I was a bit distracted yesterday. That’s my excuse.
And looking at the way it’s snowing now, I think I am going to run up there and grab my phone and make another stop or two before it gets really bad out there. Yay, snow!
My mother had to struggle some Christmases, too. She always made sure we got something to play with, and something to wear. One year was so bad all I got was a pair of Levi’s with a hole in the pocket.
I remember one Christmas when my dad was in grad school where I got a bunch of old boys’ games that a kind friend had donated from her sons’ stuff. It’s funny, I remember being quite happy with it all anyway, even though it was obviously used things and some of the games had pieces missing. My mother has thanked me on more than one occasion since then for being so good about it, but honestly? A lot of Christmas is just about the unwrapping, when you’re a kid; it’s not even the stuff itself, much of the time. At least it was for me.
Not as sore as I thought I would be, although I was complaining all last night.
I’m skipping work today, unless my boss calls soon, since I think I’d be the only one there, doing nothing. Why should I go in for the couple of hours and do nothing, y’know? So I’m going to finish packing and load my car and head over to my parents’ soon.
That’s happened to me. I’ve woken up twice? where one arm had gone completely asleep, to the point where I couldn’t feel ANYTHING. It’s scary. The first time I was convinced my wrist was broken because I couldn’t move it either. It just flopped. I shook and massaged it until I got feeling back, but it still gives me chills.
Yay for SantaBob!
Rebo, that lemon cream cheese pie sounds yummy. I’ll have to try it soon.
I am determined to finish my list today, which includes moving old documents from one database to another. Because you never know when you might need the minutes from those meetings in 2002? 
I don’t really understand why I’m moving things from database to database, since the same people have access to both. Mine is not to reason why but to…cut and paste. 
My mother called yesterday to invite me to the big family gathering on Friday night. Since I had no intention of going anyway, it wasn’t hard to say no.
I’d like to sit in Santa’s lap, but I’ve been a terribly naughty girl this year. 
Christmas shopping today was a nightmare. The traffic was hell - I think I spent half the day in cabs trying to get from one place to the next. At least I found time for a pedicure and my toenails look nice. Doppleganger (new best friend from work) is sleeping over and we’re all going to Mass tomorrow.
Merry Christmas everyone!
And you go straight to the front of the line. I’ll bring the mistletoe.
Festivus is for the rest of us.
Mama Tigs, I send my best wishes for a speedy and complete recovery to the wounded soldiers. It’s non-fattening, takes up no space, and it won’t frustrate the hospital staff weeding out the crap!
So you could play with the hole in the pocket while you wore the jeans?
I’m a bad, bad person.
Sorry, Festivus folks. Do you have your pole up, yet? (and that sounds dirty to me).
Garbage is out. Ice is off half the driveway (thanks to TH–irony upon irony, we are getting along great now). He’s out looking for a place to live. Daughter is at the gym, #1 son is sleeping or on WoW, I haven’t checked yet; #2 son is on Runescape. Fondue is made and in fridge. I need to sweep the kitchen floor and lay down new old towels to collect the yuck from outside, but I’m taking a break.
Kudos to you, Vundie, for helping make some children’s Xmas nicer.
I watched The Diving Bell and the Butterfly last night–what a film. Fantastic, but hard to watch at times.
I have finished cutting and pasting! Can I state for the record that I hate Lotus Notes databases? 20 minutes until I can go home.
We’ve been given 59 minutes today (officially). My boss had already told me last week to take 59 today. So, I’ll be taking off around 2:30 today. Since Friday was declared a holiday, and this Friday would have been my short day (8 hr), I’m taking today as Friday. Does that make sense?
I’ve managed to get a fair bit of my “to-do” list done today, but I’m putting off the project that has been dogging me all week. I just don’t feel like trying to think that hard. I’m taking my laptop home, so I’ll probably put time into it on Friday or Saturday anyway.
I just don’t even want to be here. I want to be home with my husband and kids and spending the day with them before we have to face going to MiL’s place. I love my MiL, I just don’t really like going there for Christmas Eve all that much. There’s a new generation of wee and just slightly older ones running around, screaming, etc, along with too many other people there making nice for the one time a year we see them, and I just don’t find it all that fun. Additionally, my mother, sister, BiL and sister’s son will there and my mom just drives me apeshit after about 10 minutes.
Gads, I sure hope my attitude improves by this afternoon. I really need a nap, that’s what I need. I was up until 1:00 am wrapping presents and then my alarm went off at 4:30 am. I’m just tired, I think.
Holey smokes…
In case anyone’s been wondering if the economy really was in the toilet, I offer the view from my office window.
My cube overlooks an entrance to the gigantic parking structure that’s popular with Union Square shoppers. Normally, there’s a line of cars wrapped around the block waiting to get in all day long from mid-December to now.
Not this year. At 11:30 AM on Christmas Eve, there’s not only no line, but there are entire swaths of empty parking spaces. :eek:
Ouch!
turns to glare at SmartyPants
examines hot tub
adds 20 lbs of lime jello powder to the hot tub
sits back and waits for Smarty to set up, loaded rubber band gun in hand
VBob, you and brassy Deb done good. Your hearts are large.
