December Begins, Rain . . .

It was raining again on and off in our area this week. It is projected to rain again next week -- how did we get so lucky all of a sudden.

The beautiful December foliage is apparent on our street. Every shade of fall colors is displayed and we marvel at the distinctive colors as we peer out our kitchen window.

The December foliage is brilliant and it happens every year that the trees give us their brilliance. I took a quick shot during a rain break to -- let the dog out and to snap some photos.

Of course, little by little we are still adding some touches to our holiday decorations. Every year we start out slowly and then maybe feeling nostalgic we add some more "stuff".

So far it has just been the outside that we have actually done anything to do with decor.

Gail is adjusting the annual Christmas Wreath (thank you Damian) near the front door.

We notice that our across-the-street neighbors have a very similar wreath put up the same day that we did . . .

We have a few other outside decorations that we will hopefully be digging out and put up to round out the display for this year.

At the moment, we'll wait a few more days and then search the garage for where we stored the items and for the day to be more or less a dry one.

Of course, while the rain is really welcome -- and it has "put out the fire" it has also brought about a new disaster especially for the folks that have been thrown out of their homes and are camping . . .

Over in Butte County and the town of Paradise, displaced families are now having to deal with mudslides and water.

I can not imagine how uncomfortable it would be to be living maybe in a tent and have to deal with these elements.

Normal life patterns and everyday living for the thousands dealing with the loss of their homes, jobs and maybe loved ones is unimaginable.

It surely will be years before any sense of community living can be achieved. Good friends of ours came by this week who lost their home in last year's fire -- and are finally making the decision to NOT rebuild, but to buy a different home.

These folks lived on a street that had 21 homes, 20 of which were totally destroyed and now maybe two are thinking of rebuilding.

The rest may or may not rebuild. If someone is in their later years and experience something like this, two or three years may not be a time frame that is doable.

The new disaster that just happened in Alaska is another cruel reminder for Californians as well. It is always in the back of our minds about the "coming" earthquake . . .

We experienced our own "mini-crisis" the other evening. Fortunately, all's well that ends well, so they say.

We were happily watching TV the other evening when I thought there was a "beeping" maybe on the TV -- so I muted it, but I still heard the beep.

I have to say that both Gail and I have some hearing "issues" and while I heard something, Gail did not.

So, I got up and went to check on the rest of the house. When I got in the middle where the hallway is I definitely heard a periodic loud beeping.

We have a smoke detector unit, a carbon monoxide detector unit, and a glass breakage detector unit in that area and when the beep would sound I could not determine from which unit it was coming.

I figured that it must be the battery in the smoke detector so I climbed up and changed that, but there still was the beeping. I called ADT and they said that they saw an alarm from the smoke detector in the hallway and we reset it after my battery change -- but the beeping still continued.

I rechecked the stand-alone carbon monoxide alarm and it was indicating that we should evacuate quickly. ADT advised also that since they were not showing any more alarm from their unit, that we should evacuate and call the fire department.

This was at about 9 pm and it was raining -- so we did call (911) and the fire department was dispatched. Dino, Gail and I were waiting on the front porch when the fire truck pulled up and four firemen came in.

They used a monitor and quickly determined that there was NO carbon monoxide -- but they spotted the fourth detector down the hallway that I had forgotten about and it was the beeping unit.

Upon examination, they determined that the unit was beeping because it needed replacing -- not just the battery, but the whole unit, which is also hard-wired. Apparently, after so many years the unit expired and tells us by beeping, as if there was smoke or carbon monoxide in the air, that it was time to replace it.

We are so glad that it happened at 9pm and not three or four hours later when it would have really panicked us in the middle of the night -- which could easily have happened. To me there must be a better way . . . after 5 years of installing it, it had to be replaced . . . hard to remember to do that.

We have ordered another unit and will try to remember in about 5 years to replace it . . .

Well, it is just a little over three weeks till Christmas. It again has snuck up on us in plain sight.

It always happens that once Thanksgiving is over that Christmas almost immediately happens -- and it is happening.

We aren't planning any retail blood-sport holiday shopping trips. But we will be purchasing things our favorite way -- online.

The trick is to be able to track all the many different orders coming and to be sure and be home to ward off the porch visitors. So far we have been lucky and we try to keep an eye out in the neighborhood for unusual activity.

I still find it interesting to "shop" at this time of the year though it really is so different than when there were little ones to buy for and do things for . . .

And lastly, another look at DNA commentary -- this time in "Zits" comics:

How do they come up with this stuff? Some of it may bear resemblance to how some folks feel when they receive their analysis -- we are happy with our findings, so far. I just can't keep up with the huge numbers of matches.

That is a bit of our week, hope to see you all "in a few"! 👫