Christmas, snow, and all the rest....

So Christmas was almost cancelled this year in Oklahoma because a blizzard came thru! It was crazy insane but somehow my amazing husband made it to my parents and we were able to spend Christmas Eve there with them! I love getting to spend that time with them! I gave my brother & sister in law the greatest gift ever! You see my brother thinks he's hilarious, and while somedays this is true, somedays, like my birthday, he isn't. About 8 or 9 years ago for my birthday I asked him for a cd that I wanted really bad. I figured, hey a cd is only around $13 so that's not too bad. Well apparently my brother thought to himself, gee, Sis doesn't need that cd, I'll go to Goodwill. So he took a trip to Goodwill and bought me an hor' dourve tree. It cost him 15 cents. Yes he left the price tag on it and that is all I got. I was so mad I didn't talk to him for a week. He did finally make it right and go get me the cd I had asked for but I kept the damn tree. For those of you that don't know what an hor' dourve tree is, well it's a plastic plate that has a plastic tree coming out of the middle of it that you stick finger sandwiches, olives, and other things of that nature on. Well, for Christmas, he got it back. The look of shock and surprise on his face was classic! I had asked them what they wanted for Christmas and they said they wanted gift cards to fix up thier house with....well I hate buying gift cards, what if what you need isn't at the store you are going to? So I figured money is better, and I could tie it to the tree and then wrap the tree. I haven't seen my brother "get got" in a long time. He was speechless at first and then he just started laughing! He couldn't believe that I had held on to that stupid tree! I loved it and got a great laugh out of it too. I don't know that my sister in law appreciated the joke as much as my brother did but it was well worth it just for the look on his face! I also got to spend some time with my grandparents. I swear, I love those to people. They had a good time opening up thier gifts and just being there with us. I got my Mammaw a prayer box and her face lit up. She loved it.

We spent Christmas day with my husbands family. It was nice. We always go over there on Christmas morning and open gifts and everything. Since everyone was pretty much snowed in we got over there and they had breakfast for us! That was a nice treat! Who doesn't love breakfast when they don't have to cook it or clean it up? We had a great time with them and even got to go and spend some time with Seth's family later that evening at his Great Aunts house. We got to catch up with family we hadn't seen in a while and that was fun. We enjoyed seeing Seth's uncle and listening to the noises of Christmas.

I haven't taken any pictures of the snow. I'm not digging it much. I don't like the cold and since it makes everything slippery and wet I can't wear my cute new shoes and so that is frustrating to me. I got some really cute heels that I want to wear. Oh well, maybe this snow will pass soon enough. My dog has loved it! He's jumped and played in the snow drifts and just loved every minute of it! It's been funny to watch him run around out there! Anyway, that's my holiday. I'm enclosing some pictures of the hor' dourve tree all decked out in money. Oh and also, I got a new springform pan so I can practice making cheesecake now! I made my first one! I'll enclose a picture of that too! It was delicious!!

Thursdays....

So this week, yeah, it hasn't been the greatest one ever. And right now I'm trying to gear up for tomorrow. See, Thursday and I, we have a Hate/Hate relationship. The last 5 or 6 of them have treated me pretty badly so I've decided to boycott them. I know, it sounds so stupid. But I feel a little better about it. I mean it all started when my best friend of 10 years decided to tell me that I was the most horrible person ever, then the next week, we had to put one of our dogs to sleep. It just continued from there. I've not had the greatest week this week and I'm not really looking forward to tomorrow. I figure whatever can go wrong, will. I'm usually not this negative and that bothers me that when Thursday rolls around my whole outlook changes. I mean, I usually don't think this negatively so why do I let Thursdays control so much for me? Who knows, maybe sometime soon, Thursdays and I can patch things up and won't have to be so cold to one another. I laugh when I type that because it reminds me of my favorite tv show, The Gilmore Girls. If you've ever seen it you know that Loralei loves snow and at one point, she and snow "break up"....that's kind of how I feel about Thursdays right now. Maybe someday we will get back together. Like Loralei and the snow......

