Wednesday, November 24th
My Thanksgiving weekend started early when I logged off by 1:30 because I had all of my stuff done and why not? I put in my hours and logged off. I went into the bathroom to put my hair up and decided that I was done with my hair being that long, so I called the salon Celeste worked out to see if she had any available spots. The girl on the phone told me she did, and I had to hustle to be there by 2:15. I literally threw clothes on, shoved my feet into my shoes, grabbed my wallet, keys and a mask and was out the door in less than five minutes. I had no idea what traffic would be like so I was really hoping I could get there before my appointment time.
I got there with two minutes to spare. I was greeted by the front desk girl and within a few minutes Celeste walked me back, got the gown thingy on me and we got up to wash my hair. We chatted about a bunch of things because I haven't seen her in person in a while. She sat me down in the chair and cut away. I pretty much have had the same haircut for most of my life. She added layers and it was shorter but long enough to pull back in a ponytail. It was nice chatting with her while she cut my hair. I thanked her, paid and headed out to the Escape.
I stopped by the store to pick up some bread and other stuff before I went home. I had chatted with Ben about what we wanted for dinner, and he mentioned that we needed to go to Red Robins to use my free birthday burger. Last year, we didn't get to use it because of Covid and the shutdowns. I told him that sounded good, and I asked him if I should invite Doug, Erika and Zach and he said sure, let them know. I told Ben that we would meet him there since he'd be coming from work. Doug hopped into the Escape with me, and we headed to Hawks Prairie. Erika said they ate but they would join us and maybe order drinks and a snack.
We found a parking spot, which took a while, and we were seated right away for five people. Doug and I got drinks, Ben showed up and got his drink and then Erika and Zach showed up and ordered drinks and some appetizers.
Doug and Ben got burgers and I got chicken strips. We ate way too many fries and stayed for almost two and a half hours! It didn't matter because none of us had to go to work the next day because it was Thanksgiving.
We all went home. I started getting the house ready to host about 12 people for Thanksgiving and then realized I needed to go to Tumwater to take care of Alicia's dogs. It was good timing because I needed to organize Charlie's dog stuff, so it wasn't everywhere. I got to her house and made sure the chihuahuas went outside to go potty, that they had food and water. I gave them their treats and they went back into the garage until I came over the next day. I stopped by Fred Meyers for one of those three-tiered plastic bins for Charlie's things, got some socks for Amy (for Christmas) and went home.
I cleaned, arranged stuff, vacuumed and mopped the floor. I ended up going to bed late like I always do before a major holiday that Ben and I were hosting.
Thursday, November 25th
I set the alarm for 9:30 and it promptly went off at 9:30. I groaned and didn't want to get up. I knew I had to get up because the turkey needed to go in the cooker since it was 23 pounds and had to cook for about six hours.
Meanwhile, I made McMuffins for breakfast and everyone came out of their rooms and ate the morning football game was the Bears and Lions and that one was a very close low-scoring game. The Bears squeaked by winning 16-14.
Most of the day was spent finishing up the cleaning, putting the tables and chairs together, the decorations, resting in between each task and finally getting ready to make the rest of the food including the potatoes, stuffing, beans and such starting at around 3:30. We were pretty busy there for a while. The afternoon game was the Raiders and Cowboys and that game went into overtime and the Raiders prevailed by three.
Trish, Amy and Ed showed up a little bit early and Trish offered to help get stuff ready. The food was just about done when everyone started showing up around dinner time. We got all the food onto the dining room table, and we had quite the spread of food too.
We spent the next few minutes throwing as much food onto our plates as we could. In the background, we watched part of the Bills and Saints game as we ate and visited. I needed my quarterback to play well so I could win Fantasy Football that week. Bills easily beat the Saints by more than twenty points.
We cleaned up the table and got both the marble boards out. I had everyone bring quarters as we played a marble tournament. We played four games before people got tired and wanted to go home. I won two game which was nice. I was tired of losing games all the time. Everyone thanked Ben and I for a nice time and good food and left by 8:30 to head home. Trish and Amy had to work the next day and couldn't be home too late. Ben, Doug and I cleaned the house and washed the dishes, so we didn't have to do this the next morning when we didn't want to do anything.
