Has it really been a week?

Wow, it's been a whole week since I've posted? I'm slacking. Let's all get caught up. When last I left you, Christmas was coming and I was fighting a cold. Well, I lost the battle on Friday and have been sick for a week now. It's getting a bit ridiculous. I have the week off and I've spent it feeling gross and nappy and not getting anything fun accomplished. But on a good note, Christmas came on Monday and so did this:

Woo-hoo! I do feel a little bad taking a picture of my new camera with my old camera, but oh well.

Luke makes me nervous every Christmas by not putting ANY presents under the tree until Christmas morning when he sneaks a present or two under there while I'm not looking. I wake up excited to give him his presents and kind of pissed at the thought that maybe he didn't get me any presents. Well, sneaky Pete had slipped this baby under the tree when I was in the kitchen making coffee and he wrapped it in bubble wrap before he wrapped it in paper so I thought he bought me a blanket. Great. A blanket. Instead I unwrapped the box for my beautiful new camera and when I gasped with surprise, he snapped a picture of me with it (he had the camera hidden in his pocket - I told you he was sneaky). All the gasping and surprise caused a horrible coughing fit, but I survived and took a very fine picture of Molly, where she sat all morning, in the wrapping paper:

The camera has so many awesome settings, which is the reason I most wanted it, that and the fact that it's PINK, and the best setting is the night one which enabled me to take this shot of our tree:

Pretty. Christmas morning Luke and I hung out and opened presents. Luke got all things motorcycle-related including the heated grips he's been talking about forever. The we headed to my mom's house to exchange gifts and have dinner. My mom and my brother-in-law were sick, too, so were we a fun trio of coughing and squeaky voices. Cameron and Alex enjoyed their gifts. Here is Alex in his chair (which I finally finished painting on Christmas Eve):

Cameron got a fun V-Smile TV game from Auntie Lisa and Uncle Luke and had present fever and was delirious with unwrapping and me, me, me! How can you not be when you're four? My sister gave me a Halloween present - she's a little behind - a beautiful hand-made Halloween table runner. I love it! Luke and I got some great clothes from my parents and Luke scored a set of the coolest stainless steel martini glasses from my sister. It was a great day!

As I said, I had the week off, so Tuesday was our annual food, friends, and family celebration - Girls' Day In. We started a girls' night out a bunch of years ago by going out to dinner the day after Christmas with me, my mom, my sister, my sister's best friend since birth, Jesse, and her mom, Vicki. Eventually we decided to gather earlier in the day, and then we decided to stay in and have brunch rather than going out, so it became Girls' Day In. We're like one big family and since Jesse moved to Massachusetts, we don't see her as often so we make sure to get together on this day to catch up and eat too much. This year we also decided to go see Charlotte's Web with Cameron, so that was fun. It's great to go to the movies with a four year old and remember that movies are incredible miracles. Cameron liked everything but the spider, poor Charlotte, and I thought it was a great movie. They added fart jokes (thanks to the cows) and a little love story with Fern and a boy from school, but otherwise it stayed fairly true to the story and was just beautiful to look at.

Since then I've been coughing and feeling sleepy and running errands. Luke's been home with me because he hasn't felt well either, so today is the first day I have the house to myself. It's kind of nice! I love Luke, really I do, and want to spend all of my time with him, but I expected to have this week alone to get stuff done and to blog, at least, and it's just not the same with Luke home. He's always hanging around and asking what I'm doing on the computer, or when I'll be done on the computer. Thankfully though, he was with me yesterday for my day of outrage and frustration, (that's going to have to be another post all together), but today alone. I'm planning to lounge, to catch up on my blog-reading, and to go paint pottery with my friend Paula this afternoon. It should be a good day.

This weekend, I'm sure I'll run more errands, have day of outrage and frustration parts three and four, and then a quiet New Year's with Luke's cousin and family. So if I don't get back to the computer before then, happy New Year everyone. Have a safe and happy one!

Christmas Cuties

I am so sleepy from baking and crafting and all the Christmas chaos that I have nothing interesting to say that doesn't involve complaining.

For today, I'll leave you all with this. My two favorite Chrsitmas cuties - Cameron and Alex.Cameron asked Santa for a robot and a castle and Alex just shook his head and said "uh" which is all he's interested in saying at the moment. Who needs words when you're that cute and have a big brother who is more than happy to speak for you? Cameron's translation is that Alex wants a robot, too.

Merry three days before Christmas!!

I Need Sunshine!

Today is the winter solstice, which means it's not only the first day of winter, it's also the shortest day of the year.

