Holiday Ups and Downs (with a few sideways)

Holidays are really wonderful, but they have their moments that are not so great!!!

Here in the wonderful world of Central Ohio, Wednesday gave us a lovely coating of snow (approximately an inch) that was underlayered with just a wee bit of ice. Snow and ice are not really bad, unless of course it is the first offering of the winter and everybody has forgotten how to drive on it. The Knox County area had more than its fair share of accidents on Wednesday. I got home from work safe and sound with only a couple of minor slides. By Thursday morning, I figured that the salt trucks/plows would have completed their work and all would be well for driving. This was a grave misconception inside the great city of Mount Vernon!!! I now have a crunched front end due to said misconception. (No injuries, thank God!!) My husband was doing a wonderful job of driving in hazardous conditions, not so the lady driving a 15 passenger van that she couldn't get stopped on the correct side of the stop sign!!! Hence my crunched car~

As the day progressed things did get better. My brother-in-law (who is badly addicted to buying kitchen gadgets from QVC Network) created a veritable meat feast for Thanksgiving dinner. There were two kinds of turkey and two kinds of ham. The deep-fried turkey was the moistest meat I've ever eaten. The rotisseried ham--well, enough said!! There were all sorts of other goodies, including my mother-in-law's to die for deviled eggs!!! I left very full and satisfied. (I also swiped all of the remaining deviled eggs!!!)

Friday morning (aka Black Friday) my daughter dropped my grandson, David Riley in bed with me at some ungodly time of the morning so that she and my husband could go shopping. David and I finally rolled out at 8:30 and had a wonderful time eating biscuits and gravy for breakfast. Then we started making Peanut Butter cookies. What a blast!! Until you have made cookies with a 4 yr. old, you really have never been challenged in the kitchen. He learned to break the eggs and (after the first one) not put the shell in the bowl, too. He, also, discovered the joys of eating cookie dough. (I do not want one single comment about food poisoning!!!) We played, watched videos, and had a rousing good time!!! (Oh, yes, the shoppers did finally come home, exhausted, but heavily laden with gifts!)

During one break from the fun with my grandson, I had a few not so fun moments with insurance companies. (Trying to find help on a Holiday weekend, is nearly impossible!) I have discovered that there is one insurance company that I will never, never, ever have for my own personal insurance because their help line is a joke. I realize that I'm not their insured, but if I ever heard that my insurance company was as rude to someone that needed to place a claim against me, as this other ladies' insurance company was--I'd switch in a heart beat!!! After keeping me on the phone for nearly an hour and transfering me to several people, they finally ended up telling me that they couldn't even authorize a rental car for me until Tues. at the earliest, because they didn't have any claims adjusters in during the Holidays. All they could do was take my information, and get back with me when they could. I'm not a very patient person on a good day, this was a little more than I could handle successfully. (Oh, by the way, there also were no real supervisors available for complaints. Needless to say, there is a complaint in their e-mail and a written copy being mailed!!) I did, however, get some spectacular service from Enterpise Rentals. I spoke with a young man named Maurice, explained the situation, and he went overboard helping me to get a rental for the weekend. He arranged for us to have a full-sized luxury car at the price of a mid-size and then gave me the internet rate on top of that (and unlimited mileage)! That's what customer service is all about!!! KUDOS to Maurice at Enterprise Rentals!!!!!

Saturday was interesting to say the least. My husband, mother and I, left home at 7am, drove 20 minutes to my daughter, Jessica's house to pick up her and David Riley. Then we drove 3 1/2 hours down to visit my dad and step-mother. Dad has dementia along with diabetes and heart problems. Visits with Dad can be rather emotionally trying because he cannot control his emotions. We went from shouting to sleeping to not talking to crying to laughing in rather rapid succession! My mother was trying to convince my dad to take his medicine (he hasn't for 3 days) so then he started complaining about everybody ganging up on him. My step-mom was doing her best to just ignore this round of Dad's emotions, but she wound up crying for a little while, too. Once my older daughter, Liz and her husband, Dustin, arrived, Dad seemed to settle down a little and then we had a good visit. By the time we had all eaten, visited, sang, etc., Dad was really starting to get tired and weepy again. I'm glad we were all able to be there at the same time. I don't know how many more times that will happen before he's gone.

All in all, despite the bad points, this has really been a good weekend. I'm so thankful for all of the family I have. God has been very good to me!!!