We hung out for a while, put the house back together, I worked on my blog and watched Riverdale, they played their video games and stayed up so late that we went to bed pretty late as well. I didn't care, I really didn't have any plans the next day.
Friday, November 26th
I got up around 10ish, got my clothes on, did my bathroom stuff and ate a light breakfast. I loaded all the recycle up in the back of the Escape and Doug and I hopped in. Today was dump day and for some reason this task takes like all day. We took my recycle to the Rainier Transfer Station and then I dropped Doug off at Grammie and Grandpa's house with Dad. He and Dad were over there doing something neither of them wanted to do. Mimi, is Grammie and Grandpa's last pet that lives at home, and she wasn't doing too well. She is well over 15 years old, and her body gave out other day. She couldn't eat or move and was confined to her dog bed. She didn't have a quality of life anymore so Dad decided he needed to put her out of her misery, or she would suffer for days. He hates putting pets down. He did not want to do it, but we had to. We didn't have the extra money to take her to the vet to be put to sleep. Doug went over there to help Dad dig the hole. This was also something Doug didn't really want to do either.
Meanwhile, I went over to Mom and Dad's house to pick up the truck and Mom said I had to take a tool back over to Dad and Doug, so we found that and threw it in the back of the truck. I went over to Grandma's house to get her cans and then back to Grammie and Grandpa's house to drop the tool off. I drove back into Lacey to grab our cans and Ben had everything ready to load. We stopped by Doug's place to grab two of his cans and went to the "kingdom of dumps" or the Hawks Prairie Dump to get rid of our garbage. This was the third visit this month and we've gotten rid of over a thousand pounds of garbage. The wait wasn't as bad as I thought it would be the day after a major holiday. We were actually in and out at a decent time. It felt good to get rid of all that garbage.
Ben and I decided, since we were over here, to try and find the cache, Repurposed, Reimagined, Redefined - Three More R's (GC7VMA5), that was inside the park and ride portion of this complex. We parked the truck and found the correct staircase but there wasn't a cache there. The cache owner had replaced it back in October and we were the first people to search for it since there were no found logs since then. We should have found it right away, but I think it went missing again, so we had to DNF it. Bummer.
I dropped Ben and our cans off at home and went back into Rainier to drop off Grandma's cans and I gave her our new Kraken jerseys to sew the inaugural patches onto them. I told her I didn't really need them right away but by Christmas since that is what Ben was getting for Christmas. She said she could make that happen and I paid her $20 to do it. I went back to Mom and Dad's house to fill up the water jugs and to trade the truck for the Escape. I came home and then went and fed Alicia's dogs, did some chores, put Thanksgiving decorations away, did some laundry, showered, ate leftovers and watched part of the Apple Cup. This year we actually played well and won 40-13. It's been since the 2012 season since we've won it. It was a huge relief. We should have won it back in 2018 when we were ranked #10, had Minshew and had a 11-2 record.
I had an opportunity to go to a Kraken game and so I paid my friends Antoine and Nikki for the tickets through a Venmo/Ticketmaster transfer. Mom now owed me money. (See blog post: The Inaugural Season: My First Kraken game vs. Pittsburgh Penguins, for the complete story.)
I worked on my blog and watched Riverdale for the rest of the evening before giving up and going to bed.
Saturday, November 27th
I got up the next day around 10ish again and made some scrambled eggs, bacon and English muffins while we watched some college football. We hung out for a little bit in the living room, I filled out Ben's sleep study packet, so they know what they are looking for when he actually gets to do the sleep study.
Doug's dog, Charlie, was in serious need of a bath. He smelled really bad due to our wet, rainy fall weather we've been having. He told us that it took two people to do since Charlie was a baby about water. So, we all went into the bathroom and Doug held him while Ben and I soaped him up, rinsed him off and we all dried him with our raggedy towels. I spent the rest of the morning doing laundry.
Mom came over in the afternoon so we could get some shopping done. Craft day is next weekend and I wanted to make sure we had plenty of time to pick out our Christmas bulbs for the wreaths we were going to make. I talked Mom into coming and doing it with us because it's been a long time since she's attended one. The last one was probably back when we did the lighted Christmas tree paintings back in 2017. I can't believe it's been that long, and life was so different back then.
