Sorry for the silence the last few weeks. We had company for Thanksgiving and while Mom did most of the heavy cooking, I did a fair bit of dessert cooking. With Aunt Dolly and Amilcar staying here, Bob and I took advantage of having guests who appreciate good wine and cheese and made dinner of the leftover cheese tray from Thanksgiving.

We loved everything on this plate. So much so the Bob and I did the same for dinner a few nights later and we will be doing the same tonight. Yes, we had leftover cheese and we are no letting it go to waste. We also now have a good selection of wine.

We got our first wine club shipment in and so far we are really pleasantly surprised. There are six different wines, two bottles each. We’ve tried three so far (and I’m keeping notes) and only one I didn’t like. It is actually a good wine, just too earthy for my taste. But the other two I really love. Balanced, longer finish and smooth.

I finished my Elizabeth 1class and signed up for History of Economic Thought for next semester. Val thinks I’m nuts, which in all fairness is the general consensus. But with this class I will have my recertification hours needed and will be good for another five years. I really enjoyed the class on Elizabeth, but I wanted something I had less experience with, hence the Economics class. I figure it has to be better than Microeconomics. Of course, just about anything is better than micro.

The house and the pets are pretty much ready for the holidays. Gracie helped put up the decorations and Tigger found the ornament Leia took for her own last year and brought it to me to add to the tree.

He was so proud of himself. I was pretty proud since he brought the toy that technically is an ornament. So the house is ready.

And the pets are ready.

This will be the first Christmas since I moved out of Mom and Dad’s house that I will spend in my own house. I am particularly excited by this and am looking forward to a low key, quiet Christmas. I will figure out something to make for dinner that day, but overall I am ready to relax. Gracie has the relaxing down pat.