Happy Thanksgiving to All

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. I know I'm early, but we are leaving town on Tuesday and tomorrow is going to be hectic as hell trying to get ourselves together and ready. I doubt I will have time to blog again before then, so I wanted to send my best wishes for the holiday to everybody. Eat, drink and be merry and give all your loved ones a hug. That's what its all about anyway.

Mild Disappointment

The concert yesterday, The Trans-Siberian Orchestra wasn't exactly what we all expected.
There was very little Christmas music...and the ONLY recognizable Christmas music at ALL was a few short snippets of my favorite "Carol of the Bells" done in a compilation of a whole bunch of other songs. It was really loud, and although I did enjoy the light show, there were moments that were seizure inducing. Dad and Barb left after the first half of the show and waited for us outside in the lobby area. Honestly we all thought it was over at intermission, but it turned out to be 3 whole hours long. I don't know....I wouldn't go back again, but how can you know that until you try it? It was interesting anyway. And we spent the afternoon with the family trying out something new, so I won't call it a total loss. I just expected a Christmas concert, and this was more like a hard rock concert. I did not buy the CD. Oh well. You live and you learn.

Dinner was not a disappointment, however. Dad had made reservations for 5:15 since we all had no idea the concert was going to last so incredibly long. We got to the restaurant at more like 6:15, but they had a table for us right away. This was at the BoneFish Grill. Dad and Barb had really enjoyed the one in Myrtle Beach. And the one in Cary was every bit as good. The food was excellent, and the service was really good, too. I had scallops and shrimp in lemon butter that would melt in your mouth. Bruce and Stephen had steaks that were apparently extremely delicious. Hannia proclaimed her salmon in a pan asian sauce to be the best salmon EVER. So....
the food made up for the lacking in the concert arena. My favorite part of the meal was a pomegranate-peach Mojito. Oh my lord, that thing was good. Like knock your socks off good, slurp the bottom of the glass rudely with your straw kind of good. If you ever go there (because apparently it IS a chain restaurant, we just don't have one here in Greenville which makes me sad now) be sure to try that. I think its one of their specialty house drinks. Skip the concert and go have drinks at Bonefish instead, and you will have a guaranteed good time....HAHA.

Setting the Mood for the Season

We are meeting Dad and Barb in Raleigh today for a concert of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.
I LOVE their Christmas music (their version of Carol of the Bells is one of my all-time favorites).
I've never seen them live before. We tried to get tickets last year, but we heard about it too late and the concert sold out....which made me sad. This year, we got tickets as soon as the dates were announced. Anyway, I am excited as you can probably tell. I am hoping to get my hands on one of their CD's that has been a little hard to find: "The Christmas Trilogy". Maybe they will sell stuff at the show....most performer's do, so....?

Anyway, this is setting the mood for the coming season. I love Christmas anyway. I know its been a hard year for a lot of people in this country, but hard times make celebrations even more important to lift your spirits. I don't care about the gifts and the expensive trappings of a commercialized holiday....but I am going to feel thankful for family and friends, for health and all of the multitudes of blessings that are ours. And I am going to celebrate like mad because it makes me happy. I may burst into song at any moment now like a bad musical. And that....would definitely make YOU unhappy (I really can't carry a tune at all....haha).

Countdown to Turkey Day

We are going to Dad and Barb's for Thanksgiving. We are all looking forward to it, especially Stephen who missed last year's Thanksgiving with the family. Plus, we will have Hannia for the first time, too. And I think her younger brother Miguel is going to be joining us. By the way, its Miguel's birthday today. So Happy Birthday Miguel. I think he is 19. Oh, to be so young again.

Anyway, we have had some strange weather around here in Eastern NC lately. This weekend it was torrential rain, thunder, and wind (some places a bit west of here had some serious tornado action...yikes). And it was really warm and muggy. It got so sticky and uncomfortable that I finally turned the AC back on again. And then today? Today we had SNOW!!! Not any kind of accumulation at all, but we had scattered flurries, and at times, it snowed fairly hard for a few minutes, here and there. And it was pretty chilly. We had to turn off the AC and turn on the heat. Who knows what will be next??? But this is the earliest I have EVER seen snow here in this part of the state. I wonder if this is a foreshadowing of whats to come this winter. I LOVE snow, but I hate driving in it. So, I have mixed feelings about that.

