Christmas

I need Christmas to be on a Friday every year. I mean if it really is Christ's birth we are celebrating, it should be in August, but that's besides the point. I just want a long weekend. It was nice to be able to relax and talk to family instead of rushing out the door to make sure we get to work the next day.

But I think Elmo and Patsy summed up the holiday best - "it's not Christmas without Grandma." We suffered three big losses this year - Grandmom, Aunt Charlotte, and my cousin's grandmother. These three ladies we very special and the loss is a gaping hole in our families. We remembered them with stories, songs, laughter and tears.

I think the funniest thing was the talent show that my sister coordinated. M-cat played his broken trumpet and wowed us with his magician skills, the Divine Ms Em paired up with Trinks for dancing and singing, S stepped out of his shyness to leave us rolling on the floor with his dance styling - the robot with break dancing. I quoted Ananbel Lee, my father - the Jabberwakky and my sister did The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. Then my mom and sisters recreated their Grange acts - the Chipmunks's Christmas song (Pop Pop was Dave), Oh you beautiful Doll, Sugar in the morning, before my mom cracked open her accordian. My grandfather surprised us with a short poem about a billy goat. It was good fun.

I spent yesterday downloading several thousand pictures for my mother. I also set up her iPod to play in the car. Her car is really old, so I bought her an adapter to go in the cigarette lighter LAST YEAR for Christmas. But at least it works now. Mom wanted S to stay for her birthday on Monday, and she threw in a ride ALL the way to DE, so hubs and I are alone. I already sorted through S' toys and have a big bag to go to Goodwill. Trinks' room is a week long project since we don't her back until Wednesday. I can't walk into the room again, so this time I am not trying to work things out with her. Things are just disappearing. Her holiday presents will be held hostage until I see progress. Her clothes are also going. I cut her down to 5 pair of jeans. Apparently that was too many, so she now has 2. I have to find the magic number where she actually takes care of something. By the end of January, the kids rooms will have possessions reduced by 1/2, so then I can move on to the next room. If I focus on a room a month, I can meet my goal of getting rid of 1/2 of everything we have. You can't organize clutter, it all has to go.

Santa arrived!

My street, 5 days after it stopped snowing

It's sad when our driveway is cleaner than the street.


No wonder there was no school.

Mommy - guess what???

I peed in a cup.

Why would S pee in a cup? And why would he announce it at Christmas Eve dinner? Apparently Trinks was taking a milisecond too long to pee, and the cup dispenser was so handy. And he managed to fill the Dixie cup, dump it, and fill it again. My first thought was, if the toilet was free to dump the first cup, why couldn't he have finished peeing in the toilet? I guess it was too much fun. He seemed especially proud of himself.

Anniversary

Tomorrow is the second anniversary of the day I never thought would happen. I still can't believe Karen has been gone for two years. I've finally stopped dialing her number halfway through just to remember she won't be there. I still hear her laugh and sometimes I see her everywhere I go. I especially miss her around Christmas. I miss taking Christmas Eve off to meet her for breakfast with the kids. I miss running around doing useless last minute shopping because we have nothing better to do. It still takes my breath away at how quickly we lost her. And then I see her girls and it hurts even more. More than anything else, Karen wanted to be a mother. She suffered through miscarriages until she got her girls. And then she couldn't stay to raise them. I am still not over the unfairness of it all. So tomorrow while I will be sad and cranky, I will try to do something to honor the memory of a truly great friend.


Gonna hold who needs holdin'
Mend what needs mendin'
Walk what needs walkin'
Though it means an extra mile
Pray what needs prayin'
Say what needs sayin'
Cause we're only here for a little while

Today I stood singin' songs and sayin' Amen
Saying goodbye to an old friend who seemed so young
He spent his life workin' hard to chase a dollar
Putting off until tomorrow the things he should have done
Made me start thinking "What's the hurry, why the runnin'?
I don't like what I'm becoming, gonna change my style
Take my time and I take it all for granted "
Cause we're only here for a little while

Gonna hold who needs holdin'
Mend what needs mendin'
Walk what needs walkin'
Though it means an extra mile
Pray what needs prayin'
Say what needs sayin'
Cause we're only here for a little while

Let me love like I'll never see tomorrow
Treat each day as though it's borrowed
Like it's precious as a child
Whoa, take my hand
Let us reach out to each other
Cause we're only here for a little while

Gonna hold who needs holdin'
Mend what needs mendin'
Walk what needs walkin'
Though it means an extra mile
Pray what needs prayin'
Say what needs sayin'
Cause we're only here for a little while

Gonna hold who needs holdin'
Mend what needs mendin'
Walk what needs walkin'
Though it means an extra mile
Pray what needs prayin'
Say what needs sayin'
Cause we're only here for a little while

Little Drummer Boy

S came home on Friday talking about the two movies he watched: Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and The Little Drummer Boy. He decided to tell us all about the movies on the way to pick Trinks up. He nailed the story of Rudolph, but came up a little short on the Drummer Boy. According to S, the drummer boy played for baby Santa. Then Santa grew up and got his suit. Hubs could barely breathe by the end of the explanation. I think have a little 'splainin' to do.

