Goodbye 2005

Had such a great Christmas at my sisters, even though it wasn't until the 26th. Family, food, singing (listening), kids, laughter, dancing - oh yes, I got that on video!, presents, love. Was a wonderful time.

Then I spent the next 4 days in a sickly haze, wandering around my house (and my sisters house) with a hacking cough and a raspy voice that gave out altogether at some points. The fun part was doing the 8 hour drive home on day 2 of this mystery illness. Luckily I was never feverish, and after the first day my stomach wasn't queasy. So we made it home safe, although I really don't remember large chunks of the drive. We did see a beautiful rainbow that decorated the left side of the road for a good 10 minutes on Interstate 82 thru Georgia. It's beauty was enhanced by the fearsome thunderclouds that were piled up on the right side of the road. I remember thinking weird thoughts about driving the road between heaven and hell... I guess it was an interesting drive. The parts I remember.

It was raining when we passed thru Eufaula Alabama, but I could see some of the homes thru the blurred windows. These stately homes along the main route make it worth the scarcity of gas stations and rest rooms the rest of the 140 mile leg of this road. My favorites are the Italianate and Greek revival. They say "Come on up to the porch and have a Mint Julep, and we'll watch the day grow old."

I can't picture myself living in the old south, and cringe at the thought of ever playing Scarlett O'Hare even just in my mind (living in bliss in a world full of slavery, torture, beatings, rape, etc - not that those things don't still exist in parts of our world - but thoughts of living in the midst of it all removes all the romanticism of the period from me). But those houses are works of beauty. There's so much missing in today's world of McMansions.

Feeling much better today - finally! - and was mucho productive this morning with the cleaning and the sorting out of toys-that-are-now-trash. Sean took Samantha for a walk, which gives me an hour to catch up on email and messages (now almost used up), and then I've got to figure out what we're doing for New Years Eve. Well, staying home and watching movies is the given, but the details... what to feed them, what movies to watch. My cousin Chris is in town for the Gator Bowl (Go Cards!) and we're trying to hook up at some point while he's here as well - maybe today to watch the U of L hoops at 4, definitely tomorrow - he's going to come spend the night with us. He and Sean were going to golf, but that seems to have fallen thru.

I guess there are no Deep Thoughts from me on the wrap up of 2005. It was a good year. Some parts were great, some were just ok. But the family is all healthy (cough cough), happy (except the 11 year old is brooding about a major history project) and wise.... ok best not tempt the fates by trying to claim wisdom. But we're loved, and we have each other. And that makes the end of 2005 not just a good year, but a fantastic one by my measure.

Happy end of 2005. May 2006 bring challenges to be met and dreams to be realized.

Christmas Eve yummies

(Later - 3:17 pm)
Cookies are done, pie is done, and what the heck - I made an apple crisp to take tonight too, just because I was having so much fun.
Now it's 3pm and I need to get the house clean, 2 kids bathed, and myself all prettied up by 7:30. Oh and cook hubby dinner, since he's not a fan of oyster stew - I think this is the one meal out of the year his parents say tough it out kid, and don't pander to his limited palate.
Between spending 3 hours on my feet in the kitchen and taking a mile walk with the dog this morning - he's a leash puller, now my arms are aching - I decided I needed a bit of a soother. So I cracked that bottle of bubbly open a bit early.
Ahhhhh. Merry Christmas Eve!

11:52am -
Christmas Eve is a day of baking for me. I put off baking cookies til the last minute, as I've learned from painful experience that the longer they're in the house, the more I will eat. So bake today, eat today, give the rest away tomorrow. Yay! No more temptation. (I do have a small goodie bag from Mom - she mails me some of her yummies with the Christmas present box, so I've not totally deprived myself or my kids from sweets.)

And pies. My father in law makes a delicious oyster stew for dinner on Christmas Eve, and I bake pecan pie.

Then there's Christmas morning brunch, here at my house. Muffins and banana bread and biscuits with ham and sausage, oh my. (And bagels with lox and cream cheese and fruit platters and eggs and mimosas and juice and ...)

On Christmas night it's back to the inlaws, where it's my mother in laws turn to cook - usually Italian, always yummy. I'll take apple and pumpkin pie for that.

And the cookies. Cookies all day today, all day tomorrow, with every meal and some in between. Chocolate chip and peanut butter and butter press cookies (Christmas trees and wreaths and whatever other shape appeals to the 11 year old wielding the cookie press). This year gingerbread cut outs, so the three year old gets to have fun decorating. Oatmeal raisin if there's time.

