Taking Down Christmas

Although all the physical evidence of Christmas was gone from my home on the day after Christmas (my usual de-decorating day), I am going to try really hard to keep that wonderful feeling that I have had in my heart and in my home for the new year.
Before I am completely done with Christmas this year I really wanted to share some of my favorite things about my Christmas.  There were so many really great things, it was hard to choose.  But, I do have some favorites.
First of all, because of two of my very clever grandchildren I was finally able to master my mom's recipe of her date roll candy.  Don't mean to brag, but it was perfect and it brought back sweet memories of Christmases of my youth.
Secondly, we had a wonderful Christmas day with our family, minus two children and their families, whom we missed so much, and our extended family.  And I received a most wonderful gift, a hand knitted pair of socks from my daughter-in-law's mother (she does beautiful work).  Along with the socks I got all the supplies that I will need to make my own socks.  Well, except for that prettily wrapped box with the much needed talent inside. But, I'm feeling confident that I can learn.....I'm not paying any attention to that "old dog, new tricks" saying.
Third and best of all we got the gift of a new grandchild.  A big, beautiful, and healthy baby boy, who looks just like his big brother....lucky boy.  Mother and son doing well!
So, now I am really and anxious to start a new year and do better then I did this year.  I love the feeling of being able to start all over again.

Post Script:
Icing on the cake:  Our lovely niece, whom we adore, is going on a mission and has been called to serve in the Arizona Tempe Mission, where she will be able to teach the people there in Spanish.  Congratulations Shelby, we love you.

WC

I am a pretty simple woman with a pretty simple life, but every once in a while I like to change things up just a bit.
So, I was indulging in one of my favorite Christmas pastimes watching Christmas movies on Hallmark and Lifetime.  I was watching one movie where the family had a really pretty house, no, the family wasn't homeless in this particular movie.  The mother was coming down the stairs and I noticed that on the bathroom door was a pretty, oval shaped , silver plaque that simply had the initials WC on it.  I loved it!  After the movie was over I immediately got on the Internet and found an identical one on Amazon and ordered it.  Well, it came today and it is already gracing my bathroom door.
Now my husband is totally confused, he's wondering why we have  Winston Churchill's initials on our bathroom door.  I've decided just to let him keep wondering for awhile before I tell him what WC actually stands for.

Who Knew?

I feel compelled to share just two things with you tonight while I sit here in the den watching Hoarders.  First I am quite excited that The Walking Dead has finally returned to my big screen, yea!  Spoiler Alert:  the motley crew has found a new home!!!  So happy for them, now the baby can be born in the safety of a zombie infested, disgustingly filthy abandoned (well, sort of) prison.  I am so relieved.
The second thing, and Erin if you read this you may not believe this is true but it is, honest.  I created a power point   presentation on my computer, yes, it's true I really did.  I did this all by myself.  I am so totally computer illiterate, it's kind of embarrassing.  My 11 year old grandson had a school assignment for his history class to do a power point presentation and I wanted to be able to help.  So I got on my computer and pulled up microsoft office and started tapping keys and I'll be darned if I didn't actually make a fairly good power point presentation.  Anyway, I have been so proud of myself I have told everyone I meet about what I accomplished.  I'm not too sure Bob, the checker at the grocery store even cared, but the 3 people in line behind me seemed impressed.

Zap, You're Outta Here

My husband is retired so we have the luxury of doing things that we enjoy during the middle of the day.   I don't mean that exactly like it sounded, what I do mean is going places, eating out, and going to the movies.
So, there was a movie that was starting on Friday that I had been looking forward to.  It was a scary movie, and I love scary movies, my husband not so much.  But he was nice enough to go with me on the promise that he could choose next time.
You know we are getting older so we like to be home at night so we decided to go to the 4:30 movie.  I'm telling you right now that  was a big mistake.  School gets out at around 3:30, maybe you can guess the rest, but I'll tell you anyway.
Scary movies are popular with teenagers and teenagers hang out in packs, big packs.  We walk into the theater and it is packed with teens, young teens.  You could hardly hear yourself think it was so loud in there.  And I am dreading our decision to go to the early movie.
As a result of sitting in our seats listening to very interesting and loud teenage conversation my husband came up with an invention.  Here it is.
When a theater is playing a movie that will, most likely, be popular with teenagers, every adult that goes into that same theater is handed a keypad.  You sit.  On the backs of every seat in the theater is a number and in your hand is the key pad with those numbers. It's best if you, as an adult, sit in the last row.  Every time during the movie that those cute little teens get out of hand you press their seat number button and they get a little zap.  If they are a little dense and keep up the noise you zap them again, it's a little more intense this time.  Okay, this is their last chance, the third zap.  Now their bums are really tingly.  The very last press of the button, the usher comes and escorts them out.
In all fairness, the movie wasn't very good and the young man in front of me very sweetly turned around before the movie started and told me that he promised they would quiet down before the movie began.  They were true to their word, they were all very well behaved during the movie.
Their behavior caused us to think twice before we sought a patend for our new invention.  We think we'll wait awhile, actually those teenagers are pretty good kids.

