The Day After...........

....is never pretty. You've eaten too much, the house is a mess and it's back to work for most of us poor slobs. I wasn't even able to go walking this morning as we're back to rain and wind. Yesterday it poured buckets as I predicted it would (for the record The Crack Weather Team predicted snow flurries, haha), but then it suddenly cleared up and warmed up. So I took the dogs out so they could chase sticks and so forth. We did eat Christmas dinner in as I threatened we would and it was a lot more fun than we thought it would be. We had candles and everything, then we did dessert (cheesecake) in front of the fire downstairs. Now of course I have to get started with Jackson's birthday (the 28th) followed by Adam's arrival (the 30th), but I'll be on vacation after Adam gets here. We're going to Janet's for a weekend, hopefully the weather will hold. David has to rent a hotel room, Adam has booked a flight that arrives at 1:30 am and David is not much for driving around in the dark - I would rather they spend the extra money and be safe. Adam will be arriving home for New Year's Eve, what a great way to start the year!

Merry Christmas!

It's not even 10 am and I've already eaten almost an entire box of chocolate covered cherries, played in the yard, had 3 cups of coffee and a doughnut and just in general had a good time. I love being home for the holidays and not working the overnight shift!! We didn't go overboard in the gift giving dept with each other this year, even Jackson was having a hard time coming up with stuff he wanted. I did manage to get him an unexpected and perfect present - when we were in the bookstore I spotted a book called "Plucker" - there was just one copy sitting by itself in the wrong place. I don't know why I even bothered to look at it, but when I took it down and paged through it's intricately detailed pages, I knew it was perfect. The story is completely demented - it's a dark bloody tale of childhood toys, the Jack in the box carries a sword and the doll is posessed  - right up Jackson's alley. He's had his nose in it all morning and I have no doubt he'll have read the entire book twice by tomorrow. Don't you love when that happens? Merry Christmas everyone!

Merry Christmas Eve!

Merry Christmas Eve everyone - I hope Santa brings you what you asked for. I know he will bringing me what I asked for as I picked it out and handed it to him myself. On Friday I was out and about past Holbrook and realized I was only about 3 miles from Hixie's General Store out in New Freeport. At Hixies you can get: automotive and plumbing supplies, hunting and fishing equipment plus any license, carry out pizza, souveniers, gift items, groceries, gas, all in the middle of nowhere. It's way bigger than it looks, it appears over the years it's been added to so it kind of rambles around, one section leading into another. I did indeed get a souvenier which is what I was after,  a little cedar box with an indian on it, tastefully done of course. We are still working on Christmas shopping, we're going out today to finish up and will be eating dinner out, but staying in for Christmas. Very few restaurants are open and the pickings are slim so we've opted to make our own. The weather continues to refuse to co-operate, staying up in the 50's and raining, but it does that every year, doesn't it? We all get this picture postcard of a snow covered holiday, but honestly, how often does that happen? In reality most holidays are soggy grey affairs with the occasional ice storm or oddly warm weather. Jackson is enjoying his vacation, cheerfully counting his chickens before they're hatched as he tends to get alot of cash. Some of it will be deposited in his CD which matures on the 18th, but he knows this and doesn't object. Over the years I've taken the excess and deposited in a little account so just from extra birthday and Christmas money he'll have over a thousand dollars when he turns 18. I did the same with Adam who prompty blew the entire amount in a few months, but at that age I would've done the same thing.

Let It Snow Dammit.

Well, the tempetures remain in the 50's - it's hard to feel christmassy when you're wearing a sweater and carrying an umbrella, but we are trying. David put up his beloved $10 tree, I was even impressed with it. I've got the lights on (after being tough and pitching out the 5 sets that DON'T work and never will no matter how long I save them) and the top, tomorrow we'll finish decorating it. David mailed off the presents today, I apologize to the Recipients ahead of time. Work continues to be busy and yes, I'm working extra again tomorrow, but can't complain. I can't complain because my boss gave me off from the 30th to the 11th for Adam's trip home. And YES he really is coming home this time! I've been trying not to get too excited as we've been through this  a few times and it hasn't panned out but he has the tickets so we'll finally get to see him. I wish he had enough time to get back to LI but maybe next time. Sometimes I find it weird that I have a 23 year old son that lives on his own in Japan no less , who would've thought?  I was thinking the other day about how when I was kid I thought how neat it was that my grandparents had been alive before space travel, etc - and now I'm in the same boat. I was microwaving and for some reason thought of Aunt Karen. Microwaves are so commonlplace now you don't even think about them.but way back when she had one of the 1st ones I'd ever seen - it had a dial, was about the size of a small refridgerator and very impressive. The reason I remember it so clearly is she always had to do things to the limit. Everyone else was popping corn, heating tea - Aunt Karen cooked us a 25 lb turkey in that sucker. And it was rather ghosty white if I remember correctly! Isn't it strange the things you remember?

