We decorated!!!

So we decorated outside today. The kids were beside themselves. We haven't put the inflatable snowman up since Trinks was about 2. S didn't even know we had it. We got the trees last year because they looked easy to put up. They are.

My great plan of putting everything on a timer so our lawn is lit when we get home failed. I put the snowman on the timer and we'll have to activate the trees manually.

A Miracle

Miracles happen. I looked out the window this AM and saw Forrest. By the time I got out, Trinks' piercing scream chased him away. Hubby and I scoured the yard, front and back, he took a drive around to neighborhood, and still nothing. By this time I was starting to doubt what I saw. I let Stormy out and she was acting weird around the shed. I got down, flat on my stomach, on the cold, wet piles of leaves and looked under the shed. Nothing. I went back inside and did a few things.

Then I returned to the back yard and saw Forrest's head peeking around the back of the shed. I didn't approach him, but squatted and called him. He made a beeline to me. I pet him and then followed him in the house. Kitty greeted him with hissing, and then smacked him across the face with her nails. She really had a good time without him. Of course this whole time I've been crying because I never believed we'd see him again. And hubby and the kids are out, so no one can make sure I'm not dreaming. Out came the camera. Doesn't he look GREAT????

My hubby

Nothing Knew has also pointed out several times that I have been less than kind in talking about my hubby, So today I will point out sone really great things hubby does - G rated of course.

Every weekend, hubby takes the kids out of my hair to go grocery shopping. This frees me up to run though the house, vacuum, clean up and just have peace of mind.

Hubby is an awesome cook. He not only can read recipes without skipping steps (that would be me), but he can improvise with the best of them.

Hubby takes care of the trash most of the time. I don't like taking the trash out. I can do it, but I don't like it. Hubby doesn't mind it and usually replaces the bag. I do let him know if he can't do it, I will. But I usually get a break.

Hubby remembers to medicate the kids when they are sick. Left up to me, the meds would be dispensed randomly. Heck, I can't even remember to take a vitamin, so remembering kids meds (and cats' meds) usually falls to him.

Hubby is a funny guy most of the time. Sometimes the humor is off color, but it's almost always funny.

Hubby can clean the kitchen back to a pristine state, no matter how big of a mess we let it get into and most of the time he doesn't yell about it.

Hubby can swap out loads of wash when I don't feel like it. He can actually do laundry all by himslef, but I am a freak about laundry and really prefer to do it myself. Everything has to be done in cold water, with Tide with Bleach. If it's washed in anything else, I rewash it.

And that's all I can think of this minute. He is truly an awesome guy for putting up with me.

My new camera

As Nothing Knew pointed out, I have not given even one hint as to what type of camera I have. We bought a Canon G10. The G9 was recommended by hubby's brother before he knew the G10 came out. Hubby and I have done extensive research and finally decided on this one. For once Amazon came out more expensive than Circuit City. Maybe it's because they are going out of business.

Check out hubby's awesome picture of a puddle, reflecting a tree above it. We had so much fun sharing the camera and trying for some really cool shots.

TGI... TGI Fridays? Since Friendly's isn't Friendly

We have lovely plans to meet Nothing Knew and family at Friendly's after we finished touring Longwood Gardens and they finished seeing the Nutcracker. Friendly's is a great place to go with kids because it really doesn't matter what they do. And you get ice cream. So we went in and were seated relatively quickly. Not bad for a party of 8. We gave our drink order to a waitress who seemed permanently confused. She came back with the drinks and took the food order, but wanted to stop after 6 orders. And then we waited. After a half hour of watching everyone seated around us get food, we asked for our waitress. The manager told Ivy she would personally see that our order was handled. Fifteen minutes later, we were still waiting. I got up and asked for drink refills and a new waitress. Ten minutes after that, we still had nothing so we walked out without paying for our drinks. Hopefully they had to eat the cost of our food, assuming the order was ever given to the kitchen.

We walked across the parking lot to Fridays. They told us we would be seated in 20 minutes. 10 minutes later, we were seated. We proceeded to have a lovely meal, with a very competent waitress. Then hubby decided to tell the waitress it was my birthday. I was sung to. The brownie was worth it. So we managed to salvage the evening. The kids were all great throughout this whole ordeal.

I am heading off to tuck the kids in and probably go to sleep soon. I just wanted to post before Nothing Knew - I'm sure he'll have more on it later. I'll post the gorgeous pictures the new camera took at Longwood sometime tomorrow.

It sucks!

Yes, my Dyson sucks again! It's amazing what cleaning the filter does. Hubby has been lectured to never use the vacuum in the garage again. Apparently he was too lazy to use either the push broom or the shopvac, so he vacuumed the dirt in the garage up with the Dyson. GRUMBLE!

But I fixed it and gave the office a long overdue vacuuming. I could knit a sweater with the amount of cat hair I picked up! Trinks and I are working on getting the faint cat puke stains out of the carpet. I think we found a winning solution - hot soapy water and Rubba Scrubbas. Rubba Scrubbas are awesome tools because they can do anything from brush a cat, clean a bathroom, or scrub veggies. Obviously, not the same rubba scrubba can do it all, but I have three for very distinct jobs. The steam vac never got the stains out, but I think we can have a stain free carpet by the time the tree goes up.

