Froggy?

You there?  I haven't blogged since the 7th and you have not been bugging me.  What's up?

Otter and Bill have switched cars although the titles have not been changed yet.  We were going to do that one day last week but we realized that the state never actually sent us the title to the 02 when we put it in Otter's name.  They don't show that it was delivered and returned, just that it was changed in the computer and they did send us a receipt.  But we never got the actual title, so we had to request another one be sent.  $13.00 and it should still be a few days, then we'll get the car titles switched around.  The insurance has already been taken care of, the 02 and 08 were basically the same as far as the premium was concerned, and the insurance company has transferred them so we are paying for the appropriate vehicle, but we are also all authorized drivers on each other's cars.

The 08 still has a recall issue with Chevy, which I'm going to take care of during the time I'm off after Christmas.  Chevy will make a minor change on the key itself and it has to be the official Chevy key, so the 02 is still and will continue to be out of lock as far as that particular recall is concerned.  I still think Chevy is trying to welch out of paying out any more money than they have to!

I'm happy with the new car.  When we bought it, the 2nd set of keys did not get transferred to the Tulsa office so we only got one set.  The 2nd set was sent to them and I picked it up last Saturday.  Bill now has a set, but he still hasn't driven it!

But now we all have safe cars with good tires.  Which will be important, if we ever actually get that wet & heavy winter that was forecasted to have hit us already.  Monday, actually had to use the a/c in the car.

I decided that we need a Christmas tree this year.  The plan was to get one of the artificial trees out of the attic, but that would mean moving about a billion pachinko machines out of the way of the attic access in the garage.  Ain't nobody want to do that!  (Yes, I know.  My TEXAN is showing.  Deal with it.)  So, I picked Otter up one day and we went to Hobby Lobby.  I bought a 4 1/2' artificial tree, ornament hooks, a couple of ornaments I liked and a 4-pack of plain stockings.  I forgot lights so I got some at Walmart but then I had to go back and exchange them for a smaller string!  I put the tree together last week and it's now in the living room with a crocheted lap blanket I made for Otter a few years back as a tree skirt.  I had a bunch of ornaments to turn into an ornament wreath, the majority of the ornaments on the tree are from that particular craft stash.

It's on a small plastic table that we usually use as a plant stand.

The lap blanket/tree skirt that is folded around the tree and not allowed to hang down the sides because of this:

She's also the reason that there are no presents under the tree yet!  We don't do a lot of gift giving anyway, so I don't shop until a lot closer to Christmas.  But I did get a little bit of candy to go in the stockings.

I think I've posted this before:

Baby Bevo and the Texas crew!  They are in the small wooden rocking chair that was Otter's when she was a toddler.  The crocheted piece is the only piece of crochet that Otter has ever done, I taught her how and she did enjoy it but it isn't really her thing.  Which is fine, actually.  Anyway, I tied the end off so it won't come undone, put it in Baby Bevo's hand with a plastic crochet hook and the Texas Crew is accompanied by Crickey the crocodile, which is Otter's and mine and is from many years ago.  Crickey stays underneath the rocking chair, although at the moment he is also out of beagle reach and is sitting on top of the futon.

Today I discovered the yellow yarn ball was not where I left it.  It was in the bed Maggie has in the yarn room!  And it did NOT get there by itself.  The beagle is claiming to "no nuzzing" but I kind of have a hard time believing her!  I put it back in place, found the crochet hook (it had landed under the futon) and then I turned the entire chair around so that it's facing away from the beagle's bed and is a little harder for her to reach.

Otter texted me today.  Her next door neighbors are moving out and they offered her a futon.  She immediately said yes, and they even helped her get it into her apartment.  So she now has a couch and also a place for visitor's to sleep.  And probably still a pile of boxes that have been unpacked but not taken to the recycling center yet, which is probably still next to a pile of boxes that have not been unpacked yet!  Mostly her craft stuff is still waiting to be unpacked.  She's pretty much unpacked everything else and she has plenty of room in the 1-bedroom apartment, now that it 's just her.  She has not heard from Roomie, which is about what we expected.  Nobody is disappointed at that.  We were surprised that Roomie went backwards like she did, but in hindsight is is probably not surprising.  We're just glad that it wasn't worse, although I think everybody does feel sorry for the girl because she had a chance at being an adult and having a good, emotionally healthy life but she chose not to take that opportunity.

Bill is taking a few vacation days in addition to his nearly 2 weeks of holiday time and I'm taking the rest of my vacation at Christmas like I usually do.  He's probably going to spend most of his time working on pachinko machines, my main project (other than sleeping late and shopping!) is to work on my crocheted doily curtain.  Along with turning 53 2 days after Christmas.  Maggie's plan for our time off probably includes as many walks as possible, if the weather cooperates.

That is, when she's not napping!