Happy New Year!

Still really sick. Can't concentrate long enough to put up pictures. I haven't forgotten though.

Have a safe and happy New Year!

Aftermath

Christmas was great! Hope you all had a wonderful day. I made it a little more exciting this year. Devan had to do a scavenger hunt to find his gift. We sent him out to the dumpster then back inside then to the mailbox and a couple more stops before he found out his gift was under the tree! :) He had fun with it. Jordan got concert tickets so I wrapped them as they are then hid them in a HUGE box full of shredded paper. She had fun throwing the paper all over the floor to find the gift. I'll download the pictures later.

Oh, besides my presents under the tree, I got something else...a cold! Yeah, I'm totally coughing, have the sore throat and slight fever. It's great let me tell you (NOT)!

We just dropped my mom off at the airport. She was very glad she got to come out here. She hadn't planned on it but when I was talking to her she said she didn't know what she was going to do for Christmas. She said she had already cried thinking of not spending it with me and the kids. It would have been her first Christmas without the grand kids.

Hi

mom's making me type something but i don't have anything to say so....... MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Finally, a turn in the right direction

Okay, things are looking up. The one day job was boring but it definitely helped my status with the temp agency. I had an interview today that went really really well. The lady was going to call my references then she wants to meet with me outside the office one more time to get a feel for how we would get along. She claims she is "high strung." She seems like one of those people that you either love them or hate them, there is no in between. Thanks to all of you sending me the "get a job" vibe. It's totally working... :)~

It's almost Christmas...are you done shopping? I have to take the kids out tomorrow to get my gift. They have been procrastinating. Ugh, I don't want to shop tomorrow, it's going to be crazy busy at every store!

We finished decorating the tree. They have the wonkiest trees here. We normally like a nice even shaped Douglas Fir but they don't have them here. It was a choice between a pine tree and some other thing. We opted for the other kind. It's short and really round. I'll post pictures later. We miss our trips to the tree farm, running around hugging trees to find just the right shape, kneeling in the mud to cut it down, yelling "TIMBER" at the top of our lungs, and hauling the tree back to the car to then return the saw and get a Styrofoam cup full of hot chocolate or cider. Aahh, the mud on our knees and the sweating in the cold from dragging the heavy tree - there's nothing like Christmas in the NW! *wistful sigh* It's just not the same driving up to the Walgreens parking lot and picking out your tree in a short sleeved t-shirt, jeans, and your sunglasses. *another wistful sigh*

Boring

Oh, I am so thankful that I haven't had to accept a job as dull as that! So far all my jobs have required some neurons. This one today was so lame it almost felt like I was working in a mail room. The only good thing about that position is that I got to earn some money.

As we wrap more presents and receive packages in the mail we are getting more and more excited for Christmas! The kids and I decided to start a new tradition. We are having an ugly ornament contest each year. We made a stocking for the ugly ornaments. We each put our initials and the year on the ornament, wrap it and put it in the stocking. After we have opened all our gifts but aren't ready to disperse to do whatever, we will open the ornaments. We will vote on who wins for the ugliest and they get their picture taken with their ornament. We even have a special tree just for ugly ornaments. We are having fun with this so far. It should be fun through the years to save and display our ugly ornaments! :)

One Day Job

I have a one day job! Yeah me! (yes, that was dripping with sarcasm.) It will keep me busy for a day and some money is better than none. Plus, it's a great place to get noticed since it is about 2 miles from my house and it's a payroll service.

I've got a couple resumes submitted for jobs that won't be hiring until after the 1st of the year. Just keeping my fingers crossed that something will turn up soon. I've sent out lots of resumes and my recruiters are working hard for me so hopefully it won't be long until I am a full time employee again.

Jordan has finals this week. She is totally stressed. Devan has one more final to finish up but so far he has been doing great. He got the highest test score in his class in both history and language arts. They are both totally excited for the break and keep asking if they can be sick so they can stay home. :)~

We finally had two days of rain and guess what I saw...a worm. Yeah, I forgot there were such things. It's typically dry here and there hasn't really been a saturating rain to bring any worms out. The worms are little though. They are these thin little things not like the big juicy ones we were used to in the NW.