Starbucks - WTF?????

I went to Starbucks yesterday because I had a coupon for a free 12 oz cup of coffee. Imagine my surprise when THEY DIDN'T HAVE STARBUCKS COFFEE!!! Apparently they only brew the crappy Pike's Place shit in the afternoon. Why do I want to go to Starbucks for weak coffee? If it's not bold and bitter, it's just not worth it. I guess it's good I don't live right near a Starbucks, not do I buy coffee often. At least it was free and there was enough cinnamon, chocolate powder, vanilla and nutmeg to hide the lack of boldness.

Life's a piece of shit....

Nope - not another anti holiday rant. I'm trying not to blog cranky. Hence the silence. I am still hating the holidays, especially when Amazon refuses to leave my packages on my doorstep and makes me fetch them at the post office. If I wanted to do that, I WOULD HAVE GONE TO A STORE!!! And then another online store messed up my order and I may not have the best present available for the Hanukah party on Sunday.

But this isn't a holiday rant. S and I kind of had a special day yesterday. I picked him up to go to kung fu last night. Once again we sat on the side lines while he quaked in fear. We ran home, made sandwiches and got back in the car to eat them on the way to Brownies. We dropped Trinks off and had a great talk in the car. He let me know his favorite song is Always Look on the Bright Side of Life from Spamalot. And the reason for this is the line, "Life's a piece of shit, when you look at it". I did warn him not to sing it at school and giggled along with him. Then we got to the library and picked up the elusive #7 Magic Treehouse Sunset of the Sabertooth. We finished #6 last week, and S owns #8, but #7 was not at the library so I had to order it. I think it was the best school night he's had in a while. I will miss these days when the little things make him happy.

Idiots on Facebook

And no, Mets Fan, I'm not referring to you. I have three Facebook friends from college. One I knew well, one I knew who he was, and the third I have no fucking clue who she is. Apparently the last two are getting married, but going through hell of some sort. And the first seems to be going through a crisis - perhaps divorce and/or foreclosure. I truly feel badly for them as all three seem to be going through hell. I just strenuously object to the horrifically vague crap they post on Facebook. They post dire messages asking for sympathy, prayers, etc, but they don't have any details. I really don't need to know, but the stuff they post just begs for questions, which people ask, but go unanswered. Very strange.

The last of the NYC pics

Holy legos, Batman! We spent a little time at FAO.



Chewie and the kids.


Sourdough bread from Amy's Bread.

Visions of Christmas in NYC

Here are some pictures from Friday in NYC. We hit the American Girl Place, Nintendo World, and the tree. I am glad I found Nintendo World so I feel less guilty about dragging S to American Girl. He's a good sport, though.

Lucky 13

Hubs and I have survived 13 years together - married. It's been 18 years overall. Amazing.

My mom is the beast

S has really started to sound out words and do some decent reading. He was reading sentences to me and came up with this gem. Clearly it should have been best. hehehehehe

A silver lining

In decluttering yesterday, I came across 4 stained glass ornaments that get melted in the oven. The kids and I started working on ours. S made his a nice art deco snowman. Trinks make a cat coming out of a multi colored stocking and I made a Christmas tree. We must have sounded like we were having fun because hubs left the Eagles game and made a Santa face. Then we set up the inflatable Frosty, and all three trees. The kids each get a tree in their rooms and the big one goes in the office. I got a wreath tonight, so things are starting to look a little festive around here.

Stress, stress go away!!!

I have been so stressed out about work that I've been having nightmares. Bad timing, now that we're getting into the holiday season - a season I have hated for years. This weekend I have been tackling some of the issues of why I am stressed out and I seem to be winning. I did a lot of holiday shopping online and I am prety much done. Hubs has to get his presents, but this year I am checking to see if he shopped BEFORE we get in the car so I won't be embarassed when he has nothing.

I think the best thing I did this weekend was to pull out tons of crap and box it up for Goodwill. I am about to head upstairs and get more stuff out of Trinks' room. I even parted with BOOKS! Three boxes worth. I can probably fill 10 more boxes, and I'm pretty excited about getting these dust collectors out of my house. I just feel like I am suffocating and stuff has to go. I have challenged myself to removing 1/2 of our possessions this year. We did it in the living room and it is by far the easiest room to take care of. I look forward to paring down to the bare necessities. I'll try not to beat myself up about buying stupid things - apple peeler slicer corer, anyone? - and just get rid of it. What isn't appropriate for Goodwill will go in the trash. Things like good china will be sold on E Bay. If I haven't used something in the last 1-3 years, it goes. I feel better and I can breathe better. The stress is leaving my body.