I'll be off to Birmingham for a quick visit with my side of the family Monday - and more yummy goodness there, since both my sisters will have baked as well. I hope you're having a yummy Christmas Eve, or holiday eve wherever you are spending it, and that Santa brings you everything you deserve for 2005.

Just in time for the holidays....

Demonic Possession or Hormonal Imbalance?

Demonic Possession Detected! You are possessed by Ashmadia Ashmadia Alter-ego of Asmodeus, most likely originated from the Persian Aeshma-deva ("demon of wrath"). The apocryphal Book of Tobit tells the story of Sarah. Tormented by Ashmadia who killed each of her seven husbands in succession as they prepared to consumate. Sarah wanted to commit suicide, but couldn't bear the shame it would bring her family, so instead prayed to God for death who ended up binding Ashmadia, hand and foot. While you may be suffering some of the symptoms of PMS, only demonic possession can explain the whole package. We don't claim to be 100% accurate, so you could probably benefit from the application of a little natural progesterone cream, but we encourage you to keep a good Exorcist within reach, just in case. Demonic Possession or Hormone Imbalance?

Off to do some late (or is it early? it's just afer 6am) Christmas shopping. Ho ho ho!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Later..... I wrote the above while my coffee was brewing, then thought I was going to be off to the stores. But when I went to slip Samantha into bed with Sean, he told me he was sick and couldn't watch her. If he's sick on Christmas, I'm going to suggest he go see a doctor. Not about his body, but about his mind. He gets sick in December- and specifically, around and on Christmas - more than anyone I know. Maybe there's some repressed childhood incident that makes him take to bed with illness at Christmas. Or maybe he's just really unlucky. Anyway.

SO instead I got my work done early (I was ready to go at 6:30, might as well make the day useful), cleaned house, and am going to try to settle Samantha down with a movie so I can get a bit of writing done after lunch.



What Color is Your Soul? {8 results + artsitic pics}
Your Soul is Purple - Artist, dreamer, creative. You are lost in your thoughts, and have a dislike of reality (probably finding it boring). You have to remeber that every idea is based off the reality you know. Magic is everyware, you just have to see it. Thinking, and creating things from your mind, are your top priorities (not to mention what your best at). Keep at it, a little imagination can take you far.
brought to you by Quizilla

Holiday bugs

Two different kinds of holiday bugs :
Samantha's ear infection is cleared up, but she still has fluid in both ears. And her cold is going on day 15. So, we'll be back at the doctor's on the 23rd for another recheck. **fingers crossed** it clears up by then, so she'll be bug free for the holidays.

Only 4 days til Christmas! Watch out for IM's from people that are already on your buddy list, asking you to click on a link to see a picture of Santa Claus. It can be a nasty suprise, when it starts logging your keystrokes.

Sean asked me today to make Christmas cookies tonight, so I'm going to try to nurse my oven thru some chocolate chip cookies. The bottom element gave out a few weeks ago, and I hadn't planned on doing holiday baking - so put off getting it fixed. This should be intresting...

Google Calendar?

I've been following a few reports and discussions on the speculated Google Calendar with great intrest for a bit now. All I can say is, please google - soon!

The more I get used to using multiple pc's, the more I'm accepting web based functions. My email is probably my last gasp at keeping information on my hard drive instead of letting it be stored out in the ether.

Outlook has been running worse lately, a combination of my using it to access multiple email accounts simultaneously and a large amount of saved email (I rarely delete any non-spam,I just file them away). So today I finally installed Mozilla's Thunderbird - I'm loving it's email prorgram. But it doesn't have a built in calendar, which Outlook did.

So I can use two programs, and will for a while - but please, google! Save me from myself! Activate that page to a web calendar, and let us lovers of all things google rejoice!

Monday humor

I don't hate men, really I don't. Ask my husband. But this was sent to me via linkage, and it's to funny not to pass on.

Female vs. Male

MONEY
A man will pay $2 for a $1 item he needs.

A woman will pay $1 for a $2 item that she doesn't need
but it's on sale.

BATHROOMS
A man has five items in his bathroom: a toothbrush, shaving cream, razor, a bar of soap, and a towel from the Marriott.

The average number of items in the typical woman's bathroom is 337. A man would not be able to identify most of these items.

ARGUMENTS
A woman has the last word in any argument.

Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.

CATS
Women love cats.

Men say they love cats, but when women aren't looking, men kick cats.

FUTURE
A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband.

A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.

SUCCESS
A successful man is one who makes more money
than his wife can spend.

A successful woman is one who can find such a man.

MARRIAGE
A woman marries a man expecting he will change,
but he doesn't.

A man marries a woman expecting that she won't change
and she does.

DRESSING UP
A woman will dress up to go shopping, water the plants, empty the garbage, answer the phone, read a book, and get the mail

A man will dress up for weddings and funerals.

NATURAL
Men wake up as good-looking as they went to bed.

Women somehow deteriorate during the night.

OFFSPRING

A woman knows all about her children. She knows about dentist appointments and romances, best friends, favorite foods, secret fears and hopes and dreams.

A man is vaguely aware of some short people living in the house.

Computer fun

The hubby's pc started making noises over the last week. Gradually it's gotten loud enough that it actually registered with me that hey, something isn't right back here in the office. (The office is a pretty big space - think a two car garage, add another 12 feet in depth, and you get a space that comfortably has 3 desks, four computers, a couch, a tv, a play corner for my daughter, and at various times is home to a treadmill, a tent, bicycles, and ... stuff. With room to lay on the floor and do stretches.)

So this morning I walked around sticking my head against all the pc's to figure out which one the noise was coming from. Didn't take long to narrow it down to his. Not suprising either, it's the oldest pc we own that we still use - I think it's 5 years old now.

Compressed air cleaning didn't help, so I'm going to have to replace the fan I think - either the processor fan or the power supply fan, I can't tell til I dig the thing out which. I really hope it's just a fan problem, and not a mother board problem - if it's mother board, we're looking at a whole new pc. Don't really want to go there when I just did Christmas shopping. And his present is already bought.

In other pc fun... I'm loving a little program called Desktop Architect that I found a few months ago. I get tired of the same old pictures, icons, and sounds on my pc, so every few weeks I change it around. My favorite right now is


Love the dragon! I had a Santa one before that that I loved to, but it was to blue for me this morning.
If you need a bit of Christmas cheer for your pc, try ezthemes. Great site!

Christmas Calvin

Almost Christmas break

It's almost the Christmas school break and I'm torn between "Yay! It's almost Christmas" and "How can it already be almost Christmas??"

I've got two more days to enjoy having days to myself before I've got the kids for 18 glorious (I'm their mother, I'm supposed to think it's going to be glorious right?) days of togetherness.

I'm pretty sure I'll be going nuts after 3 days. Samantha hasn't outgrown her whininess, although she is having more good days than bad lately. The bad days come on days like today, where she gets no or very little nap. So we'll hope for much napping over the holidays.

Looks like she's finally ready for bed now. Going to try to finish a few pages I was writing this morning while the house is relatively quiet.

Ways I annoyed my family today

I cooked spinach for dinner. Steamed, with garlic and olive oil. Yummm. Hubby likes it, but the kids went bonkers mad - and I wasn't even making them eat any. Son told me he was going to be sick just from looking at it.

I couldn't find Samantha's new Santa puppy at 2am, and I told her she had to wait til morning for it. After she cried for 20 minutes, Sean finally woke up to ask "what the hell does she want". When he went to try to calm her down... there was a now-flattened Santa puppy, right where he'd been sleeping.

I asked my son to bring me his dirty laundry on Sunday and he said he didn't need it washed yet. Of course this morning he had no clean pants. Totally my fault, you know.

Yay. I'm 0 for 3 in being the perfect wife and mother! Hope you're all having a better Tuesday.

I want this!

Handwrite up to 40 pages of notes, stick the pen in a cradle, and transfer the notes to your PC.
Is 99.95 to much for a pen? >.<
Details

Messy day

Spent most of today looking around my very messy house and wishing I had a maid. Somehow the three year old has managed to pull out all her blocks and scatter them thru the house. I want her to clean them up, or at least help me do it - unfortunately she's been at school or napping all day. The ear infection seems to have wiped out her energy, she's slept more than usual all weekend.

And even though I didn't cook yesterday, the men managed to dirty something near three dozen cups and glasses. Usually I wash them as they use them so the kitchen doesn't get bad, but I took a vacation from dish washing yesterday. Now I can barely see the counter next to my sink. Yikes.

