[trystan830]

fall is my favorite, and then winter is close behind. i like early spring as well.

[Dalhanahue]

Hey everyone. Sorry I hadn't been around much. Had some family issues arise and then was sick for a week. On the mend though.

How is everyone doing? How were holiday celebrations if you had any like Halloween, Samhain, Thanksgiving ect.?

[trystan830]

hey there, Dalhanahue, glad you're on the mend!

i, quite surprisingly, had off from my retail job (at the new location, no less) on both Black Friday AND Saturday. i was able to head back across the state to have Thanksgiving dinner with my mom, sister-inlaw, nephew, and other family. i had lunch with my mom the next day, and dinner with younger daughter and her boyfriend. then breakfast on saturday morning with some friends before heading back across the state home. and y'know what? PA is a honkin' HUGE state! XD

[Dalhanahue]

Heya Trystan! Thank you.

Surprise time off is always nice for sure. Sounds like a lot of amazing times and food to be had. I've never been to PA before, which is NE of me in MO. The farthest I've traveled in that direction is Chicago IL. Also been more east to North Carolina but still not too close to PA.

We were supposed to go to Washington DC on the 6th for a week but had to cancel because of family matters and then we both got sick.

[trystan830]

many years ago, hubby and i drove from near Philly to near Detroit, MI. one of his cousins was getting married, and even though the cousin was from Rhode Island, his bride's family was from Michagan, so that's where the wedding was.

so i used to live near Philly, in the eastern-most county in PA. in one of the little boroughs we lived in, we could see the Delware River, and New Jersey out our back window. now we live in the western-most county in PA, north of Pittsburgh.... and could be in Ohio in less than half an hour! :D

[Dalhanahue]

Trystan,
I have a love/hate for long drives and trips. If it's just me and one other adult, I enjoy a nice trip. If it's the whole family and I have to do all the planning and making sure all the things are done or in order ugh. No thankx anymore. I just don't have the.... drive. lol

Have you always lived in that part of the country? I

[trystan830]

it's a very long 6 hours, when we moved out here and when i went back east for thanksgiving, it was just me in the car with my mp3 player XD

up until we moved, i lived in the same county for my entire life (52 years and just about 2 months!) and then we moved all the way across PA on October 21. it's a little different out here, some of the stores I'm used to just aren't out here (Wawa, I'm looking at you....) XD but, like my husband, i'm taking the chance that it was the right move.

[Dalhanahue]

That's how I feel when we go to hub's family up near Chicago IL. That's a looong drive coming from Southwest Missouri. Especially with two teens and two giant doggos. We're not making the trip this year. I've just had too much going on.

That's a long time to live in the same area. Not entirely different for me the either. I've lived all of my life in Missouri just moved from more the middle of the state to about 3 hours more Southwest. I've moved a couple times in that area but just like between two cities that are fairly close.

I don't foresee us moving though again. We've found a nice little spot with a little bit of land and turning that into an investment as well. We planted a small orchard last year and plan to do a bit more over the next couple of years. I want a pretty decent size garden for annual planting and then we have another spot where we've started blueberry and blackberry bushes. Lastly we have some remodeling we want to do with the back patio area. There was some previous landscaping that was really pretty but not practical. Especially sense we've fenced off the area for our doggos. They keep digging up bulbs and stuff. There is plenty of room but I think we'll take about 1/3 of the area right outside the door and redo it putting in some raised beds the doggos can't get into and then spreading landscaping rock. Currently it's just grass and you tell there was some mulch but weeds have taken over.

Needless to say, with all the ideas we've started and still have I don't see us going anywhere else the rest of our lives unless just major changes happen.

[trystan830]

see, we were also thinking the house we moved from was going to be the last move. but then things got really expensive, and we'd already been looking for ways to trim/cut bills and expenses for years already!

so it first started with maybe downsizing the house, and when there weren't any houses that were worth it in our area, we'd looked out in the Pittsburgh area, where hubby knew it cost much less.... and it really is much less. so far XD

[Dalhanahue]

Oh yeah, I remember you talking about that and I mean, that does make sense if cost of living and what not has gotten that bad.

Man, I just hate moving. I'm hoping we don't down the road lol. We just signed off on adding solar panels as well. They are supposed to be installed before the end of the year but I'm not sure if that is going to happen.


