Oh, do I blog here?

Ok, so I promised to come back with a funny and witty post about 5 days ago after taking a small blogging vacation. Instead you get this post. A quick break down of December. First I started a Christmas post to tell you all about our wonderful Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Then realized to do that post, I needed the pics my father in law took of us still since our digital photos didn't come out so well. And since Mr Man isn't here to defend himself, I'm going to blame that on his picture taking skills. (Never mind that I took half the pics that morning myself!)

Then I was going to do a post on Bradys surgery and didn't have my pics here on my laptop, but on my work computer instead. Ugh I'm so unorganized! So I'll have to revisit those posts once I get my ass in gear. Well, that, and organized! Which by the way is the one New Years resolution I'm vowing to make this year!!!! That, and to blog more often. I am the most unorganized, procrastinator you will ever meet in your life. And by "meet", I mean the person you stalk on line here at my blog. lol

So here's a big holiday wrap up for the month of December and beginning of January...

December was really busy. Mid month B, our 6 year old had to have emergency surgery to remove his appendix before it burst. We took him to Primary Childrens Hospital early Thursday morning, where he endured an IV, having his blood drawn, a CT scan (with a fluid enema to boot), then an ultrasound. They ended up doing surgery Thursday night around 9 or 9:30 (where he came out like a champ) and spent the night in the hospital. There was lots of crying and carrying on and all that foolishness. And that was just the parents and grandparents! lol After a really long couple of days he was released and came home so we could all fawn all over him and spoil him rotten. Poor little guy! It was really hard on him but emotionally, it was worse on J and I and his grandparents! We were all the big babies at the hospital!

Getting ready for Christmas, shopping and wrapping and all that good stuff, was insane like it always is. EVERY. SINGLE. YEAR. I vow to start shopping months in advance, wrapping presents as I go, and not wait until the last minute. Then EVERY. SINGLE. YEAR. it comes right down to the wire and something happens so we end up doing the majority of our gift buying the last week before Christmas. We suck at this! Anywho, we stayed at my inlaws Christmas Eve so we could open gifts with them first thing Christmas morning. We normally sleep at my sisters or they sleep at our house but this year, with my mother in law being so ill, we wanted to spend the time with them instead. I'm very happy we did. Then we went to my sisters that afternoon to finish opening gifts and have dinner. A huge storm came through Christmas Eve and it snowed and snowed AND SNOWED until the day after Christmas. I think we got about 3 feet or more of snow!

It was nice to have Christmas over and done with. Our tree has been taken down, all the decorations put away until next year. And of course, all the after Christmas sales have been shopped lol.

It's nice to get back into some sort of family groove. Being at home, cooking dinner each night again. All right, I'll be honest, I cooked TONIGHT, but, I did COOK! B goes back to school tomorrow morning. It'll be good to have him outta our hair a bit more. I love him with all my heart but good lord! If that boy tells me one more time he's BORED, he's gonna get a boot to his behind!

And with that, I'm heading to shower and hit the sack. It's exhausting trying to find something funny and witty to blog about and coming up with NADA. Hopefully I'll be more "on" tomorrow.

Hogs and kisses all!

We won! We won! We won!!!!

Wednesday night was J’s company Christmas party. We won the grand prize!!!!! But before I get into that and the party, let me start my story by telling you something one of my best friends said to me this past summer. She watched “The Secret” and had people talking to her left and right about it.

This was when the book and the movie came out and EVERYBODY and their husband, wife, friend, cousin, aunt, mom, dad, baby, baby mama, neighbor, mailman, and their dogs were talking about this movement. Let's call it a “movement” because it seems everywhere I turned someone was talking about it and how it had helped them in their life and how they were putting this into their lives as well. Isn't that what a movement is? When a ton of people all drink the koolaid and decide to do the same "new" thing?

Anywhore, we were at our friends house to play poker like we do every 2 weeks. A bunch of us get together, the guys and 2 of their girlfriends play poker and the rest of us ladies have a hen party in the kitchen. Laughing and joking and catching up on life together over drinks and snacks, and drinks. Lots of drinks! (Did I mention the drinks? lol) My BFF "N" tells me that she decided to "try" putting The Secret into her life one day. They had been hurting financially since her hubby's business had been sort of slow. She got home from work after thinking about it and said out loud, "In today's mail, there WILL BE money for us instead of bills!" Something to that effect. She said she repeated it a few times on her way to the mailbox at her curb. Of course at this point I was skeptical and said "phooey!" (Ok, so I didn't *REALLY* say phooey (does anyone really say that anymore?) but I'm sure I rolled my eyes on more then one occasion and shook my head a lot. It's how I roll...) Then she says she opened her mailbox and...

