Merry Christmas

Hope you and your family had a very Merry Christmas. The weather cooperated enough that Noah made it home for my birthday. He surprised me with a Kindle! I didn't quite know how to respond. It is an awesome gift, but way too much for him to spend as a college student with expenses and loans. But it is rude and disappointing to make someone feel like they shouldn't have done something, so I tried to walk that fine line. I probably did it wrong, as I seem to do most things wrong with him nowdays. We had another argument a few days before he came home, and he was obviously still angry about it because after breakfast on Christmas morning, he picked a fight with me again. And he didn't just drag up what he was angry about this time. He drug up what he was angry with me about this summer, and something he was still angry with me from 5 years ago. Apparently the message has been sent loud and clear around here that anger is justified and it is ok to vent it all upon me. I'm struggling with depression because I feel like all the years I poured into raising my boys have been in vain. Example is more powerful than words. I thought I could make a difference, but that is not what I see with my eyes. I know, I need to keep looking up in faith, believing in that which I cannot see. It is not the end of their story. God is not through with them yet. It is just difficult right now. I can't wait for my prayer group to get going again.

We had another blizzard over Christmas. This time was worse than the last. We are having problems with ice dams and a faucet on the back of the house burst. My back is still giving me problems from shoveling last time and there is so much to shovel still. Thankfully we were together. We had a nice Christmas morning. The boys really seemed pleased with their gifts, so I did good even though they hadn't given me any ideas. We had a break in the storm, so we went to see the movie, Avatar. I wanted to see Nine, but didn't get any takers.... Avatar was much better than I expected, but we probably should have stayed home. When we got out of the movie, the storm had picked up again and it was a little tense getting home. The storm was still raging on Saturday. Noah and I were supposed to work. Thankfully, they closed our businesses. He wound up going home Monday morning. Also thankful that we had power the entire time! Still, Jim kept the wood stove stoked, which made things extra toasty.

Jim gave me permission for a puppy for my birthday. She was actually born on my birthday! Now we just have to wait until spring to bring her home. She is a Maltese/Shitzau mix. Smaller dog this time, non shedding. Sometimes I think-What am I doing? And other times, I am just so excited. I think I need her right now. Something to mother and love and something that will look back at me with loving adoring eyes. We are also getting ready to start our kitchen remodel, so I am trying to get all my Christmas stuff put away. I will need to move EVERYTHING out of my kitchen for the duration. Oh my, what a mess that will be! I don't even know exactly what I want to do yet!

Well that is all for now. I have to go and get ready for work. Drop me a note and let me know how your Christmas went and what is new in your life!

Christmas is coming

Hello everyone! Merry Christmas! Down to the last week and the busiest time of the year. Last night we celebrated our 22nd anniversary. We went to Village Point shopping center and took a carriage ride. It was very romantic, the lights, the sound of the jingle bells on the horse's harness, snuggling under the blankets with hot cocoa. In reality though, it was freezing cold! So cold it hurt! Ah, but that's what you get when you marry in December. Then we went to dinner at the Melting Pot-a fondue restaurant. I reserved a private booth with curtains-again very romantic. Fondue takes awhile, so we spent over two hours enjoying our four course meal together. The dessert fondue was definitely my favorite course. I asked Jim if he could have chose a month in which to get married, which month would he choose? He said September. I would choose October-fall must be our favorite time of the year. Looking ahead this week to my birthday; Noah will be traveling home that evening. The weather is supposed to be bad, so that is a concern. Have to plan ahead for our traditional Christmas Eve meal and Christmas morning brunch. Then of course we will spend New Years Eve with friends karaoking and celebrate Jim's birthday before all is said and done. Afterwards, I have to quickly put everything away and get ready to start our kitchen remodel. I am overwhelmed with it all, but am trying to focus on the real reason for our celebrations this time of year. Jesus!

Snow, Snow, Snow

Teachers aren't the only ones to get snow days. Sometimes, librarians get lucky too! I was surprised though. The heavy snow wasn't supposed to start until later this afternoon and into the evening. I expect I will be off tomorrow too as we are anticipating 10 inches of snow and 40 mph winds. Blizzard conditions they are saying. I thought I could get out before the heavy snow and pick up some extra milk & bread. After shoveling for an hour more snow than I expected at this point, it was just too slick so I came right back home. Hope Jim can make it home from work tonight.

We had a pretty good Thanksgiving. I did get much of it done ahead of time and the boys helped me throw together a few dishes at the end. We ate around 2 pm, without Jim. Nate left to take his girlfriend to the Holiday Lights Festival. Noah and I watched tv and slept. That turkey is powerful stuff! Jim made it home around 7 and we sat down and had some more food with him before taking Noah back to Lincoln. Nate had gone down to fetch him home because his car was acting up. I would have liked to spend more time with Noah, but he had to work the next morning.

