what's slower than molasses

on a cold Thanksgiving week?
ME!

(And HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! - more on that later :) )
Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving week!
  I had a great holiday -
Fun, laughs, lots of family - and too much food for sure! 
With full turkey dinners on Thursday, Saturday, AND Sunday,
you know what that spells:  o-v-e-r-e-a-t-in-g :)
And that just slows me down.

BUT,
that's not the "slower than molasses" part.

I'm talkin' 

what's slower than slow molasses?

ME - I'm so bad - and I admit it.
I had a give-away in February,
for my birthday.
And, because I'm slow,
I had the gifts ready to mail
in, say May.
So right there - already a quarter of the year late.
And I feel bad.  But, you know, life happens...
I'm busy and I need to learn to say no, or something...
anyway, no excuses, but I need to work on this.

I put the birthday give-away

gift boxes into this nice, red market bag,

put the red market bag into the back of my car,

ready to go to the post office.

And, WaLa! 
Done.
Finished.
Checked off my (mental) list!

 Totally forgotten - 

an out-of-sight,

out-of-mind kind of thing.

Do you remember that I shared that 

we had a home break-in

(while we were sleeping)?

If you don't, here's the edited version:

Early June.
A young man broke in, rummaged around,
ate some cookies from the pantry, and used the
half-bath facilities by the garage.
(ask me how I know that last part - yuck)
Took cash and phone.
Then he stole my car.

Evidently, he had been on a whole night roll,
breaking and entering, 
stealing, and being "just missed" by
the three different county's officials
that were following said intruder.

Our local township police force
(thankfully) saw a suspicious looking male-
disheveled, sweaty and tattered,
driving a late model vehicle (mine) at 5 a.m.,
and pulled him over.
He led them on a high speed chase,
yes, HIGH SPEED chase in my car,
video-d by police-car dash-cam,
through the local hills and dales of rural, central Ohio.
Finally,
he crashed my car,
ran through the back of three connecting neighborhoods,
and hid.
This is where they impounded my crashed car as evidence.

I got my car back from impound in a couple of days(then sent it to the repair shop), 
but had to wait for the "Stuff" in the car
that may have been something he "imprinted"
that could be used for evidence.  
I got the bag of evidence returned in October.  
And completely ignored it
for weeks...
until right before Thanksgiving.

Sorry, that was a long interlude to the

MOLASSES part of the story...

(aren't you glad it was the edited version? :)

So this past week, before Thanksgiving company arrived, I was going through all the accumulation around the house, including the Red Market bag.  There were a few things in it- a couple of  newspaper adds, coupons, gas receipts, a pair of sunglasses, a container of hand wipes...you know the junk that can accumulate in your car...well, the police had kept it all for me.
Here's the good part:
remember those checked off the list - birthday winner's packages

that were in the red market bag?
They got to go on that crime-spree-joy-ride!!!

My Birthday Winners giveaway packages!!!

Still in the red market bag...

that I had "Checked Off my List"

of things DONE, COMPLETE, FINISHED!!!

But, really forgotten...

Only one box was opened - and nothing damaged or stolen.
Just the boxes
a little worse for the wear crime-spree-joy-ride
and being impounded!!

So, ladies...

I, slower than molasses on a cold Thanksgiving week,

have taken your February prize winnings to the US post office!

 Today!!

So, only nine months late -

Happy Birthday!!!

(Also, Happy Independence Day,

Happy Thanksgiving,

Happy ALL the Holidays

I missed between February and now!!)

and so, so sorry!

From now on,
I'm going to try to work closer to the wood-burner -
it might warm up this molasses!
(and I promise to myself to work on the out-of-sight, out-of-mind thing)

Happy Monday!!!