This is Christmas Day!
The sky is mostly blue with white and gray clouds that look like snow. But it’s windy and warm. Warm for winter where we live anyway. 45 to 50 degrees depending on where you are. And it feels warmer in the sun. A sun that has been shining all day. It is beautiful. And no snow. I could get used to this. Hope your day is just as great!
Merry Christmas!
May all be well and safe out there and keep those lights all burning bright. Eve is gone and time has turned, most magical of nights. Darkness sets across the land as stars reveal their light. The air grows cold but we won’t know, we’re tucked in good and tight. Make your wish and quiet now, let silence reign with precious might. Spirit, joy, and all your dreams, may they come true tonight. To you and yours, Peace and Health and Happiness, now and always.
Ho! Ho! Ho! From the 12 foot tall Santa across the street
My holiday posts should be getting a whole lot cheerier now that I’ve started sampling the Christmas Egg Nog brought to you by the fine folks at the Jack Daniels corporation. It’s been made just the way I like it, less egg, more nog. In fact you might say it contains virtually no actual “eggnog” and is really just a glass full of amber colored “whiskeynog” that looks like liquid Christmas lights. We are about to go out and have a nice Christmas Eve dinner with all the other non-family celebrators. A lounge with a bar and food can be just as cheery as someone’s living room. Believe. Be back later. Cheers!
MW3 COD Black Ops X-Mas Cheer brought to you from the mall!
If your eyes did NOT just bug out, and you did NOT get a sudden nervous rush of adrenaline and excitement after reading that headline and seeing that picture, then you are obviously NOT a teenage boy. Or a young adult male. Or a grown ass man that might even have a wife and kids.
All those letters and numbers in the above headline stand for: Modern Warfare 3, Call of Duty, Black Ops. It’s a video game. Well, it’s a series of video games. I used the 3 because it sounds like more. And these games are all about MORE. More guns. Bigger guns. Throwing knives. Stabbing things. I hear the words “quick scope no scope” practically every 10 minutes from one of my children and I have no idea what that means. It usually leads to yelling and screaming about cheating and ends with real-life combat and declarations that one is quitting and never playing that damn game again with the other one. At any rate, it’s really popular too. This is a Jeep that was actually produced because of the game. Apparently this exact Jeep is IN the game. And now you can buy it! And drive around in it. And people, like me, will take its picture and show their teenage son and adult brother-in-law and they will get all sweaty and freak out and say the exact same thing despite the 20 year age difference between them: “Oh man you saw one of these???” And they will take your phone and stare at the pictures all jittery and asking questions that you really don’t know the answers to because you are a female and couldn’t give a rat’s ass about a black Jeep with a special sticker on it. Ha. I kid. But then again, I really didn’t know about this Jeep until we saw it at the Arby’s the other day. I knew as I was taking the pictures that the owner was probably watching me from inside. He was. In fact, he was sitting at a table that was facing his Jeep. I knew it was him because of his location in the restaurant, the weird way he was looking at me as he was leaving and then because I watched him physically get into the Jeep and drive away. I made up an entire life story about him while we were sitting there after he left. He looked to be in the 30 to 40-ish year old age range. In my fake life for him he worked at the Best Buy. I made him a manager so it wouldn’t be so sad and my son said if that was true, that’s probably why he gets to play video games all day. He probably needs to be a bit older, and be a manager, because I just found out they cost about 40,000 dollars. (I know right? These video game accessories are getting way out of hand.) He probably has boys, and their dads, drooling and fawning all over that thing every time he parks it somewhere. In fact, before he left, an entire van of teenagers pulled up and they all walked around it, staring and talking, as they scattered to other parts of the parking lot.
So if you find yourself out today, and I hear there are a lot of crazies madly swarming the shopping areas in these last desperate hours, keep your eyes open and your camera ready and maybe you’ll see a Black Ops Jeep too! I’m taking my sighting as a sign of a prosperous New Year for people AND the world. I mean really, if we have money to blow on a custom Jeep from a video game, and the car company feels confident enough that if they build them we will buy them, things cannot be all that bad. At the very least you will make your son very happy! Dashboard. Black Ops out.
