A short post after a crazy week has left me with a few things to be thankful for.

On Monday my laptop battery stopped recharging. I spent all of Tuesday afternoon trying to resolve the issue, which turned out to be a defective charger. The solution seemed simple: buy a universal charger — which Best Buy didn’t have in stock. The unusually tiny prong on the tip that gets inserted into the laptop port was an extra complication.

I won’t go into all the tiresome details of running around to four different stores, but a big shout-out to our local Staples techies, who opened several packages to help me find a tip that fit — not perfectly, but enough to do the job. I really like my Acer SSD laptop, but seriously, what’s with the non-standard charging tip?!

Since then, I’ve been pushing hard to finish my NaNoWriMo challenge of 50,000 words of my second book by the end of the month. Today’s chapters were a challenge. My protagonist and a companion spent some hazardous time in Ukhu Pacha, the Inca Underworld, and I wasn’t sure how they were going to get out of there alive when I started writing. They did, of course, since the book hasn’t come to a dead end, and I’m happy with that pun and with the solution.

Yesterday hubby and I took advantage — along with several of our neighbours — of what looked to be the last mild day for a while to put up the exterior holiday lights. They look beautiful, and though we’ve barely had any snowflakes in our area so far it is starting to feel Christmas-y.

Our new bread machine showed up several days early — I have sensitivities to barley and some other ingredients in store-bought bread, so I’ll soon be able to produce my own loaves of bread in only two hours. The machine makes sourdough as well — our favourite 🙂 I’ll let you know about the results!

This Saturday is Tree Day, something I look forward to every year and my hubby enjoys once we’ve gotten our fresh evergreen securely in its stand. A little help putting the lights on it, and then he can chill while I pull out the boxes of decorations we’ve collected over the years, many during our travels. They tell a story of our life together, from highlights (great moments abroad) to low-lights (the black and gold hearts that represent our beloved dogs who are no longer with us).

I wish a Happy Thanksgiving to our family and friends in the U.S., and hope that all of you have something to give thanks for today.