Winding down

This year Christmas time has been a flurry of activities.  It is beginning to wind down, and will wind down a lot next week when I am whisked off to the SSB - the absolute stillness there.

The activities began with Krissi's birthday dinner.  I am still thinking of that buffalo tenderloin steak.  It was so good, and I was surprised at the tenderness of that thing. After all - buffalo??

So the whole family (adults) were together for that.  Then it was decided we would have family dinner on Sunday.  Gosh Friday, then Sunday.  G wanted to go to church on Christmas Eve, so that was planned. Steve said he would do dinner on Christmas Eve, and presents family-wide would be opened then.

When we got to church and parked, there was a black truck that was backing into the space next to us.  I was thinking it looked like my son's.  As they got even with us, Christina rolled down her window with the biggest grin.  What a surprise.  The other family went to the 3 pm service that was more for kids.  They didn't realize it was for LITTLE kids.  Too bad they didn't wait for the 5 pm.  But I don't know that we could have found seating for 12!

Christmas morning is traditional for us to go to Krissi's for the kids opening their presents and breakfast.  Mr Scrouge announced on Christmas Eve he wasn't going and didn't care about breakfast.  That sent the youngest of their kids (Karrington) into a tizzy.  She always has a bit of the drama queen in her, but she was tired and it upset her that tradition wasn't going to continue.

Since the kids are older, I (foolishly) expected them to sleep in.  But at 7:30 I got the call.  I hurriedly dressed to go.  Didn't bother to wake Grumpy.  It was good.  Presents were ripped open in a matter of minutes.  We had breakfast and I went home.  We were going to my DIL's mother's house for lunch/dinner at 2.  That is another tradition.  It is nice to see Ginger.  She is a very sweet person, and I enjoy her family.  This year she included Christina's brother's wife's family (lots of possessives there!).  Lovely people.

Being with the kids all these  times had my head spinning.  We have gotten away from this much family time.  But who is complaining.  Not me!

In the meantime, I was anxiously awaiting the delivery of a package for G.  His computer is old and slow.  It is running XP as an operating system, and it just won't download things as it should.  SO I found one on my favorite shopping site.  I even paid the $13 to have the shipping expedited.  That's something for me.  It is a discontinued Dell, but it will meet his needs just fine.  It was due to be delivered yesterday (Saturday).  It was supposed to be here by 12 noon.  At 11:15 I checked my email to see where it was.  It said delivered.  This was important because there have been so many deliveries stolen in this area, I surely didn't want a computer stolen.  The message said delivered at 10:50.  I went to the door, and sure enough - there it was!

I wanted to get more lights for the outside when they went on sale.  Mine were so old they didn't work.  We bought two strings when we put up the display, but they were at regular price (and expensive).  They are sparse.  Krissi and I set out for the sale on Christmas decorations.  She bought a whole lot.  I bought two little trees for the porch, and about 5 strings of lights including some ice cycles.

AND the most surprising thing - they want family dinner again tonight!  We have one dissenting vote - Mr. Scrooge, the Grump.

Tomorrow we head off to the SSB where we will spend a week.  I so badly want to stay home.  I am tired of spending a quarter of my time in the near wilderness.  Steve and Reagan are going for a few days.  Steve still hasn't gotten a deer (we eat what we kill - we all like venison, and there are SO many deer in Texas the herd seriously needs to be thinned some - not nearly enough vegetation for them).  I wish G would just go with them and leave me here.  But "that ain't gonna happen."  Bah Humbug.  Poor ending to what has been a really good holiday season.

Sooooo yummy

Back in August,  we went to one of our favorite restaurants.  It is a steak house (and one of the best) so we don't indulge too often (like IF we are lucky once a year).  But we thought that it would be fun to treat the family on Krissi's 42nd (GASP!) birthday.  So we made reservations for the six of us.  Love the grands, but three wouldn't eat anything there, and the other three - well let's face it this IS a great steak house.  I think you can read between the lines. It is just as well it was all adults last night because the dinner lasted two and a half hours!!  Only the nearly 15-year-old would have been able to withstand that.  But even so she had a Quinceanera to attend.  For those who are not in a Mexican infused community, this is celebrating the 15th birthday of a girl.  It marks her admission to womanhood.  It is just as fancy as a wedding - and costs as much as a wedding!

My son-in-law works for a company that makes commercial kitchen equipment.  Thus, he is expected to spend money in restaurants.  He is a VP, but these days that really doesn't necessarily mean anything, but he is.  SO last night his company provided the birthday dinner.

All of us women had something we would never have ordered had it not been for someone else picking up the check.  We had a buffalo filet with a jalapeno glace!  Talk about drop dead wonderful.

Steve also started the evening with a champagne toast.  It was delicious.  Not the cheap stuff I buy.  Then he ordered a really good wine.  We all had steaks of one kind or another. There were salads and the "complimentary" birthday dessert.  At the price of the steaks, there was nothing complimentary about anything!!!  But is was delicious.

All in all, it was a wonderful evening.  I think we all had a great time, enjoyed wonderful food, and appreciated the terrific company!

Time flies

I cannot believe my daughter has turned 42 today!  I know that's not really that old, but it seems like I just had her.  Then I got to thinking about all the milestones that we have passed.  

My dad used to tell me that time flew by as one got older.  What a sage he was.  Time is just slipping away so fast.  The grands are growing up so fast.  Things I wanted to do with them - that's over.  They don't do things like that.  They think they are grown (at least the eldest three).  Wow!