Sunshine and clear skies!
I love a Christmas Eve that is sunny and clear! Snow is highly overrated in places where it falls on a regular basis for half the year. It still feels special and the brightness just lights everything up with that extra energy boost that can move you through a long day. The kids protest Christmas music so we are listening to the fastest, poppiest, rock and dance songs that we have. It’s actually very cheery over here. And, the TV is not on. Another small Christmas miracle.
The above picture is from a gift my mom had given me a long time ago. It’s not really very holidayish but I keep it with my Christmas stuff and bring it out every year. It was really catching all that light this morning, so I took its picture and here you go. One bright wish for the coming days.
Christmas Eve Eve
This is the kind of sky we have tonight in the Midwest. This was at sunset. I looked out the kitchen window and everything seemed pink. So when I went outside this is what I saw. Facing southwest. This is taken with the camera and the color has not been altered at all. It’s the color of all my dreams. As it is, and has been every year, for most of my life, Christmas is really more than one day. All the prep stuff is done. The kids are finally off of school. They kept them down to the wire this year. They leave with their dad tomorrow and return to me Christmas Day in the afternoon. We try to keep it as stress free as possible for them. Lots of people travel and my kids have spent many a Christmas Eve traveling on long, cold, dark and icy roads to get shuttled back and forth between his family and mine. Thanks to my sisters and brothers and their new families, compromises needed to made, and I am able to now forfeit the 24th in order to get the 25th and more. Once you give up the notion of Christmas morning it’s really quite magical and it seems like Christmas lasts, like it’s longer somehow. Christmas night, when all of the lights are on and everyone is warm and cozy and tired from the last two days, is when I finally get my real gift. Just us. Being together. Talking about everything that happened while we open our little presents to each other. Laughing so hard that sometimes I just can’t believe I brought these two clever and humorous children into this world. As the years have gone by they started focusing more on the stockings and what was inside them. It’s funny because even though Santa fills them up, I seem to spend an awful lot of time thinking about the things that go into them. They’ve become more important than any actual present. It feels so quiet and peaceful to be awake as most everyone else is getting ready to sleep and say goodnight to another Christmas. This year my family is celebrating on Monday the 26th. It works out really well with family and work schedules. No stress of other places to go or a big meal to cook. We’re doing appetizers and desserts only. Which makes it even better! Everyone is always sick and stuffed to the gills with fat Christmas dinners and we all know that appetizers and desserts are the best part of a party anyway. I get to hang out with all my sisters and brother and all the kids. It’s loud and crazy and never boring. Then on Tuesday we all get to go back to our regular lives for another year. Every year I say I would love to go to a place where they don’t celebrate Christmas at all. Preferably a place that is warm and has a beach and an ocean, because it just becomes too much and not very special at all. But secretly…no, even secretly I still wish I could go anywhere else but here. Luckily though I am easily persuaded. With a few good songs and some well placed advertising and sitcom episodes, that Christmas spirit grabs me by the heartstrings and yanks me right back in. What a sucker. As usual, I have typed way too much and I am tired. Besides it’s Christmas Eve now. I am going to try and post pictures throughout the next few days as this holiday wraps and folds around me, but you know how that can go. So, from me and mine, to you and all of yours, I wish you the very merriest of Christmases. Pay attention and find the joy wherever it may be. I believe in the good. I truly truly do because you just never know. Peace.
Thank you unemployment for this Merry Christmas!!
Yep, still don’t have a job! Humiliating. Sad. Depressing. We finally got some snow today and all my decorations that I will bother to put up are up. It looks really cheerful despite my lack of employment outside my own house! I dread going anywhere that I might know someone because they always ask…Job?? And I have to say…No. And then they say…Ohhhhh, really? Well…don’t worry…blah blah blah…in that sad, feel sorry for me, but wonder what the hell is wrong with me, voice. I can’t take it anymore. Everyday I have to think of a new reason not to hang myself from the rafters. And then I remember, one, I don’t have any “rafters” and two, even if I did, my house isn’t big enough or built well enough for me to be successful at the hanging thing. My ceiling would probably just come down all around me and then I’d be alive but with a giant hole in my ceiling that I would have to clean up! Better just to stay alive and wait.
