Thoughful gifts

I received some great gifts. I mentioned the neck traction device and the mug. From DD/SIL I also received a Kohl's gift card and and 2 additions to my Christmas village. DH is always very creative with gifts. He got me that dinner bell (pictured hanging out on the back patio post), a snow globe. He gets me one every year, they are fancy and nice ones. He got me a personalized front door mat and a personalized tree ornament. I gave him some "My Pillow" towels, a coffee table type book about bald eagles, a hat, and an organizer thing to put wrapping paper, bows, etc in. He'll have fun re-organizing it all.

With my gift cards (from bosses) and some money from my mom I now can't decide what to get. I keep going back and forth between a new cell phone or a new ipad. My cell is an Apple 6s, so old, LOL. My ipad mini is SOOO old. I can't update or load any new type apps on it at all. A regular ipad is now cheaper than a mini. I don't need the latest iphone, but something newer would be nice. I've had this 6 version 3 years now. I can't decide. Both seem stupid expensive to me and then I tell myself to use the gift cards and money on other stuff. I'll keep thinking and not make a decision yet. I'm also tempted to just go Android. DD and SIL use those. But, not sure how/if all my contacts, apps, etc would transfer over. For some reason I just can't get myself to pull the trigger on buying a new ipad or phone.

Yesterday we went out in the 16 degrees and took down all the inflatables. DH had to dig through a foot of snow to get to all the stakes in the grass. We took the smaller ones into the garage and inflated them to dry off and the 11ft Santa we put in the shop to dry off. Later dh stuffed them all back in the boxes they came in. Hopefully they will last quite a few years. I'm not sure how long the plug in fans they have are meant to last.

I got the coffee table cleared of the rest of the misc Christmas gift stuff. I put away the couple of Christmas decor items in the guest bath upstairs. This morning I put away the decorations in the kitchen. I figured doing some of this now, when I go to take down the trees and everything else, it won't seem like  Today I'm going to do the guest bed laundry and put away the Christmas decor in these 2 rooms. I always leave everything up until the 1st of January, or the weekend after (when I have time to put away) but for some reason this year I am ready to get it put away.

The friends wife who tasked dh last summer with finding that muscle car she gave her hubby for his birthday (and we delivered to Texas for the surprise birthday party)....she now wants her own muscle car - a 1966 something or other and asked dh to find her one in her price limit. He told her there is no way she is going to find anything decent for $35,000. The old muscle car prices, like housing prices, have gone insane. The ones people are selling for $35.000 are rusted out old pieces of junk, needing to be totally redone. She told him to keep looking anyway, LOL. Plus, this one isn't needed within a time limit, like the birthday surprise one was.

DH is having problems with his quad he uses to snow plow. Mostly it's with the winch and plow mechanisms. We have ordered new parts that shipped yesterday, so hopefully they aren't on the scenic route. Unfortunately they both shipped via USPS, so it's going to take twice as long as UPS or FedEx. Ugh. It was supposed to snow all last night and today and it hasn't, so that is good for now, until he can get these fixed. He had a chat the other day with our young neighbor down the street about plowing. Most often dh will go ahead and plow our street down to their house. It's like 6 total passes, but it's just wearing out our old (purchased used) quad to quickly. And it's not our responsibility anyway. DH told him sorry, but he can't do it anymore, it's too hard on our old quad/plow and we can't afford a new one right now - we had $25,000 in medical bills this year........