Peppermint Ice Cream

One of our Christmas traditions is to get peppermint ice cream. It's hard to find, however. Sometimes we can find it at Braum's, but they sell out fast. We have Bluebell this year, it's pretty good. As I recall, Mom loved it and always bought it when she could find it. Possibly it's one of Froggy's favorites as well? Anyway, I just had some and it was wonderful! Bill doesn't care for it, so that means that there is more for me and the Otter to eat! He's not left out, we got him some other ice cream that he likes. We'll even help him eat it!

We're going to have a lumberjack day on Wednesday. The tree by the mailbox, the one next to the street, is coming down! So my plans for Wednesday will possibly include a trip to the ER for another Bill adventure. We hope not, but with Bill it's always a good idea to be prepared for all contingencies. So watch this space!

Otter and I went shopping today, on a very limited basis. We hit a thrift store, and now I finally have a full set of coffee mugs that go with my everyday dishes. She found a skirt and a book. We went to the grocery store for a few things and to get Bill's ice cream. But we avoided Wallyworld and the mall. Which is a good thing, we had to drive past the mall to get to the ice cream place and the traffic was horrific. We also went to Michael's, Otter found a book about t-shirts and how to make other items of clothing out of them. Finally, she was willing to clean out her closet and get rid off all the outgrown t-shirts! We also cleaned out her sock drawer and pj drawer. Most of her socks still fit, but she's down to just a few pairs of pjs.

We're all off this coming week. I'm so happy that I don't have to get up and go to work tomorrow! We are not planning on going anywhere tomorrow, Christmas eve is not a day I want to be faced with traffic. I think we're going to just hang around the house, and there is some house cleaning that we'll be doing. The dogs were apparently bored with the color of the ceramic tiles in the kitchen so they redecorated them for me. They did a bang-up job of it, too - they first went out in the soggy, muddy back yard and did some excavation work. Then they came back inside and made a paw-print mosaic! Thoughtful, aren't they? Unfortunately, they didn't quite get all the mud off of their feet before they hit the carpeted areas of the house.

We had some snow yesterday, but not that much. It all melted today. It was pretty cold yesterday, we stayed in and in front of the fireplace most of the day. When the dogs were not outside or being artistic in the kitchen, they were snoozing in front of the fireplace. They figured out pretty quickly where to park on the floor so that they get the full benefit of the heater when it's on, and now they've staked out their spots in front of the fireplace. And they don't appreciate it when they have to move so Bill can bring in more wood!

Frasier has now perfected his technique for stealing the blankets. We spent a lot of time yesterday with assorted blankets on the couch. Frasier will act like he wants to be petted, but the entire time he'll be using one foot to pull a little bit of the blanket down at a time, staring the person petting him in the face the entire time, until he's got all of it! Smart dog, and sneaky as well. Maggie is not as sneaky, she just waits until one of us sits down and covers up and then she will lie down on our feet. Which usually causes us to move our feet and when the blanket hits the floor, she'll pounce!

I hear banging sounds from the vicinity of the living room. I'd better go see what Bill's up to!