Anyhow, at least I got to put up decorations this year. I have been neglecting them because of school and what not. I even decorated the inside too. With all my stuff. That includes things like Christmas figurines, stockings, lights, candles, snowglobes…all the things that I never want to drag out and hang or put up because I will have to put it all away again. And speaking of snowglobes, we had a modern day tragedy this season. I stupidly put one of my snowglobes in the large, plastic, lidded (and taped) container I store all my decorations in, including the white tree we had last year (we only get a 4 foot table top one because our space is limited here), and then put the whole thing into the garage last winter. The garage that is outside. Away from the house. I imagine that snowglobe froze right away and then burst and leaked and dumped its water all inside the bin the minute the temperature let it go back to liquid. Then it sat there freezing and unfreezing all winter. As summer began, I see that bin just heating up and broiling and molding for months. We had rain, humidity, extremely high temps. My decorations didn’t stand a chance. When I dragged the container into the house, untaped the lid and pulled off the cover and saw that there was condensation on the underside, I knew it was too late. You would think the smell would have hit me first, but no. And it did stink. If you know what damp, musty, black spotted mold smells like, times that by 5 and unleash it in a 12 by 20 foot room. Yuk. I ALMOST cried. The white tree was totally ruined, brown and black and moldy. All our stockings. The tree skirt. Some frames with baby pictures swirled into colorful destruction. The star. Mason’s mini tree. Stuffed animals. Most of our hanging things. We had to start from scratch. I managed to save a wreath that was made for the kids and me many years ago, that I could not bear to get rid of despite the smell. And I saved the star Mason uses for his tree. Everything else is gone now. But I think it was fine in the end. Fitting really. New beginnings and all that.
I have been exercising too. Might as well right? I can’t get much fatter or I will have no pants to wear. My jeans are at maximum hold. My abdomen protests every day because of its loose, unelastic shape. I can’t even suck it in anymore without giving myself a cramp. But that still didn’t stop me from baking cookies! I really had no choice. Stevie starts these things and then loses interest, which is probably key to her “trouble” with recipes and getting her baked goods to come out tasty and delicious. (If you scroll down a few posts you can read all about her cookie adventures—pretty funny stuff actually) So I help but then end up having to help more and eventually just finish the whole process or have various bowls of flour mixes and melted butter and sugar granules all over the place. And we end up with cookies that look like dangerous weapons or dog droppings. (You really have to scroll down now don’t you?)
I don’t even like to post here anymore and my numbers have gone wayyyy down! I feel so disconnected! And so neglectful of my readers! After I spend hours filling out applications at various hospitals, I do not feel like typing one more thing. This happens every day. I check all my job apps, apply for any new ones, and then re-check later. Believe me, I should get paid for just doing that all day! It sure feels like a job!
But enough about that. I am not one to sit and mope for too long and I have new and exciting features to brag about and never actually follow through on!!
Birds of the Yard! I finally caught my hawk!! You know, the bird. I have been trying to get pics of it all summer. Success! And my cardinal. And the hummingbirds. And the woodpeckers! Blue ones (not sure what they are called) and the red-headed one!! Even got a yellow goldfinch…somewhat blurry, but so beautiful! I am too obsessed with getting pictures of birds. It drives me crazy. I finally downloaded all the pictures from the camera from the last few months (over 1000) and it was like re-living my whole year in picture form! I forgot we did half the stuff we did!
Which also leads me to ANOTHER new feature: Looking Up! Photo posts featuring the city of Chicago that will actually hurt your neck if you look at them all at one time. Apparently we took A LOT of pictures of the buildings looking up at them. And as I was going through them all, I really felt like I was looking up at them all over again. SO of course, I will share with you! My one or two still loyal fans. Or someone. Strangers probably. I manage to get about 3 hits a day now. Most likely random searches that come up when you are looking for something else. But I’ll take it. Zero is too heartbreaking.
