Dear.......

............retailers and corporations in general,

Holidays have been set aside as a time to spend with family and friends. They were NOT set aside to enable you to acquire more of the almighty dollar. I would like to be having Thanksgiving dinner with my family today but since two of them are required to work today I will be staying home. What I will NOT be doing is visiting any of your establishments. I will do NO shopping of any kind today.

You may not realize it, but the public's spending money is finite. Our pocketbooks are not bottomless. We may shop every other day of the week but please leave our holidays alone. We want to spend them with our families.

And to those of you who do utilize retail stores on a national holiday, (and shame on you), please keep in mind a simple fact. If you assume that all the people you see working on that particular holiday are happy to do so and are receiving special extra holiday pay for doing so - please THINK AGAIN. There are many, many, establishments (including my place of work) who are open on most major holidays and compensate their employees for working those holidays NOT AT ALL. So, no, we're not happy to be at work. In fact we're saddened that our holidays with our families are regarded as unimportant by our employer.

You can support your fellow workers by NOT supporting their open businesses today. Take away the reason for retailers to stay open on the holidays. Buy your gas, your groceries, your last minute items the day before.

Or - gasp - DO WITHOUT!




OK, enough said.


Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!!!

Window pictures

The view from our back door.

It won't last long.







And the view from our spare bedroom window.

Jelly Bean and Ginger wonder why I won't let them in.

Halloween Decor

Browsing the internet I found these two ideas for outdoor Halloween decorations:






(Witch instructions here)













Here are the versions Kim and I developed:










I had all the equipment except for the mask and the white sheets so it wasn't too expensive.

The witch gives a little trouble staying upright (she likes napping I guess), especially with Mondays storm which caused power outages across town including here.

Wish the ghosts could have been taller. But overall I'm happy with the result.

The skeleton faces are river rocks I painted years ago and bring out from the garage every Halloween. Same with the two fake pumpkins; cut out years ago.

Hope everyone has a great Halloween.