Part One of Six: Christmas 2022: The Love of Family

I am finally up to December 2022 on my personal blog. It does feel good to be catching up with my life!  I am thinking there will be six separate parts for December 2022, but this part will be the only one on the Blogger platform The other parts on Tumblr are looking to be: a very short Christmas Eve/Christmas post, Moraine & Mars, the Field Museum, Macy's lunch, and the final wrap up. 

G and I stayed at the same hotel on the trip up: the I Hotel in Champaign. As usual it was nearly empty. 

And we arrived the next day where we saw our family all in one place for the first time in a long time! So exciting!

And ate Firecake donuts!

And loved on our grand dogs! 

So why is this part one in the serious and not-fun side of things on the Blogger platform and not on my trip travels in Tumblr?

I had to look at the date of the I-Hotel on my phone picture -- I had no memory we arrived in Champaign on the 21st. I was in disbelief - were we really there in Chicago from the 22nd to the 30th?

This was the first trip I took no active part in the planning. I had no clue what was going on. My PTA world had me buried deep in issues and problem-solving before I even left Tennessee. During my stay I was busy speaking with the broker about the sale of the building and with other board members. I was busy running two separate email votes and answering questions. Why did we have a broker who refused to do anything until the start of December? Even though we were ready to sell in August. Why pick this time of the year to open bids? It was crazy.

 

And then to add to that stress - my electric utility app quite clearly indicated that very little electricity was being used, and I knew it was very cold even back in Tennessee. That meant below freezing wind chill was blowing against a house with no heat. (And that turned out to be an accurate assessment.)

Unbeknownst to me the stress of it all had affected me. I simply could not think.

I know this is a dreary way of starting out the Christmas 2022 posts, but there are some mighty good posts coming along next.  Despite it all, the love of family sustained a great time despite the coldest of weather and snow, there was always a warmth inside and good food to eat and share. The lesson here that despite myself, despite weather that changes plans, love is always a good thing.

Thanksgiving 2022: Moving Stuff out of the State Office

We didn't have any plans during Thanksgiving. No one was coming to Chattanooga. Extended family was eating their Thanksgiving meal elsewhere. And I was in the midst of trying to get the state office items flipped to being less items in the office and more in storage or in the shred pile or in the trash. So for Thanksgiving, we spent three days in Nashville/Franklin moving stuff out of the office.

G and I succeeded in that, indeed, a big corner was turned in the file cabinet room and in the office.

The file cabinet room was a mess. Anything and everything not dealt with the previous auctions or donations were put into this room. The five file cabinets in this room were stuffed with historical and memorabilia. The membership file cabinets and miscellaneous file cabinets were still full. 

G and I divided and conquered. G took on the file cabinets in the workroom. I started tackling the file cabinet room. 

For three days we sloughed through this gigantic task and turned a significant corner getting the building ready to be sold.

On Thanksgiving Day, we took time out from the state office building to enjoy a noon time Thanksgiving meal at Cracker Barrel. It was really good!  

When we got back to the hotel later on that day, I took a picture of the number of cars in the parking lot -- it was practically empty!

We discovered a route we liked hauling stuff from the office to the storage unit. The route went by Fort Negley. Fort Negley has a sad history. 

The storage unit got really full as we accomplished cleaning out the file cabinet room and the workroom file cabinets. 

A picture of the empty board room.

My reflection in the hallway mirror.

Update: The state office building was sold on April 4, 2023.

                                                        The flag at Fort Negley. 

Hamilton County Commission Plaque

The Hamilton County Commission honored me with a plaque. The plaque has all of the signatures of every county commissioner. The plaque recognized my service as both President of Tennessee PTA and President of Tennessee Library Association.  August 10, 2022.