It is officially the Christmas season. Now no one can argue with me that the holiday season has arrived. Of course, for me it has been going on for a few weeks. I need prep time.

My tree is about 95% finished, and that's my biggest project for the holidays. I will finish it by the weekend.

I'm working on my Christmas cards tonight. I try to mail a majority of them the day after Thanksgiving. I dropped some in the box tonight already. Of course, I continue to send them throughout the season, but I try to get a lot of them out early.

People always give me a hard time about my Christmas card list. They joke about me working on them months in advance, but they would be hurt if they didn't get one. It's one of those things I'm somehow supposed to magically accomplish without ever working on. I experienced this at a former employer too - all these things were supposed to be done but I wasn't ever supposed to be spending time on them. As of yet I've not figured out how to do that.

I had hoped to have a night to get together with friends and work on cards, but it didn't happen. A couple of people had asked me about doing it and I suggested they host it. No one did - at least not that I was invited to. So, I did my cards as I always do. I would have enjoyed chatting with people while I was doing some of them but I just wasn't in the mood to host it. I still have a number of them to do, but I have at least half of them done.

It has been a gorgeous Thanksgiving Day today - just beautiful. It was a fun day, with a delicious turkey dinner with all the trimmings. I hope you have had a great day. And, let me be the first to wish you a Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving

It is officially Thanksgiving. I hope you have much to be thankful for this year, and I hope you take time to list some of those things.

I try to spend time each day being grateful. I have so very much to be thankful for. I am healthy. I have much love in my life. I have family I adore and friends I cherish.

It is good to remind ourselves to be thankful for things we take for granted, too. On Maslow's scale, few of us are worried about the basics of food, shelter and safety. We are somewhat unique in this among our world's neighbors. We should never take it for granted. We are fortunate.

Purpose of Business

Black Friday is approaching and already the stories are out about toys that are hard to find. I don't have a child who could be disappointed, but I am so incredibly sick of this whole scenario. Every year it's always something. There aren't enough of whatever.

I hate being played by the manufacturers who want to create artificial demand for their product so they don't make enough. It's so idiotic. Most retailers make half of their income during the holiday season. People want to buy products from the retailer. Manufacturers won't make the products for the people to buy.

I cannot figure out what, exactly, people are trying to accomplish sometimes. It would seem that if you're in business, you want to sell products, but there is considerable evidence to the contrary.

I went to buy prescriptions the other day and found that one was 90 days, as I had asked for, and the other was 60 days. I say, "this isn't right." They say, "oh, we will have to call to get a refill on that." I'm looking at them wondering why they haven't. They start explaining how it's my fault for not getting the same number of pills last time. I just looked at the woman and said, "At some point today, you knew there were only 60 pills. Why didn't you call then, instead of waiting until I come in to pick them up and then tell you to call? Please put a note in my file to just call when the situation arises."

The next day I go in to pick up the other pills. They have not called, they're not ready, they've done nothing. Anticipating this, *I* had called the doctor's office to have them call it in.

But the question remains - are you not engaged in the business of selling me drugs? Is that not your primary business? Why, then, are you making it so difficult for me to purchase drugs from you? I'm wanting to buy more drugs. Isn't this good for business?

It's the same mentality of the printing company I use that doesn't keep a particular paper in stock so everytime I'm doing a newsletter I have to call in advance and make sure they have the paper. Their reason for not having it in stock? They sell a lot of it. OK. If you sell a lot of it, then why wouldn't you order more of it so you have it in stock for people to buy? Are you not in the business of selling things printed on paper? Then why do you not keep the paper that is so popular on hand so people can buy things printed on it?

I'm no business genius, but this seems pretty straight forward to me.

It's the same reason I can't buy my favorite pop a large part of the time. It's almost always just empty shelving. So, why would you not devote more shelf space to the thing that is always empty, instead of having 24 extra cartons of something else that no one is buying? They're not buying it because it's still on the shelf.

The true purpose of business is obviously something other than selling products. Because if selling products were the purpose I would be able to purchase them much more readily. It would not be necessary for me to call for refills, to remind people to order their supplies, and make 3-4 trips before I can find pop on the shelves. The mystery is that I can't determine what the purpose is.

Christmas Parade

Saturday we were in the Christmas parade, with Clarence the dino, as usual. Greg really makes this possible for us to do every year.

He and Terry and I put Clarence on top of the van the night before. At the moment, he's still up there because we haven't been able to coordinate our schedules for 10 minutes to take him down.

I drove in the parade and Greg handed out candy canes. Also helping with distributing candy canes were the Briebiesca clan - Jesse, Joey and Christopher, and Peggy and Gary helped for the first time.







Greg took pix, which I'm sharing here. I tried to take a few during the parade, but you really have to pay attention to what's going on when you're driving. People are not very smart and will let their kids run out to get candy.

A few years ago a girl got her foot run over doing that so people are not supposed to throw candy anymore. We don't, but we are about the only ones. However, I'd just as soon a candy cane with a tag with the MHA on it not be what someone is after when they get run over. So, we hand them out, like we're supposed to.




