(92) Well that is good news from all we can tell!

Right after this super great breakfast with Mr Husband, 

I took a cab to my NYC Retina specialist. 

Good news!  Here's the recap that I wrote on social media earlier today:

Some good news for today: saw my NYC retina specialist. 

He does want to know more about what the other specialist

 is thinking regarding some tests that were not normal. 

However, he felt overall that it was good news and 

he said my eye/s do not seem to be getting any worse. 

While last time I felt like he was pronouncing doom, 

today he felt that, based on the other specialist's results + no genetic eye diseases

 were found via genetic testing, that things are more sunny 

and that I must keep being seen but that it does not seem to be increasing in 

seriousness right now. And right now, I will take that!

After that I went by cab to celebrate.

And how does Elizabeth celebrate? by going to Trader Joe's of course ;)

Above is my FAVE cracker combo EVER.

So good.

And only for this season.

I may have stocked up. Just maybe. Earlier though.

This time I was there for Christmas.

Yes, I know. It's Thanksgiving this week.

And I have all of that to prepare (well fish + many other things)...

But (why I am focused already on Christmas/Christmas gifts) is that 

 I have 1 week between Thanksgiving and St Nicholas day Part 1

on December 6th and between this Friday and next Friday,

I hope to do the following:

*put up the Christmas tree

*put out every Christmas icon, decoration, linens and such

*prepare 2 tables for serving and all the food

*go to our far-away church Wednesday

*have everything set up starting Wednesday night for Friday lunch

*prepare baked goods for St Nicholas day part 1

And then I have 13 days to be ready for St Nicholas day part 2

(if you don't know, and it's totally cool that you don't know, that the 

Orthodox church back in the 1920s split into 2 separate 

(other than Great Lent, Easter through Pentecost) calendars

so that our local church is 13 days ahead of our far-away church 

(which is the church we serve in) so that means I do pretty much every feast 2x

though I only fast/not fast according to the 13 day later calendar, 

also called 'old calendar' because it was the older calendar that the change to a 

newer (i.e. the civil calendar) calendar that some Orthodox countries did and 

some did not... So it is and so it remains... )

So now you know a bit of why I did Christmas shopping today.

Of course I can't tell you what I got as some readers of my blog

go to my far-away church! :)

 I got cranberry sauce for this Thursday...

even though I am doing fish not Turkey,

I just could not resist! and made in England.  Need I saw more

about my beloved cranberry sauce? :) 

I took everything our of our cart before bringing it up... easier and not heavy.

I was again impressed with NYC people helping me with my heavy cart...

So nice of them... 

I finished a lot of wash clothes! 

Pretty much the only thing I knit right now...

I went down an IG rabbithole by looking at this sweater

through it's hashtag on Instagram (IG)... it's beautiful!

but not something I would be making for myself as I have other 

fish to fry, as they say... 

I got this flower box arrangement at Trader Joe's, put it in one of their

paper bags, tented it best I could by folding the bag carefully closed and

then putting it alone in one of my black and red Trader Joe's freezer bags...

considering I had a full and heavy cart of goodies, 

it was a successful flower-haul via PATH train!

I got an open faced Turkey sandwich since thanksgiving day

will be fish as mentioned and so.... I heated up some gravy at home

and have leftovers for dinner!

And a treat! Last special treats tomorrow until Christmas!

(which for me is January 7th...)

 So I think that the second to last language above is Italian.

French, English, German, Dutch, Italian and Spanish 

is what it looks like to me!

These were part of a very lovely Pascha (Easter) basket and we are just 

finishing them now, such a delicious treat!

***

Well, I still have more to share about our Romania trip but 

I am behind on so much/have so much to do, that it is just going to take time...

I am dreaming of various Christmas meals already and 

I can see how challenging it is to know that I am planning things for Christmas

while still needing to do the spiritual disciplines of the Nativity Season and fast, 

which for us starts this Thursday... 

***

May God help us!