I spent the four day weekend cleaning up Thanksgiving mess and putting up Christmas decorations. Got everything up before heading back to work on Monday! I love Christmas. I love pulling out the decorations and the memories that come flooding back. I love the smells and the music. This year I made four dozen Froebel stars to hang on my tree. I also didn't put as many ornaments on the tree-just the most special ones. Beautiful! Then I hit a wall. I had no ideas for Christmas gifts. I wasn't even excited to buy the boys anything. I think this is normal for their stage in life, but I just don't have the warm fuzzies as their mother anymore-which makes spending money and trying to find things to please them draining. I wish they thought about giving more instead of just receiving. Thankfully, the Lord provided inspiration and worked out some great deals too. I think it is going to be a Merry Christmas after all!

My bathroom sink continues to leak, which is a source of frustration to my contractor and an inconvenience for me. Friday, we are having a wood burning insert put in. That should really warm up our super cold basement. Jim is in charge of getting a cord of wood. Looking forward to toasty evenings together in our recliners! I have been practicing my clarinet quite a bit lately in preparation for a holiday performance-TOMORROW! Since we will be under a blizzard warning, I don't think I will be performing after all. Still, I can finally play for a fair amount of time without my chops giving out. I need to continue daily practice.

Noah has finals next week. He will be home a few days at Christmas, but once again has to go back early for work. Nate hasn't been working much at all, and is running out of money again. He didn't sign up for school and I don't know what he is going to do. He has been smoking. Besides the obvious health concerns, it can cause attacks of his Raynauds disease, so I have been trying to give him information to persuade him to quit. Jim is still busy working the outage.

Well I'd better sign off and go shovel again.

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Bye Bye October

I didn't even get one posting last month! The contractor finished up our bathroom remodels and I have been busy putting things back together. You think it shouldn't take a month, but one thing leads to another.... For example, I had stacking bins under the sink in my bathroom, but they were difficult to get into and really weren't working for me. So I bought new bins, but the stacking bins were fairly new, so I was trying to figure out another use for them. I decided they would be perfect in my office closet, but I had to unload boxes of pictures so I had a place to put them. Then what to do with the pictures? You get the picture! This keeps happening over and over, but I am almost done. I have been clearing stuff out and taking it to the Goodwill too. Today was beautiful, so we began the process of putting the garage back together. We had moved everything over to one side so the contractor could fix a leak in the ceiling and have a place to work. Made good progress today and should be parking in the garage soon. The bathrooms look beautiful. For not having any idea what I wanted to do, I am pleased with how nice they turned out. We have enough left over to do the kitchen, but aren't going to start that mess until after the holidays. In the meantime, I have begun the process of picking out flooring, counter tops, etc...... Again, don't have a clue! We also have begun the process of getting a new wood burning insert in our fireplace. The television (and cable) is in the basement now, and it is COLD down there in the winter. The $1500 tax credit was an incentive to do it now.

We had hoped to camp in October, but it was a lousy month for weather. It got so cold and snowed about 4 inches on Oct. 10th. Most of the month was dreary, gray, cold, rainy. We had to winterize the camper instead. That was a first for us, but it really wasn't hard. Jim winterized the boat (he finally fixed the seat, but too late in the season for us to use it) and took it for storage last weekend. We took the camper for storage this weekend. We also had to rake this year for the first time! We only have one original tree on the property-a pine tree. All the rest were diseased or just plain ugly (cedars). So we have planted, but never had enough leaves to worry about. We had to bag up 15 bags of leaves this year. Still that is nothing compared to my neighbor who has filled at least 45 bags from his front yard alone!

Jim started working the outage last week. He is working five 12 hour days right now. It makes him tired and crabby, but the money sure helps! Nate hasn't been working much the past couple of weeks. Surprisingly, people don't want ice cream as much when the weather turns cool! This week he is supposed to start with the early morning coffee crew. He should get more hours, because he is the only one available, but he is NOT a morning person.....He is considering school next semester, so we may have to hustle to get him signed up in time. Noah is doing good. He turned 21 last week. We went down last night and went out for dinner to celebrate. He ordered a beer (which was a little weird). We went back to the house for dessert, but cut it short because I had to use the bathroom. Their bathroom is never what I would consider clean, but for the first time it was too yucky for me to use. Wanted to get a family picture for our Christmas card, but no one cooperated. Jim wanted to wear a Mossy Oak shirt, Noah hadn't shaved in several days, Nate was casual. I looked great though with my black dress and new Christmas scarf! Work continues to keep me busy, and I'm trying to be better about cooking. Tried 4 new recipes last week. Thinking ahead to Thanksgiving. I'm going to have to do things a little different because Noah can only make it home for the day and Jim has to work until 6pm. I don't want to spend the whole day cooking, and miss out on spending time with Noah and I don't know how to carve the turkey....

