Tidings of comfort and joy

Paul and I will be going to Texas tomorrow to visit my family for the holidays. We'd hoped to go to Kansas to see Paul's grandfather but since his parents are only staying until Saturday, we're going to postpone that trip until later in the year. Hopefully, it will be much warmer during that trip than it currently is. I think this year's trip will be a little less hectic than in years past. We're planning on staying put at one house per day on this trip rather than trying to go back and forth between the various grandparents, feeling a little ragged and never like we get to visit with anyone long enough.Today, I finished the final cards I needed to send--last year we ordered 100 cards and I thought it was too many. This year, I only ordered 75 and it wasn't enough. I guess the magic number is some place in between although I think I'll stick with ordering more. I can always find someone to send a card to but I feel a little bad that I couldn't send cards to some friend. I don't know if people will really miss the annual picture of Carrie and Paul but I like that we at least have the once-a-year correspondence with friends. And I like that my husband has a homing device for finding his way into my otherwise-arty pictures.
Since we aren't going to be home on Christmas, as is our tradition, Paul and I opened up presents tonight after eating burritos from Golden Pride. We both like breakfast for dinner and breakfast burritos definitely fall into that category. A friend of Paul's from high school sent him a book entitled "The Truth about Chuck Norris: 400 Facts about the World's Greatest Human." I think all of them have been made into flair on Facebook but it is pretty funny. I wasn't going to spend any money on something for the cat this year. Granted, I normally spend less than $10 on a gift for him but since he normally plays with the gift for five minutes and then ignores it for the rest of the year, I don't exactly think it's money well spent. When I picked up food for him this afternoon, I broke down and got a little something for him. Considering he's already played with this one longer than any other gift we've gotten him, perhaps we have a winner. There's a puffball/feather on the end of the string; not sure what this move was all about but he stayed like this for a good minute, plotting his next attack. I think this was the most active we've seen him in years. Maybe he won't lose total interest in this toy.
I normally buy myself little gifts and wrap them up with tags to me from Jub or from Paul. Paul isn't that great at gift selection and I appreciate that it's not one of his strengths. He's a good man in many respects but not so much when it comes to buying presents. This year, I hadn't gotten much for myself--just haven't been in the mood--and Paul noticed that he had much more than I did under the tree. I don't mind--it's not as if I don't get stuff throughout the year. Plus, I figured between the kitchen countertops and graduate school, I've pretty much spent all my present money for a LONG time. But when Paul asked what I wanted last week, I gave him what I thought was a fairly nonsensical list of items: cowboy boots, pearl necklace, a couple of other things that I can't even remember now. He pondered for a while and said that he liked the idea of boots; we should go buy me new boots. I said OK and thought we might go do that over the weekend or after Christmas. On Saturday, Paul came downstairs and said that he thought a pearl necklace would be a better idea. I said OK but do you know how much that costs? I suggested he visit the jewelry store that we've gone to for the two other pieces of "good" jewelry that I own (wedding ring and 5th anniversary/30th birthday ring) because that would be the easiest place to go, he'd been there before, etc. I told him this thinking he would just continue with his business and forget that idea altogether.

We continued about our Saturday, getting ready for the party, piddling around doing nothing, plotting our afternoon before we went to his parents' house. While we were making our To Do list (yes, labeled and with approximate times on it so that we'd stay on time), Paul said that we needed to include the jewelry store. I got to open these up tonight:

I should have gussied up more because I knew I was going to open this gift but there you go. The most beautiful strand of pearls. The salesperson in the store was no fool--she started with the highest quality "because these are already strung." Of course I loved them but would have been happier with the lesser quality, smaller, not yet strung pearls as well. I left the decision up to Paul and that's what I got. Beautiful, round, pink overtones, 7-7.5 mm in size, 18" long--an "investment" piece of jewelry and much, much more than I ever expected. I kept telling Paul that I would have been happy with boots but I'm beyond thrilled with my generous husband. And I take back most of my grumbling about his strange gifts throughout the past 13 years. I think he's totally made up for it.

I hope everyone finds a little (or big) treat with their name under the Christmas tree this year and has a very Merry Christmas, indeed.

