The End of the Holidays

I spent some time today putting away my various and sundry Christmas bits.  It's always hard to remember what I had where - both with the stuff I'm putting away and with the stuff that I then have to put back into my everyday "decor".  I managed to find a place for everything though, but I have yet to find one picture that I put away during the holidays - can't imagine what I would have done with it ...  Oh, and I just now remembered - I need to "undecorate" my dollhouses too!

Anyway, my very long Christmas post got me through to the Tuesday after Christmas so I'll finish up now.  Wednesday, I went back to Chris's apartment and he was still there because he had ended up being able to stay home (working from home) the entire week after Christmas which made him a happy camper.  We had planned to spend New Year's Eve with January and Maggie but Maggie has been having rehearsals for a stage play she's managing for what seems like forever and since New Year's Eve was one of the very few nights she was actually going to have free, they decided to opt out and do their own thing.  So I told Chris I would fix him a pot roast dinner.  He was going to a movie in the afternoon with a couple of friends and asked them if they'd like to join us and they did.  Fortunately, the pot roast was one of the good ones - they mostly are, but when I'm making one for non-family I'm always worried the meat will be tough or something.  But we ate it all up except for a few potatoes so apparently everyone was happy with it.  Then we watched the movie "Mixed Nuts" which our family has watched every year on Christmas Eve but not this year.

I'm embarassed to admit that I can't really remember what we did Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  Chris and I "puttered" to make a start at getting his guest room/office a little more useable.  I don't think we got too far, but I've told him I'll expect a progress report every now and then!  Friday ( I think it was) we had lunch at a Pot Belly's (is that the right name?) and I had a really delicious sandwich.  And Saturday (I think it was) we got together with January and Maggie for dinner at a micro-brewery place downtown and I can't remember what I had.  Good grief - my short term memory must be really short - this was only about 10 days ago!

Well, whatever I can or can't remember, it was a wonderful holiday from beginning to end - left me feeling all warm and lovey.

I drove home to wild and wonderful West Virginia on Monday and never in all the many, many times I've made the trip over and back, have I ever seen so little traffic on the roads.  Even I-81, which every time I go over there, I have to call someone from the car and say "I hate I-81!" was easy-peasy going.  So that was nice.  Somewhere in WV it started snowing a little - just enough to keep the windshields permanently dirty.  And I took a few more pictures of the hills in winter since I've posted pictures before of the hills at other times of the year.  I saw a hillside with probably at least 10 or 12 deer on it and wished I could have got a picture of that, but I was past them too quickly.

Anyway, here are the hills of West Virginia in the winter:

Very black and white and very cold, but I think very beautiful...

And it's still cold here - made it up to 21 today, but gosh it's been cold - ever since I got home.  This coming week (around Wednesday) temperatures are supposed to warm up some and I'll be ready.