I Say Immerse Yourself In All The Benefits Of Cyber Monday. Wear No Shoes, Play Your Holiday Tunes, Light A Candle, And Sip A Little Something Tasty While You Click Away. Online Shopping Is One Of Technology's Greatest Gifts.

We had a great Thanksgiving break.  This will go down as my most physical Thanksgiving on record as we completed three athletic events in three days - does that count as a triathalon?  We ran on Thursday, skated on Friday, and skied on Saturday.  It was great.  We even managed to paint both kids' rooms which is nothing short of miraculous.  But even with all this activity and accomplishment, we still fell a little short in the hall decking process.

I've wanted to re-cover the seats at our kitchen table for about four years now.  They look like someone wet their pants while sitting on them and considering we've had these chairs for our kids' entire lifetimes, there is a good chance someone has peed on them at some point.  It's very unappealing.  So I decided Thanksgiving break was the time.  And, after watching about 25 online chair recovering videos, I had convinced myself this was a job we could do really, in one afternoon.

I assumed we'd remove a few staples, lay down the new fabric, restaple everything using my keen gift wrapping skills, and in just a few minutes we'd have ourselves some new non-biohazard chairs to proudly offer to guests and the like for festive occasions in our home.  However, when I removed the first seat and turned it over, I began to wonder if I needed to adjust my timeline a bit.

Some credit really must be given to whomever was operating the staple gun at Room and Board when they made our chairs because there were about 450 industrial strength staples in the bottom of the seat.  Removing a single staple required two different prying tools, a pair of pliers, and Band-Aids.  We finally got all of them out of one chair and, after laying exhausted on our kitchen floor for a few minutes and discussing the benefits of using a professional upholsterer, we prepared to start the re-covering process.

We laid the new fabric out, placed the chair seat on top, and neatly pulled up one side to staple it in the middle as instructed.  In every single video I watched while preparing for this job, the staples went right in and in about two minutes, the seat was covered.  All things considered, I shouldn't have been too surprised when our staples didn't even make it halfway into the seat bottom.  Apparently, our seats are made from a unique wood/steel combo and are impervious to your average staple gun, so now we need to actually rent equipment to do the job I thought could be done during halftime of a football game.

At this point, rather than a kitchen table surrounded by eight chairs with ikat printed seats and accessorized with two rustic wood lanterns festively adorned with fresh greens and an adorable red and white striped ribbon, we have a table surrounded by eight chairs (one of which has no seat) and covered in yards of fabric, tools, screws, staples, and Band-Aid wrappers.  Not exactly the epitome of holiday style.

But we'll get there.  Just a quick trip to rent the equipment, pass whatever certification is needed to operate the machinery, and we'll be on our way.  We still have three weeks, right?

I'm wearing this.

I'll be cyber shopping, decking the halls, and doing laundry.  'Tis the season.

It's Meatless Monday and we're having black bean quesadillas and a salad with a homemade ranch dressing.  It may be meatless, but I make no promises about being fat-free.

gratitude:  lots of time with just the family, an absolutely beautiful day for skiing, turkey tetrazzini, sweaters

thanks and love.