It's radio show night - Sean and Chris will be moving to Friday for the month of January, so if you're a Sean "the animal" fan make sure you tune in on Friday's. I don't know where "the animal" came from, it's a radio thing I guess. They impressed ESPN with their Arbitron numbers last sweeps, so they must be doing something right.

15 things about me and books

I was tagged by Briana for '15 things about me and books' : (Stop tagging and go have that baby!)

1 - I keep a book in every room of the house. Every bathroom has one, the kitchen has many, the bedrooms all have them, the living room / office / playroom(library) have many. There's even one out on the patio, although it's not in great shape.

2 - I also keep a book in the car. And in my purse.

3 - With all these books everywhere, I am often reading several books at the same time.

4 -But when a book grabs me, I read it cover to cover without stopping for anything but screaming kids or angry husband.

5 - I'm very upset with the publishing industry for their recent move to the "improved" paperback size. I don't like bigger books, and I don't like the $10 price on the cover. They can make their money off other fools, I'm not paying it.

6 - I'm buying ebooks instead. Still trying to figure out the best way to archive my growing ebook library.

7 - Last book I read - Silent Knight By Delilah Devlin.

8 - I don't have a favorite book. I have several favorite authors - Nora Roberts, Ann Maxwell/Elizabeth Lowell, Robert Heinlein, Mercedes Lackey, Laurell K. Hamilton, Janet Evanovich. But picking just one book is like picking just one chocolate - how can anyone do it? Some days you feel like a nut. Some days you don't.

9 - I loved series of books when I was a kid. Little House on the Prairie, The Black Stallion, Trixie Belden. I actually still love series - looking back up at my list of favorite authors they ALL have either a continuing main charactor or at least several books with the same main.

10 - My library card gets used much more than my Blockbuster card.

11 - When I was 11 I started biking to the library several times a week. I would put as many books as I could fit into my satchel (most of them romances) and speed home to disappear in my room. Often I'd read 3 books in one day. What I missed most when we moved to Alabama was not being able to bike to the library anymore - or read 3 books in one day.

12 - I love buying books at rummage sales. Great finds to be found there!

13 - I stopped keeping a wish list of books I want on Amazon, because any book I really want I end up buying anyway.

14 - I like audio books for long drives. Drives over 2 hours. Unabridged version please.

15 - My husband reads almost exclusively non-fiction, and I read almost exclusively fiction. My son reads fantasy (Harry Potter, Eragon, Lord of the Rings). My daughter isn't reading yet, but she's only 3 so I'll cut her some slack.

Books.

Words from an older me

Happy Birthday me!
Having a great one, if getting older can be great. I'm still saying I'm 25 (wonder how long ago my friends go tired of hearing that?), and it doesn't bother me what it says on my drivers license - the picture is so scary, no one notices the date. Anyone who has demanded to see it will usually wince as soon as they see the photo, and hand it back with their sympathy.

So the birthday thing - Samantha slept in until almost 8! Yay! Best present from a three year old is an extra two hours of sleep. She snuggled in bed with us and told me Happy Birthday about a dozen times. Then Sean took her out for a walk, and Montgomery got up - poked his head in, being all bashful. I finally prodded him with "Did you want to say something?"

"Happy Birthday Mom" he blurts out. Then gave me a hug. My eleven year old son is not so demonstrative on his own most times, so it was very touching. Since then I've gotten another half dozen unprompted "Happy Birthday"'s from him, TWO held doors, and a positive happy son at the family lunch. Makes me wish it was my birthday more often. Then to top it all off, he smiled for family photos. Wow.

The family was great, and we had such a great brunch at First Street Grill. Sadly they are closing their doors after New Years Eve. They've been my favorite restaurant at the beach since I moved here. They're formal (ties recommended) in the dining room and casual in the bar or on the beach front patio, so there's a seat no matter how formally - or casually - you're dressed. As long as your wallet is ready for $20 dinners and $6 beers.

Sean's mom will be watching Samantha this afternoon so I can go watch football with my men. Then a late dinner to wrap up the birthday fun.

It's exactly the day I asked for.

Snuggled back to sleep

If the world comes to an end today, you can blame me for upsetting all balance of right and wrong. Not once this week, but twice, I went back to bed.

Wow, does well rested feel good. Samantha and I climbed back in to snuggle with Sean when he woke up (we'd been up several hours already) and I went back to sleep. Good thing I have kids to keep this from becoming a habit, or my productivity could hit all time lows.

