Here’s what an Anna doll looks like with her hair down !

Who could say 'no' to that face ? Especially at a thrift for $1.50 ?

I don’t know what’s more annoying – retail outlets trying to shoehorn their store hours into public domain Christmas carols, or corporations trying to get in on the Star Wars bandwagon before it (probably) implodes, Death Star-like, in two weeks. I know I should be excited about the Disney take on it, since I got my fangirl card shredded by the prequels, but that enthusiasm really is darn near flatlined. And no series of ads by Mazda and Hewlett-Packard can resuscitate it. Frankly, I’ve found more joy in the fact that McRibs are back. We’ve had four so far.

I’ve learned a Gandhi-like lesson in internet / Facebook human relations. Been semi-trolled on a couple of embroidery groups (yes, again), and instead of taking up the gauntlet and defending my fragile self, I’ve agreed with the agro and left it alone, in essence, dropping the rope. That’s fun as heck ! They don’t know quite what to do, and the thread dies ‘cause nobody wants to get involved on either ‘side’. Doesn’t hurt my feelings, it’s just a buncha opinions, after all, and I don’t have to defend mine. I’ve already had my say, time to move on, let others have theirs. Less said, soonest forgotten, I’ve learned.

We had a nice Thanksgiving, despite the rain and slight ice storm – and usual downpour of broke - keeping us inside all four days. I think we went to 7-11 twice, that was it. I made a very nice holiday meal that we picked at the whole weekend, and just finished the ham today. The last few bits and bone is going into a pot of beans tomorrow ! Hope yours was both fun and quiet, too.

Beloved Hubby spent a lot of time working on one truck or another. If you don’t recall – I don’t blame you, I’d forget it if I could ! – our two-years-of-high-payments-to-go truck blew out the back something-or-other mid-October. We bought a slightly larger truck - and camper shell to go with it off Craigslist – from Beloved’s boss. At first, it seemed a great deal. . . but those days are gone. The ‘new’ truck, let’s call it the M-Truck, is a complete and total money pit. I can’t even list all the tiny annoying things wrong with it, and the big expensive issues would double the length of today's post. We’ve put more money in repairs than it’s worth already, and it’s still balding tires and getting ridiculously low mileage. And that’s after Beloved fixed wheel bearings and gone through the entire electrical system after it blew $20. in fuses in 6 hours, then refused to start.

As for our old truck, or O-Truck, for short, the jackstraw dealership we’re buying it from pretty much said ‘your truck, your problems, we’re not even gonna tell you if you’re still in our laughable warranty or not, oh, and no, we won’t even let you make one payment late’, and it looked like repairs would be very expensive. We discovered that two of the bearing assemblies and a couple gears inside the back axle had broken, and parts alone would be over $250. for just the bearings. We were just gonna get through December, then work on what we could, as Beloved can’t even get a quarter of the tools he needs every day into vastly more reliable Emmy-car.

But Thursday, he found a potential solution. An entire ‘new’ axle for $200. ! So this morning, we drove down with hopes it’d fit and work for us. It was a fun little adventure, and as it turned out, the ‘new’ axle is a direct same replacement for the original now-busted one. We spent maybe $20. more for brake fluid type stuffs, but didn’t even have to buy new brake shoes, the ones on the new axle were better than what we had ! We’ll  need shocks eventually but it’s not necessary now. Went for Chinese takeout as a shakedown cruise – and she works beautifully ! We got our ‘old’ truck back ! I don’t know who’s the most excited and happy of the three of us. I can tell ya, the M-truck has had so many problems, I’ve had nightmares about it. Now I can get back to enjoying that Stephen King book and not worry so much !