Whelp, company party is over for another year. Had a nice lunch starting with lobster bisque, then moving on to ribs 'n shrimp, and finishing off with an apple cobbler. (I could have had a nice creme brulee cheesecake, but I really wanted to avoid anything to do with cheesecake for at least a few hours…) Plus a few obligatory beerverages. We had our annual draw for gift bags, and for the 3rd of 4 years running I won one. Big glass pillar candle holder with a bunch of scented candles, plus a nice tin of hoity-toity cookies.
Still have some grocery shopping to do, but it’s now a very wet Christmas out there right now. Rain and lots of it. And Tim Hortons closed at 3pm, so I missed my coffee. 
VBob - Lovely story. Bad boy or not you’s good people, you lot. No coal in your stocking this year.
Mahna[sup]2[/sup] - Given the size of this monster cheesecake, I’m sure there will be enough leftovers to feed the entire MMP, so dig in. 
Hank - Bad girls sit on my lap. It’s okay, I’m accredited, and I’ll wear loose pants…
[sub]…and only pants.[/sub]
Gotti - Maybe by you there aren’t any crowds, but the mall right in front of me is a poo-flinging madhouse. Even the parking spots virtually no one wants to park in are filled with eleventh-hour shoppers despite the weather. And we’re experiencing the same economic downturn here, it just doesn’t seem to have deterred shoppers.
Okay, must be off for last minute groceries.
And you pass it off quite well with that sour look on your face - don’t you ever smile in photos? If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were an old grouch!
We got 59 minutes today, so **FCD **and I opted for a late lunch after work. We left a little after 1, went to a steakhouse we’d been wanting to try (never again. Every so often, all of the servers block the aisle doing some hokey line dance. Hope you don’t need a refill while they’re dancing… :rolleyes: ) then came home. My Doper Secret Santa gift was in the mailbox, so that cheered me up.
I think I’ll start some laundry after I feed the critters. Scruffy is sitting next to me just about to melt down - you’d think I starved her!!!
I’ve also got to slice up the deviled eggs and mooosh together the ingredients for the innards. And wrap our Yankee Gift Exchange offerings. And something else that’s on my list. Off to tend to chores now.
Hey! That’s my shtick!!!
I offer you a A Two Lumps Christmas. Start on 12/13 and go forward.
Happy 4th Light, Merry Christmas, Fun Festivus, etc etc, to all.
I haven’t even read any of this yet. I just am running through to say Merry Christmas.
And to all my Jewish/Muslim/non-Xmas celebrant friends here - well I’ll see you at the Chinese restaurant tomorrow.
Love ya!
It’s raining. On Christmas Eve. And I’m not talking a light drizzle either… it was a full blown downpour when The Boy and I exited the grocery store around 3pm this afternoon.
And of course, the snowplows ended up covering the drains when they cleared the snow this morning, so the water has nowhere to go… there are ankle-deep puddles of slushy mud everwhere. So guess who spent 20 minutes in the pouring rain, excavating the drain in front of the house and digging out a little trench so that the puddles could drain? How festive.
On the bright side, my rainboots are now certifiably invincible. Sweet!
So, because it’s simply too ghastly to go outside again, we’re decided to huddle up with a DVD and some Eggplant Parmesan. And there will be hot chocolate for dessert, because I’ve earned it goddamit.
Whee, I’m home! My most excellent friend came over in his AWD Subaruki with the chainses on and took us out to get some erranding done. We still had Himself’s paycheck sitting here since we couldn’t get near a bank so we took care of that, then hit a liquor store and a grocery so we’re all stocked up with all the necessaries for Irish Coffee and a big gorgeous chunk of prime rib for dinner tomorrow. We don’t celebrate the holidays but if we’re gonna be stuck in the house for several days with Himself off work there’s gonna be liquor and food involved, dammit! :dubious:
It was fun as hell zooming around with our buddy, he and I share an unholy love of cars and driving and pretty much every year for the past ten or fifteen years we’ve gone out for some sort of snow related adventure–we have some stories, I can tellya! Anyway, it’s not really a snow event until the two of us go assing around in it–since time is limited this year we contented ourselves with taking all the unplowed back roads to wherever we needed to go and sliding around just for shits & giggles. Friend and I were laughing our asses off, but Himself does not drive and does not appreciate our antics and we kept hearing little whimpers from the back seat–I’m kinda surprised he didn’t suck a couple inches of upholstery up his butt… Good thing he usually doesn’t go along on our snow outings, because he’d never recover!
notices green goop in the damned hot tub AGAIN, snaps fingers to restore it to previous pristine condition
Huh, somebody must’ve forgot I’m the one who installed this thing in the first place and it minds me… Speaking of which…
snaps fingers again, then casually inspects fingernails as water jet “accidentally” soaks Morg from head to toe
So, we were saying?
Dammit now I want a slice of cheezcake with blueberries all over it. Nom nom…
Second load of jeans in the washer. Deviled eggses ready for assembly at bro’s tomorrow. Getting ready to print out some pics I promised my sis. We’re vegging for the night. Life is good.
Fa la la la freekin’ la!