What a year, eh? It’s been crazy, but I’m still blessed and thankful, content without another thing. If I don’t try to make a list, though…you know the rest…so here goes.

I’m postponing my birthday this year. The 23rd is my host’s 90th birthday, and we’re going to celebrate as big as 2020 and stroke and rehab allow us. The 24th is my coworker’s wedding day, and that will be as big a celebration as 2020 and COVID and vulnerable people can handle. So this year, I’m going to be {?} years old just one week longer.

I’m liking the new (to me) Subaru, and it’s at the top of my wish list. “Deep dish” floor mats, please, to keep at least some of the snow & salt off of the grey carpets. A steering wheel cover, black or grey, in the same style I had on the Camry – Walmart, I think. Handy watering holes are Marathon, Speedway, and Pilot. It drinks a bit more than the Camry did.

When I head to the big city, twice a week now, I tend to swing through Taco Bell, Arby’s, Culver’s, and definitely Chik-fil-A. With more time, I like to stop in at Chuy’s for their chips and creamy jalapeno, and whatever catches my eye in the menu. Shopping is mostly at the Dollar General in town, Wal-Mart and Aldi’s in the next town over, and Meijer when I’m picking up 90-day prescriptions. The Aldi’s near our office closed, bummer, but Wal-Mart, Meijer, GFS, and Sam’s are in close range.

My home, as you know, doesn’t really have space for more decorations – most of my lovelies are still in storage, along with linens, kitchen tools, manly tools, and more than two wardrobes worth of clothes. There may be another move before next October, and you recall my goal is a custom towable tiny house. Plans include display nooks and storage spaces, but 8x24x10 can only hold so much.

Hmm… looks like a pair of house socks could be replaced – fuzzy & warm, but not too hot, and not actual slippers so they’re flexible for being curled up or slept in. I have several pairs of slippers – they just seem too much like shoes – I like the fuzzy socks better.

Speaking of curling up… the Kendrick brothers released a new movie, Overcomer – it’s not in my collection, yet <wink>.

As always, tissues in the cubes – although, the Subaru compartments are a bit smaller… I’m sure I saw some mini-cube tissue boxes at the dollar store, just before I discovered that I’d need them. Haven’t seen ’em since – ain’t that the way? I’ll be stitching up some solutions – I’m a descendant of my grandpa, after all – creating solutions is what we do.

About stitching – I learned something neat recently, and would like to try it out. It calls for a triangle template for rotary-cutting 45 or 60 degree triangles. I don’t have one of those yet, but I do have everything else. Oh, and I’m all set for quilt books & patterns — I think you cleaned the elves out last year.

Burt’s Bees tinted lip-balm, in the skinny tube, rhubarb or watermelon. Colors shouldn’t matter with all the mask wearing these days, but when I’m in an online meeting from my home office, I don’t stay behind the mask.

Healthy crunchy snacks. Gotta keep the salt & sugar down or start working out with the reindeer. Oh, speaking of that, a digital scale would be nice. Bonus if it will sync to Android, but I’m capable of typing numbers and would prefer something low profile and not hyper-sensitive to being moved.

I recently bought a bottle of 500 daily vitamins, so I’m good to go for a while. B-complex, Potassium, and Co-Q-10 supplies are a bit lower. Slim-fast powder (Chocolate Royale) is another regular. The pre-mixed bottles have sucralose in them, so I’d rather not have those. Bummer, too, since they’ve got some other flavors that would be nice if not for that. Ohhh…flavor… I’m out of Lady Grey tea bags. I think it’s a blend unique to Twinings, generally found it at Wal-Mart, but the shelf’s been empty of it lately. I have plenty of mint tea and hot chocolate mix, as well as plenty of sweetener.

My supply of canned mushrooms is dwindling, and I’m not sure what my kitchen life will look like between now & Spring. Italian Wedding soup is great for cold winters, I really don’t enjoy chicken noodle. A little more Uncle Chris’ seasoning would be nice. Not Chuck’s Hot Stuff, mind you, but the savory Chris’ mix. Looking forward to making Roy’s cranberry salad — that’s cranberries, walnuts, mandarin oranges, crushed pineapple, and strawberry jello mix. My folks might have a supply of cranberries and walnuts in the freezer already. Another common item, for me, is brown minute rice – handy stuff, that. I go ga-ga over grapefruit, but a recently added medicine forbids it – sad day.

I haven’t worked all the puzzles you got me last year – seems I don’t think of them when I have a suitable block of time. I have, however, played the games – my host’s family has been visiting regularly, you know how this year’s gone. We’re hoping he can come out of the rehab facility soon, but until then, something we could play vertically through a window would be nice. It would have to rest independently on a 4″ stone windowsill, lowest need-to-see point at 6″ above the feet, and a thin wedge to keep it level (sill is sloped for rain runoff). Oh, and the window design has decoration every…either 9 or 12 inches… he’s been in a different ward for COVID/pneumonia recovery, so I haven’t been at the “normal room” window in a while.

We’ve done well with Yahtzee, but it’s a lot to juggle, especially when the cat’s nearby (which is often). Maybe if oversize dice could be dropped in a chute & land in a plexi-tunnel, and possible scores were on spinners, one column for 1-6 and 1 column for 3oK, 4oK, FH, Yaht, & Chance… (and another pair of columns for second player) …who knows? Something like that might be a hit next year! Then again, we’re hoping to have him home before his birthday – but that wish is in bigger hands than yours.

Hey – something else I learned recently… you’ve heard of the 5 Love Languages, right? They have a website, 5lovelanguages.com, where you can answer a survey and get a report of your personal love-language makeup. Turns out, and you won’t be surprised, Gifts ranked lowest on my results – only 3%. The highest one, at 33%, is Quality Time – which explains why several of my pursuits are more about the socialization than the thing itself. The other three came in at 20-23%. Apparently I’m well balanced, but definitely put more stock in building memories than gathering stuff. Now you know I really mean it when I say I’m only giving a list for guidelines because I realize others have a different love language makeup. Mom’s, I’d wager a candy-bar, is gifts…I’ll try to do better about remembering that. Not sure what Dad’s is – think you could convince him to take the survey & tell me??

Ok Santa – here’s hoping you & the elves aren’t tangled up in all the earthy nonsense we’ve got going on. Lucky for you, nature & illness & riots & politics are matters for much bigger hands than yours, and we know God’s got that covered. I tell ya, the section of Handel’s Messiah that quotes “The government will be upon His shoulders” has a whole new meaning for me these days. We’ll all sing hallelujah then.