It's (not) beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

When I was a kid one of my favorite months was November. Not only because it was my birthday month, but because it was the month before my favorite (December), when the temperature dropped and the frost set into the ground making a great base for the first snow fall, the lakes would start to form a skim of ice and I knew it would only be a matter of weeks before we (us kids) would be out skating on the pond in our back yard.

I was thinking of how different winter was when I was a kid while hubby and I (mostly hubby) were putting up the holiday lights on the house. We were up bright and early this morning taking advantage of our unseasonably warm temperature today, decking the house with white lights, putting up swags and wreaths, cleaning up the yard, pulling weeds and raking leaves; my flower garden still has a few plants in bloom even after the first frost a couple of weeks ago. I even dug out the snow shovels that were stored in the back of the shed in anticipation of shoveling snow possibly in the next few weeks. I put the lawn mower to the back of the shed, but today felt like a great day to give the lawn one more cut... if only I had had the time.

The only thing reminding me that it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas is the lights that decorate the houses in the neighborhood.