Stupid snow day

That's what we had today--a stupid snow day. It snowed all day yesterday--not hard but consistent. It was gathering on yards and cars but the roads were only wet. When I went home yesterday afternoon about 4:30, Tramway as a little slushy but not bad at all. Most everyone had slowed down to about 45 mph (speed limit is 50 mph) except for one overly-cautious driver who was doing 30 mph and the one driver who thought 55 mph was better. That's pretty typical for NM drivers in winter weather--either idiots who apparently haven't gotten the message that just because one drives a 4-wheel drive SUV, it doesn't mean one can stop better or the person who freaks out at the first flake. I'm pretty wimpy when it comes to driving in snow but yesterday, it was just wet. It was collecting on the side street up to my house though.

By the 6:00 news, the district had announced a two-hour delay for today. The snow and colder weather was apparently just what I needed to finally get me out of my bah-humbug mood. When I got home yesterday, I started working on addressing Christmas cards and got almost all of them done. There is just a handful of addresses that I need to get. I also got started on wrapping presents. I had just been putting everything in the guest room, waiting for inspiration or the day before we left for Texas, whichever happened first. Thankfully, inspiration struck and I was able to get everything that needed to be mailed wrapped and boxed and ready to go. We were also able to antagonize the cat a bit with a calendar we bought for my Grandmother that includes bird sounds:

Yep. That will never get old. My comment was in regards to the fact that Jub had just stepped on one of the buttons to make it chirp, not stating the obvious that he was standing on the calendar. He couldn't figure out where the birds were hiding (although he didn't react to the owl hoot). We "played" with the cat for about 10 minutes, until he started biting the speaker.

I set my alarm to sleep in a bit since I knew we'd at least have the delay until 10:00. When I got up about 7:00, I looked outside and told Paul that we probably just had the delay since the roads looked fine. I padded downstairs and turned on the television. I was only paying half-attention to the TV and was definitely surprised to realize that I'd heard correctly--APS had cancelled classes. I shouldn't have been surprised at all given past history of snow days. The first year I lived in ABQ, we had a snow day about this same time of year in which there was no snow left on the ground by 11:00. There have been more snow days that have been similar in the past 10 years. And there have been days when a delay or a snow day would have been perfectly valid and yet we were required to report on time. I don't get it--I have no idea what criteria is used to determine when/why we get a snow day. I've decided to stop even trying to guess what we'll have. So we'll be adding an extra day in May, which won't be much of a day but it is one more day we'll be required to report to work.

Until I have to make up this day in May, it was nice to have today to run errands and get some stuff done so I'll have my Saturday to do whatever and clean the house in preparation for the neighborhood party on Sunday. I had a hair appointment this afternoon at 4:00 and, after I learned of the snow day, had told Paul that I was going to try to move it up. Before I was able to make the call, my hairdresser called to see if I wanted to come in at 1:00. Worked for me. I finished the scarf for my mother-in-law and got a bit more of the wrapping done before lunch. Then, with my fabulous hairdo (it's the same as before but Tammy does it much nicer than I ever can get it to look), I got everything mailed, stopped by Trader Joe's for party food and beverages, went to Sonic for drinks for me and Paul, headed to the mall and Barnes & Nobles to buy my father-in-law's present (the last gift I had to buy) and Sephora for goodies for me, and popped in at the little gift shop I love to get a gift for my secret pal. One of the lovely ladies who works there again complimented Abigail on how well she behaved when I went in there with her, Mom, and Amy after Thanksgiving.

This evening, I finished wrapping all the gifts and Paul and I finished burning the CD's I'm giving to my JLA committee as gifts tomorrow. We still don't now when we're going to Texas and Kansas although we have decided that we'll be driving. And we don't know what we're going to do with the cat while we're gone either. I guess we still have about five days to figure all of that out and heaven knows we don't rush into any decisions.

Confirmation

When checking my email today, there was a message saying that I have been accepted into the College of Information, Library Science, and Technologies and the Department of Library and Information Sciences (LIS) at the University of North Texas.

I opted to apply for the General Program of Study rather than pick on of the more specialized fields. I think I have a pretty good grasp of school librarianship and would probably do OK with the children/youth librarianship. Hopefully the rest isn't so intensely specialized that I couldn't do it if given a chance. And I might not want to do anything else than school librarianship but this is giving me another option.

There are a few little loose ends that I need to tend to--transferring hours from UNM, etc. But I really am going to be getting that second Master's degree. It's either 24 or 30 hours depending on what I'm able to transfer. Hopefully, this will really mean I'm done when I finally get that piece of paper. See me in three years and we'll talk.