The Good Kid

So, ya know what my favorite thing is?? Being the good kid. Getting to spend time with my Mom and Dad and just getting to be with them doing fun stuff on Saturdays. Today I went and shopped with my Mom. I got some of my Christmas stuff bought and out of the way. We had such a blast. We always do. We got to talk and be together. That is always so nice. I even got into the spirit of Christmas by listening to my most favorite cd on the way home. It's a holiday tradition for us to listen to "The Cabbage Patch Christmas" from 1983 every single year since I can remember. I recently found it on cd and well it's the only Christmas cd I own. I hate to listen to Christmas music because it seems like during this time of year, there is NO escape from it. But that cd makes my heart smile. So many memories in every single song. So today, was a great fun filled day with Mom, topped off with great 1983 vintage Christmas music!

Life & Thanksgiving.....

So what most people don't know about me is that Thanksgiving is one of my favorite times. I have a LOT of great memories of this particular holiday. Some of them are old traditions, some of them are more recent. I mean, every single year for as long as I can remember, we would watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. Now that I'm grown and have a home of my own, I get up early to watch it and I call my Mother about 900 times through out the morning to make sure she's seeing the floats as they go by. Funny thing is, I just recently discovered that my brother gets up early to watch it too. So next year, maybe I will call him too. I remember the last Thanksgiving we had my Pawpaw Bazil here, he spent Thanksgiving with us in Oklahoma. He was so happy to be here. Those memories hold a LOT of joy in my heart. I remember getting up to watch the parade like always and the look of relief on both my parents faces, "ahhhh someone elses turn!"....you see he was such a talker and it took him hours to tell you a story about someone that was long gone, and you had probably never heard of them or met them before, but just to hear his voice.....I sat there that morning and listened to him talk while I watched the parade. It always brings a smile to my face now watching the parade and remembering that morning. I remember how much he enjoyed going to my Mammaw & Pawpaw's house to eat dinner with the rest of my crazy Oklahoma family....he really enjoyed himself. I remember how thankful he was to be with us and how much he loved being with us that year and that is how I choose to remember him. He passed away in January of 2005. That was just a little over a month after his time with us. But, I know that he had that time with us, he had a great time, lots of fun, lots of laughs, and more than enough love.

I remember always spending time with my cousins on Thanksgiving and playing when we were younger. Going to get cokes when we were older. I remember always having family together and loving being together, getting to see my Uncle Joe throw marshmallows or rolls at whoever happened to be in the line of fire at the moment. For all of these wonderful memories, I am thankful and so grateful. I have had some wonderful Thanksgivings in the past.

This Thanksgiving was the first one I spent with my husbands family. I love my in-laws. They are wonderful people. This year my Mother-in-law wanted to have a Thanksgiving dinner at her house with her family. So I got the turkey, learned how to make dressing and chocolate pie, and we had a great family dinner. I went to my Mammaw's to night before to get everything ready, she taught me how to make the dressing, which I am proud to say I'm the first one to ever be taught to make it. And she taught me hose to make her chocolate pie, this got dangerous, we had a fight with the fluffy topping stuff....it was fun though! I had a good time with my husbands family. My pie turned out beautifully and my stuffing was delicious. I hope that we are able to do this again.

So basically what I'm saying is that I'm thankful for everything that I have been given. I have some pretty amazing people in my life. I have had some people leave my life recently that I wasn't quite ready to let go of. I'm sure in time I'll be alright.

Lightning Flashes....

So this week it was crazy. We had a storm that just happened suddenly. The weather was showing no rain, just 98 degree weather with lots of sun. I was sitting at the computer when I heard a loud crash and saw a huge flash of light. All of the sudden the house went quiet and dark. The computer, TV, air conditioner, everything went off. We checked outside and it was starting to sprinkle a little and so we looked around and notice the neighbors had electricity. We called and asked electic company to come out and check it out. They came and went and 2 hours later turned everything back on. Well when everything came back up the computer no longer would turn on, the stereo in the bedroom wouldn't work anymore, the fan blew up, and yesterday when I went to cook dinner the oven wouldn't work either. I wanted to scream. I know that I can turn all of this over to my insurance company and they can issue me a check and I can go and buy all new things but I know they have to schedule a time for the adjuster to come out and take a look around then I have to wait for them to review thier findings and then I have to wait for a check. It is just frustrating to deal with this crap. So now here I am waiting on figuring out how to fix all this. I'm not a patient person....I don't like sitting and waiting and so this is driving me nuts. I wanted it fixed 2 seconds after it happened. I guess we'll see what happens.

That's all for now....I guess we'll see how next week goes and if we can fix the stove and everything else. Cooking will be interesting next week. I guess we will get to eat out alot! Oh well.....here's to no more storms that destroy things.