Our first place we stopped at to check for Christmas bulbs was Hobby Lobby. Nicole said they could have a bunch of different colors and sizes in packs of 50 or more. We would need about 60 different ornaments of different sizes to complete our wreath. I browsed the Christmas aisles and found a couple of things to bring home, but I just couldn't find the bulbs I was looking for. I was dead set on some sort of crimson and gray color combo, but they weren't selling them in those colors. I mean there were some but not enough to meet the amount we needed. We paid for our stuff and decided to drive to Hawks Prairie to see what that Walmart had to offer.
We parked, got our cart and perused the Christmas aisles...along with everyone else apparently. They had a lot of colors to choose from but not crimson and gray, so I had to pick another set of colors. I saw this really cool teal color and I paired it with silver. I found some smaller accent bulbs to go with it as well. Mom chose traditional green and red bulbs for her wreath and found some tinsel garland that would go with our bulbs. I think we were all set. We continued our regular shopping throughout the store.
We both needed to get some non-Christmas wrapping paper, so we went to the closest Dollar Tree which was over by the Safeway. We went in and Mom found some really cool bag stuffers for her office, so she got some of that, we both picked up some birthday wrapping paper and some other odds and ends for the upcoming holiday and birthdays we were going to be a part of. We drove back to my place, she helped me bring in my stuff and she headed home.
We all ate leftovers for dinner while college football was playing in the background for a while. Both Ben and Doug went and played their games and I worked on my blog for a while. I was seriously trying to get caught up. Since it was almost December and Monday was the first day for my elf on the shelf scenes, I went out to the garage to grab the bins of elf stuff. I spent some time organizing it and getting some ideas for the upcoming week as Sportscenter played on the TV. I went to bed shortly after.
Sunday, November 28th
We got up a little bit earlier today than we had the rest of the weekend. Doug had set up today so everyone could go over to the house so we could finish it today. He really wanted to get this done so he didn't have to think about it or deal with it anymore. He was done with Jenn and so were we. He needed to get his life back on track with someone who actually cares about him and doesn't isolate him from his friends and family.
Doug and I hopped into his car and headed over. Dad met us over there with the truck and trailer, and we spent part of the day raking up the rest of the leaves in the front and side yard. Of course, it was raining. It was gross. We loaded the rest of the stuff in the garage into Dad's trailer such as the BBQ, garbage cans and his tools and lawn mower. He and Doug had to fix the gutter in the back yard because Charlie ripped it off when he was on his dog tether at some point. Doug never bothered to fix it until now.
I convinced Mom to drive up so we could take the remaining stuff to the Goodwill so we didn't have to take it back to my house so it can sit for months and be in the way. I have so much stuff in my garage as it was anyway. Mom showed up just as I finished raking the leaves in the front yard. We told Dad and Doug what we were going to do and if they needed anything while we were out. They didn't and we loaded the rest of the Goodwill stuff in the back of the Expedition. Mom made me drive. When we got there, the only one open, again, was the one in the West Side. Of course, there was a line again but this time it went faster, and we were able to get done quicker. We stopped by Costco on the way home because I was out of paper towels. Mom dropped me off at home so I could dump off my stuff and she went home. Doug was here with Dad unloading the stuff into the garage from the trailer. Dad went home to go take care of his stuff he had to do the rest of the day.
Doug and I went back over to his house to take care of the last-minute finishing touches on it. Doug called the carpet guy, an agreement was made for the next day, Doug shut all the windows, turned off the heater, the lights and locked the doors. We left the place for the last time. This chapter will finally be over. Doug said that on his break tomorrow he was going to turn in the keys and get that stuff wrapped up. We went back to my house, and we had so much cleaning stuff in our garage it actually smells clean in there. I knew over the next few weeks, we will be going through a lot of Doug's boxes and organizing them.
We ate leftovers for dinner again and watched Sunday Night Football and the Ravens beat the Browns. We did a few loads of laundry, I worked on my blog for a little while and we all got ready for the work week. I was hoping this week would be easy and no weird hang ups.
Next Adventure: Cookies with Lindsay and Justin
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