My NEW favorite online store!!!

Its called Totally Goat!!! And just how cool is that????? For $700 I can even dress my husband as a goat. He is in so much trouble now......HAHAHAHA!

It had to Happen.....

Obama coins, for the "serious" collector. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Obama. I can't wait for him to Ba-ROCK the White House....(yeah, I said it. I had to.) But I don't think I will celebrate by buying up a bunch of cheesy Obama coins. They make coins to commemorate anything anymore.
I wrote a blog a long, long time ago about how horrified I was over the "Twin Towers" coins. Why would anybody want to "commemorate" such a traumatic and sad thing? Actually, I did hear, while in NY, a reason behind some of the commercialization of the 9/11 tragedy. Some of those kinds of things are sold for the purpose a 9/11 fund that goes to the families who lost loved ones there. I guess that makes sense....? It makes it a little less distasteful, although I don't think I would want the death of a loved one of MINE to be so ...I don't know...commercial, maybe?

Ok, I have to go completely off the subject right now to say something that has been in the back of my mind ever since the trip to NY. We had dinner with Jeb, one of my husband's high school friends that we haven't seen since high school graduation. Jeb lives in the area of the World Trade Center and was there during the whole 9/11 event. He told us a story that left me feeling chilled to the bone. He said as people learned exactly what was happening, even those folks in the other burroughs of the city who couldn't actually SEE the devastation, long lines of people started heading to the hospitals, particularly St. Vincent's (the one closest to the financial district) to give blood. Medical personnel flooded the hospitals to set up triage to take care of the wounded. Only noone showed up. The hospitals were eerily empty of victims, because you either got out completely fine and unscathed. Or you did not get out. Jeb said that was the part that he will always remember. The absence of the injured in area hospitals, even as the city mobilized in huge numbers to take care of them as the whole event unfolded.

But about those coins....Do people really buy these things? And what exactly do they do with them? Do they sit in a drawer, forgotten for years on end? Are they hot collectors items? Because honestly, I have NO idea what one would do with a bunch of coins marking specific events. I have read that some of these Obama coins, the ones that are actually colorized instead of just pressed metal, are considered "defaced" and therefore less valuable by serious coin collectors. I guess its a case of "buyer beware". I did find one coin that I am tempted to buy.
I won't. But I am tempted.....

Don't Recycle....FREEcycle!

I just happened to stumble on this website a few weeks ago:

Freecycle

Its divided up into areas, so you can join the one closest to where you live. Anyway, the idea is that you can post offers locally for stuff that you no longer want...the only rule is that it has to be FREE. For instance, we had this huge old buffet table in the study that Bruce was using for storage. But we cleaned out and reorganized things so that the table was no longer necessary. It was just taking up space. So I posted an offer on Freecycle yesterday afternoon, and got at least 30 or so emails in reply. I went with the first one (first come first serve, I guess...?) and wrote an email. And they came and picked it up this morning. How cool is that??? Not only did we not have to carry it or transport it, the guy admitted that he wanted to use it in his study for storage...haha. It should be good for that. It has had a lot of practice.

You can make "wanted" posts on there, too. I think the rules limit you to 1 want a day. But honestly, I just want to get rid of stuff, so I have no plans to make posts trying to accumulate MORE things. The system worked so efficiently though that now I am thinking about what I can offer next....I wouldn't go to the trouble for anything really small. Although I have seen a few posts listing some pretty odd things. One was for a partially used 32 oz bottle of prune juice. Apparently they only used a little and then ...? I don't think I want to know. Who wants an opened bottle of juice though? Even if it is FREE. You don't really know where that juice has been. I seriously would not offer used/opened food items. Also, I have seen some pretty big WANTS, as well. A few people were asking for laptops and tv's. washer and dryers, and even a dishwasher. Good luck with that. But it is a cool concept. I see a lot of offers for gently used children's clothing and sports equipment. As fast as kids grow, I think its really good to share those kinds of things that can be used again.