After Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has passed and the Christmas season has begun. Here are a few things we have been doing for the past week.

Thanks to all who responded to my Thanksgiving E-card entitled “Pies.” It seems much of the Thanksgiving meal centers around pies; we are no exception. Here is a photo of the pumpkin pie Pam baked for us:

Thanksgiving Pie

Normally Pam bakes a rhubarb pie as well but no rhubarb was to be found locally this year. Bummer.

During the weekend that followed we put up our outside decorations. We will never win a prize but it is nice to have some Christmas lights on when we get home after work. Pam puts up a large garland complete with bows and lights while I put lights up on the garage eve and front of the house.

Garland and bows

Front of house decorations

Inside decorations will be going up in the next few days. We are going to get a small tree and hope the cats (5 in house) and the 3 dogs won’t destroy it.

We found a ‘new’ used car; a 2004 Toyota RAV4. I had gone over to Grand Junction last Saturday and located 3 potential cars; this past Monday Pam went with me for test drives. We picked this particular vehicle even though it is a bit older than we had planned mostly on the basis of removable back seats and a fairly well-documented service history. The car was a local trade and not from an auction. We will be picking it up later today (Saturday) and I will take photos of it for the next post. The car needs some cosmetic work (front bumper cover and spare tire cover) and we will address these things as we move along.

I have mentioned, in past posts, that our local grocery store has a ‘fuel points’ reward program. Each purchase contributes to the fuel point total, earning a discount on gasoline purchases. Last month we hit 1000 points, $1.00 per gallon discount, and I redeemed those points yesterday. Gasoline cost 87 cents per gallon after the discount. Purchase is limited to 35 gallons; in addition to filling the car I took my gas cans along and got the limit.

$.87 per gallon with discount

It was kind of unreal to see the gallon figure higher than the dollar amount as I was pumping the fuel. Too bad this is not the case every time we need to fill up!

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:

The weeks before Christmas are, I feel, a struggle between what has to be done (going to work) and what I would rather be doing (writing out Christmas cards, decorating the house and baking). Will that change after retirement? Hope so.

I have nothing good to say about “pre-owned vehicle” shopping.  Fields has scheduled an appointment in a few weeks for the RAV4 with our foreign car shop to (thoroughly) check out the “new” silver-colored ride. Hopefully, there will be no unpleasant surprises. We already know the front bumper needs to be replaced.  I’m lobbying for a repaint job for [new] front and [existing] back bumpers – plus side trim strips – in Hilltopper purple (one of my high school colors). It would be lovely to be able to visually locate our RAV4 in a parking lot of SUVs; even if I develop memory loss, I’ll always remember Hilltopper purple.

Happy Trails.