Family Life: Merry Christmas

Life is like a box of Chocolates

Merry Christmas to one and all. I have time to breath now. My final is over, the Christmas shopping is done, except for the out of town folks, who will receive their gifts after Christmas and friends who will be dropping by during the holidays. Okay, so Christmas shopping isn’t done. Look’s like I’ll be braving it with the rest of the folks at Borders this afternoon, before grocery shopping. We have closed the shop and Father is off through Wednesday for a well deserved break.

Yesterday, we drove up to Los Altos and had an early Christmas celebration with part of Father’s family. We had a delightful time and Father had fun instigating a round of who can take the best close up picture of nostrils. James cousin came in first. The joy of digital cameras. Grandma M is a wonderful cook and we feasted on beef tenderloin, scalloped potatoes and ginger carrots and english pudding. James and his cousin had fun and she introduced him to webkinz. I’ll be taking a tour of the site later and see if it is something I want to sign him up for. I’m always leery of any site that includes chat for children and tend to steer far away from it as possible.

The fall reading challenge is over and I will be posting a final report about my successes and failures a little later. I was waylaid by Nanowrimo, then working on the 2nd draft of my story, and discovering Romance novels again. I hadn’t read a regular romance novel in years and decided that if my story is going to include some romance, well then I better do some research. I have fallen in love with Nora Roberts. She is an excellent writer and I am taking numerous notes and enjoying her books. Father is also enjoying the fact that I am reading romance novels for some inexplicable reason.

Christmas has been a little more laid back this year and our court hasn't been too crazy with cars. B's wife - our next door neighbor had twins and they really didn't have time to put out a whole lot of lights. E across the street has been dealing with a family emergency. His mother had a heart attack when they took her to the airport to go home and put out nothing. We just got waylaid by life and put out enough lights to cover our front patio fence. Such is life, but I don't mind not having wall to wall cars to deal with.

More later - life beckons

Family Life: Hey! Where did the time go?

Hey! Where did the time go?

Wow, it's two weeks before Christmas and I have accomplished ----- nothing. We did managed to go out last night and buy a Christmas Tree. That was quite an experience. The two places we normally go are no longer there and we ended up going to a local nursery. Beautiful tree - which you'll see after its decorated, but one of the most expensive we have ever bought. Now I just have to figure out how to keep Luna from climbing in it.

James is anxious to go Christmas shopping and I am starting on my lists of what to get people, figuring out what to buy before we hit the stores. Otherwise we will be wandering aimlessly and buying for ourselves. Amazon.com is my friend.

Christmas Cards? Hah! Bah Humbug!

What have we been doing? you ask.

We cleaned out the garage in anticipation of getting the new garage door only to find that because we want a brown one, it is special order. The door guy said they would need 7 feet of clearance into the garage. So we cleaned it out and put stuff in the side yard. Of course, the day after it rained - murphy's law don't you know.

In the process, Father got into a cleaning mode and started throwing out a lot of stuff. When he gets in that mood, I don't stop him. We were able to reach my boxes of books and pulled them all down. I opened one box and recognized nary a book, so this will be fun getting lost in book land for a while. Now I just need a few more bookshelves. Squealing with delight and rubbing my hands together in anticipation - we've had our eyes on a nice set of teak shelves for the living room.

So, it rained. And Sears called. The door is special order because we want brown, so it will be three weeks before they can install. Poor Father spent an afternoon in the rain, putting everything back in the garage. BUT, we have a clean garage and killed about a dozen black widows in the process.

I just finished writing a short term paper of 2000 words or more for my Science and Religion class about
the similarities and differences between scientific models and religious myths and the paper had to include the similarities and differences between the function (purpose, use, value, importance) of models for scientists, and the function (purpose, use, value, importance) of religious myths for adherents. The paper had to include one example of a scientific model and one example of a religious myth. Hey, I thought, this will be easy. I was writing 2000 words or more a day for nanowrimo, I can do this quickly. Silly me. But it is done and submitted. My final is this week and I will be done with this class. Probably will get a B in this class, will be very surprised if I get an A.

We are beginning our two - maybe three week Christmas Vacation from lessons. James is quite delighted.

I continue to work on "Floating on the Surface." 30 days of writing and I have lots of words. Luna is continuing to make sure I get up by 7:00 a.m, so that gives me some time to write before James gets up at 8:00. Now am fleshing out the story, giving my characters more substance and adding detail to the story. The book is not ready for editing or reading by other parties as of yet. I have been doing research on writing and characters and plot and of course, it leads to buying more books about writing and romance and..... its all quite fascinating. Where are those bookshelves?

Well, this just may be the beginning of a 2nd career. Who knew?

Time to put on my favorite Christmas DVD - White Christmas and decorate the tree.





Family Life: Garbage on Fire

This morning's excitement!

"Hey mom, why is the trash in the street? James asks from the living room. Huh! I say, from the kitchen, deep in the middle of writing. He repeats twice and I go to look. Through the morning glories I see a pile o trash. We go outside to this sight. The garbage man is no where to be seen, but one of the neighbors suggest we move the car. Someone from down the street and around the corner had placed fire place ashes in the trash this morning. According to the county guy who got there pretty quickly, the driver is supposed to pull off a main thorough fair and into a side street. Ours was the closest. Lucky us.





















































































They dumped the whole thing in the court, spray and sifted, made sure the fire was out. Reminder to self: Never stand downwind of a burnt garbage truck and smelly garbage.

The county guy said they would send someone out tomorrow to pick up our trash. Neighbor reminded him that our court has jillions of cars driving through to look at christmas lights. Our trash was picked up within the hour, the smiling garbage man managing to maneuver around the pile of trash in the middle of the court.
They sent a scooper to pick it up and a sweeper truck to clean the street.

Now ask me how much we have managed to accomplish in the way of lessons or anything else.



Fun Monday - Post Redux



is hosting this week's fun monday

and it is a redux of our favorite posts.


Since most of us participated in Nablopomo and we are exhausted, I wanted to make this one easy. Since it’s December and most of us are starting to decorate and make things colorful, I too wanted to make things colorful. And lastly, because we are bloggers and consider what we post to be down right hilarious or informative or brainy and we like to showcase ourselves, I wanted to let you do just that!
Take a moment in this last month of 2007 to reflect on the past year. Okay? Done? Now…
In honor of exhaustion, color and self-love, I present you with this week’s assignment. I want you to dig through your blog files and show us your best effort. Why you consider it your best is up to you. C’mon, you know you have a favorite - show it to me one more time.



All I can say is Thank you for something easy after just completing nanowrimo. I lied and can't leave my story alone. I keep adding to it, not ready to edit and remove all those wonderful words I wrote. So a continuing work in progress among lessons, class work, cleaning out the garage, etc. etc. etc.

Favorite posts this year would have to be:
Mom, who is the Easter Bunny
Luna, then

Cookie Monster

That's it for now.....