Please waste some time

Play this game and raise money for breast cancer research.

Even more pictures

Since I was up until 1:30 playing around with the camera and doing things to the computer, it is a slow morning. In fact, when hubby called at 8 to tell me his fishing trip was cancelled (after he woke up at 3:30 to drive all the way down to the place), I wasn't even awake. Trinks had a nightmare shortly after I made it to bed and I let her sleep with me. She was very kind and let me sleep until the phone rang. S got up shortly after that and I declared movie in the morning. They started Madagascar as I slowly made my way out of bed. YAWN! I was serving waffles when hubby got home. So here are the pictures I took over the last hour.

Pictures!

I have a camera that doesn't feel like I'll crush it when I take pictures! And here are the first pictures I took. S helped with some, and posed for others. Trinks was on the phone with friends (a new development!), so I only got her in a couple of pics. This is our Diva, Kitty. Not bad for a 12 year old?



But it was junk food and movie night, so I captured S with cheetos all over his face. And got a great picture of his bagel with turkey and cheese.

Come on megapixels!!

I ordered my new camera. We collected all the giftcards in the house, pooled them together with the January cash rebate we get on the credit card and bought a new camera. I cannot wait! I will pick it up tomorrow and will have it charged for the Longwood trip.

Now as a side note, and many minutes after placing the order, I can't use the VISA giftcards on any of the purchases I made. I am beginning to think no one takes them. I guess we'll try the grocery store next since I have tried 6 different places with no success.

Dominick the Donkey

After listening to Dominick the Donkey (the Italian Christmas Donkey)about 100 times this week, I finally get the song.

"When Santa visits his paisons, with Dominick he'll be, Because reindeer cannot, climb the hills of Italy"

Of course Santa has to use a donkey in Italy. The darn cars can't get up hills, so what makes you think reindeer would be able to?

The almost end of the Funk

I may be coming out of my December funk early this year. I have been entertaining myself by downloading free MP3s from Amazon. I picked Snoopy's Christmas (second only to Dominick the Donkey, but more on him later), the 12 Pains of Christmas, and Hallelujah (from Shrek, but not THAT version). Most of the holiday presents are wrapped. Very few things need to be purchased, and what does will have to come from Amazon because I hate going to stores these days.

I should get in the spirit more this weekend. We are baking some cookies, going to Longwood and meeting Nothing Knew and family for dinner. The kids and I will decorate the house and I may remember to find menorah candles. If this weather would break, I think I could actually be happy!

Somewhat urgent SOS to LRNs and Nothing Knew

Ok - just sort of, kinda did some bad things to my computer that I take full responsibility for. I can recover. However, I am completely out of disk space and need an external hard drive. It's not in budget until January, but if you can point me in the right direction, I can start researching my options. And, BTW, don't tell hubby. He never reads any of our blogs, so I feel safe.

Hot Tea with honey and lime

I am SICK! I am actually sick enough not to be at work. I never take sick days for myself! I have a nice pot of tea keeping warm in the kitchen, so I thought I would come and do stuff on the computer until I feel I need a nap. I have no plans to accomplish anything, but a load of laundry probably wouldn't kill me. Maybe I'll finish writing about NYC. I believe I have the first two sentences.

NYC

Four adults and five children stayed in a large (NY standards only) junior suite for 3 nights and all lived to tell about it. The hotel will not be named in case they have google alerts and my parents don't need to be thrown out.

Once again, I braved the empty roads of non rush hour traffic to drive into the city. We arrived wihtout drama, which was great since waking 5 kids up, hauling them to the 17th floor and attempting to put them to bed was drama enough. Thursday morning we headed out. We started with getting tickets to the Christmas Show for Friday, hit the tree, American Girl, and Toys R Us. The kids took a spin on the Ferris Wheel. It was nice to get the shopping out of the way on a weekday. At this time of year, you can't get into the stores on the weekend. My sister and the Divine Ms M went to dinner with a friend she reconnected with through Facebook. My dad went to dinner with someone he used to work with. My mom and I ordered out from our favrite Italian restaurant. Their pizza is about as close as you can get to real Italian pizza without going there.

On Friday, we started out early and saw the Christmas Show at Radio City. It was great as usual. The kids loved it. Then we went to see the trains at Citibank. These trains are phenomenal. I asked how long it took to build the set. Apparently it would take 20 people a year and a half! To set it up every year takes 30 hours. Phew! That's a lot of work. We ended up eating at Benihana for lunch. It was a great show with really good food. My nephew was determined not to like anything, but he warmed up to trying the shrimp and was even seen laughing and smiling. Then we hit the Disney store and the kids helped an Elf earn her bells. For their troubles, they earned a jingle bell and some chocolate. Then it was back to the room so my sister and I could get ready to meet our cousin. We hadn't seen her in a couple of years and it was nice to catch up. It was also fun to navigate the subway system of NY. We almost ended up in Queens, and then over the Brooklyn Bridge.

y

Saturday was the last day of our trip. We woke up, went to the Brooklyn Diner for breakfast. Then we hit the park for an hour. Finally it was time for Mary Poppins. It was a great show. It was based more on the book than the movie. Now I want to read the book! We walked the 14 blocks back to the hotel, ate a quick dinner and loaded the car. By the time I reached my sister's house, it was snowing. It snowed the rest of the way back to DE. We arrived home late, threw the kids in bed and I collapsed. And I wonder why I'm sick today.

