Christmas and Stuff

Ahhh Christmas is over... almost... still need to get together with a few people and do the gift exchange thing. Anyway I got lots of cool gifts and enjoyed spending some extra time with the most precious gift of all, Baby J. His first Christmas was very exciting even though most of his gifts were clothes that he needed desperately as he is growing so fast... 10 months old and wearing 18-24 month clothes.

I got another gift that is creating somewhat of a problem. My son gave me a Neopet. Now I find that I must log on every day or Catatastrophe will starve to death. Of course one doesn't log on just to feed the poor thing. One must play games, win points, find extra food, tools, win battles... heck I don't know... I'm new at this pet business. So here is Catatastrophe:



Also found a tin of Neopet cards under the Christmas tree. I played one game with Chris. I won. I think he let me just so I'd play again. Now I find out that I must invest in several more packets of playing cards so I can build a better deck in order to win next time. At $3.50 per pack, let's see... what else could I do with $3.50... buy coffee and a treat anywhere but Strbcks, rent 90% of a video at Blckbster, buy an ice cream with one mix-in, have a fast food lunch with no beverage, feed the cats fancy feast for a week ... buy a new pair of socks... etc etc ... Somehow I think I'll find a pack of those darn cards in my shopping cart everytime I go to Target now. Solution... don't go to Target. But then where will I get my Diet Coke for $3 a 12 pack?

I have overindulged in chocolate fudge, See's candies, Mars Cheese Castle pasteries, Christmas cookies, Maple Sugar candy, chips, dip, crackers, Wisconsin cheese, ice cream cake... just grazing my way through the big baskets of goodies that are around here. Tomorrow morning I must weigh in since I have not done so yet this month. Just hope I don't have to pay $10 - it's getting close. New Years Resolution - I will start counting my Weight Watcher points again.

Oh yeah, remember the tooth ordeal? Here I am with 3 temporary crowns and 2 new crowns. I don't get the other crowns until January 12th. I'm not supposed to eat hard things or chews. Therefore on January 12th, I'll have to work on the Carmel Corn, Nuts and Chews, and Chocolate covered cashews.

One more thing about the teeth. Under the Christmas tree there was a mint scented small pillow. It can be placed in the microwave to relief stuffed up noses and things like that. My pillow lives in the freezer because everytime I eat one of those sweet items, my teeth hurt like h*ll. Am I dumb or what?

Well the best part of Christmas was the fact that the entire family got together, well not all at the same time exactly, and no one suffered any permanent injuries that I know of. Peace. That's all I asked for. I got some.

where did the year go?

I've neglected this blog again. It's the holidays. Excuses, excuses.

But what I neglected most of all was turning my computer on on December 14th to see the reminder message that I needed to post a Happy Birthday (or is it Anniversary?) message. The message should have been here, a message to Wittbits. Yes, this blog is now one year (and a few days) old.

So where have I been this year? I went back through a few entries. A year ago I started this blog just because I had heard about bloggers and decided I should be one. I had no idea what I'd put in the blog; I just wanted to be a presence in this world wide web of bloggers. It turns out that I have expressed a lot of frustrations as well as joys. Somewhere in there I mentioned that this could be a sort of dumping ground at times. I had hoped that it would be entertaining as well.

There have been some dead times. Times when I just couldn't make myself sit down and run the fingers across the keys. There will be dead times in this next year too. It seems to have come to a mixture of brief inspirations and braindumps of frustrations. Well I never promised myself or anyone else that this would be anything other than a glimpse into the life of a grandma in the second half of her life.

For those of you have stuck with me, or just recently discovered me and might hang around, Thank You.

Happy Holidays to all. I must go write my Christmas cards now.

The Wreath

Okay here's a picture of the wreath Cat and I made on Sunday in honor of the Red Hat Society

Bragging

Writers Digest - December 2003 Issue - page 25 - right side column - Contributors - Yep my name is in there!!!! Ha, I've been published. I must be a writer. Well, I can write good prompts anyway.

Santa clauses

Ha - made it back here in less than a week for once... just under the wire. Trying to be good. Santa's coming.

Excuses this time... uncle in hospital... out of town visitor... babysitting... working (still trying to catch up)... the dentist again... etc etc... Santa, please give me a break.