Bah. Humbug

I was supposed to have a half day on Thursday due to all the extra work I did last week but ended up cancelling it as there is too much going on at work and sometimes, even if you don't want to, you have to be the grown-up. I got home today a bit late with a screaming headache and rolling stomach - no, I'm not sick. A lot of people around here have propane heaters that are set in the wall and old fireplaces. They're very economical because you can heat the rooms you are in, but the rooms you are in tend to be overheated and there is something about them that give me a headache especially if I'm doing a long infusion. So I got home and was a big Crankypants with David who ran back outside to continue clearing the two acres down below with Pearl in tow. Apparently some people prefer a Brush Hog to a House Crab. Anywhoo, I got the rest of christmas gifts wrapped and ready to be mailed tomorrow and now we just have to shop for each other. David got our tree today too, on my way home I saw that at Southern Supplies they had all the trees for $10 apiece - and NICE trees to boot!! So he was happy and excited, no matter what happens over the holidays the thing that makes Christmas for David is a cheap tree, go figure.

Is It Still Monday?

The one thing about being on call all weekend and working is you keep thinking it's Monday. Then when it IS Monday you feel like it should be the weekend. We went out to dinner last night at Applebee's - I like to eat there because you can sustitute a veggie burger so eating isn't a problem. We did want to go to Garfields but learned very quickly there was no way we were getting near any restaurant near a shopping center - the Christmas shoppers were out in force last night, I have no idea where they all come from. The college students should be leaving after this week and then we'll have the town back until the end of January. It's funny how I grew up in a resort town where everything's quiet over the winter and you come to dread summer when you're up to your ears in summer people. Here the summer is great but the fall brings the crowds. Jackson's last day of school is Thursday, thier vacation isn't very long because they need to save for snow days but if they don't use them, then spring vacation gets extended. We still dont' know if Adam is coming home or not, but I'm going to make sure I have the time off just in case.

Hot Child In The City

The temps are finally strarting to drop down a little - I think we made it into the 50's today -and yes I know! when it gets back into the 20's I'll be grousing about that. I took Jackson shopping today, David was supposed to but he faked sleeping so I ended up taking him after I got back from working. We are running very late this year and are still not done, but we do soldier on, don't we? I was trying to get it done this week but I keep ending up doing extra at work and didn't get a thing done. Shopping was crowded but not overly bad - they actually hire enough help around here to get you in and out, unlike LI. I think it might be because the competition is a bit steeper here and people have to drive further (unlike LI where everything is 3 feet apart). We also had to go to Sam's Club for groceries and had a minor crisis when Jackson couldn't find the Cracker Barrel cheese assortment - apparently nations will fall if you can't find that.(yes, we did find it, thank you for your concern.) Then he spent an embarrassing amount of time hanging around the free sample guy for the cheesecake and managed to glom a total of 4 samples off of him. He got his own cheesecake that I'm avoiding like the plague as it has 500 calories a slice and according to the box it has 12. In my world I think there might be 3 slices per cake, 4 if I'm feeling generous. However, that also means in my world there are about 2000 calories per serving. When we got home David was out chopping down trees so we came in to start dinner. The bathroom door was shut and no one remembered shutting it - I hate when you come home and there's something different that you didn't do. I mean the reasonable me KNOWS the dog might have pushed it or something but the unreasonable me (LOOK OUT HE HAS A KNIFE) gave a little squeek when David encountered some resistance before getting it open. Happily enough there was no psycho killer hiding in the loo so we could eat our french toast and sausage in peace.