I started the month more or less anticipating my birthday.  Getting perilously close to 40, a few years to go.

The living room is in pretty good shape at this time.  The new furniture arrived, and also a rug from Sears. Not too surprisingly, it  was the wrong rug and we refused to accept it and re-ordered. Much better now.  I refinished some old round tables we inherited from Marge’s mother and we bought two Ginger Lamps for them. They worked well together. The next step was to haul out all our pictures, paintings, needlework, etc. and arranged them in a way that made a pleasant effect.  We didn’t have much in what you would term as art, mostly family memorabilia, memories on the wall.

That done, we also purchased new lamps for the bedroom and placed the former living room rug there. The result pleased us. Earlier in the year I planted at the front foundation some holly, globe arborvitae, and forsythia. As you can see, the front was visually barren and called for some planting.

102 Beverley Hills

Even now I can recall when my pick got stuck under a rock and I pulled a ligament in my back.  Ouch for sure.  No permanent damage though.

In September I spread some fertilizer on my lawn and the yard turned greener than my neighbors.  Of course, even in November it required mowing  again as it was getting long and I didn’t want to leave it that way for the winter.

The girls got me some Scott Joplin records for my birthday and I did enjoy them.  Scott Joplin received a new awareness as result of ragtime being played in the movie “The Sting.” In the summer I bought a collection of ragtime sheet music and did my best to learn them.  I could play the notes about OK, but getting the beat and phrasing correct was a bit beyond me, compared to the records. I did what I could, and enjoyed the records as well as long as I didn’t compare my skills to the record artist.

We were all in decent health, though Louise soon will have a wart on her foot removed and Ingrid is wearing bands as well as braces on her teeth. She has some pain after the adjustment so we try to schedule appointments for Saturdays, so she won’t have discomfort at school.

The local economy is deteriorating, some plants and stores closing and PP&L had to lay off some people due to the slowdown. In a way, this was good news for my group.  We work on projects in construction management to improve effectiveness and cut costs. This, a matter of the ill wind not being all bad, at least for us.

We looked for a nice quiet Thanksgiving at home. I plan on carrying some vacation time over into 1975 and perhaps going to Florida for a few weeks, if all goes well.