Memories of Christmas Past

I was reminiscing how we celebrated Christmas when the kids were little. We didn't like everything squeezed together in a few days, so we decided to have Santa come to our house Christmas Eve morning. The kids were little and didn't know that it really wasn't Christmas day. That way, Mike's Mom, Dad, Mema and Uncle John could come over and watch the kids open their gifts. We loved it, Mike's Mom enjoyed it because then she could take time Christmas morning preparing for our Christmas lunch and not be rushed.

We never considered what our neighbors would think of this situation. Imagine telling your children that Santa was coming on Christmas day and they look outside on Christmas Eve morning and the neighbor kids are out playing with their new Christmas toys! Ryan and Kara proudly shouting, "Look what Santa brought us!" and pushing and riding their new Little Tykes fire engine or riding their new bikes, etc. I am sure they had some explaining to do. Oh well, didn't you know that Santa comes early for the best of children!

Baby, it's cold outside ......and inside too!

Mike's Uncle John who lives in Midwest City, Oklahoma has not had electricity since last Sunday when the ice storm came and froze up everything. He has lost several trees and his big pine trees so far are saved but only because they are leaning against the house instead of breaking in half. Some of his neighbors had a tree fall through a window into their house. How scary.

I talked to John last night and he said that it was 41 degrees in his house. He has a studio in the back and it is a newer building and better insulated and it was about 65 there, so he thought he would spend the night in his art studio last night. He was thankful to have a gas water heater so he can still take a hot bath, but he did mention how hard it was to get out of the tub into the cold house! Hopefully he will get electricity soon. Please pray for everyone in the area as more cold weather and snow is predicted. Brrrrrrrrrrr!

~Strike a pose~

Kara has been published in some hairstyling magazines. On the top page, Kara is in the middle photo modeling a style by her friend and co-worker, Amy. The bottom page, (the photo with the pink background) shows her client, Constance.

It is too a word!

Omigod, I was glad to see that there is an updated Oxford dictionary, even if it is full of crapola. Unibrow, wasn't a real word before now? (This article is from an issue of People magazine.) Next time we all get together, maybe we will have this dictionary to use for our fricking Scrabble games, not the bogus one we used at Thanksgiving. I am sure that this one has "blinky" in it since it has these other "new" words, especially since http://www.dictionary.com/ does list it as a word. Maybe I can smoosh Tim in a game for once and he won't be such a buzzkill. Nyah!

Omigod, my spellcheck does not have these new words yet! It shows them as all misspellings!

Jessica, my niece at her baby shower. Mike's talented mother, Kay knitted the baby afghan. Jessica is due the end of January. She is not very big, it just looks like she swallowed a basketball!

Little Braydon James will be the first great-grandchild for Ray and Kay.

New recipe?

I decided to thaw out some leftover tortilla soup for dinner tonight. I took out two containers from the fridge and dumped them in the pot, turned the heat on and went to play on the computer. When I went to stir the soup, I realized that only one of the containers had tortilla soup in it. The other one had chili! Oh, well, we will see how this tastes.....

Actually, it was REAL good. I may have invented a new recipe. I didn't even tell Mike what it really was at first. He said it was real good, but pretty spicy! I may learn to label my frozen food, but usually, I just freeze food and throw it out a few months later. I am not too good at actually reheating to eat.

I am sure I have the same theory with plants. If I get a poinsettia for Christmas, I usually get tired of it before it dies. Am I able to throw it out directly to the trash? No, I have to set it outside and let it die of "natural causes" first before I toss it in the trash! Does this make sense? No, of course not! I may need counseling!

A Little Christmas Cheer

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