Here is something way better, and is sure to cheer you up better than Dr. Death, @Beth Gallagher . I love watching this series, they are always up to something interesting.
Much like @Yvonne Smith 's excitement over eggnog season, I eagerly await the first box of chocolate covered cherries for the holidays. My favorites are the Cella brand, made with dark chocolate. Sigh. I got some this week and I will have to ration them, but they keep calling to me from downstairs. I also bought some pecan Turtles, which are my hubby's favorite. He has no problem eating one candy and going about his business, but I am obsessed.
I keep trying to have those nasty balls of goo outlawed, but continuously fail. They are on par with Circus Peanuts. *shudders* There's always next year. However, I will eat me some turtles.
Newscaster 1: "And on a sadder note, there was a horrific accident on the interstate today." Newscaster 2: "Frank, I happened to be 3 cars behind the carnage this morning. I don't think I'll ever get over it. Why don't people wear their seat belts???"
I'm so excited! We will be going to my son's house this Sunday for an early Christmas with them. He's going to make beef and chicken fajitas on the grill and we'll have a nice visit and gift exchange. I'll get to spend some time with my grandchildren. They live outside of Austin; it's a 2.5 to 3 hour drive, depending on traffic, so we'll be on the road nearly 6 hours total. I got a call today that my eye glasses are ready... again. Hopefully they did it correctly this time and no more "single vision lenses." I'll go pick them up tomorrow and go by the bank to get some Christmas $$.
Busy day of errands today. Went to the post office (argh), to the bank, to the eye doctor for my glasses, and finally to UPS to drop off some packages. I had the weirdest experience picking up the glasses; the woman receptionist just handed them to me and said, "you can sit over there (gesturing) and try them on. If you need them adjusted let someone know." Gee... such personalized service. My past experience has always been that the "fitter" or whatever they are called would sit down with me at a desk, adjust the glasses, make sure they fit right and are level, and have me read something on one of those laminated cards. I guess they are cutting services to a minimum now, which means I might as well start ordering my eye glasses online. Also, they were supposed to have made a followup appointment with the ophthalmologist for me and they didn't, so I guess I'll just skip that. I harvested a bunch of bok choy and tatsoi from my Aerogardens so we had stirfry for dinner. Now I can kick back with a chocolate covered cherry and some coffee.
We had a nice day yesterday; traffic was pretty heavy on the travel to/from my son's house but not terrible. It was our first "highway drive" in the new truck and it was a nice smooth and quiet ride. We stopped at a well-known Czech bakery that's about halfway between Houston and Austin, called Hruska's (Est. 1912). I have never driven by that place that it wasn't absolutely mobbed and the parking lot full of cars. https://hruskas-bakery.com/bakery/ I selected a dozen mixed fruit and custard kolaches to take to my son's family, plus a couple of sausage/jalapeno/cheese rolls and 2 cups of coffee for us... total was $34. The kolaches are absolutely fabulous and I wish I had one right now. Even their coffee was excellent, so now I know why they are always packed with customers. We got to my son's place around noon. He lives in the boonies about 20 miles from Bastrop on 20+ acres. We enjoyed visiting with the grandkids and having an early Christmas with them all. Son grilled chicken and beef fajitas with all the trimmings and we had cheesecake for dessert. He had his large stone firepit with a nice fire going, though it wasn't really cold but it was breezy and cool. The only thing that marred the day was I had those annoying muscle cramps almost the entire day, all across my torso and back. I was so miserable and the ride home was agonizing since I couldn't stretch or do much to stop the cramping. I suppose I should go back to the doctor at some point but they couldn't find any cause for the cramps last time I went. One kind of interesting thing... granddaughter's boyfriend and one grandson have been hired by the new Tesla plant in Austin. Sounds like good salary and benefits packages so hopefully that will pan out for both of them. The grandson is only 18 and just starting college so I'm not sure if he will drop out or what. They are both excited and thrilled at this point. We got home around 7 pm or so. Our oldest daughter called to say that they had received their Christmas gift from us and that they were busy packing for their trip to Germany. Her stepson is in the Air Force stationed there and they are going to see him for Christmas, spending 3 weeks doing a bit of touring. So we won't see them for the holidays this year. We haven't even planned anything for Christmas Eve nor Christmas Day this year. It has always been a family gathering at my MIL's house on Christmas Day but of course since she passed away a few months ago that tradition is over. We will probably see our youngest son and youngest daughter and their families so I probably should plan to cook something for Christmas Eve. (Or maybe order a Subway sandwich tray, lol.) I can't believe it's a week away.
@Yvonne Smith -- I forgot to say that my little granddaughter has a Chihuahua named Lillie. I showed her the video of Lucky and she got a lot of giggles from that.
Looks like we suddenly have Christmas Eve plans after all. Youngest son and his family plus youngest daughter and her boys will be coming into town. So we will have a get together for dinner and then open gifts. We are also inviting my husband's sister and BIL, so it will be a nice gathering. We are ordering brisket, sausage, and chicken from a local BBQ joint, along with potato salad and baked beans. I'll just make a green salad and some desserts and whip out the festive paper plates. I'm all about easy these days. Christmas Day will be quiet since the kids/grandkids will be at their mother's on that day.
Just a bit of musing and a mini-rant. Feel free to keep scrolling, Anderson. I was just on the Aerogarden forum reading a few posts that made me wonder why some folks want to bother with "a hobby." It seems they thrive on making things 100 times more difficult than they ever needed to be. All the talk of pH meters, water chemistry, 5000 kinds of fertilizer, blah, blah, blah. Their "hobby" sounds like a damn full-time job. Here's me... "La la la. I dumped tap water in (gasp), threw in the Aerogarden liquid fertilizer, added the (already seeded) pods, pressed the ON button, and Bob's your uncle... DONE." Then I sit back and wait for little sprouts. Others are measuring, calculating light requirements, wringing hands, going back to college to study water chemistry, changing the angle of grow lights to the Nth degree, creating spreadsheets, tracking the room temperature by hour, etc. One woman is so obsessed with "clean roots" that she must dream about them. Then when I post a picture of my stuff, they want to know "my secret." My secret is... I don't care. It's my HOBBY. If the stuff doesn't thrive I toss it and start again. OK, I'm done now.
I talked with a fertilizer company about using their product for foliar feeding. The told me I had to check the EC potential of the solution. Like you said, "what the heck ??" I have grown for many decades and never once worried about the EC potential of anything!
Oh, yes. EC is a huge topic. I have no idea what that is and no interest in learning. When something isn't fun anymore I will move on.
I was on a coffee lover's forum and encountered instructions for The Perfect Coffee Water. Ingredients were measured in grams, 2 places to the right of the decimal point. edit to add: I gotta think that the plant people build their own water, starting with distilled.