Outside My Window ~ 11.21.10
Outside My Window…is another beautiful day in the neighborhood. 🙂 At 12:20 p.m., we have already hit our forecast high temperature of 62°F with a light wind, sunshine and blue skies. Forecast today is for the temperature to drop down to about 55°F by six with mid to low 40’s tonight. For the rest of the week, very nice until Thursday when they are predicting a few showers. Folks waiting in line at the ungodly hours that stores open on black Friday may get wet with showers and wind forecast for that day. I will not be shopping on Friday although I may take my oldest daughter in to work again. Last year was cold, wet and windy and there were still plenty of people so I doubt this year will be any different.
I am thinking…the plan they set up for the mall employees this year has its good points and bad points. This year they have been instructed to park at the airport and catch a shuttle to work on black Friday. The airport isn’t that far from the mall actually….but the shuttle will have to contend with all the traffic in and around the mall to get back and forth. For someone to get to work, they will have to factor in a lot of extra time to go to the airport, park, board and ride the shuttle back to the destination they select for drop off. If that drop off point isn’t so close to your place of employment, you are going to have to walk that extra distance. Getting back to your car can be a lengthy process as well because you will have to wait for the shuttle which will then have to maneuver out of the parking lot and back through the traffic around the mall. Of course this doesn’t even take into account that if you miss one shuttle you have to wait for the next ~ provided they have a small fleet of these things running all day long so the wait isn’t a long one. For the people that have to be to work at 4:30 and 5:00 a.m. (or dark o’clock as I like to refer to it), this will be a royal pain…..they will have to get up that much earlier to allow for the arrival sequence I outlined above. I don’t see this benefiting them all that much. Not to mention the shoppers who could once snag a prime spot when they happened upon an employee leaving as they circled the lots….they won’t have that luck this year. The ones who will probably benefit the most from this arrangement is the employees that come in for the afternoon shifts…..but even that could be dicey because by that time traffic at and around the mall will be totally nuts. I think I will be taking my oldest to work again this year and more than likely picking her up ~ that is unless someone she knows picks her up. While the shuttle plan sounds like a good idea, and will open up that many more parking spaces to potential shoppers….it could be nightmare for the employees.
I am thankful…for many things at the moment….it is hard to narrow one specific thing down today.
From my kitchen…is a pot of chili for dinner tonight. Right now I’m enjoying a glass of cold blackberry-sage iced tea and debating on what I would like for lunch. Flatbread is sounding pretty tasty right now. 🙂
I am creating…a plan of what I want to get accomplished during my upcoming 5 day weekend. I know I will be putting up the Christmas tree and decorations but there are a few other things I would like to get accomplished. I have discovered in my advancing years, it helps if I make a plan for myself. I would like to be ready for the holidays this year without last minute confusion and rushing around ~ there are only 33 more days until Christmas folks!! Yikes!
I am going…to drive by a car lot and look at a possible vehicle for Cailin today. We went to Virginia Beach yesterday to check out one but it wasn’t what she had hoped for. All was not lost, we took the opportunity to use a gift card and stopped by The Cheesecake Factory for dinner. The food was pretty good, but I think I prefer their desserts over their meals. While we were eating, I noticed the flashing lights of a patrol car reflected in a mirror. I commented to Cailin that someone must have gotten pulled over….or there had been an accident out front. When we left the building, I realized how wrong I was ~ the patrol car was blocking off the street for a Christmas parade….and that could have been a good thing, except it was the street we had come in on. Although I grew up in Virginia Beach, this area of town is fairly new and definitely new to me…so much has changed, I had no clue as to how we would get back to where we needed to be. Luckily Cailin was my co-pilot and after we found our way out of the other side of the parking garage, she maneuvered us down the right streets so we were back on the interstate in a flash. I was having a hard time locating landmarks and she picked up on them right away….that’s my girl!
I am hoping…that all of you who celebrate Thanksgiving has a wonderful day. I’m personally looking forward to enjoying a wonderful dinner with my mom and family. And speaking of that….check out this photograph I have of one of our family Thanksgiving’s years ago. There is no date noted on the photograph, but I can tell you that my younger brother in this image is not too many years from 50 now and well before the birth of my younger sister.
I am hearing…the ticking of my many clocks….my wind chimes singing to me…..my stomach grumbling for Flatbread.
Around the house…partial cleaning chaos….my laundry to wash and dry….a whole bunch of leaves covering my little backyard…inside plants to water.
Plans for the week include…working two days then five days off! Woooo Hoooo! Thanksgiving dinner at my mother’s house….decorating the house and Christmas tree….and me completing a few unfinished projects. I’m hopeful!
One of my favorite things…five days off from work….five days….five whole days! Sweeeeeet! 🙂
A picture I’d like to share with you…an image I want to share with my maternal familial…the Sanderlin Homestead back in the day. This taken from the loft in the barn….the absolute coolest place to hang out when you were a kid! This was a house filled with so much love, so much happiness and so much good food! It wasn’t a fancy house….it had small rooms with stairs so steep that at times you felt like you were climbing a sloping ladder. A house that was heated by a wood stove in the family room that everyone would gather around on cold days. That same room was later cooled by one window air conditioner on summer days. Summer evenings were spent rocking in the rocking chairs on that screened in porch, listening to the sounds of the night. And you were so grateful for those screens because of the enormous amount of mosquitoes on the other side. There were chickens and cows to feed….eggs to gather…trees to climb….fields and woods to explore. There were rides on the tractor as Grandaddy worked in the fields. There were old kitchens and old smokehouses filled with old stuff to explore ~ and sometimes you walked down the country road to the really old two story house just around the corner and went exploring in there. I am so thankful for times I spent at this house….for the time I spent with my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins…and for all the memories I have of those wonderful days back on this farm. Sometimes what I wouldn’t give to go back in time for just a little while and relive one of those days way back when.
