Quondam People

How wonderful to have the windows open at night...how much more wonderful to wake up to rolling thunder in the distance and the sound of rain pouring through the trees. We've been averaging in the 60s and 70s throughout our days lately. It's about 72 right now. I think this is our warm day, because I detect a little humidity in the air. Leah called yesterday and told me she was at Sam's and they were already decorated for Christmas. It's in the mid-90's and unbearable in Orlando she said. Connie & Larry said the same thing from Ft. Lauderdale.

When I was a child, stores decorated for the month. Now they just clump everything together. I can just picture the first store decorator who said in August, "Just get everything out from now to Christmas. We'll deal New Year's, Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day in January!I wonder if this confuses kids. Anyway, I went in and bought my huge roll of red Christmas ribbon for $8.32.

Oh my word! I can't believe I didn't start out with this. Look down at my little Neo Counter. I checked my emails this morning and didn't recognize the email address, and lo and behold, after I reminded myself of all the bad things that can happen if you answer cellphones that have a certain prefix and your bank account is emptied, to all my computer files disappearing in flames before my eyes if I clicked on it, I decided to just take a chance and quickly click on and off. I was not disappointed. This is what I saw: Congratulations! You just had your first visitor from Canada. Is that cool or what? There was even a little map showing the N. American continent, with Canada highlighted. I pictured my Canadian browser just standing there waving at me. "Back at ya, friend." It was like having a birthday surprise, and it's not even my birthday.

Randy and I went to the Parade of Homes here. Absolutely beautiful. We went to our builder, Jonathan Lee's house first. Fireplace in the backyard, you name it. It will surely win something, just as he does every year. He is very thorough. Our house won the gold award two years ago, and I know he won something last fall on his parade home. He's just a winner, because he does everything with excellence, as does his staff, wife and mother-in-law, who are his decorator/designers. We love him.

Well, here is the word for the blog for the day...last q word, mind you. The word is "quondam" (kwon dem) adj. That once was; former. Debbie McCann, the quondam waiter, is now attempting to accomplish her heart's dream. I think there are some people that are so focused on their goals that they don't let anything thwart them on their path; therefore the only thing that can be described as quondam in regard to them is that once they were learners and now they are teachers/examples to the learners. May you be one of those.