Cold yet sunny Christmas Day

We had Christmas Eve Day breakfast with some of my old fifth grade pals yesterday morning. It was great to see them and find out what's been going on and how they are planning on spending the holiday.

We saw "Saving Mr. Banks" Sunday night. Wow. Who knew there was such a backstory for not only the making of Mary Poppins, but the author as well.

The Book Thief

Yesterday was so much fun. I finished the book, met with my book club and went right to the movie...at a new theater with comfy seats and free popcorn and soda! Whoo hoo!

The book was good and added more dimension to the movie than I would have had without having read it first, but I have to say I liked the movie ending better.

I am now library book-less. I may have to turn to the Nook. :-)

Party Time

It's getting to be that time of year....

Last week we were treated to a wonderful Holiday Party for the Eastampton Seniors at the Boilermakers Union Hall. Local 28 is in our town and they  hosted the party, organized by our favorite activities coordinator, Officer Ernie Rogers. Home Depot "elves" were on hand, too, with lots of goodies in their sleigh for us. What a wonderful treat.

Yesterday was the DKG Holiday Dinner. After a somewhat disastrous ride and parking experience, I really enjoyed the Tavistock dinner and Sigma (and guests!) company.

It lasted way later than anticipated so I had to pass Prospectors and Tom right by and meet him at home instead.

I'm ready to dance now ...but it is REALLY cold out!

December already? Wow!

So right now I am in the middle of making SHIP calls to the people I was given today with questions about Medicare.  Later I am heading out to a Kindercare location to assist in a Tax Talk for HR Block. Tonight we dance!

Tom headed out to golf (and there's 8-10 inches of snow currently somewhere out west.....!) after his water therapy appointment.

Our latest adventures have included attendance at cousin Beej and  Mike's 50th wedding anniversary and Black Friday/Cyber Monday purchases in the area of phones and tablets and headphones...oh my. (No, we still haven't gone to the smart phone (dark) side.....!)

The party was a lot of fun and we sat with great people-Kenny and Susie, Roxanne and Craig, and Francine and Bruce.

We saw Delivery Man last night and enjoyed it. We've also seen Thor and Hunger Games-Catching Fire, and About Time. I am looking forward to seeing The Book Thief....but not until I finish reading it! (and probably will go with my book club....if I can wait that long!) [On the subject of book club books, I also read and really enjoyed The Husband's Secret...just sayin']

Procrastinate Much?

Why, even as I type this, there are things I am putting off....:-(

 Anyway, we saw the movie "About Time" late last night after I got home from the Contact suicide in-service. (Statistics are rising...over half the world's deaths are suicides! Very sad)(In Burlington County in 2012 we had 5 suicides and 28 suicides!)

 I had high expectations for the movie, but it wasn't really that good. It was sort of slow and not that much fun. Maybe everything just went too smoothly for their lives, I don't know.

The really big disappointment, though, was that Regal tampered with the AARP popcorn/drink deal and it's not such a benefit for seniors anymore. (We bought it anyway, of course!)

 I am looking forward to dancing tonight, lunch with Gee Gee tomorrow, and lunch with my DEAR friends Friday. :-)

Disappointed, but okay

So here I thought I would be supporting the Friends of the Library and having a good time tonight, but when I looked up the flyer for the After Hours Wine and Cheese to share on Facebook, it wasn't there. It turns out it was cancelled. Boo hoo. I guess I should have gotten a ticket ahead of time. I wonder how many other people were planning on trying to pay at the door like me? It's beginning to look less and less like we are going away in the near future...that's sad, but kind of a good thing because my calendar has been filling up with "stuff" while the decision making was going on.... I will probably be sad when it's cold (wait...it is already cold!) and I am thinking of warm sandy beaches.... I tried to help a friend sign up on the marketplace for health insurance and we bumped into a temporarily not working, try again in 30 minutes stumbling block...twice so far. Now I see what they are talking about....

Subsidy calculator for the marketplace health plans

I found this in a great ACA/Obamacare plan cost calculator on facebook posted by Upworthy. It's produced by Kaiser. I'm posting it here so I can find it easily to share as a starting point for people who need health insurance and will be using the Marketplace.

The Conventional Thing to Do

After years of minimal costuming and parties for Halloween, we ended up with three sets of costumes, two parties, and the usual Prospectors gala. It was fun!

Michelle and Chris's party

Randy and Greg's party

Prospectors

Thursday I took the train down to Atlantic City for the NJEA Convention. (Remember last year we got hurricane-d out?)

Without a BCEA reception it was not easy to find my BCEA colleagues, but I bumped into some and saw lots of people I knew, too.

Me with Joanne and Martha

Toni Guerra, BCEA First VP

Financial advisors

Randi and I are apparently psychically linked. I stood outside the classroom she was in, wishing I could contact her, and she came out to make a phone call. It was uncanny!

Wanda, my friend the NJEA Classroom Close-up producer asked me to do a promotional bit for the show's 20th anniversary. I asked if I could hold one of her many Emmy's. Of course, I hammed it up later, thanking all the little people for my success!

I left on the 4:42 train, making it back just in time for the Eastampton Rec Committee meeting. I was totally too tired to dance :-(

The good news is, the next day, I got to see Joanne on her way up to PA. We had lunch at the Hibachi Grill in Cinnaminson....yum yum! and then went over to Marcia's and played cards. Fun!

Today I need to do some catching up on SHIP work. It's open enrollment time through Dec. 7th and lots of people are calling us and making appointments.