Here's hoping you are having fun with the shopping and the wrapping and keeping your sense of humor through it all. I have to say that I appreciate that the woman at Michael's craft store still had hers since I dropped a bag of bows on her head the other day. Luckily it was only a bag of bows so it's like dropping fluff on her head but she laughed as I apologized profusely.

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

Thanks to the wonderful ladies in accounting at Neil Kelly! They sent a fabulous wreath so not only does it pretty up my apartment, it smells like Christmas pine. It's great!

Devan is knee deep in finals and Jordan has hers next week. The kids are both very anxious for the break.

We are finishing up our shopping getting ready to mail everything. I'm rather proud of myself for getting done so quickly. I guess since I've got nothing else to do at least I can stay on top of Christmas gifts.

Oh, it's getting colder and we might even have a storm blow in this weekend. Rumor has it there may even be snow. Keep your fingers crossed! I have to find our winter clothes tomorrow. We have the best hill if it does snow. Well, not to drive down, but to play on and slide down. Here's hoping... :)

Lack of a Christmas Vibe

It doesn't feel at all like Christmas. I'm not super busy at work (understatement of the year). The sun is shining and it's 67 degrees. We don't have to make a trip to my mom's for Devan to climb up into the attic to help get her decorations down or to help her hang her Christmas lights. I'm not mentally preparing our holiday schedules and worrying about how to keep the kids busy during the holiday break. And did I mention it's light sweatshirt weather?!

I've rearranged the furniture to make room for a tree and will put up some decorations tomorrow so that will help. We will probably get our tree toward the end of the week. I watched Elf, tried to watch Polar Express but it's too much Tom Hanks and he doesn't resonate Christmas, then I played Christmas music and it helped a little, but still not quite there. I'm really putting a lot of pressure on my decorations to make it feel like Christmas. I'm not sure those inanimate objects I'm going to hang up can handle that sort of pressure. We'll see tomorrow. I think I'll bake some cookies and see if that helps since there is such a strong connection between smells and feelings/memories.

Hope you are all getting in the Christmas spirit! I'll keep working on it here. Hugs.

Country Music Convert?

This evening I went to a fundraiser concert for a program called Daystar ministries. It was held in Nashville at Chaffins Barn. I went there in the summer to see Smoke on the Mountain. It's a great venue with only 100 tables (three tiers) in a square. In the middle is the stage so the farthest seat from the stage is probably 25 feet. We were a little closer than that, I'd say maybe 15-20 feet from the entertainment. The program is called Evening in December. Yes, that is also a published Christmas song by Tricia Walker. She wrote the song specifically for this fundraiser concert. Okay, okay, I'll get to the good stuff...our emcee for the evening was none other than the super talented Harmonica master, Buddy Green! Okay, I didn't know him for his harmonica skills either - but, any of you who have heard any religious Christmas music will recognize the song "Mary Did You Know." He wrote the music for that song. He sings a mean Irish Bar song though and he can rock his harmonica! What? He's boring you say, can't I come up with some better talent than that to volunteer for this fun filled night of music? Okay, how about Sawyer Brown. They sang a couple songs one of the songs being Dirt Road or Dirt Driveway. Cool song. That's enough attitude, so Sawyer Brown isn't that huge anymore, just for your information, they produced Casting Crowns, the Christian group. If Sawyer Brown doesn't excite you then neither will Kim Hill, Ashley Cleveland, and Karen Staley, all of whom are very established in the Christian music scene. I do have to say, there was this song that was pretty cool and I have to admit I had heard it a couple times on the radio, it's called "As If." Anyone impressed yet...any country music fans out there...you know who I'm talking about then. If you didn't get it by that song, how about "Suds in the Bucket." Okay, got you hooked now don't I? Yes folks, we had a four song performance (remember 20 feet away, with maybe 500 people) by the one and only, Sara Evans!!!!!!!! She was a total cutie patootie. She also sang a couple Christmas songs. They all sing with only a guitar and/or keyboard, or accapella if they are brave enough. It was a really fun evening and now it feels a little more like Christmas.

BTW (by the way) the kids are good, not looking forward to finals but excited for the break coming not soon enough.