Yep, there's water in the basement. And I remember Christmas as a kid.

Well, the hubby is headed out into the rain to clear the gutters, we have these trees.

We have trees that take turns dumping stuff on our roof. They all wait their turn, and since they all have their own personalities and are so creative, they dump everything from limbs, leaves, seed pods, flowers, blossoms, bird nests, squirrel fodder, you name it. But only one thing at a time...the gutters are also particular, please send one item at a time, once the hubby clears the gutters, then you can drop your next gifting. Anyway, if we don't do our weekly gutter cleaning (forget gutter guards) this stuff just crawls under them and clogs everything anyway. Last night the gutter guards were frozen over!! So, if we don't clean them, water stands up next to the house and starts seeping into our basement. No biggy, but we just completely cleaned the basement, organized it and now water - not much - just a nice Christmas Eve project. Yuk!!

I was just thinking about Christmas time as a kid. My Dad is in surgery right now, and my brother-in-law is hanging in there so far, causes a person to pause.

I only remember a few special Christmas presents, Barbie Dolls came out when I was young, I got a brunette one because my little sister's name is Barb and she and I were both blonde, so she got the blonde one. Hmmm, maybe we have issues. I remember a red and white stripe nightgown, my Mom made 3 of them, we could hear the sewing maching at night after we were in bed. My best memories of Christmas was Santa calling me about one week before Christmas every year, he got my list over the phone, he sounded so much like my Dad's cousing Frank that I was sure they were related. He always promised to leave Chocolate Stars just for me ... Cousing Frank always brought Chocolate Stars Christmas Eve, but I never put the two together.

One thing about the weather that is comical to me. In Indiana the weather changes dramatically every 3 or 4 days. Yet, each prediction is the "perfect storm" that hardly ever hits. When I was little, I remember the adults talking about December rain, "If this was snow, just think how many inches we would be getting." Then the Blizzard of 1978 hit and if it had been rain, we'd still be wondering.

Gotta go cook!!