1 arrived, the weather turned gray and cool, and it looks like it’s going to stay that way.  We had the furnace checked, the irrigation system turned off, and the pool winterized and covered a few days ago, so Ted and I decided it was time to put the lawn furniture away as well.  Ted had already cleaned out the storage shed and washed it down, inside and out, so it was ready for a seasonal change of contents.  Everything looks so bare now.  I guess I’ll start counting down the days until spring returns.

We always leave a few lawn chairs out all winter for firebowl seating and for the few days of 50- and 60-degree weather we get each month when it’s nice enough to sit outside in the afternoon.  Everything else is in storage.

We were planning to rake/blow leaves as well, but we had nearly two inches of rain in the past two days, so the leaves and ground were too wet for that job.  Now we have something to do when things dry out after the next two days of forecast rain.

Ted and I went to a movie at the mall today.  On our way in, I saw this dress.

Yes, that’s real Christmas garland around the hemline.

Even better!

Wings at the shoulder in the back, complete with twinkling lights.  Oooh!

 

Question:  Is it my style for Christmas?

Answer:  Definitely not.

While Ted and I were Christmas shopping today, a brief shower passed over and treated us to a double rainbow.

I love the centerpiece Kathy created for me, using my favorite flower pot, and the table runner Kari made is a perfect backdrop for it.  At this time of year, however, both look out of place (or out of time) on the table–too much like spring.  Ted and I went shopping and found some pretty fall things for our November table.