You know it's almost Christmas when...

Top Ten Signs of How To Tell When It's Almost Christmas:

10. When the cashier at Walmart actually manages a smile when she says "Happy Holidays!" during a busy period.

9. When you rush out to get some Christmas cards to mail out to all the people who suddenly sent you one at the last minute.

8. When there are more pine needles in your carpet than on your tree.

7. When light displays on everyone's houses in the neighborhood convey the true meaning of competition.

6. When you bake up a couple dozen cookies to mix in and give away with all the other cookies everyone else gave you.

5. When you want to give fruitcake to all the people you don't like but you still have the fruitcake you got from them last year.

4. When thousands of soloists without enough musical talent to tune a kazoo are somehow invited to sing "O Holy Night" in public.

3. When the plastic light-up manger goes up on the roof of the local pub.

2. When TV specials get crazy ridiculous: "Charlie Brown and Frosty the Snowman Track the Grinch Who Stole Rudolph's Red Nose and Started All the Animals Talking when he Surgically Transplanted it on the Littlest Donkey."

And the #1 Sign of How To Tell When It's Almost Christmas:

When stores start advertising "Only 375 shopping days until next Christmas."

Random time for a random memory

What a moment to pull out a faded memory. My mother at one time was in the middle of a serious hobby in photography. By the time I arrived, mom had a 35 mm camera - a rather good one she used for color film & slides. Unfortunately, nearly 400 color slides were lost in 2005. I managed to scan the ones left in a metal box - something I had a hand in happening. The camera ended up getting broken & eventually destroyed, and us being a dependent family, didn't have the money for repairing it, among the many other things we didn't have money for.

But the things I remembered randomly were her having a light meter device. I remember a random device I played with but didn't know how it worked or what it was for. It's such an early memory I don't remember what it looked like. I don't know what happened to it. But I remember there was this thing & that had to be what it was after seeing a video online. I just can't pick out a light meter model & sadly Mom isn't here to identify them if she still even could.

Mom also had a photographer's film developing kit & it vanished after we moved from the Mount Jackson house. Some years later I figured out what I saw in the attic of a house my father owned. A family member was saying how he was going to get to use it when he got older & Mom used to talk about her developing kit on occasion which got taken from her. I finally put the 2 things together some years ago. It could have been the same thing. A shame my mom gave up her hobby to raise a family. It wasn't the only thing she abandoned for a family. She had an X-ray Technician certificate at one point.

Delight & Despair at the store

Went out today to grocery shop at Walfart while it wasn't snowing or below freezing today to get hopefully enough supplies for hopefully the rest of the month before it snowed again (which it did) & then went below freezing... Doritos / Cheetos had advertised their NKD varieties on Facebook  - Doritos & Cheetos without artificial dyes, etc, and then you saw the crowd of "Ewww, seed oils..." & my thought was "You guys grew up eating all that stuff & never complained and you listen to a few Toktik influenzas & suddenly you think you have a problem??" I really wanted a bag of regular Doritos NKD but all people left was Cool Ranch & I find that flavor gross. But if there was another flavor other than Flaming Hot Cheetos, I couldn't tell - but I like Flaming Hot anyway, as can be seen in Flaming Hot Dill Pickle Cheetos... 

AND THEN I FOUND KELPO!! As well as another new flavor of Pebbles cereal! And the best discovery of the trip - DiRusso Italian Sausage patties returned! As could be seen, tis a popular product as it was nearly sold out. Got me a new box & decided to have the one still in my freezer for supper. It's been in there for 6 months (Best by date was in June!), still cooked up fine. Got the last bag of Shredded Queso & bless the person who moved my favorite Chicken Smoked Sausage off the top shelf to near the bottom. I needed 3 for crockpot dried beans recipes. 

There were 4 products I did not find at all 😢  - Egg Nog ice cream, Peppermint hot cocoa, Hostess Hot Cocoa cupcakes (they had them in but was obviously sold out dangit), and Peppermint Mocha Oreos. I did find Reese's filling Oreos but I decided I'm making cookies anyway with walnuts & toffee pieces. Didn't see any insane crazy Reese's products like last year ($30 bucket anyone). But got Mint M&Ms. 

So glad I got out to hopefully stock up on foodstuffs. Now I got my cat's teeth to deal with.