Good morning everyone, We set an all time record low here in the Charlotte area...18F at the airport, previous low was 20F. Fortunately, I am not running this morning as I'm running every other day right now but I'll be out there tomorrow... We're pulling out all the Christmas stuff and will be putting up the Christmass Tree before Thanksgiving. Now that we're empty nesters, it's just now the same... Bundle up today!

We're pulling out all the Christmas stuff and will be putting up the Christmas Tree before Thanksgiving.

What's with the early Christmas decorations??? Don't you get tired of the tree long before Christmas? I know we're in the minority, but we put up our tree on Christmas Eve. It's an old tradition from my family - we used to set up the tree (but not decorate it) on Christmas Eve, then after us kids were in bed my parents would decorate it, and in the morning they would tell us Santa decorated it and left the presents. I have one brother who's a lot younger than the other 3 of us, so when he was little, we pretended to go to bed, then were allowed to get back up and help with the decorating. It was so cool - even though we had to face the dark truth that there was no Santa, we got to BE Santa.

Carolyn – I turn into a pumpkin by 10pm – no way could I stay awake long enough to decorate the tree after the kids were asleep. Besides, if I’m going to go to all the trouble of dragging all those decorations out and putting them up – I want to look at them for more than one week, before I have to face the immense job of putting them away.

Christmas Rules: 1. If you put up outdoor decorations before Thanksgiving - that is okay - but you cannot plug them in until the day after Thanksgiving! 2. No Christmas music until the day after Thanksgiving - it is better to hold off until December 1st if you can. 3. No looking and peaking at presents that are hidden away. 4. Artificial trees are a no-no unless you are alergic to the real thing. That is a great tradition Carolyn. I know I couldn't wait that long to put up my tree though ....

Obviously, the neighbor Ladies Christmas tree is artificial that I mentioned. But as I watch her get ready for bed through her "left open" blinds, I can tell you 2 things that are not artificial Bad Tim....bad bad Tim Tramps, it was night time when I had my "incident" I mentioned yesterday...hence why the blinker. I did not say a word and took off running TimBo

Morning, Folks - Rest day for me. Had good intentions to get up and do an upper body and core workout, but those intentions were derailed by a warm bed and a cat curled up on my head. The bright side - no "issues." Toms - As a last thought on yesterday's discussion . . . I'm working on developing Runners' Depends. It's tricky as I need to ensure there is no unsightly diaper-like bulge. Just give me time. The temps some of you folks are talking about - Brrrrrr!! Although, I do think it would be fun to give running in snow a try at least once. Do any of you wear those Yak Tracks (or whatever they're called), or just regular running shoes? This whole crappy economy thing has hit home for us. 13 people are being laid off at The Hub's place of work. He works at the largest home improvement center in Humboldt County. Two of them are in his department, and one of those ladies - she and her husband just bought a house. Needless to say, things were a bit somber in our house last night.

Yesterday turned into an unscheduled rest day. I feel like I've been a total slacker with the non-running thing. So probably overcompensating a bit with the cross training. Was going to do an hour or so on my stationary bike at home, but when I got home I felt so tired and dragged out, I really didn't want to. Then, just when I was going to force myself to do it, DS2 and his friend went to his room to work on their homework project...and my bike is in his room now. So, I said screw it, sat down with a bowl of popcorn and watched the news. Totally crashed after dinner and had to drag my tired butt to bed after falling asleep on the couch. Ugh. And today I'm up 4 lbs from Monday. Wow, what a good week this is turning out to be. I worked at Nordstrom for about 7 years. Company policy was NO Christmas anything until after Thanksgiving. Even when other stores would bring out their Christmas stuff early (October??), Nordies won't do it. We'd stay sort of late before Thanksgiving to set up the sale and decorate the store. The transformation was almost magical as we watched whatever theme the marketing guys had come up with unfold out of the boxes that had been delivered to the warehouse earlier. I loved it. So I don't ever do any Christmas decorating until after Thanksgiving. Really works with my "do it later" philosophy, too. We use an artificial tree now, our climate is so dry our real trees just dry up too fast... plus I got an excellent deal on a beautiful tree years ago, everyone thinks it's real. Tall... did you run on the treadmill? Just checkin'... you said you ran at the gym... I'd love to have this "cold" low to mid-20's temps you guys are talking about! It was -10 this morning and could get to -25 tonight. Hey, it's a "dry" cold though. But I'm not running in it... yet.

The Hub sends me with my marching orders to get a tree the day after Thanksgiving. I hate picking out the tree by myself. Too many from which to choose, too many chances to get the wrong one. Plus, we get a really tall one 'cause we have high ceilings. I always feel sorry for the Christmas tree lot guys: "Can you stand that one up for me, please? Turn it around? Hmmmm . . . nope. How about that one? That one? Can we try that one there? Which one do you like? Are you hating your job yet, and you've only just opened for the season?" We also put out a ton of Christmas decorations. It usually takes me two days to put everything away. It's an 8-hour day just taking down the tree. One of these days, I'm going to demand Christmas in Hawaii - no decorating. . . . . but no SPAM turkey either!