It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I love Thanksgiving. It is by far my most favorite holiday. You get all the great food (usually) with all the great family time, but where we live, you can still wear shorts. That's nice. You don't have to rush around to a million places (at least we don't), and you don't have to schlep anything with you but your kids and whatever dishes you signed up to bring to the meal. Again, very nice.

But the best part of this time of year is that I get to start organizing for the NEXT year. Oh baby! I have to hold myself off from August to November, but once we hit Thanksgiving, all bets are off. At least in August I can appease myself with new school supplies and the joy that comes from (a) smelling and (b) organizing new pencils and packs of notebook paper. But I digress.

The thing that really makes my heart sing is gearing up for a new year. I get to have all new, fresh, unwritten-on file folders. My Quicken program starts on a new year. Two words: NEW DAYTIMER!!! A new year is a thing of beauty.

I know, most people dread filing away the old and starting over with the new. But I crave it. So does my brother. (It may be inherited.) I have finally managed to convince Spanky to let me help him organize his room by telling him that we have to make room for all the Christmas gifts he's going to get. Oh, like you never lied to your kids just to get some simple enjoyment out of cleaning their room?

FrogBoy is pretty well organized. He likes his Legos just so...and before he goes to bed at night, he fills the 8 (yes, 8) boxes back up and stacks them neatly on the storage cubes in the corner of his room. I guess that's a huge blessing of autism...even if he doesn't really like to do it, I only had to tell him a couple of times and now it's a routine...so he's going to do it. It's ingrained in his innermost being. I love that!

If you need me between now and January 1, I will probably be sitting at my desk organizing my papers - with a huge grin on my face (commonly referred to as the Salley grin). Oh happy day!

Purse Ponderings

Let's get something out of the way right up front: this blog is 100% about purses. If you're a guy, you may not be interested...but I bet you'll keep reading anyway.

I've been pining for a leather Fossil purse for quite some time now. Since I can in no way afford a leather Fossil purse, I snuck it onto my Christmas list, thinking there was no way I'd ever get it. There's a puppy on that list too.

Anyway, my aunt and my grandmother decided that if that's what I really want...which of course, it is...they would give me money toward a leather Fossil purse. It is my job to find the purse of my dreams. And while that sounds like a relatively simple task, given my love for purses, in reality it is almost as difficult as deciding what to name my children.

This past weekend I was at the Fossil outlet store in North Charleston. I don't normally like the outlet mall, but remember, I needed Fossil, and I can't afford it without it being from the outlet store. So I dealt with it.

Now I've been drooling over several bags at this particular store for quite some time, but never paying much attention, because I knew I couldn't afford anything. This time was different. This time I was checking every tag. And I found my dream purse. Hallelujah. The angels sang.

Of course, they only had one left in the style and size I want. And it is tan. TAN. What a lovely non-color. Wouldn't you think, if you were going to make the perfect bag, that you would offer it in an array of colors? Like red, mainly? But no. They have TAN.

So I've been mulling over my decision for several days now. Do I go with the perfect bag in NOT RED, or continue looking for a red bag and possibly never find The Perfect Bag again? What to do? Sometimes life just isn't fair.

Thank-Full

After a very strange Thanksgiving, I am finally getting around to updating my blog. Normally I'd be too bloated to blog for at least 2 days after turkey day, but this year, my family tried something a little different...bizarro Thanksgiving.

You know how every year someone manages to screw up the dish they're bringing...so you just do without that particular food item that year? Okay, that was this year...except it happened to EVERYONE. Which meant that my meal consisted of stuffing and corn casserole.

On top of that, SuperHubby was still suffering from severe vertigo, which meant he felt terrible and wasn't going to go to my aunt and uncle's for lunch. Turned out that was okay, because Spanky woke up, ate breakfast, and promptly puked all over the place. So it was just me and FrogBoy as far as Fitzgeralds went this year.

Then my dad, who always adds a little levity to the situation (usually not intentionally), managed to knock over a vase, which shattered into a million pieces. And my grandmother's husband knocked into a shelf, which deposited knick knacks on his head. Oh my.

Still, I managed to come up with a list of things I am thankful for this Thanksgiving. Here, in no particular order, I give you...

1. School holidays. Yes, I know I'm not in school. But I love it when my kids don't have homework and can just enjoy themselves for a couple of extra days.
2. Horse therapy. This has been an amazing thing for FrogBoy the past couple of months. Today I asked if he wanted to go feed the horses at my aunt's house and he said "SURE!" On the 4th of July, they dragged him out there kicking and screaming. And that hasn't been the only change...he has gained incredible confidence and skill in riding. It has truly been a blessing.
3. Caller ID. Remember what I said about my dad?
4. Purses. Daytimers. Boxes and bins and rubbermaid storage totes. No explanation necessary.
5. My aunt's stuffing. Previously known as my grandmother's stuffing, until my aunt took over making it. Even this year, when it was a little runny and I forgot to bring home the gravy for my leftovers. The only thing I don't like about it is that I only get it twice a year.
6. Fantastic hair. We all know I have it, but now it's out there.
7. My job. I was talking to the Smurf (my mother-in-law) last week, telling her that Geoff (boss #1) was back from India, and how glad I was about it. She gave me a quizzical look. I told her I couldn't help it, but I miss my boss when he's away. Then I mentioned that Shawn (boss #2) would be out the entire week of Thanksgiving...and I would miss him too. She told me I had always enjoyed my job way more than she could understand. I started thinking about that and realized that I do love my job, but I also really enjoy the people I get to work with. And that is a really cool thing.
8. Jon Bon Jovi. Oh my. What can I say? JBJ is quite possibly the most gorgeous specimen God ever created. He's extremely talented, has been married to the same woman for a bazillion years, and doesn't do stupid stuff, at least not so the media gets ahold of it. And did I mention he's gorgeous? And he knows he's hot...but in that precious, little boy way, not a cocky way. That makes him even more hot.
9. Gifts. Not presents, gifts. When Geoff came back from India, he brought me a gift. Shawn recently pinky-swore (in front of witnesses) that I would be the first person not involved in his book to read his book. Gifts are from the heart and tell me the person was thinking about me, even if it was extremely brief and fleeting. I'm not big into presents. I love gifts.

Of course, I'm also thankful for my family, mostly because they give me something to blog about...but also because they really are a lot of fun. Thanksgiving is the best holiday - it gives you time to reflect on what's important - like family. And Jon Bon Jovi.

Skinny Jeans

What a giant load of crap. A total misnomer. There is no such thing as skinny jeans.

Their name suggests that skinny jeans make you skinny, or, at the very least, make you look skinny. This is simply not the case. Skinny jeans are the jeans fat girls wish they could wear. The jeans skinny girls already wear. Which they call jeans.

It is just not necessary for these flightly little stick people to call them "skinny" jeans. It's not like I call my jeans "whale" jeans.

Let's not point out the obvious, people.

Sibling Rivalry

So I haven't posted in a while, and I have some really important stuff to say, but I just couldn't let this story pass...

Seems this couple was set to deliver twins...on Sunday. The first baby, a little boy, was born at 1:32 a.m. His sister was born 34 minutes later, but because of Daylight Savings Time, she was born at 1:06 a.m. (I'll wait while some of the slower folks do the math there).

So even though this poor kid managed to sneak out before his sister, and in reality he's 34 minutes older than her, all official records of their birth show her as being older. Isn't that the most bizarro thing ever? I wonder what the odds are.

Just shows you that girls will figure out a way to mess with their older brothers regardless of what it takes.