A pile of bits.

I had a call last night at 11:08 PM.  I had been in bed since 9 PM since I was dog tired.  It was my friend, Cj.  I knew that she was in Pennsylvania visiting with her dad and family since her dad's health had taken a bit of a turn.  Turns out that while she was holding his hand, he started having a heart attack.  He wasn't strong enough to undergo any type of testing or anything to really help.  They gave him some morphine.  I talked with her and prayed with her. 

This morning at 7:20 AM, the phone rang.  It was Cj.  Her dad passed away at 6:00 AM.  I told her that I knew it.  I woke up then and just knew. 

As for Cj, she's holding up okay.  Daddio was an important person to her.  They were able to talk in his final hours.  He was able to make some "stuff" statements to them, as well as to tell everyone how much he loved them. 

I'm so sad for them.

While I was talking with Cj, she realized that we weren't shuttling around getting ready for school.  "Conference compensation day." 

K- was home today and we didn't leave the home front at all. There was so much running and doing that I absolutely needed to not go anywhere.  I made a crock pot of chicken vegetable alphabet noodle soup and that's what we had for dinner.   It was legal tender for Hubs and he was thrilled.

He had a rather tough day.

Hubs is a public servant.  The public is sometimes not so nice.  His day started with a lady yelling at him because the craft that was out for kids to do was lacking a few pieces.  She helped herself to their office and went scouring the place for the thing that she wanted, then was going to haul off and cut up the original.  She was mad that a pair of pointy kid Fiskers was in the basket with the blunt end scissors.  He had a man fall on the trail and smack his head.  He came in the door to get assistance, tripped over the threshold and smacked his head on the floor.  He was bleeding and Hubs attended to his needs.  EMS was called, the guy was okay and wasn't transported.  My husband was left to clean up the hazmat scene. 

Add to all that the fact that he is wiped out from the weekend and with his health issues, it takes him some time to recover. 

Tomorrow he will be setting up a rather extensive bird feeding area at one of their visitor centers only to have the area moved later in the new year to make room for a possible extension to the building.  Rrr.  He's just not going to cement anything into the ground.  They'll back fill and hope that the feeders don't heave in the winter.

A nice thing is that the city was able to come during waking hours to tend to the city leaf clean-up that they had scheduled for Tuesday.  I really dislike it when they do it in the middle of the night.  You have street sweepers, men with leaf blowers, men with rakes, a leaf scooper front end thing and a dump truck.  Each time one of the vehicles backs up, it beep-beep-beeps very loudly.  It seems almost louder at night.  So, we are THRILLED! that our sleep will not be interrupted by leaf clean-up.  That is a very good thing.

Another great thing?  It is 7:28 PM and my windows are still open.  Frankly, that is rather amazing for NE Ohio.  It was nice to clean the house today, have the windows open and have K- playing outside in a short sleeved shirt, capri's and flip flops. 

A fantastic thing to add to the list is that the NYC laundry is done.  I have to bake the back packs in the dryer, but the laundry is washed, double dried (dry, wash, dry) and almost all put away.  Sad thing?  We've encountered some shrinkage with K-'s clothing.  Considering that I did everything I could to avoid any infestation of the bed bug nasties, I'll take a little shrinkage.

After I did some housekeeping, K- and I sat down and watched Mary Poppins.  We did a bit of compare and contrast to the musical.  I may or may not have closed my eyes and watched the backside of my eye lids for a few moments or more. 

I ordered K- a great little necklace on Etsy.  It will be one of her three Christmas gifts from Santa.  In this case, Mrs. Claus will have made it for her.  ;)

Though our day started with a sad loss, we've accomplished much.  We hope that you've had as great of a day!

Smiles in my day:
-  Sprinkled in above.