Up to lately - Day 1269 (Year 4, Day 174)

Williamsburg, VA

Been almost 10 days since I've posted, so you know a whole lot of interesting things have not been happening!  During the week, it's work as usual.  We did not go to shul this past weekend, although, G-d willing, we'll be going this coming Shabbat (rabbi will be there, plus it's a holiday).

On Sunday, we visited CW (Colonial Williamsburg) again.  Since we will be spending Xmas with Jessica's in-laws & family, we needed to buy gifts (they live in northern VA, about 150 miles from here, so it's very doable).  I thought it was that coming weekend so I put a high priority in getting the shopping done, thinking this past Sunday was the last chance I'll have.  So we visited the gift shop and then the Merchant Square section of the park, hoping to find some unique gift items.  Unfortunately, nothing really struck me and the things that did were way out of our price range.  The Square itself was lots of shops located in colonial looking buildings; extremely quaint.  They are all owned by the same organization so they all pretty much carried the same items.  After spending about 1 1/2 hours there, we decided to try a specialty Xmas store (didn't want to be anywhere near the malls or big box stores).

Of course, once I got home, I realized that Xmas was not next week but the week after, so I still actually did have one more opportunity to shop.  Oh well, all for the best since I'm sure many more people will be waiting until the last minute as well.

This week also started the holiday of Chanukkah and it is the first year where we're not close enough to a community where there's a public candle lighting or even party, so we'll celebrate alone.  Latkes (potato pancakes) are a traditional holiday dish (as is anything cooked in oil to commemorate the oil lasting 8 days).  Due to my low carb diet, I made a batch with cauliflower and almond flour.  They came out pretty good and tasty, all things considered (it's kind of like eating Tofurkey - tastes good on its own, as long as you don't try to think of it as real meat).

This past week has also brought true winter weather, and the furnace has been running way more than the heat pump (temps in 30s and 40s).  One night it got into the 20s with a dusting of snow (other parts of the country got hit with inches and feet).  All the leaves are gone from the trees and the place has the drab look of winter.  Wish I was in FL -- I miss the palm trees!  Here's a picture from my back window:

This coming Tuesday will be Mitch's birthday.  There's a live show which is performed at the Met in NYC and being live streamed in theaters nationwide - "The Meshuga Nutcracker" which is a hiliarious musical.  It's playing 30 miles away but Mitch really wants to go so we shall.  Not sure of the plans for Sunday yet.  We still haven't visited the  museums at CW and I still want to visit Yorktown and/or Jamestown.