So much more… I have football stuff and car stuff and pictures of the sky and trees. If it’s not a picture of a bird, it’s a picture of a tree. Or the sky behind the tree. Or a cloud. I really have too much time. Period. I MUST share! Really, you’ll thank me. My little site will give you nothing but fluff to ease you through the long winter. Who could ask for more?
Alright, I must now go out to the malls today with my kids. They got early X-mas gift cards that are burning holes in their pockets! Here is my tree below. I also have a really good picture of a wreath with lights. I mean, truly, a REALLY great picture. It was a fresh wreath that we adorned with lights because it looked so plain and boring. The picture was just a bonus and a credit to my awesome skills. The suspense! But for now, here’s that tree (ornament/decoration close-ups later!):
Happy Thanksgiving!
It always starts and ends with them! Grateful for the two best things I ever did! And as you can see by the joyful looks on their faces this is likely to be the ONLY picture I can get with both of them in a somewhat holiday-type scene!
I know it’s a little late in the day but we are just getting ready to go and have dinner with the family. And this time I get to have my kids too! They usually hang with their dad, but we are shaking it up this year! Crazy right?? I think we are even going out later to brave the Black Friday shopping frenzy with all the maniacs trying to get an 80 inch TV for 5 dollars. I will not be trampled for low priced electronic merchandise! However, these kids of mine want tablets and the stores are going nuts with the cheap prices and my children have burning hot pockets full of birthday cash they can’t wait to spend. Long night ahead.
Love to all my family, friends and fans wherever you are in your world! Thanksgiving is a day that kicks off a holiday season that feels like hope and new beginnings! Anything is possible!
Everyone, be safe. Be merry. And if you are going out too, BE CAREFUL!! Maybe I’ll see you as we are all running for the doors at midnight! Later!
Blackout Wednesday
I like that term, “Blackout Wednesday” for tonight’s giant drinking drunken festival way better than “Donor Night.” But I still wouldn’t recommend going out into the world anytime after, well, now. It’s already 6:30 pm here in the Midwest and that means everyone who got off work early today is well on their way to living up to the night’s expectation.
Biggest drinking night of the year. I did a quick internet search to see what’s up with the need to party like there’s no tomorrow right before Thanksgiving. I got: Convenience, because people are already out and they usually get off early and will be off for a few days and it’s just so easy to go have a few with your friends. Economy, because bars have special cheap pricing on drinks that will get you drunk the fastest. Sorrow, because most people will be stuck with their whole families for the entire weekend and drinking usually dulls the pain. Or sorrow, because you have no family and drinking usually dulls the pain of the dread loneliness. Underage, because people are stupid and lots of college kids come home for the weekend but not before they take a drinking break with all their college friends first. Underage, because teenagers are even stupider and think their parents won’t notice some of that stocked-up-for-Thanksgiving alcohol is missing. The consensus is that college kids are the biggest partiers and also the most likely to be driving around afterwards. They still have to get home after all. It’s dangerous and crazy and I fear for anyone out on the roads tonight.
So I wasn’t really sure what kind of picture to include for this momentous holiday. But then I remembered we had this cool, modified, car/dune-buggy/off-road whatever vehicle that we passed on the street the other day. It just looks like it will roll right over anything you might be in.
Just an fyi: The tanks will be out and the drivers who think they are perfectly ok will be driving them. You will die and they will not be injured at all because they are too drunk to realize that they just killed you.
Be safe and stay alert! YOU will be your best chance of survivng the night if you can see it coming and avoid it! Or better yet, just stay in! We can all gather here tomorrow and wish each other a truly happy Thanksgiving. Until then, have a great night. Safety and sharp eyesight for all! Later.
Happy Veterans Day! Thank You!
Nothing silly, just a quick thanks to all who serve or have served. I’m also using my favorite pic of all time. That’s my dad. It’s definitely been here before, but I love it so much I use it whenever I can. Remember to take just a quick moment to thank a vet today. You wouldn’t be reading this without them!
just shy of pretty 