2006 Holiday Edition of Getting To Know Your Friends

I got this from Jean, who also tagged Tambo:

Your Name: Elizabeth

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Hot chocolate, although I do have an egg nog or two during the season. I like it, but I just can't get past the bazillion calories with no chocolate, and since no one else in my house drinks it, I don't buy it.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? We don't do Santa anymore, and when we did, he was too busy to wrap. Santa brought the stuff that was too cumbersome to wrap.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? I prefer white, but we have mostly colored. I'm phasing them out gradually.

4. Do you hang mistletoe? No. I'd forget to take it down before July 4th.

5. When do you put your decorations up? After Thanksgiving.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish? Ooh. That's hard. Does Peppermint Mocha count?

7. Favorite holiday memory as a child: I was a wise man in a living creche on Christmas Eve when I was, oh, maybe 12 or 13 (we got there late--I wanted to be Mary). It started to snow big fat flakes. It was worth the freezing toes and scratchy fake beard to watch it fall in front of the street lights.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I was about nine or ten, and a kid at school was teasing me because I hadn't figured it out earlier.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Oh, yeah, although I usually steer the kids toward their new jammies. :-) I learned long ago to wrap them in a big box to increase the odds that they'd pick it themselves.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? We have a pre-lit fake tree, so there is usually some degree of angst getting it set up. We do lots of lights and, as with everything else, our decorations are eclectic. We have the usual home-made decorations that the kids made in day care, and some crystal we bought in Italy, a couple Eric's parents bought during their tour in Germany--you get the picture. If you don't, leave me a comment and I'll post a picture.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? Love it

12. Can you ice skate? Um, no. They don't call me Gracie for nothing.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? A few years ago my mom sent me the nightlight that had been in my grandparents' study when I was a kid. My great-grandmother bought it as a political statement in the '30's, I think. I has an elephant, and she turned it on in her front window every night.

14. What’s the most important thing about the Holidays for you? Time with family.

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? I'm equal opportunity with desserts. We've done pumpkin or pecan or key lime pies, cookies, fudge, grasshopper ice cream cake--we just pick something that sounds good.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Turning on Christmas music and watching the lights on the tree, preferably with a warm beverage and my man to snuggle with.

17. What tops your tree? An angel.

18. Which do you prefer giving or receiving? Giving, but I will confess I like to receive, too.

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen from the traditional genre; the modern favorite goes to Trans Siberian Orchestra's Wizards in Winter.

20. Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum? Leave them, unless they're crushed and mixed into warm chocolate pudding. They have WAY too much sugar for me these days.

I’m tagging…anybody that wants to play.

*Cue Carol Kane* Li--aarrrrr!

I don't know why I'm surprised by this weather. Two days ago, our weather dudes said, "Rain and wind, changing to ice, and than 4-6" of snow in the Metro East." That's us--Metro East. We got the rain and wind, and it did indeed change to ice. Snow? 1/2" if we're lucky. There wasn't enough to justify dragging out the brand-new snow shovel from last year. It didn't even cover the whole street.

I know weather prediction is an inexact science at best. I know it's further complicated by our close proximity to the Mississippi. I know that a shift in the wind can change outcome entirely.

I still want the 4-6" of snow.

Then again, I'm probably the only person over 30 who does want it. As of the 6:00 news yesterday there were still a half-million people without power. This is not a good time to be without heat. High today is supposed to be about 35*, and tomorrow is supposed to be about 25*. Time to count my blessings and pray for those waiting to get power back.

Closing the month

I may get more writing done later, but I think it's pretty safe to say I'm done for the month. It could go either way, with the weather turning nasty; either I'll write some more or I'll bake cookies.

As of right now, I wrote 15, 971 and 2,175 minutes ( 36.25 hours). I fell short of my goal by 13.75 hours, but I did write 26 days. Some days I only got in 15 minutes, but I sat down and put my fingers on the keyboard. I'd call it an over-all success, and I have enough projects to keep me busy for at least the next year. All I have to do it keep the momentum going, and if I can do it at Christmas time, I can do it anytime.

And she's out!

I had big plans yesterday. The main objective was Christmas shopping. After a morning of household chores, writing and school, I managed to get out after the noon news, only to find myself driving down the road thinking, 'Where did I want to shop?' That's a bad sign.

I found the shops I'd been wanting to check out with minimal difficulty. I got the majority of the shopping done in spite of the increasing brain fog, got home, cooked supper (such as it was), and somehow got my family around the table all at the same time. After dinner, Eric said I looked tired, and asked if I needed to go to bed. Yeah, I did, but I had to MAKE the bed first. To give credit where it's due, he stopped what he was doing and came upstairs to help me make the bed.

Long story short, by 6:30 I was in the shower. By 6:50, I was in bed. I watched NCIS, turned out the light promptly at 8, and that was all she wrote until 6:40 this morning when the alarm clock went off. I can't remember the last time I was asleep by 8:05. I was probably jet-lagged, or I might have been 9 years old. It's hard to say.

I guess the long weekend took more out of me than I thought. The brain fog has dissipated, that's for sure, but I'm still a long way from well-rested. (Duh--I'm a mom. Well-rested went out the window when the first was conceived!) I guess I need to do that more often. Scott says he'll sleep when he's dead, but I'm thinking you get dead faster if you don't sleep. Brain fog kills, people!

Cheap labor

I have re-written this post three times. It's too cumbersome without visuals.






The living room before










We bought these bookcases the year after we married. You can just see the paperbacks on the left, but you can't see that they're shelved three deep. We had these bookcases upstairs because that's where we wanted our library. It's hard to find books when they're shelved three deep.

Scott and Chad were kind enough to bring the two on the right downstairs for me, and the little ones by the fireplace went upstairs. Since I agreed to feed them for the whole weekend, they seemed happy to help. At least they didn't complain when I was in earshot, and we did give them unlimited use of the hot tub.








This is the living room as of yesterday. The original plan was to have built-in bookcases put in, but we had the monstrosities upstairs. The third is still up there, but it will hold hard-covers and photo albums, not to mention the vinyl albums we still have.

Sorry, there is no 'after' picture of the loft yet. It would break the camera. While it does look better, it's not habitable yet.

I'm happy with the way it came out. Now I just have to tackle the other rooms! I think, if/when we decide to move again, that I need to take pictures of all our furniture, and pictures of the rooms in our new house. I can print them all out, cut them up, and 'place' the furniture to see where I want each piece before the movers come. Then again, they had to have been easier to take down the stairs than up.