Ho-ho-holidays

So life continues to roll along for Paul and me. He was in D.C. the latter part of last week which gave me time to decorate the tree and the house for Christmas. I also handed out the invitations to our annual holiday party to be held on Dec. 21. I was debating not doing it, even as I was handing out the invitations, I wasn't as enthusiastic about it as I have been in years past. I've got a general feeling of bah-humbug surrounding this Christmas season. I don't know if it's the lovely, un-Christmas-like weather (although today started cold and drizzly so it's a start), the general doom-and-gloom of the world, or what but I'm just not very excited about it. I've still got several gifts I need to buy and so far, I haven't been inspired with any great ideas on what to get the person. I always enjoy giving gifts and I always try to find thoughtful, interesting things for people--something they didn't even know they wanted but can't imagine how they ever lived without. Not so much for most gifts this year. But the house looks lovely and the party is always a good time and I'll be glad to see everyone if nothing else.

My weekend wasn't as productive as I had planned although I did get everything done that I'd intended to do except for going to the gym on Saturday and vaccuuming the upstairs. I try not to set the bar too high so I don't feel so bad when I don't accomplish much. I felt crummy most of Saturday and just as I was thinking I felt good, I fell asleep for an hour. So maybe I didn't need the gym so much as a nap. We went to River of Lights with Paul's parents last night. I didn't realize they hadn't gone before so I'm glad we suggested going with them this year. It was a nice night for it--not too cold and no wind.

The next two weeks are shaping up to be busy between stuff at work and holiday parties. I don't think it's really that bad but when I go from nothing to something, I start to feel overwhelmed by it all.

An overview of the next two weeks:
Dec. 8: meet with friend to catch up (I received this invitation for coffee and to talk; I was totally serious when I told her it better not be an Amway thing. It wasn't--just a chance to catch up and chat which I needed)
Dec. 9: JLA general membership meeting
Dec. 10: 7:30 meeting at school
Dec. 11: group pictures at school; Paul's company holiday dinner
Dec. 12: shopping with my mother-in-law after school
Dec. 13: my school's holiday party
Dec. 16: hair appointment
Dec. 17: JLA committe party
Dec. 18: school secret pal breakfast
Dec. 20: Matthew's birthday (OK, so we don't actually do anything here but I do need to send a little gift with their Christmas package)
Dec. 21: our holiday party

Thankfully, it's all pleasant things to do as well--just busy stuff. It doesn't look that bad except for the shopping, cleaning, mailing, working, and general life in between all the other things. I need to finish shopping and get packages mailed to Paul's brother and his family. We also need to figure out what the heck we're doing over Christmas--we'd like to go to Kansas to see Paul's family since we haven't seen anyone in a year but of course there is the visits to my family to consider as well. And, we've talked about getting tickets to the Cotton Bowl to watch Tech play there (although I doubt we do this; family obligations always seem to override any fun things) At least Paul is home for the next two weeks so it will be easier to figure all this out.

These were some fun pictures we took over Thanksgiving on the MacBook. Abigail didn't seem to enjoy it as much as Benjamin did. It took a bit to convince them that they didn't have to sit an inch from the computer to take the pictures.

Benjamin liked the PopArt effect. He LOVES green of any shade so the chance to actually be green was a big one.

He liked this effect as well, saying he looked like sunshine.
It's a warped, "The Scream"-esque sister picture. Except we couldn't stop laughing.
This one is my favorite of all the goofy pictures we took.


I like the look on Benjamin's face--I'm not sure he appreciated how much fun Amy and I were having here.

More Thanksgiving fun

Just a few pictures from the Thanksgiving holiday. We didn't take very many--I was busy being busy and Paul didn't think to take pictures which is odd because he usually takes 100 pictures when we're doing nothing.