Two hours is way too long to spend in the dentist's chair. Oh well, now I am worth the weight of gold in my back molar. Had two more teeth lopped off on the other side so eating very carefully with tender gums. It's a two week break and then I get to be worth even more in gold... and I get two more teeth lopped off. My head still aches. My jaw still hurts. I'm eating soft food... sharing it with Baby J. All I want from Santa is five gold crowns.

Have had the pleasure of Baby J's company for most of the last three days. He's such a delight. Even inspired us to put up a Christmas tree... first one in several years. His eyes glow everytime we plug in the lights. So far the cats have not felled it. Grandma's ceramic Santa is keeping an eye on them.

Tried to see Santa tonight. Arrived at 6:45. There was no line! Looked a little closer and saw sign. Seems Santa needed to take a break for 45 minutes. So we did the logical thing and went to Red Robin for dinner. Came back at 7:30. Line out halfway across the mall. One look at Baby J and we knew it would be impossible to wait it out. So...

We went shopping for shoes for Baby J. He's gonna walk any day. The clerk still insists we need those soft little leather slipper like shoes. Egaad, they cost $22.50 (I got the same thing in Canada a lot cheaper but they are red and have a white maple leave so mama don't like them... too bad, should have bought more of them). They only had three pair left in 12-18 month size so we ended up with blue shoes with fish on them. The others were too girly. Looked at the other shoes, you know the ones we wore when we learned how to walk, the stiff ankle high white leather shoes that end up getting bronzed after two weeks of wear. Those shoes now cost $49.95. Let's see, baby grows out of shoes every few weeks... no money for college fund for a while. Maybe Santa will help out here.

Of course I had to buy something for me too. They had kinky purple shoe laces. Perfect for my red Keds. Could use as tree decorations for now. Or they might dress up Santa's boots.

I found a purple peacock Christmas ornament. For now it rests in that large gaping hole I didn't notice when we first put up the tree. After Christmas, it will take permanent residence upon one of my special red hats or perhaps a new red hat that Santa might bring.

Speaking of Red Hat stuff, I went to a wreath making party Sunday. Everyone was there with their greenery, magnolias, ornaments, cute little snowmen and Santas and such. I was different. I brought my red and purple boas, wound them around a hangar (shaped into a circle of course), decorated with a ChrisMoose wearing a tiny red hat, some beads and snowflake twine. It's cool. Most of it's perfection is due to the expertise of Cat (my friend's granddaughter). I'll have to take a picture... just too lazy to go for the camera right now.

I'm yawning. The snores have started in the other room. Time to go in and start the kicking routine. He'll be out of the bed within the next 10 snorts. Did I tell you I have given him the official early american name of "Snorting Hog"? The craziest thing about it is that he goes around boasting of his new monicker. Sorry Santa, I can't be good all the time.

Another Week

Looks like this is becoming a once a week blog. Guess I'm just a failure. Can't keep up with everything.

The biggest failure this month: I didn't finish my nanowrimo novel. Only managed to write 9000 words of novel. No time for another 41000 words. Oh well. Will have to try again next year.

Thanksgiving was good. Especially good because I didn't have to cook. Just bought the turkey... well had husband buy and deliver the turkey. Stayed in bed until noon on Thanksgiving. Showed up for dinner at 4pm. My son and his girlfriend did a great job. Met girlfriends mother... like her... we got along great ... can you imagine two grown women sitting on sofa shouting "La la la la la" whenever something came up that one of them didn't care to hear - actually both of them didn't care to hear. Like minds. Scary.

Seems we actually took the Dys out of dysfunctional family for about 90% of Thanksgiving. Must be a record for us. And then the very next day.... oh never mind.

Found out today that I have a couple more blog readers. Forgot about passing out all those cards with my website address on them. Better be careful what I say in here. So far it seems I have not stepped on anyone's toes. I'm sure I'll hear about it if I do. But then again maybe not; the old cards had an old email address on them. I didn't do that on purpose, really.

One last tidbit, I heard on the radio this morning. There is scientific evidence that Santa's reindeer are all female. It is proven by the fact that male reindeer lose their antlers in early winter. Females lose theirs in the springtime. All Santa's reindeer have antlers. Also proof that females are hornier than males in winter???