Well, break is over. Back to packing up the crap!

Trinks' next weapon

Can you picture Trinks swinging this???? Class starts next week!!!

I want pizza for Thanksgiving

S mentioned he wanted pizza for Thanksgiving dinner. We ended up getting pizza for dinner tonight for two reasons. First, he's an only child for the week and deserves a couple of perks. Second, we passed a pizza shop that had pizza for $5.99 on Mondays. So we ordered the pizza, hit the library (we desperately needed the 5th Magic Treehouse), and then picked up the pizza. I advised him that now he has to eat turkey for Thanksgiving.

Where I want to be

Instead, I put the mattress warmer on and set it to stun.

Trinks got her ears pierced!

S turned 5 on vacation

I can't believe my baby is 5! We celebrated with a Mario birthday party. Yes, I ordered Luigi cake plates and mushroom napkins to bring with us. He got Mario Kart for his DS from my in laws, and I picked up some small Mario things, like action figures and a stylus.





And S celebrated with a drink with his cousin. We had dinner at the Poop Deck (ok - laugh, get it out of your system). It was fabulous.

The US Preventive Task Force is made up of morons

And, apparently, not of oncologists. Fuck them. This team of 16 idiots, came to conclusion that mammograms do not save enough women, so they don't believe women without a risk factor should get mammograms. For every 1900 mammograms, only 1 woman's life is saved. That's just dandy if you are one of the 1900. But if you are the ONE, it freaking sucks. It means people like Kathi are more likely to die because they won't get a mammogram. She didn't know she had cancer until it appeared on her routine mammogram. There were no other signs. So she was the ONE in 1900, and I am grateful every day that I still have her in my life. I am NOT willing to lose a friend because the US Preventive task force believes their lives aren't worth anything.

Am I going to rely on this uneducated group to dictate my health? FUCK NO! I'll be getting squished in the next few months. I think I go in December. I don't care if I have to lie about risk to get insurance to pay for it. It's necessary. There are too many people I know who have breast cancer (prayers and happy thoughts to NJ teacher's mother who had a very successful surgery and is now waiting to hear the staging and treatment plan). Early detection is key to successful treatment of this disease. In defiance of this study (which I am sure was funded by insurance companies) I am checking my boobs EVERY DAY. Peace of mind is more important that some unqualified dr's opinion. Join my movement and check the girls, the ta tas, boobs, melons, breasts, whatever you want to call them, EVERY DAY. Heck - check someone else's boobs for a change of pace. JUST CHECK THEM!! STAY SAFE!! Your life is important to ME.

Home again, home again, jiggity jig

As usual, our trip to the Bahamas was fabulous. The weather was wonderful and we missed hurricane Ida, except for some wind and rough seas. It was good to have some down time to refocus and destress. The last two weeks have been a little tough for me at work and things won't get better any time soon. It's all good - just a lot of new things for me. Somehow, I became a manager of four wonderful people. I am used to doing all of the work myself, so this is a change I need to figure out soon. But, here are some great pictures of our adventures.

Dad "caught" some huge Bahamian lobsters for our first dinner. YUM!


The kids had to dress up to get their Christmas present.


The kids in the wetsuits, waiting to go meet their dolphin.


S was a little timid between the depth of the water and the rather large dolphin, but he ended up having some fun.


Could not wipe the grin off Trinks' face. Dolphins are her favorite animals.


If you do not have the tools or patience to build one yourself, steal someone else's.


The wobbly bridge. I took a video of us crossing this. If you ever need to throw up, let me know. I'll send it to you.


The cousins had a blast swimming together.

A decent picture of us.


We tried a new pool when the wind blew us off the beach.


Already dreaming of the next trip.

Still breathing

Tonight we celebrated my dad's birthday. The restaurant provided a great carrot cake, chock full of nuts and raisins. I was feeling rather brave, bolstered by the epi-pen and benadryl in my purse, and told S he could have it. He's never reacted to walnuts before, so I was ok with him having it. He took a bite, sighed, and then announced, "still breathing".

Swimming with the dolphins

Merry Christmas from Mom Mom and Grandpa. It's the perfect size and it won't crap up my house any further than it is already crapped up. S was a little hesitant, but Trinks couldn't stop grinning. We have some limited video, as we were shooting directly into the sun and couldn't see. And bless my sister for taking on all 5 kids alone since some of us wouldn't even consider getting into a wet suit.

And I can't seem to post pictures from here. It's either the crappy connection we are paying for (Mom is working) or the crappy computer, or (and most likely) the amount of alcohol I have had today.

Oh Canada!