I have been looking forward to this day since November when the days started getting shorter and darker, and I had to put my refelctive vest on in the morning to walk with Molly in the dark where only weeks before it had been light. That's just depressing to me. I have been looking forward to today becasue this is the end of the shortening days. After today, each day gets longer and we gain more and more sunshine with each passing day. Yay. I really need some sunshine, not only for my mood, but also for my translucent skin. Man, am I pale. I put sunless tanner on last night after I realized that I was so white, you could see every vein in my arms through my sad, pale skin.

In other news, the nasty funk that has attempted to settle into my body is still closing in, but it's not slowing the present production schedule. Most gifts are now done, I made great progress on the rocking chair (pictures will come later), and the baking will commence tonight. I think I'm back on schedule. Luke even offered to assemble the gift that came in twenty-seven thousand pieces so that one's off my plate, too. Yay.

How Did I Get Myself Here?

Today is December 19. That means that there are six days until Christmas. Six days in which I have to work (well I only have to work four of those days), and also I have to:

• finish up shopping for a few last minute gifts
• make cinnamon buns for Christmas Eve breakfast
• make a plan, shop for, and cook Christmas Eve dinner
• bake an apple pie for Christmas
• bake a coffee cake for Girls' Day In, our annual day after Christmas celebration
• assemble a gift that came in twenty-seven thousand pieces (no wonder Santa hires all those elves)
  
• finish knitting (I think the knitting is going to have to be an after-Christmas gift)
• paint the rocking chair I'm planning to give to my nephew (see the above picture - that's how far I've gotten - ug)
• try to finish the jewelry gift experiment I started (which makes me want to poke my eyes out with a soldering iron) so I can have the two gifts I was planning to give all finished
• sew the binding onto a blanket
• bake cookies as thank-you gifts for Luke's helper and pre-loader (nonsense UPS talk)
  
• and I'm sure there's more!

I always give handmade gifts of some sort. To me, making gifts usually isn't stressful. This year I'm actually giving fewer handmade gifts than ever, it just seems that this year's gifts are harder to make. They're all taking so long and that is precious time I do not have! My friend Paula made it even harder by making me promise to only give her things that I have made. I can't buy her anything from a store. That sounded good back in July, but now - holy crap! Paula, I hope you like cookies becasue that might be all I get around to finishing for you! :)

Christmas will be here soon and it will be wonderful. This is only momentary panic and stress I'm feeling and I know that it is nothing compared to the stress your friendly UPS delivery guy is going through right now. If you see one out on the street, give him a hug and thank him for your Amazon.com packages.

Six more days - eeek!

Santa Baby, Just Slip Some Radials Under the Tree

Honestly. How hard do you think it would be to buy tires less than two weeks before Christmas? Who the heck is spending much-needed present money on one of the crappiest ways to blow a ton of money other than gambling or dental work? Apparently everyone and their grandmother is.

Three times now I've tried to go get tires and three times now I've been turned away. A three to four hour wait before they will even LOOK at my car is simply too long for me to wait this time of year. This Santa's little helper has places to go and gifts to buy. I can't spend all day sitting in a waiting room, getting high on the overwhelming scent of rubber.

I had put off getting tires until now because, as you know from my incessant whining about my car, I wasn't sure that spending $500 on tires would be a wise investment, seeing as how everything else north of the tires could explode at any moment. After my miraculous emissions test, though, I now have renewed faith in my car and decided I could finally get tires.

Or so I thought. You see, tires are expensive! Nauseatingly expensive. And I found a good deal at Sam's Club. So that's the only place I want to go. Unfortunately, every other Sam's Club member in the general Manchester, CT area feels the same way. And they all seem to get to Sam's before me. I just can't go somewhere else and spend an extra $100 on the same tires. That's $100 that could be going toward Christmas presents!

So Santa, if you're reading, I've been a mostly good girl. A set of four BF Goodrich 225/75R16s would be awesome! Thanks so much.

Nostalgia

I think I would have been happy growing up in the 40s and 50s. I love old radio shows, I love the scenes in A Christmas Story with Ralphie listening to the Little Orphan Annie. That would have been me. And I'm sure, if I had been around at the time, I would have definitely been a dedicated listener to the Lux Radio Theatre.

Many many years ago I found this cassette of the Lux Radio Theatre broadcast of Miracle on 34th Street. Every Christmas I listen to this tape and the Lux recordings of It's a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Carol. Listening to them just makes me so happy and nostalgic for something I never had. I love the language, I love the civility, I love the safety. When will you ever again hear a little girl say "shall I tell you what I did at school today"? When will it ever again be all right for a little girl to go visit at the home of her single male neighbor whom her mother has never met without her mother's permission on Thanksgiving? Life just sounds so much simpler and so much safer.

