Sunday and Coffeecake and a Cookie Exchange Party

I woke up at nearly 4:00AM this morning. Once again, I had slept through the night.

I checked my e-mail right after I got out of bed. I had not had any additional news from my classmates but one couple offered to print off and mail the 62 that have to go out in snail mail. That was wonderful of them! If I had not already had Leslie offer to get that done at Four County, I would probably let them do that. But I also had all the envelopes already printed. I thanked them warmly but explained the situation to them. If I ever get to the place where I can no longer do the letter, I will turn it over to Dennis and Trini.

Over 21 years ago Shirley Gottschalk Bartlett turned it over to me.  I had it a few years before that but designed the letterhead and format a little later. John Wade came up with the name "The Coffee Grinder". At that time I began numbering them on the letterhead. This year's letter is number 21 but I had it several years before that and just sent it off as an ordinary Christmas letter at that time. And for several years the printing was done at a print shop but that got way too expensive.

Today I will bake my coffeecake and take that to church for the Church School class. After church we will probably eat out somewhere and then I will come back home and pick up my cookies at about 2:30PM and head out to John and Leslie's. I plan to take my Christmas gifts out to them at that time and put them under their huge tree. But I am also thinking of having a small get together Christmas Eve here at the apartment like I did last year. I could serve eggnog and cider and make a cranberry bread to serve. I will approach Leslie about that at church today. Also sometime Christmas Eve day, I will need to pick up my pie at Tyro.

Christmas morning I will put together Bob's fruit salad and a casserole dish. Cyndi says she is doing a green bean dish so it may be corn casserole instead of green bean casserole. I will take those as well as the pie out to John and Leslie's for Christmas dinner there. It is nine days until Christmas now. I sent out a bunch of Christmas cards with my own Christmas letter inside most of them yesterday. I actually got a lot done yesterday and even found time to take Missy out a couple of times.

I even thought about trying to get all those leaves bagged up for the trash people but then I thought about my arm and decided against it. Besides, I had an awful lot to do yesterday without raking and bagging up leaves. Sometimes I forget about my 83 years. 😀

Bob A. is taking his girlfriend and her daughter out to eat Christmas  at "Just Us". Kay will be having another Christmas dinner just like she did on Thanksgiving. 

More later...It's nearly 5:00AM and I need to get dressed and eat breakfast...and, oh yes, feed that cat.

Got all that done and even have the coffeecake baked. As soon as it's cooled, I will ice it.

Bob A. is going to drive himself to church. He is leaving church early to help Joanne bake cookies for the cookie exchange at John and Leslie's this afternoon at 3:00PM.  I will attempt to get Phyllis to let me drive since I have the coffeecake. She may insist she drives. I will see.

No, Phyllis let me drive but insisted she would drive next week. 

I will need to make a list of ingredients for the Christmas dinner part I am doing. I will need chopped apples, halved grapes, chopped pecans, chopped celery, and raisins.  I toss all that with mayonnaise. That's how my Bob always did it. If I make corn casserole too I will need eggs, butter, a pkg of dry cornbread mix, a can of whole kennel corn and a can of creamed corn, sugar and sour cream.

I will check with Leslie about the corn casserole.

If I do Christmas Eve, I will need the cranberry cake mix, and cider and  Braums eggnog.

More later..I need to ice the coffee cake.

After church Karan and Phyllis and I went over to "Just Us" to eat lunch. Afterward I took the girls home and said I would be back at 2:40PM to pick them up to take them to John and Leslie's cookie exchange party. On the way home, Scott called. He was at a movie that upset him and he just needed to talk to me. I think he just realized from the movie how tenuous life really is. I will not go see that movie. I am well aware of how tenuous life really is. That becomes apparent the older we get. I am so blessed to have my good health.

Probably a dozen people showed up at the cookie exchange and we all had a good visit. About 5:00PM or so, I suggested we leave and Phyllis and Karan and I gathered up our boxes of cookies in the exchange and said our goodbyes. I was very tired and I think Phyllis was too.

I got home in time to feed Missy her soft food and treats and I took my bath and got my PJ's on about 6:30PM and Missy and I watched 60 Minutes on TV before I turned to Amazon Prime and watched some more episodes of Dr. Henry's Lees career of being the foremost blood splatter expert and also a genius at using the evidence for a reenactment of the crime to discover how that evidence leads up to arrests. Those episodes are very interesting.

About 9:30PM, Missy and I went to bed. It was another of those huge days.