DUN.DUN.DUN...

Inside her mailbox was a check from her last jobs retirement plan she had forgotten all about. Because she forgot about it and didn't roll it over to her new employers plan, the retirement company had cashed it out and sent it to her.

I kind of left it at that, never thought about it again. Fast forward to this week. J and I never win anything. EVER! But the night of his company party, I said to him, "tonight, we WILL win a prize. And not just ANY prize! We WILL win the grand prize!" I am pretty sure he and B laughed at me. A lot. (I may have cried from their laughter. I'm not sure, I've tried to block it from my memory.)

We got to the party at a local Italian Spaghetti restaurant and had dinner with our friends. The raffle started and they began with the grand prize. Our ticket number was called! The very first ticket they pulled out was ours!!!!!!

This is what we won...

Can you believe it!?!? All the way home I gloated that it was my positive thinking that had won the prize. I did it! This way of thinking really does work! For the next 2 days I tried to keep it up. Breathe in, breathe out... Think positively!

Friday was my company party and they were also doing a raffle. I thought positively. Did an affirmation out loud. We didn't win. lol

I did learn something great though. The idea isn't just about winning things and getting money in the mail. It's about trying to find the better things in everything around you. It's about finding the best solution to problems life throws your way. It's about BELIEVING everything can and WILL work out in your life. I've always believed that I am a very positive person and always trying to find the brighter side in everything. But my problem is that while I don't like to speak out loud the things that I'm worried about, or talk negatively, I still THINK it in my head. So I need to try and be better about that. I do believe in the whole karmic ideals, positive thinking will equal positive rewards, negative thinking will equal negative energy. So I need to BELIEVE all the crap happening in my life is going to work out. All of it. And isn't that Christmas is all about? BELIEVING???

And that's where I'll end this post. lol

Is it Too Early For Eggnog and Carolling?

I've always loved Christmas. I adore the Christmas lights, the snow, the coziness of our houses all buttoned up tight, the scent of Christmas trees, the scent of wood burning into the neighbors fireplaces drifting through the air. The way that we are usually wrapping my sisters gifts until the wee hours of Christmas morning because she's a worse procrastinator then even I am. How her, DH and I are up most of the night laughing and drinking coffee to stay awake to finish the wrapping. How we're all so slap happy that none of us are making any sense at all. How we barely crawl into bed and shut our eyes when the kids are up wanting to open gifts. The way my sister and her kids spend the night at our house so all of us can wake up together. The way that my sister buys the kids matching pajamas so that every morning the kids all match. How we spend a very lazy day enjoying our new gifts, the kids playing with their new toys, and the adults going back down for a nap. I even love the shopping part, trying to find the right gift for someone I love. It all seems to fly by so quickly and I'm always trying to find a way to slow it down, make it last, stretch it out as far as I can before it's gone and the New Year starts. My only irritation with it is when stores start putting out decorations October 1st. It's like we can't even enjoy Halloween or Thanksgiving before Christmas is right there in front of us.

Our little family ritual is to put up our Christmas tree and house decorations the weekend after Thanksgiving every year. For some reason this year is different. I've been dying to put it all up NOW. In fact I begged DH to pull it all out 2 weeks ago and he thought I was crazy. Well first, he REFUSED, then said I was freakin nuts!

I'm not sure why I've been wanting to start the Christmas season yet. Is it because my MIL is so ill that maybe this will be her last Christmas with us? Maybe I'm wanting the familiar, the rituals, something that makes sense in our lives again. Christmas happens every year without fail. You can count on it. Life has been so crazy around here and so unpredictable. We don't know how long MIL has left with us. We don't know when she'll be gone. We don't know what tomorrow will bring. What I do know is that we need to make Thanksgiving and Christmas the best ones yet. So that all of us can remember these times when we're having to celebrate without her with us. I can't imagine a time when she won't be here. My brain can't wrap itself around that thought.

So for now, I want to make this the best holiday season we've ever had!