Soon as the coffee finishes brewing (11am and I haven't had coffee! Another unbalancing act.) I'll be plenty productive. I've got 2 book reviews to put a polish on - EC has some incredibly good ebooks coming out, if you're looking for some extremely sexy reads. Need to try to get my Christmas tree lights working again, without sis to hold my hand. Or do it for me.

Several hours of cleaning fun await, including a laundry pile that has doubled since I went to bed. Need to have a talk with the laundry fairies, they don't seem to be pulling their weight this lifetime.

And the usual Saturday trip down to Books-A-Million for my son to play YuGiOh. If I can convince the husband that he should keep our daughter home I can get an hour of coffee and book reading time out of that one. He MUST have a haircut today as well, he informed he last night. Preppie boy can't have a shaggy head.

Happy Saturday to you. I hope your day is as lazy or as productive as you wish it to be.

Playing with css

Played with the layout a bit. Let me know if you liked the old one better. That one was a cut/paste job, and had much ugliness buried in the code. This one I built from a template out, and changed almost everything about in the process. Except the borders, and the calendar. I liked those.

I remember when Friday night meant heading out to the bars at 11, not playing with css code and then heading to bed...

Healthy days are over

To good to last... the whole family was healthy from Novemer 16th til December 5th. It may have started a bit sooner, but I know we were all healthy on the 16th of November when my family started their visits. I remember thinking, wonder if the kids can make it thru 11 days of visits and Thanksgiving without picking up a bug. Miracle, they did! Not a sniffle in the house for almost 3 weeks.

Then Monday Montgomery starts sniffing (already stopped), and Wednesday Samantha starts with a runny nose. She was very restless last night, and when I picked her up from preschool her teacher says "She's been complaining of a sore ear today."

So we're headed in to see the Dr at 2:45. Hopefully just an ear infection, although this child hates medicine - getting 10 days of antibiotics into her will make me regret saying "just" anything that requires meds.

I started taking a vitamin B complex last week when I couldn't take being so tired anymore. I've had much, much more energy all week, even when the kids had me up several times with their own colds. And so far, no sniffles *knocks on wood*.

Here's hoping this is the only sickness we see from now thru the holidays.

**Update - it's an ear infection. Poor baby.
She's on antibiotics for 10 days, should be cleared up by Christmas.

Twas the second day of birthweek

My husband celebrates his birthweek. He is, of course, the center of the universe, so for the week of his birth all life must pause and give thanks that he was born to man.

So yeah. It doesn't work out that way for anyone else he knows, even the people he lives with. Quite often on my birthday - the 11th - he's been known to disappear to play golf, to take a nap, to even be sick. (He's known for being sick thru all of December actually; he just isn't a December person.)

I love the man, and birthday's to me are pretty much another day. I usually get a dinner out and sometimes a party even going, but I can't really think out any spectacularly exceptional ones. To me they've been a success if I've survived to see them - hey look, I'm still alive! But I've also learned to combat his anti-celebration by telling him exactly what I expect from him.

This year, it was a new cell phone. We cancelled my old one about three years ago - we had one car, and his job takes him out on the road daily, so I rarely left the house. This changed with us becoming a two car family again this year (/worship German technology) and with it - I have returned to the world of mobile connectivity.

Funny part of it was standing at the sales counter discussing what plan I wanted. He was going for straight minutes, I was going for minutes and text messaging. Why would you need that? He asks. No one texts.

Honey, everyone BUT you texts. Well, you and my mother I'm guessing. (Hi Mom!) But yeah....

We're going to give it a month and see. My texts will cost .05 each thru December. I'm guessing that I won't use all the minutes he wanted me to get, but will use quite a few texts. He'd rather talk, I'd rather type.

<3 my husband. Now he can go to bed and be sick til January, only crawling out to give me my Christmas present once I tell him what I want him to get me.

He's lucky we don't celbrate Haunekah, or Kwanza. He's only got the 25th to dread.

Of Bloglines and blogs

I've used Bloglines since before I had a blog. It's a great RSS feed reader, and at first I used it to keep track of the news while I was working. I could pick the web sites I liked (Yahoo News, Slate, ESPN News, The Motley Fool, Slashdot, and about 20 others), and all this world changing news would show up on a single web page. It is a wonderful thing.

