Happy Holidays

I'll be offline for a few days spending time with family.  My wishes are: for peace on earth and for YOU to have the very best holidays ever.

AND.....

O Christmas Tree

After putting up Frosty, the next step was the Christmas tree. Below is the tree topper and ornaments collected over the years, some new, some old. As you can see, there is no theme....though, if there were it would probably be cats.

This one is hard to see. It's a Christmas Tree my son made in grade school with his picture on it.

The Weekend Starts Now

My Christmas Cactus is ready for the holidays.

Paranoid. Who me?

pixabay.com

What is your immediate response when the views on your blog take a steep up tick and continue for more than one or two posts?
Is it:
1. Woo Hoo. Maybe I should run a couple of ads and make a little extra money.
2. Oh no. The hackers are after me.
3. Crap. I posted something that caught Big Brother's Eye.  Or another country's Big Brother.

My reaction:
1. Are pragmatists and positive thinkers....Lucky ducks.
2 and 3. Those of us who are paranoid, conspiracy theorists, fiction writers whose thoughts immediately go in a seething cauldron of speculation that takes us one step past the brink of  expected response and sometimes normality.

What about you? What is your reaction to an upsurge of views?

Movies.Movies.Movies.

We've been getting caught up on movies. We saw a couple at the theater and a couple on the kid's wall:)  Here's what we've seen:

Murder On The Orient Express is chock full of stars and panorama and a mysterious storyline. We enjoyed it...You've got to love the mustache:)


Thor came perilously close to being over the top for us. But it's Thor/Chris Hemsworth so how can you not like it? Right?


The LEGO Batman Movie.  Cute, but I just couldn't reconcile the sexy Batman voice with the short stubby legs.


I very much enjoyed War For The Planet of The Apes. It had a deep, emotional draw.

Christmas Window Dressing

Don't you love looking at Christmas decorations in store windows? I sure do. Here's some we saw in Philly and NYC.

Sacs Fifth Avenue's theme this year was Snow White. It was quite beautiful, though I'm not sure what the Christmas connection was. The light show (trailer below) above the windows was breathtaking.

Friday Starts Now

And....

Here's the link to Dancing Lemur Press

where you can find a lovely selection of fiction and non.

And

Miss Redmond's Deception

Thanksgiving in Philadelphia

Our Thanksgiving  was wondrous. I trust yours was too.

Too Much Turkey

Harry

Holly

The turkey was a labor of love from our daughter to her dad. Like myself, my daughter and son-in-law are vegetarians and handling meat truly is a labor.

And speaking of turkey.....Our *@!*# dog decided to do a reenactment of the Bumpus' Hounds--on Christmas Story--Thanksgiving Day while at the boarder's.  Luckily the turkey was wrapped in aluminum foil and retrieved before serious damage was done.

Want to try the pate? Here's the recipe link: Exotic Mushroom Pate

And....
They had a portable projector so we watched movies on the wall, just like the big screens at the theaters:)

Boonsboro Inn

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving, blessed with family, friends and good food.

Spoiler alert: Long Blog

We spent a lovely Thanksgiving in Philly with my daughter and son-in-law.
On the way up we stayed at Nora Robert’s Boonsboro Inn. Let me just say, it surpassed all expectations. 
The Inn had plenty of spots for relaxing including balconies, a courtyard and a television niche with a loaded refrigerator nearby. My favorite  place to hang out was, of course, the library.  Beside plenty of books to read--yes, lots of Norah and J.D. Robb--there was a fireplace; Keurig with pods that included coffee, cider, hot chocolate or tea; and a decanter of whiskey.  This is the room we had our wine and cheese in. Very cozy and relaxing. 

Breakfast was amazing.   A choice of juice and coffee was served in carafes. The meal began with a baked apple with toppings.  After that the main course was served: pancakes with candied pecans, scrambled eggs cooked to perfection and a meat/nonmeat entree.  When I registered online, I listed vegetarian under special requests. When my plate arrived and I saw the sausage I started to pass it off to the HH before I was assured it was vegetarian sausage.  To the meat eaters out there this may not seem like a big deal but for a vegetarian it was awesome.  Often, the meat item is just left off with no faux  substitutions.
The food was delicious.

The dining room where scones and cookies were available twenty-four seven

There are eight guest rooms at the Inn.  All named for famous romantic couples. We chose the Eve and Roarke room. 

The bedroom was nice but the bathroom was astounding.  The J.D. Robb fans out there will truly appreciate this room since the futuristic shower is frequently mentioned in the series.  The shower in our room had a huge shower head, six or eight inches square, that came straight down…plus a handheld shower head…plus jets that came straight out of the wall.  You could choose one or all. I was playing with the nozzles trying to figure out which was which when I turned the knob for the water that came straight out instead of down.  I let out a screech and hastily moved to the next nozzle. 

The coup de gras was the bidet toilet. The seat went up automatically when you walked anywhere near it.  It had the cleaning applications. But best of all…the seat was heated. If I ever make even a tenth of Nora's earning power I want a heated toilet.

The bathroom also had a heated towel rack and heated floor, but I never figured out how to heat the floor.

It was obvious that much time and thought went into the furnishings and the comfort of its guests. All in all the experience was a delight.  If you are ever near Boonsboro, Maryland I highly recommend it.

I had to have a J.D. Robb/NR mug sold at the gift shop/bookstore across the street.

*While there I did find out the answer to the age old question, which came first the Inn or the Inn at Boonsboro Trilogy. Do you know?



The answer: The inn.