Do you have any plans for Christmas, Yule, or any other winter holidays and what not?

[trystan830]

ooh, solar panels!

so we're going to my brother's for chanukah on Sunday the 18th. probably just having a quiet moment to myself on yule, and i may or may not go with hubby to the inlaws for xmas.

my MIL told hubby about it being dinner (at actual dinner time), but my mom came up with the thought of having an afternoon meal, and that way i could go with. we'd have to feed the cats and leave early, but then we'd get home at not a crazy late kitty dinner time (like 10?). but if she's intent on having the meal at dinner time, hubby will go by himself (he doesn't mind all the driving), because he'd end up getting back really late (like 2?), so I'll feed the cats at a more normal kitty dinner time.

[Dalhanahue]

Yeah, our neighbors were looking into it and found a guy who could get us a good deal on the solar. Enough that it had a better short term benefit. The payments on the equipment and setup combined with what we'll save on electric will still be a little lower than what our electric bill usually is even if we're paying on it for like years. Then we'll really see the long time benefit down the road when we pay everything off. Especially if we ever get to the point where we are producing more solar than we're using. Sometimes, depending on the It was a little bit of an annoying process but everything's been approved, just waiting for them to actually install it now. Which it's kind of important that they do by the end of the years b/c another factor in going ahead and pulling the trigger on it is that there are some tax credits you can get for it but the amount starts to decrease the next couple of years.

We're doing our immediate family celebration on the 18th as well. So, hubs and I each have a daughter from a previous marriages around the same age but this year both of our kiddos will be with their other parents on Christmas. They are not the slightest bit upset about celebrating early though lol. I mean, gifts early right?

I'll probably do some little thing by myself on Yule too.

Don't know what we'll do on Christmas since we'll have the house to ourselves. Probably rest and eat and play video games lol. I just didn't want to travel this year. We've had way too much going on. We usually go visit the hub's family in IL and then stop along the way to see my Dad as well but like ugh. It's about an 9 hour trip one way with the stop and lugging around all of our luggage plus gifts plus two giant dogs and with two young teens... I said a hard pass on this year. I just mailed out gifts yesterday to everyone. We have before boarded the doggos or had someone house/pet sit to make the trip a little less stressful but I just hate leaving them for that long. They don't eat as well and then act up when we return in protest.

[trystan830]

tax credits are helpful. good luck with the install.

gifts early is always good too :D

i get that about leaving pets too long. even if we both go to hubby's parents on xmas, we'll be out from like 7 a.m. until 10 or 11 at night, and the cats will be home all day. but they'll be all right, there's 11 of 'em XD

as it is, we'll be out that long the sunday before anyway, my brother is like 4 1/2 hours away.

it's too soon for us to both be away overnight as it is, we don't have anyone to feed the cats while right now anyway.

[Dalhanahue]

Well to my surprise they actually came last thursday and friday and got them mostly installed, I think there might be some small tinkering with system itself to do but all the panels are on the roof so that's one thing off the list.

Oh yeah, cats are pretty self sufficient to be okay for like a day or so but also I get not wanting to leave overnight yet.

The kiddos got to open gifts yesterday and they were very excited and pleased with everything. It gets a little harder when they start to get a little older I feel. I feel like we didn't get them a whole lot this year but budget wise we spend the same we normally do on them both. It's just that they want more expensive things now so less quantity total. They like things like merch and techy stuff.

My father-in-law also came for a surprise visit which was nice. He kinda fell in love with our doggos, especially Lady. Now he's in the market for a new puppy friend. I wouldn't be surprised if he has one the next time we see him lol.

How was your weekend?

[trystan830]

sounds like you had a good week!

chanukah was fun, good conversations, good food.

the UU church i went to once in november on my sunday off has a Yule/Solstice service wednesday night. i need to work on the logistics (and cold & dark), and i might go.

xmas weather looks good, too.

[Dalhanahue]

Yeah, it was alright. I'm just tired and a little burnt out at work at the moment.

Awesome about the UU church. Hopefully you'll get to go.

We're supposed to be getting some snow and crappy weather here on Thursday. We'll see how bad it gets. Snow I don't mind but we tend to get ice along with it which I don't care for with traveling to work and what not.