Well I think I'll sign off and make some paper stars for my Christmas tree. Love everyone!

Fall is Upon Us

What fantastic weather we have had this year. We are usually still sweating this time of year, but it has been beautiful. We went camping last week and not only didn't use the air conditioner, but had to pull out extra blankets at night. We've used the camper a couple of times and are getting more comfortable with it. It sure makes camping more fun!

The big news is that after being terminated two times in the past month; I still have my job. The wonderful citizens of this city donated money to cover the cuts, and the budget passed for next year, so I am still working at the library! Thanks to everyone for any part they played; donating, praying, contacting city council members. Most of all, I thank God! I love my job and the people of my community and am very grateful to be able to continue to serve them.

The bathroom remodel continues, though we are getting close to being done. I keep waiting for it to be complete to take pictures, but I am very pleased with how it is turning out. I bought towels and rugs for my master bath tonight. Now I just need to find new accessories-soap dispenser, toothbrush holder, cup....

I am going to a prayer group once a week that focuses on my adult children. It has been so helpful to me, because I feel like I don't have any say over their lives anymore (and I'm grieved about many of the choices they are making for themselves). It is very empowering to pray about it-because that IS something I can do. I already see answers to my prayers and have more peace about things because I have released them into God's hands and He knows how to best deal with them.

I got a great deal on a GPS unit. I want to use it to go geocaching. Geocaching uses the GPS coordinates to locate a cache. I'm still learning how to use the GPS unit right now, so it will be awhile before I hunt for treasure!

Good news-Nate got a job. He is working at an ice cream shop. It is early, but things are going good so far and he is happier. Bad news-Nate hit a deer with his car last night. Thankfully, he only clipped its bottom with the headlight on the passenger side. Unfortunately the headlight pushed far enough back that it clipped the radiator causing over $500.oo in damages. Nate and his girlfriend, Carly, are back together. She is very nice-hope he can hold onto her this time!

Noah seems to be doing fine in school so far. He finished up his online summer courses this week. I have concerns because he doesn't seem to have a passion for Business like he did for Science. He's just going through the motions. I'll just keep praying about that. He called last week and we had a nice long conversation. Maybe I just need to sit back and let them come to me more often.

Well, I am going to sign off and get to bed early. I haven't felt well all week and I'm very tired.

Finally some news....

Well much has been going on, but not much time to sit and write about it.

First of all, the last few weeks of work were very tough. My co-workers were trying to go on as normal, because if they thought about it they would cry. The news really didn't focus much on the staff terminations, so the public was carrying on like normal too. I felt very isolated. I began to tell a few patrons goodbye, and they got very upset, which upset their kids, which was upsetting to me. One lady said I ruined her day (though she was glad I told her). This left me feeling uncertain if it was better to say something or just stay silent. My last day of work was on Thurs the 27th of Aug. We left Friday the 28th for California. While I was gone, money was raised to cover the budget cuts made this year. I could go on and on with the boring details, but there is still much uncertainty about my future. I do have a job for another two weeks though. Two more difficult weeks I'm sure....and then we'll see.

The other big thing in my life is that I have bathroom remodels going on. I am so thankful we were able to refinance and hire someone to do the job. That being said, it is still a lot of work. Decisions, decisions, decisions.... I hadn't thought much about what I wanted. I don't like to look or dream about such things anymore, so I was clueless. I don't make quick decisions normally, so this was tough having to make decision after decision, night after night. I know WAAHHH. The contractor worked with us to save some money which meant we had to run to the hardware store and pick up supplies. I'm getting to know the people at Lowe's real well! All that being said, my main bath is nearly done-just a few minor things left. I LOVE it. It was a complete remodel-everything new except the vanity (though it does have new doors and drawers). He has started on my master bath. We are putting tile in the shower there, but sticking with many of the same features used in the other bath (easier that way). I was hoping to have enough money left over to do my kitchen too, but I'm afraid that will have to wait until the job situation is a little more settled.

Nate was bit by a dog at a friend's house and required 19 stitches. The bite near his mouth was the worst and they called the plastic surgeon in to repair that. She did an excellent job and he is healing up nicely. I don't know anything to report about Noah right now. He doesn't seem to want to talk lately.