On Wednesday evening, Abigail was my designated helper. She's getting old enough that she can actually help do stuff and it's not more trouble than it's worth to have her around. Yes, it takes a little longer but not a significant amount of time. And hopefully, these will be things she'll remember because I know I will. We had fajitas for dinner so she helped with the guacamole and afterwards, she and Benjamin helped out with the pies. There was one casualty--our salt and pepper shakers look like eggs with legs and while I was getting stuff out for the pie, Abigail was playing with the salt shaker, making it "walk." It was an honest accident when one of the legs broke off--I could have set the thing down wrong and the same thing happen--and we weren't going to tell her mama. I did have her tell Uncle Paul what happened but I'm not good at quick thinking and confessed to Amy when she asked what happened to the missing salt shaker. But the pies were good, salt shakers can be replaced, and Abigail knows (and will hopefully remember) that she has to be more careful.I have a smattering of toys I keep at the house for when children visit. Last summer before Sarah and Matthew visited, I bought these giant pick-up sticks to have at the house for them. They never touched them but it was a big hit with Abigail this visit. She also loved a Barbie paper doll I got for my birthday a few years ago--she spent quite a bit of time making fancy outfits.Paul was probably teaching Benjamin how to spell bad words. Or (what actually was happening) Benjamin was drawing shapes and teaching them to Uncle Paul.
Amy and David scoured the ads for anything they just couldn't live without. We didn't find anything in the ads worthy of a very early rise but Paul, Amy, David, and I did go out shopping a little on Friday afternoon to get out of the house. On Saturday afternoon, all the girls went shopping as a little outing.
I used the good china for the main meal on Thursday. Jub apparently thought he should be included in the feast. Not so much, furry one. We didn't have room to serve family-style but I was glad we were all able to be seated at tables. And yes, even Abs and Ben got china at their place setting although Ben used an everyday plate when he finally decided to eat something and I helped Abigail carry her dinner and dessert plate because she was just a little too free with them, even when I kept saying two hands! two hands!
Paul's parents joined us for dinner on Thanksgiving day. It was nice that they were in town and that they were able to be with us. Roger was volunteered by Donna to carve the turkey and in turn, he volunteered her to finish us getting meat off the turkey when we were done. Paul was amazed because he thought he'd done a good job (not really) and then his mom steps in and gets twice as much meat off. We sent some home with Donna and Roger for turkey sandwiches and I've frozen a bunch of it for later consumption
Paul said the downside to using the good dishes is that it requires handwashing. Not that it takes more than 2 seconds to wash a plate and he was on drying duty--not even rinsing duty since he was complaining about the hot water.
Look at how much fun it can be to do dishes! Yay!
OK, this might be a little more fun than copious amounts of handwashing. Paul has bought several games for children to play when at the house. There is a matching game that was a hit this trip--even as an adult, it's more interesting/challenging than most of the other children's board games. Benjamin was playing until Abigail muscled him out of the way and he found it was more fun to just climb Uncle Paul.
Amy takes a try at the Guitar Hero. We picked up the Aerosmith Guitar Hero since it was on sale and :::fingers crossed::: Santa might bring us the new World Tour with a new guitar. It's that or new luggage.
On Friday afternoon, two of my lovely neighbors brought down a tin of Christmas cookies. One of them was a big iced sugar cookie. It was quickly claimed by the two little kids and the one great big kid who split it three ways.
Benjamin very methodically ate off all the icing and then ate the cookie. He is such a picky eater and he wasn't sure about the cookie. I think the rush of sugar after the icing convinced him that it wouldn't be so bad.
Friday evening, we went to Paul's parents' house for dinner. I'd had the kids grab a couple of toys to take over there but when we arrived, we found that Donna had gotten out all of Paul's old Legos and there were lots of them. Paul nearly pushed us all out of the way to get to the toys. They found the instructions for making the castle and set to work on it for the evening.
When they weren't "helping" with the castle, Abigail and Benjamin were running back to Paul's old bedroom to see the glow-in-the-dark star stickers Paul put on the ceiling over 20 years ago. The room has been repainted several times and Roger has painted the ceiling of pretty much every other room but this one because of the stickers. They still glow so we left the light on in the room during dinner so the kids could look at them. At one point, the kids took off their shoes so they could lie on the bed and stargaze.
While we were out on Friday afternoon, we also bought Wii Music because we thought it would be easy for the little ones to play. We were right and it was a hit with both of them since all that is really required is wiggling the controllers up and down. Even 3-year-old Benjamin picked up on it. Please note Abigail and I were both wearing our quasi-matching "fancy pants" while we playing on Saturday evening.
And in between all of this fun, we also went swimming on Friday and Saturday mornings with the kids and everyone went to Dion's for pizza on Saturday. It's the one place David always requests and there is the little platform for kids to watch them make pizzas so Abigail and Benjamin enjoy that as well. Mom and Dad had an early flight out on Sunday and Amy and her family left a little before Paul and I left for church.

It was a lovely weekend although we did miss having our Donna here and even if it does always feel like we're stepping over each other in my little house. I do like getting to have holidays in NM. Even being in charge of everything is in some ways easier than traveling around and about. But we'll be happy to drag over to Texas and possibly up to Kansas to see more family in three weeks.