Went to Canada tonight for dinner. Had a lovely steak dinner. Listened to Rush in the bar. Got harassed by the border guard. Came back and can't get into Facebook at the hotel! Good night.

Halloween

I posted these on Facebook, but then they disappeared. Have I mentioned how much I HATE the new Facebook? I can't find a darn thing. And YES. I moved the status thing up to the top and I still don't get everything. And it's out of order.

Totally inappropriate for 8 year olds

Trinks came home with an Insurance Activity Book. I'm sure Karen Weldin Stewart is a wonderful person, but I fail to see why the DE Insurance Commissioner created an activity book for kids. Why do kids need to learn about insurance? It's not even accurate.

This book is a fairy tale - if something breaks, insurance will fix it. REALLY? What Nadia and Tess fail to explore is how high your rates go for reporting incidents. And they don't mention your insurance company drops you for the smallest things. And God forbid you have a pre-existing condition. Forget it. The insurance company won't even talk to you. And co-pays? Not even mentioned. Page 6 indicates that insurance will pay for your drs and medicine. BULLSHIT! Yes, we left Trinks' medicine at the pharmacy because I wasn't willing to pay $80 for a 30 day supply of allergy medicine. How does the Insurance Commissioner explain that? We have decent health insurance. I can't even imagine what the uninsured have to pay for medicine. I am beyond pissed off they are shovelling this shit to my 8 year old. But, as an engaged parent, I have the power to correct this bullshit.

This scares me

And reminds me why I walk.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

'Tis the season. Enjoy! And FYI, I just cooked them at 350 for 10 minutes (because I NEVER read recipes thoroughly) and they turned out perfectly. But at least I remembered to dissolve the baking soda in the milk this time!

1 cup cooked pumpkin
1 cup sugar
½ cup oil
1 egg
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda dissolved in 1 tblsp milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375
Combine pumpkin, sugar, oil and egg.
Stir together flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.
Add dry ingredients to pumpkin mixture along with dissolved baking soda and mix well.
Stir in chocolate chips and vanilla.
Drop on greased cookie sheet.

Cook for 10 – 12 minutes.

I am a Unicorn!

I kept thinking of Inigo Montoya "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

Carving Pumpkins

But where are the children who insisted we carve these pumpkins?

Got Spinach?

It was spinach, banana, spiralina and cider. Yum!

Teavana

Teavana is a wonderful store. Their teas are horrifically overpriced, but delicious. I went to the Willow Grove store during the 3 Day and was harassed by a car salesman-like clerk. I eased my way out of the store because he was trying to talk me into $40/pound tea. Now I like tea. I really like tea. I drink 4-5 cups of tea a day. I fail to see how $40 will enhance my experience.

Today I went to the Teavana in DE. The clerk suctioned herself to me, which always just completely pisses me off. YOU ARE SELLING TEA! LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!! But I knew what I wanted so I could brush her off. I ended up with 4 ounces of Earl Grey and a travel mug infuser. And the disrespect of the clerk. The tea is delicious, but I don't know if I can stand going to their store again. Perhaps I can order online. It's a shame because their store is pretty cool. I wish I could walk around it without being harassed.

A few images from the walk

And we're off!!!!


We had to do the chicken dance to get by these ladies.


We walked through the zoo and Zee Bras we out....


Some crazy ladies.




The nicest people come out to cheer us on!


I raised my pink Croc for Kathi and the other survivors.


A shot of the very emotional closing ceremony.


We walk for lots of reasons.

The 3 Day is here again

Somehow the 3 Day sneaks up on me. I have the countdown at my desk and the last week is always a surprise. I trained hard early on and have been taking it easy for the last couple of weeks. I am ready to walk!

As always, I have a hard time getting to the opening ceremonies. Logistically, it's easy. I have a ride to PA (thanks Ray!), a great place to stay (Ivy and Nothing Knew are awesome) and a ride at O'Dark thirty Friday morning (thanks Nothing Knew!!). My problem is the longer I walk, the more people get diagnosed. At first it was Karen and a co-worker Amy. Last year it was Kathi. This year it was another co-worker, Kim and NJ teacher's mother. When is this going to end???

Last year I listed all my reasons for walking. I have lost a little of the anger. I still feel powerless. I am still walking to save Karen's girls. I am doing my best to stay educated so I can be of some value to those on this journey. I truly believe Karen is watching me and cheering me to the finish line.

So I am prepared to laugh, cry, work hard and relax. It's amazing how you can go so quickly from one emotion to the opposite on this walk. It's not just a matter of physical strength, but emotional strength as well.

Don't look Slick!!!

La arana pequenita, subio, subio, subio.

Hubs and I went out for a delightful dinner at the Big Fish Grill in Wilmington. After a fabulous meal, we decided to stroll along the river. Around every light, there were spiders. They were absolutely amazing.