The last thing I wanted to tell you about is my trip to CA. We had a very early morning flight and pulled a "Home Alone" morning. The alarm is on Jim's side and he says he poked me, but I never heard or felt a thing. We made it to the gate just as they began loading the plane. We flew with our friends Scott & Julie, which made the 3 hour layover in Phoenix bearable. We landed in San Louis Obispo and drove to Dave & Mary's home. Scott & Julie got a Sebring convertible. We wound up with a Nissan Sentra. So not fair! We all piled in the convertible and took a tour of the area. It was my first encounter with the Pacific Ocean. My impression-it is COLD and has lots of kelp. I don't know if the kelp has the distinct odor I smelled or if it was something else, but it doesn't smell salty like the Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico. We all stayed with Dave & Mary for two days. During our stay we went to the Farmer's Market at the Avilia Pier, Did some wine tasting, drove on Avilia Pier and got up close and personal with the sunning seals, hung out at the beach, grilled Tri Tip (big in CA), watched a movie in Dave & Mary's own personal home theater. It was great to be all together again. Some things I noticed while there-cigars are very popular with the fellas, the fruit and veggies are not only plentiful but fantastically flavorful, the weather is perfect (Dave & Mary don't even have air conditioning), no bugs (in fact both of our hotel rooms didn't even have screens on the patio doors-just didn't need them), it is dry and brown in the mountains, the towns of the Central Coast are not very big (I always thought people were stacked on top of each other in CA), the people were so friendly, dogs were everywhere....on the beach, in the shops, at the restaurants. On Sunday, Scott & Julie packed up and drove that convertible down to San Diego for business. Jim and I checked into the Cliffs Resort nearby. We began his business trip with a fancy dinner meeting. So fancy, several of us didn't know what the items on the menu ever were! The host chose several excellent local wines. I'm sure it was a very pricey meal! Our stay at the Cliffs Resort was so wonderful. For the first time in my life, I slept well every night there. The bed was so comfortable and the hotel quiet. The best part was the view. It was on the cliffs overlooking the ocean. There was a path down to the beach below which also had small tidal pools. I would sit and watch seals and pelicans and dolphins. Mary didn't have to be to work until noon, so we would do things together in the morning. The best thing was our oriental pressure point massage. We got worked over like never before for $40! She did my whole body for an hour. I felt so good that day and slept like a rock that night. In the afternoon I would often lay by the pool and read or explore the beach and tide pools. One afternoon I went to Hearst Castle and took a tour. WOW, was that awesome. I was wary because Biltmore left me a little disappointed last year, but I felt much more satisfied with my tour of Hearst Castle. First of all, there are several different tours to chose from and the price is more reasonable. Secondly, we had an actual tour guide and she was excellent. She couldn't answer one question, so her assistant immediately got on the phone and called the librarian who researched it and called right back. How impressive-maybe that is just because I am a librarian. Third, it seemed like Hearst was the real deal when it came to collecting and Vanderbilt a wanna be. He had a zoo back in the day, but only a few animals remain, including a zebra herd which I saw on my way home. The rest of the time was spent shopping, exploring, and trying new food. Jim had to have turkey nuts. We tried something called linguica, which is a Portuguese sausage and is common there. We went to In and Out, a burger joint, and ordered off the "secret menu". It was really hard to leave the Cliffs Resort-I couldn't imagine a more perfect place! We drove north to a beach where elephant seals hang out. They are big, especially the males! We checked into our room at the Inn at Morro Bay. Another beautiful place. This time we got a bay view room with a private hot tub on the deck. We packed up and went to Montana de Oro State Park to hike and see the tide pools. We heard they were fantastic. We did see some great tide pools, but I'm not sure we saw the best ones. It was a very undeveloped and huge state park. The visitor center wasn't even marked and we arrived moments after it closed (at 3 pm), so we were kind of on our own. The signs at the trail heads warned of mountain lions and rattlesnakes. One trail head sign had a picture of a deer ripped to shreds by a mountain lion on that very trail-happy hiking! We did see and touch starfish, crabs, and all sorts of sea creatures in the pools. It is such a thrill to be on rocks that are just barely above the ocean waves that jut out into the open ocean. We ate dinner and made it back to our hotel room in time to enjoy a glass of wine on our deck as we watched the sun set near Morro rock. The bay offers protection to sea life so there were cormorants and cranes, seals, sea otters, and I'm pretty sure we spotted a little whale. We were eating dinner down by the water when the tail came up right by the restaurant. I got so excited and Jim turned around just in time to see the tail come up a second time. Then it showed it's head and was gone.... Whales are in the area, but not usually in the bay, so the locals were sceptical, but we know what we saw couldn't be anything else. It was so hard to fly out the next day. I would love to live in CA-maybe I wouldn't feel the same after surviving an earthquake! There is a very relaxed and friendly attitude and the conditions are as near to perfect as we are going to get on this earth. This is the best vacation I have ever taken though-chock full of new experiences and good memories.

Well it is getting late and I'm messed up from the travel and time difference. I'm posting my favorite picture of the trip. Not the best mind you (my others are posted on Facebook), but my favorite. It is Cinderella shopping for shoes. Maybe she was looking for a new glass slipper? Only in CA would you see that!