Things that make me sad

In no particular order:

Trinks told me when I die she will bury me with a picture of her because she loves me and knows that I love her.

S applauded when we were informed that donations made after Mary Poppins would go to support families impacted by breast cancer. He beamed at me and told me it was great they were supporting breast cancer. No four year old should know that.

Very few people were donating to help the homeless in NYC. I did my part and gave the kids some coins and bills to put in the water jug and Salvation Army buckets.

My damn cat is still missing and I can't sleep well with so much room on the bed.

The kids don't seem to miss the cat.

It's almost been a year since Karen died and I still reach for the phone when I need to talk to her.

And now, let's end with something funny. In the MIDDLE of Mary Poppins, S whispers to me, "Mommy! Bite me. Bite me hard!!!" WTF? I still have no idea what he really meant, but I shove an M&M in his mouth and stifled a giggle.

Housekeeping

So I tried to vacuum the stairs before sitting down at the computer. Someone vacuumed clumps of dirt up and now the darn thing isn't working. I still love my Dyson and I can take it apart in seconds to clean stuff out, but this has me stumped. I have no idea what to do. At some point, I will review the FAQs online and find the answer. In the mean time, my steps are disgusting!

But I took time to do some blogging housekeeping instead. I changed from a blogroll to a blog list with snippets - looks pretty cool. I'm trying to add this blog but it keeps posting the wrong one. This blog has me laughing most of the time. It makes me wonder how different college would have been if we had today's technology! And some of you know this guy - can't wait to see what he does after graduation.

And I would like to welcome Ivy to the blogging world. While her entry to this world was through a diagnosis of MS, it is still nice to read her thoughts and see how she's coping with a onslaught of information. I am learning a lot about MRIs, and tests, and drug information packs.

Outsmarting the Rooster

Nothing Knew posted about NapSounds last week. NapSounds is a great guided 20 minute power nap. I tried it out at work and was teased by a few people who caught me. I didn't care because I was really relaxed. It is a little annoying to be awakened by the rooster, though.

This week, I was in NYC. There will be a longer post about what we did and how my mother should have been kicked out of the hotel, but the purpose of this post is NapSounds. I subscribed through iTunes and had a lovely selection of naps in both the nature and classical variety on the iPod. We arrived in NYC very late, with a vanload of 5 kids. Since they all had fallen asleep at some point in the trip, they were pretty cranky and didn't want to go back to sleep. By the time we wrestled the last one in bed/on the floor, I was full of adrenaline and had a 4 year old sharing the roll out cot with me. It's been a lifetime since I shared a twin bed, but this was even smaller than a regular twin! So, out came my iPod and on went the NapSounds. I set the sleep timer for 15 minutes, a viola! No rooster. I had to do this a couple of times to actually relax enough to catch 2 hours of sleep, but it was wonderful.

Merry Christmas to me

Hubby and I rarely exchange presents on the actual holiday. Again, holidays mean nothing but horrific drives to faraway places. There is no sense in bringing more shit than we need. So we shop for each other and give each other the gift when Amazon delivers it. Hubby couldn't contain his excitement, so I've known for a while what I am getting. I now have a docking station alarm clock for my iPod. We set it up and I am completely in love with it. Now I think I can get some nice meditations downloaded and fall asleep to that instead of the TV. Hubby usually waits until he thinks I'm asleep and changes it to sports.

Missing!

Missing - a pain in the ass, sweet, lovable, awesome cat. Answers to the name Dumbass, Forrest, ReRe, hey you, and the sound of any can being opened, in hopes that it is tuna. The damn cat has been missing since last Wednesday. It's possible that he snuck out in the AM when S left the door open when he ran out to go the the bus stop with Trinks and me. Of course it's always possible he's still in the house and we'll find his dead body when it starts to decompose. Lovely.

I was in NYC until late last night, so hubby has been in charge of finding the cat. He has been to the SPCA twice, scoured the neighborhood a couple of times, and checked every closet to make sure he isn't trapped somewhere. We're beginning to feel this will not have a happy ending.

As much as we have complained about Re, he is the best cat I have ever owned, cat puke and piss issues included. The darn cat has cost us thousands in home repair, but his winning personality has made it worthwhile. I have never known a cat who can take up half a king sized bed. I also don't know of a cat who can stand being poked in the face and not react. I am holding on to a very small hope we will find him soon. With cats, you never know.