The parade is always fun but it is some work. Next year we'll have the homes tour to promote so we'll be doing it again.

Cocooned

I am cocooned in my house tonight, working on the Christmas tree while drinking Constant Comment tea. Before Thanksgiving I hope to have the tree finished. I'm going to have to hussle to get that done.

Sometimes I wish I could just do Christmas like other people do - a couple of hours and be done. But, that's just not my way. I put a photo from last year up a few days ago. Needless to say, that takes awhile to get that done.

I spent all morning running from one thing to another. I had an eye doctor's appointment, and guess I'll be wearing these glasses for awhile yet. The new contacts I want to get that you can wear for 30 days aren't available in bifocals yet. As soon as they are I want to get those. My prescription has changed a bit, but nothing major - not worth getting new glasses for.

I managed to work in a lot of things today. I need to tidy up my office a bit after doing candy canes Friday but it's not too bad. I didn't work on it any today. I was hoping the internet would be up at my office since it was down at home, but no such luck. They obviously had a major problem.

I am feeling a bit better, although I did spend most of the afternoon in bed. Those who know me well know I am not a napper, so that's really unusual. I think the problem is that when I'm in bed the coughing keeps me from getting fully rested. So, it takes many hours to equal a normal amount of rest.

I'm starting to wonder if one round of antibiotics is going to do the trick. I may need an extra one. Unfortunate that this is all in the midst of a holiday week, when they won't be in the office normal hours. Obviously, I can't wait until Thursday to decide I need more drugs.

Well, I'd best get back to working on the tree or it won't be done by Thanksgiving.

Candy Canes!

Friday I had volunteers come in and tape little tags to candy canes that we handed out in the Christmas parade Saturday morning. This is always a good event for us, but it does require some prep work.

The first part of it is buying the candy canes when they're on sale after Christmas! I run a non profit, so I have to get a deal on them in order to be able to do this event.

It went very well. Gary and Peggy walked for the first time, handing out candy canes. Jesse, Joey and their nephew, Chris did as well. And, of course, Greg did. We never seem to have enough people. I'm not sure how many that would take. It's a fun event.

There are some great volunteers who come in to help with various projects, and Doris is one of my favorites. She has done so many things for me over the years. They were teasing me that I was probably the only person who would ask for taping mini-flyers onto candy canes.

Other than what I had to do to get ready, I've been in bed. I have a respitory infection and haven't felt the greatest. I called the doc for some antibiotics on Friday and am feeling better with those in my system, but I will be glad when I am well again.

I hardly ever get sick and this is the second time I've had this in about three months. Hopefully this will be it for being sick for me for the whole winter, plus some.

I got all my test results back from the recent physical, and all was good. Cholesterol was 104, sugar was 100, everything all normal. I have a mammogram in January - hopefully that will come back normal as well. And I see the eye doctor Monday. I think I'll be getting new glasses because I know I'm spending way too much time lifting these to see something close. That means a new prescription. I'm just glad I live in a time when I can get such a thing.

I'm working on Christmas cards, trying to gather the addresses I need to find for various people I've met in the past year that aren't already in the files. I used to hand address all my cards, but a few years ago started using the computer. Otherwise I just wouldn't get it done. I realize it's not as personal, but there you go. I also do one of those letters that are loved by some and hated by others. Again, not as personal, but I simply am not going to write 300 notes into cards. So, it's a compromise.

At this point, the rush is to get the ones out that have invitations in them for timely events. Others can go out anytime between now and Christmas.

I know cards have become a less common thing, but I really think they're something people love to get.

Leadership Graduation

Leadership Graduation was Wednesday night. Each of the five project groups made a little presentation about what we did.

I don't have any photos of my group, of course, since I was in it. But I did get a chance to snap some pix of three of the groups, and our instructors, Lynette and Kris.

One of our class members was thoughtful enough to spearhead getting bouquets of flowers for them as thank yous. (Thank you, Jennifer, for taking care of that!) They both put a lot of themselves into the class and it is appreciated.




One group did a logo for Leadership Reno County, which was great.




Another group took on putting up a sign for Lincoln School. Janice, with the kids in this photo, has been instrumental in working on that area. Curtis, who has the mic, has been a delight to get to know. He is a contractor with Heib Construction and has an amazing sense of humor. He did a great job making their presentation fun. Of course, kids always help that a bit.




Curtis also helped with another project where they built a shed for Big Brothers/Big Sisters. Connie, who was in that project group, did a whole power point presentation about that and it was great fun to watch.

Our group delivered brochures about watering to the homes where the city has planted trees. And the final group also did a "green" project.

They identified all the various green spaces in the area, and linked them into a map online. There were some I wasn't aware of on their list.




All in all, it was a great experience to do the leadership class. I really enjoyed getting to know these folks.

They asked us early on if we had a sinking feeling when we saw the list of, "oh, no, not that person..." but I didn't because I didn't really know any of these folks. There were three people that I knew who they were, but I didn't know any of them well - two of them just to know who they were and nothing more.

At the end of the class, I can honestly say that I like everyone more than I did at the beginning of class and would not hesitate to get together with anyone from class. There are some folks I'm really going to miss seeing every week.