November 16, 2018. Madison, Mississippi. Simple Pleasures.

Our Christmas lights are on and glowing. They come on at five and turn off at midnight. Every time I look at them I am pleased. Ken always put up the Christmas lights. He loved lots of lights.. But since he is unable to install them, we went without lights. Every time Ken noticed no lights outside, he felt bad. Last year in a conversation with out outdoor lighting man, I asked him about Christmas lights. He just laughed. He has a whole separate company just putting up holiday lights. He uses his own lights and uses white lights. His installations are gracious. He takes them down right after the new year. And he stores them. Our lights were installed last week. And we love seeing them. So we keep them plugged in. Christina will plug hers in the day after Thanksgiving. But we are enjoying them now. Yesterday a flock of white pelicans arrived in your reservoir. They are giving us great pleasure. For two weeks this Spring they stayed here. Then they disappeared for parts north., Now they are back. This afternoon they were right in front of your dock. We have never seen them so close. We have thirty birds in the flock. In the Spring, they stayed in the center of the lake. Even from that distance they looked big, but right in front of the house they looked enormous. These are huge birds. They were busily floating around eating their meal. It is exciting seeing them so close to shore. Now we wonder how long they will stay. We will watch carefully. They are bringing us great pleasure. This week, Ken and Kashina filled the bird feeders, so we can watch the little birds from the windows. Now they must be refilled. So many birds, all so little. We love watching them from our TV room windows. Simple, but pleasurable.