Yesterday I was really miffed.  I went to the grocery store.  Getting out of the house was a comedy of errors to begin with.  I don't carry a purse this time of year.  I have a little crossbody that I made myself where I carry the drivers license, a credit card and (of course) since I was going to the grocery) - the little card. I got all that together, was trying to get out of the door ahead of G so we didn't have to move cars, and found I forgot to put Clyde in his kennel.  

I went to the refrigertator to get his little piece hot dog (I don't say weinie anymore - the eldest grands erupt into gales of laughter) I put all the associated things I had together down.  Well in that stuff was my shopping list.  That made me rather upset with myself. I was distracted doing my shopping.  I couldn't remember what was on that blasted list, and once on the list - it is out of my mind.  Checking out, I checked cashback on the little thingy, and I certainly don't want cash back - not at those rates!  So once again, I was distracted. When I looked at my cart, I thought it looked a little skimpy.  

When I got home, I didn't unload all my bags at once.  When I began looking for all the cold stuff, I came to the realization that the roast and stew meat I purchased were NOT there.  At this time of year, after about 3 in the afternoon, I do not go back out again.  I wasn't going to fight traffic for even $25 of meat.  I would go today to rectify.

That was a fiasco!  I surf the marked down meat.  The meat I bought was from the marked down meat.  And that meat is just as good as any other by the way.  I save where I can.  Anyway, obviously MY meat was not to be found.  The butcher had no idea what to do, and to cut to the chase I ended up buying fresh meat (and a half pound more when he cut the roast) and paid an additional $16.  I really would have just preferred to have gotten my money back.  

I don't know what the moral to that story might be.  I guess not to go to the grocery by myself so that I can watch what is going on better.  Needless to say, I am not a happy camper right now.  

Today's musings

The most pressing thought is about my son and DIL.  They have lost the baby.  I am going to sound terrible here, but it is both sad and a blessing.  Any loss of a child, at any stage, is terrible.  She has had at least three miscarriages (my daughter says three, but I think more).  Brian put it well last night when he told me "it's happened before, but not this late."

She had finally told the other three kiddos, and they were going to this ultrasound with them yesterday.  But they are so young, I don't think they will fully understand what this means.  So today at 11 am she went for a DandC.  It is sad.

But at the same time, I will admit (and I will admit that it is NOT my life) that I wasn't thrilled about a new baby.   She had just begun to go back to school to become a nurse.  At the rate she was going, it was going to take a long time as it was.  She only took two classes last semester and is looking at only one this coming one.  The youngest will be 4 in February.  This means full-time school for him is just around the corner, and more serious classes could be taken.  

DIL has worked so hard on losing weight.  She is out to make additional income for the family as being a coach with this company that sells workout DVDs and nutritional supplements.  The selling could still be done, but there is always the dreaded baby weight.

I do see this as a blessing to them, but it is still sad.  I hope I don't come across as too harsh on this.  

In lighter news, my daughter's birthday is the 18th.  She doesn't know what she wants for her birthday.  I don't know what she wants for her birthday.  She, like me, buys what she wants when she wants it.  Ugh!  Gift giving gets so difficult!  

I wanted to show you the teacher's gifts.  I used my phone to take the picture, and rather than hook the phone to the computer, I emailed the picture.  So I had to finally go to that email address (not my usual) to download the picture, and so on, and so on.  But here are the hand sanitizers.  Five of them were easy-peasy.  The owl made me question my judgement!  I threw the first front part away because it was so horrible.  I loved the paisley print for them until I thought about her having two male teachers.  The paisley seemed to be too feminine, so I went back to search for other fabrics.  I came up with the brown.  I thought I had purple and I would use gold thread (school colors - purple and gold), but alas I must have gotten too organized when I "organized" the fabrics.   The owl is because one of her favorite teachers loves owls.

Quick note

And I can do a quick note thanks to my new bestie Mike!!!  Wow this thing flies.

I just wanted to help bring a little update to my friends who are like me and falling a little behind in this fast moving world of electronics and internet.

The Fire Stick is from Amazon.  It is a device that will stream video to a "smart tv" so that movies and the like can be viewed.  It required an HDMI (something else I have learned more about!!!) port on the tv - so it has to be an HD tv.  These are only about $40 at Amazon, and if you have a Prime Account there is a world of free stuff out there!!!  It is a whole new world for me anyway!

Now I am "girding my loins" to head out to Costco.  If I were in my right mind, I would NEVER venture out to a store like this at this time.  But then I live with he who is not in his right mind.  He knew we would have to be going fairly soon because we would be needing dog food, but I would not have waited until we were so close to being completely out,

Ah thus it goes around my house!!!

New and "improved"

Had the local computer guru come over today to work on my computers.  He basically pronounced the Dell as terminal, but he worked for quite a long time on this Toshiba.  Well - it at the very least will get on-line now!

While he was here, I got him to work with my Fire Stick.  I am so behind on all this stuff.  It was so easy, I am embarrassed.  It was done in three minutes.

Last Sunday was the Holiday in the Park here. It is a minor festival where snow is brought in for all these kids that reside here in Swampland. and vendors set up.   Usually I make little to no money.  This year was great!!  But when I posted the new items that I had from the show - nada.  Oh well such is life

Katie decided that some of my stuff would make great teachers' gifts, and they would.  But she asked if I had an owl in one of the things.  I didn't.  So I stupidly   gladly told her I would make a hand sanitizer holder that is an owl for that teacher.  I now have several more grey hairs.  But I managed to get that tarnated thing done along with 5 easy ones.  So I guess they went off to school this week.

And that my friends is what I have been doing.  Hopefully I will be able to access the internet more regularily now!