Soon I was introduced to Waiterrant, and Blogging Baby, and before I knew it there were as many Blogs on my bloglines as there were info sources. I found voices I liked the sound of speaking on topics I liked reading about. Subscribe! It's as easy as the click of a button with Bloglines, and these days my bloglines list fluctuates between 120-150 sites I read semi-regularly. Probably 50 daily, another 50 every few days, and the rest once a week at least. If a week goes by and I haven't read a blog, I remove my subscription. Did I mention it's all free? So much better than magazines or newspapers!

Opinionista is one that I read every time there's a new post. But bloglines technology has revealed more about it's author than she perhaps knows. "O" as she calls herself is a compulsive editor of old material.

Every time a blog entry is edited, bloglines shows it as a new post. Several times a day, I'll see that the Opinionista blog has a new entry. I'll happily click on the link, wondering what new depths from the legal hell-pit are about to be revealed, and see that she's merely edited an entry from days or weeks before.

It's become a bit of a game for me. When I spot a typo (a missing "the" or a double word "we we") I'll wonder how long it will be before she notices it and fixes it. Sometimes it's only a few hours. I've noted periods as long as 3 weeks.

Personally, I don't read back my old entries. Comments, yes, but only of entries in the last few days. My own entries - no. I'm sure there are typo's a many, but they'll stay there as marks of my imperfect self.

My "grand plan" (ha! See, I can plan!) is to print it all out at the end of the year and put it into a binder. Maybe I'll pretty it up with a fancy cover. Nah, that won't happen but I may really print it out. My online journal will become a printed journal, and I see myself sitting down looking thru it as the clock ticks towards midnight. There will of course be wine involved. Maybe I'll cringe looking back and seeing my many errors. More likely I'll mutter ce la vie and put it on the shelf for when I'm old, and wearing purple hats. And drinking wine.

10 things I've done in the last 24 hours

1 - bugged my sister until she posted pictures of her Christmas tree on Flickr. Not that I've done the same.

2 - sent 17 emails. About average for a Monday.

3 - Entered 120 golf scorecards, hole by hole with statistics. Last time this year!

4 - Got my husband to agree that a golf tournament in the islands for New Years Eve 2006/07 could be a really great idea. As long as I do all the research. More to come on this.

5 - Cleaned 3 toilets. Hey, it's not glamorous, but someone's gotta do it.

6 - Watched a whole NFL game start to finish. First time all year. Hard to believe I used to spend whole Sunday's in a sports bar, watching 12 or so whole NFL games start to finish. Ah, motherhood.

7 - Started my birthday celebrations with a lunch at Sticky Fingers. The actual birthday is still 6 days away, but they send me a coupon via email every year for a free half slab of ribs. They weren't bad, for free.

8 - Remembered to pay Samantha's December tuition, only 4 days late. First time I've been late though - no real excuse, it just totally snuck up on me. Oops.

9 - Noticed I'm dangerously low on milk, toilet paper, and shampoo. Decided that the best solution is just to warn the family not to use any of it up, because I'm not shopping until tomorrow.

10 - Recieved a mystery "You're a winner" package from UPS. Prize was


Yay?

Well, the 11 year old in the house was very excited.

All I want for Christmas

Christmas music on the cd player again today while I cleaned the kitchen. So Christmas thoughts.

Every year I go thru the fine balancing act parents everywhere attempt. How to spend enough without spending to much to get just the right presents without going overboard. Make the kids happy without feeling guilty that you've bought them to much, or not given them what they want. Somewhere between To Much and Not Right is a very narrow precipice of Just Right.

With little kids it's easy of course. Anything in a box - they just want to play with the box anyway. Somewhere around 8 my son became hard to shop for. His interests are very narrow. Video games, YuGiOh, and video games. And money. It's hard to be creative and get that Wow! factor with a list that short.

For me, all I want is the smiles on their faces when they open their presents. A day without whining or door slamming would be nice too, but what I'll really remember are the smiles. That's what I remember about Christmas. Happiness.

To bad you can't put that in a box.

Brain Vacation

My brain seems to have gone on vacation, and taken my energy level with it. Hope they both come back refreshed - and quickly. It's bad enough being duh! dumb but being duh! sleepy all day is driving me crazy.

Anywho. As a symptom of my brainless state, I just took 4 online quizes. Nothing says duh like letting your personality be defined by what your favorite pizza topping is.

***You Are 30% Weird***

Not enough to scare other people...
But sometimes you scare yourself.

How Weird Are You?
http://www.blogthings.com/howweirdareyouquiz/