PB and J, Uncencored

I grew up in a racist household.  I didn't know that I was being raised by racist parents.  But this weekend that sad truth came out.  Please understand that there was never a derogatory word spoken about anyone who was different than we were, whether they were different in size, shape, or color.  As a matter of fact, I remember very well when I was a very young girl, getting my mouth washed out with soap for using the "N" word.  I didn't even really know what it meant, I just knew that it was a bad word and I was very angry with my sister.

The thing that makes us racists is the fact that we ate, and still do, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on white bread.  This is what a principal from an elementary school in Oregon told us on Friday.   I didn't get to hear what she thought was racist about eating PBandJ (I had the flu, I was busy throwing up).  And I probably would have just thrown up my hands and turned off the tv anyway.

I, personally, think that PBandJ is the best sandwich ever.   Not to even mention  the fact that peanut butter was invented by an African American (sorry, I can't remember his name but I sure have a good supply of his invention in my pantry).

My point is, I think, that stupid people say stupid things.  I think many people have forgotten that old adage to think before you speak.  We would all be a little better off if we all remembered that.

Money Doesn't Buy Happiness, But it Does Buy Dance Lessons

I raised my children at a time when, at least to me, the world seemed so much easier.  It was a kinder place, not as many things to worry about.  That may  be just my perception, but I liked it.  Being a stay at home mom was my choice and I feel really fortunate that it was a choice that was mine to make.  I worked outside the home at several different periods in my life when my husband had been laid off from a couple of different jobs, but I always knew that it wasn't permanent.  And I have always said that you can do anything if you know you don't have to do it forever and I knew that I didn't.  I did go to work full time when my children were older and I enjoyed it, but, again, it was my choice.
I have tremendous respect for moms who do work outside the home.  Essentially they are working two jobs, full time.  And the job of raising children is not an easy one.  I know that not every woman is able to, or even wants to, stay at home full time.  Believe me, I get that.   And in this very difficult economy you have to do what you have to to.  Take my daughter and her husband for instance.
My daughter, Rachel and her husband both have college degrees, as a matter of fact my son-in-law has a Masters degree.  They are both teachers.  Rachel quit her job several years back to stay at home with their three beautiful girls and my son-in-law went to work  teaching school.  I don't understand how the hierarchy of the teaching profession works, but he was let go and a teacher who was out of a job and in the district much longer than he was given his job.  Since that time, after applying nearly everywhere, he was still not having any luck.  He is a special ed. teacher and there seems to be more teachers than there are jobs.
So, finally after losing her job as an administrator at an extreme sports boarding school that went defunct, Rachel was able to get a job at as a high school English teacher.

Now, here is the story I was leading up to after this very long introduction....sorry!

It was the day before my daughter was to start her new job.  Her 4year old daughter was a little miffed that her mom was going to be gone all day, she loves spending time with her mom.  She knew that her dad would be there, but as far as she is concerned, there is no one who can take her place.  This is the conversation that ensued the "Day Before"...

Jane;   Why do you have to go to work?
Mom: Because we need money to buy things.
Jane:  What do we have to buy?
Mom: We need to pay for our house.
Jane:  We don't need a house, we can live with Grandma and Grandpa,
Mom:  We need to buy food.
Jane:  We have lots of food in the cupboards.
Mom: We need to buys clothes.
Jane:  I don't need clothes.
Mom:  We need money to buy your toys.
Jane:  I don't need anymore toys, I have enough.
Mom:  We need money to pay for yours and your sisters dance lessons.
Jane:  We already know how to dance and we can dance at home.

Having run out of things that money can buy, Rachel gave up, but Jane had the last word.

Jane:  Folding her arms and stomping off to her bedroom, these are her final words, " Well, in  my opinion, you have my a very bad decision, you should have thought about it a little harder".

Holy Cow, Indeed!

Yup, holy cow!  I haven't talked to my sister yet this week, but she has a wonderful blog that I check out to keep up to date just in case we don't get a chance to talk.  So, I'm lamenting about the start of my day, which I will share with you in a moment, when I read her blog and find out that my niece had her appendix out yesterday.  Holy Cow, what else can I say.  Their summer has been one thing, not good thing, after another. 
So I am going to share with you how my day got started.  Except now that I have put it into perspective the start of my day isn't bad at all.  I got up at around 7:00, which is late for me, I get a load of laundry started and hop in the shower.  While in the shower I am thinking about the things that are going on in my life, none of them really bad, just busy.  I get out of the shower, still with a lot of stuff on my mind, dry off and get dressed.  I'm also thinking about going to get my hair cut this afternoon, which I always dread because my little Colombian hairdresser talks more than my husbands side of the family combined.  All I want is a haircut, darn it.
Off track, sorry.  So I am dressed and I brush my hair.  When my hair starts to grow out there is always a little cowlick that I have to contend with, so normally I just spritz a little hairspray on.  This time, because I am thinking of other things. I grab the spray can closest to me and spray it on the top of my hair.  OOPS, my hair is purple.  I take a closer look at the can and realize that I have just sprayed Kaboom on my hair.  Now the up side is that Kaboom turns white when the surface is clean so my hair didn't stay purple for long.  Still, I had to hop back in the shower and wash my hair again.
But I'm thinking, now, that no one in my house is sick right now, no one is in jail, no one is lost in a foreign country and I don't owe the IRS.  So, I'm off to a good start and I am NOT complaining about anything, at least today.