Even more than all that, I love the commercials. Ads for Lux soap, of course, the wonder soap which apparently you could use to wash your face, your body, your hair, your clothes, your "delicates", and then, if you had any left over, you could mix it with water and make realistic Christmas snow to decorate your Christmas tree. They give the recipe. I've even memorized it from listening so often. I wish I could find myself a large box of Lux Flakes so I could try making it myself.

There's just something about the formal way that everyone talks. The male announcer speaking to the female actress - there's something flirty but stiff in the whole exchange. You can just picture them (in black and white, of course). He's in a suit, slick dark hair, confident air, a cigarette in his hand, most likely. She's in a lovely dress with a tiny belt, her hair is in perfect waves as she talks about Paulette Goddard's wardrobe in A Rogue's Regimen and how each piece of it could be "Luxed". I just love it!

Now I have the urge to go search on Ebay for a box of lux Flakes.

Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Killing a Tree for Christmas

Well, four days off from work and I've already forgotten my routine. Last night I couldn't remember what time I was supposed to set the alarm for. This morning I left the house and came back in three times for things I had forgotten and still I managed to leave without packing anything for lunch. Luckily I rememberd how to get to work.

Happy belated Thanksgiving to everyone! We had a nice day. We woke up late and watched the parade while I started putting up Christmas decorations. Then we spent some time with Luke's side of the family and had a nice dinner. We stayed until after midnight and despite the fact that I didn't get in to bed unto almost 1am, I was excited about going shopping early the next morning.

For about the past seven or so years, since I stopped working retail and being on the cash register side of the counter, I've been going shopping early on Black Friday and I have to say that I love it for some strange reason. I love to get out there early, before the sun is up. I love to be in the stores browsing around for nothing in particular while the mommies get into fistfights over Easy bake Ovens. I love the unexpected deals and I love to have all of my shopping done and wrapped at home before noon. I had planned to get up around 7 and head out. I wanted to go to Toys R Us to find something for my nephews, Jo-Ann Etc. for something for my sister (and me), Target for more stuff for my sister, and maybe Pier 1 just for fun if I was up to it.

I woke up and looked at the clock, saw that it was almost 7, so I got up and got ready. I kissed good-bye to a sleeping Luke and Molly and went out to the kitchen to leave where I saw the clock and it said 6:20. Ug. I could have slept for another hour. Oh well, I set out and got a jump on my big shopping day with a whopping 5 hours of sleep, no makeup and no coffee. My grumpy, sleepy, wild bedhead and bags under my eyes should scare everyone out of my way.

I hit Toys R Us as the sun was coming up and found that the line wrapped completely around the inside of the store and the things I wanted weren't on sale. Not worth waiting in line if it's not on sale. Bummer. Then I hit Jo-Ann's where I couldn't find what I wanted to get for my sister. Almost another bummer, but I walked past the bead display on the way out and saw that everything was 40% off, plus I had a 20% off coupon on top of that! Excellent.

It's now 8am and all I had purchased was $40 of beads for me. So far, not good.

I went to Target to see if I could find the toys for my nephews but found a mostly empty toy section. I tried to find something for my sister - nothing. I bought some wrapping paper and a tablecloth.

9:30am and I have beads, wrapping paper and a tablecloth. This is turning into a particularly black Black Friday. I was tired, coffeeless, giftless, and I just wanted to go home.

I headed home to get Luke and head back out for lunch and to cut down our Christmas tree. We get our tree each year the day after Thanksgiving and despite the fact that it was almost 65 degrees on Friday, we went out to see Santa and get our tree. There's a tree farm down the road from us that we've been going to every year and the old man who lives there is very sweet and dresses like Santa every day to greet the people coming to get their trees. An hour later we were home with our tree but we didn't have a chance to decorate it because we had friends coming over for dinner.

Saturday I spent all day decorating the tree and watching Christmas movies. I swear I was in slow motion this weekend. I started putting the lights on the tree around 11am and by 6:30pm I was finally done adding ornaments. Now the living room looks sparkly and Chrsitmasy and the cat is camped out on her usual spot under the tree on the skirt.

Well hopefully today I won't be in slow motion and since it is "Cyber Mmonday" maybe I'll start my online Christmas shopping and make up for my pathetic Black Friday shopping trip.

Ho, Ho, Hold on There a Minute!

I know, Halloween isn't even here yet, it's way too early for Santa pictures. But I was hired to create a Breakfast with Santa announcement. I had to do it. So what do you think? Would you want to have pancakes with this guy? He'll eventually be juggling candy canes and holly berries but now that I look at him, it looks like he's being held up at gun point. Hmm. Better do something about that.