Tonight we dance! (again :-)

Almost Halloween

The theme for October has definitely been eat, eat, eat. Today was lunch at Gaetano's after making Buono phone calls at the BCEA office, for example. There have been lunches with the Delran retirees, the BCREA Fall Luncheon/meeting, the first DKG meeting with lunch following a great tour of Alice Paul's home,  Roe's retirement party, great snacks and cupcakes at book club, Americana Diner with Gee Gee, and lots more. It would have been brunch with the Brunch Group last Sunday, but no one else could make it (but hopefully we'll all get together soon). Oh, and how could I forget Michelle and Chris's Halloween party? and Melissa's birthday celebration at Prospectors? and the upcoming Halloween party at Randi's Friday?

I'm not saying eating is bad. It would be better if I could report ancillary, accompanying visits to the gym (which I cannot, but hope to improve that record soon).

Sleep is a good thing to pursue also. In fact, how about now? Good night!

Post CA vacation and all is well.....

So we got home from CA after midnight and recouped for a day or so....

I've had a lot of meetings/celebrations involving food...a LOT! and tomorrow I am so looking forward to seeing Gee Gee again at our latest meeting place of choice-the American Diner.

Let's see if I can get up a smorgasboard of photos to illustrate my adventures of the last week:

Alice Paul's house for the Fall DKG meeting program

Kristen icing the cake at Olde World Bakery
The Eastampton Seniors Field Trip with Officer Rogers

Kristen takes the cake!

I got to see Sandy and Margie at the Fall BCREA Luncheon/meeting

That's me with my group of RSVP Volunteers at the Recognition Luncheon

Teri and Kim came out to play at Prospectors

Teri was leaving for Ireland the next day...Kim could come because it was a Wednesday

Loving Tom at Prospectors

Our last in CA we went to Berkeley. This is the marina.

Jennifer loves her new pjs with footies

These are the footies!

In addition to all of those, I attended several HR Block classes and danced Wednesday and Friday. Today I went to a marketing session with HRB and I have a new class starting there again tonight. Oh, and did I mention the Saturday night Contact overnight???


(I just flew in from Miami....boy are my arms tired! :-)

Beach and Brunch and City....oh my

Now it is Sunday and we are back at Sue's.

Yesterday Tom and Jenn and I hung out, ending the day with a quick trip to Capitola Beach. What a beautiful day!

We ate at Pedro's Cabo while Jenn visited Jass. Yum yum...ole!

Cut. Scene opens in San Bruno at a breakfast place called Jack's where Jenn, Tom and I hooked up with Sue, Patrick, and....featuring Caitlin!!!

After a delicious breakfast, Tom and Jenn headed back to Santa Clara and I went on the returning Caitlin trip to San Francisco.
We saw her place and I met her lovely cat, Tashi.

After bidding the lovely Caitlin a fond adieu, we drove around San Francisco for my traditional tourist routine.
This was my first visit to the very crooked Lombard Street.

Interestingly, it turns out a good friend of Patrick's lives at the bottom of this road and constantly has bunches of tourists outside her home!

More California Fun

Tom and Jenn just headed out to breakfast while I catch up with my trip story.

Thursday was Jenn's birthday. We drove to her house in Santa Clara and then went to Palo Alto to see Jodie and Chris. Our timing was really good, because Corry landed there also (his first paid vacation from the new job.

We picked up Jass,  went back to Jenn's for some serious Scrabble playing, and then headed to Macaroni Grill for the big birthday dinner. It was delicious and Jenn loved her present- a new GPS to replace the one that was stolen from her car in a recent robbery. :-(





Friday we went over to Sue's and we all went to see Gravity, the new Sandra Bullock movie, which was great!

 We saw the 3D imax of it (and won't go into detail about how aggravated we were on the half hour of commercials (!) followed by a half hour of previews before it actually started, making us late for the Jass pick up)












Later, Tom and I went to a country dance place called Rodeo right here in Santa Clara and had big big fun with lots of dancing. This was a concert night and the group was really good. Blackjackbilly, I think they were. I thought it was interesting that I could hook up the look of each band member to another country star...we had a Jake Owens guy, a Jack Ingram guy (whatever happened to him?), a Luke Bryan guy, Keith Urban hair like guy on the drums and one that I could only compare to maybe a skinny Kramer (from Seinfeld)...

We're debating today's activities, but hoping Sue will join us. Ahhhh! California dreaming.....!

Happy birthday, Jennfier

Tom and I are on 680 heading down the road to Jennifer's.

 Our journey to California Tuesday was relatively uneventful in terms of problems. The first leg of the flight was long and my legs were squished but walking around  the Las Vegas airport helped straighten me out.

We had no problem with the car pick up and we got to Jennifer's school and had fun with her and the class.

Next we headed to Sue's after a stop to eat at a local restaurant.

We crashed until Sue got home and then had a delicious dinner with them and watched Homeland. They don't have Showtime, but we hooked it up  to our laptop and we could watch it on their tv.

Wednesday we did a day trip to Mount Diablo, stopping for delicious sandwiches at Slow G's on the way.

That was our big excursion and we were tired again and went home to Sue's and slept. ( I think jet lag hit us really hard for some reason this trip).

Sue got home just in time for leaving for her book club, which I was invited to. I had read the book, Tinkers, on the plane. It was odd, but talkaboutable for sure. Sue's friends were all very nice and I had a good time.

Tom was asleep when we got home, so I watched Nashville with Sue. It was really funny because she kept falling asleep and when she woke up she's run back the tape to where she left off...that happened like 6 times between the first and second season episodes. I have memorized several segments having seen them so frequentlly. (I love that show, by the way...)

Today is Jenn's birthday and we are going over to her house now, will probably get to visit Jodie :-)  and then are meeting Sue and Patrick for Jenn's birthday dinner at her favorite place.