Wintertime

I am off on a wintry adventure.  I'm heading north to Chicago and Detroit for a long weekend and then some.  The Accuweather forecast has been getting grimmer and grimmer as my departure approaches; long sleeve t-shirts are being replaced with thermals and turtlenecks.... and I'm not even planning on being outside for very long.  I am officially a weather wimp.

I'm leaving TBG behind to face the season's first frost alone.  The last time I left him alone in the wintertime, it snowed.  At 2715' in Tucson my husband took the garbage cans out to the street under snowy skies.  He was quite bitter.  I was in New Jersey, moving G'ma from pillar to post.  She had the heat turned up so high I was wearing a tank top and shorts.  I didn't have the heart to tell him.

Though it's been in the low 70's all day, there's a lowering sky  

that made me feel cold all day.  Not that I took a jacket along; it was a mental thing.  

The interesting thing about that picture, and the theme of this post, is the wreath on the gate.  It's well after the 12 Days of Christmas, and yet there it is, adorning the walkway, with no intention of taking itself off and putting itself away.

Since I have no intention of doing it tonight, there it will stay until I come home.  TBG enters and exits through the garage and doesn't sit at the desk all that often.  He'll never notice it.

Inside, though, it's a different story.

Putting away the ornaments is part of my getting shot story; that was my plan with CTG for the afternoon.  Through the first half of my hospitalization, they lay in neat but obvious piles all around the house.  JannyLou and Fast Eddie and Patty the Wonder Woman boxed them up and restored order to my home and last year and now this year we laugh about hiring our friends to do it for us again.

The ornaments are off the tree

 and most of the decorations are on the table.

But, as TBG is fond of saying, this is a game of Huckle-Buckle-Beanstalk.

The ornaments play hide-and-seek with us.

It takes a week or so to collect them all, even though they are hiding in plain sight.

There are red ribbons like these all over the place. 

I see one every time I roll over to turn out my light.

I smile, and go to sleep.