Friday, December 28, 2007

The New Phone Books are Here! I'm Somebody Now!!

I couldn't fall asleep last night. I wanted to; I just couldn't. I tried everything in my arsenal. I said all the states in alphabetical order. I said all the state capitals in alphabetical order. Then REVERSE alphabetical order. NOTHING.

It was time for the big guns. I counted backwards from 1299 to 0. Twice. Still nothing. By now it was midnight and I was just a little cranky, frankly. I started listing 5-letter nouns - in alphabetical order. (Yes, I lack imagination). STILL NOTHING.

Somehow I came up with the thought of that game "Six Degrees of Separation." I figured if everyone is connected to Kevin Bacon by 6 degrees or less, then they must be connected to me in the same way. Surely I'm as popular as Kevin Bacon.

It didn't take long (seriously, about 5 minutes) before I made a 2-degree connection between me and Oprah. That's not something I'm proud of, but it does help where I'm going with this. See, in my former life as an insurance agent, I worked at a company with a branch in Columbia. And one of the employees that I mingled with every Christmas for 5 years had a daughter who just up and vanished one year. It was huge news here. And he managed to get on Oprah to talk about it. And you know what that means...

I am only 3 degrees of separation from every single person who has ever been on Oprah. Hello, Will Smith. Hello, Harry Connick Jr. And most importantly, Hello, Jon Bon Jovi!!!

(Let's all just reflect for a moment on the hotness that is Jon Bon Jovi. OK)

Needless to say, this little exercise didn't do much to help me fall asleep. But it sure made me feel important for about 3 minutes.

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Top 5 Things That Jingled My Bells This Christmas

1. Spanky got a TV video game "thing" that is like a bad Wii...but it's still pretty cute. It has boxing, baseball and tennis. Watching the kid try to beat the video boxer had me on the floor in stitches this morning.

2. Every single time FrogBoy opened a gift, regardless of whether he knew what it was or not, he exclaimed, "OH, THANK YOU!!! It's just what I've ALWAYS wanted!!"

3. We had 4 generations of my family - the tapestry that makes it up on the holidays - sitting in my aunt's den watching "The Best of Weird Al Yankovick" videos. THAT was awesome!

4. I got the best card ever from Zach. It was a Hannakuh card. He carefully went through and replaced "Hannakuh" with "Christmas" to make it holiday-appropriate.

5. I got furry lined Crocs. VERY nice.

Last year, my grandmother was in the hospital, so we couldn't all be together at my aunt's. Thanksgiving, Spanky and SuperHubby were home sick. Today we were all together - and relatively healthy - so that was superb.

On the way home, I decided to stop by my mom's house. Her husband worked all day, so she'd been alone. We managed to surprise her and it was PRICELESS.

And we saw SuperHubby's mom and grandpop...which we normally do, but on some other day than Christmas Day. They came to our house this morning.

So it was a very busy day, but very wonderful, and I'm super-thankful for all my family, even though most of them drive me nuts on a regular basis. If it weren't for them, what would I write about?

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Super Support

So yesterday, as I was driving SuperHubby home from physical therapy, because I am a kind, considering, caring wife that way, I told him about something I was thinking about doing. A little writing venture that I felt like God might want me to take on. And do you know what the love of my life did?

He laughed out loud.

Guess who's walking next week?

Monday, December 17, 2007

ShopFest 2007

Every year, a month or two before Christmas, my mother-in-law (The Smurf) and I spend a good portion of the day shopping. Sometimes the boys go with us (we don't get much accomplished when that happens); other times, it's just the two of us, which is a glorious thing.

This year, we didn't get to do our annual shopping until this past weekend. That's right, the second weekend before Christmas, and we were out in the craziness. What's worse was that I had no choice...because of SuperHubby's physical therapy schedule, the Mom Taxi has been running overtime up and down the highway, which meant no time to shop. You can't exactly buy presents for your kids when they're always with you.

So Saturday we left at 8:15 a.m. First I went out and got my family breakfast (donuts and coffee for SH, munchkins for the boys) and a newspaper. I picked The Smurf up at 8:15 and we hit the ground running. We shopped. We thought we would drop. But we didn't. Long story short, we got home at 9:30 p.m. - and neither of us was even slightly tired. I think I could have gone for several more hours, but at that point I was done.

Yep, I managed to put off 90% of my shopping until the week before Christmas, and I got it all done in one day. We even hit some super sales. Who knew? I'm usually done with my shopping in August, so this was a whole new experience for me.

To all those who still have shopping to do, I feel for you. It's crazy out there. I don't plan on going back outside until December 26. But I will say ShopFest 2007 was a raging success. And a new tradition may have been born.

Friday, December 14, 2007

How Smart Are You?

This is a quiz for people who think they know everything. These are not trick questions.

My mother sent me this quiz. I was really impressed with myself because I got most of the questions right. I only missed two.

How smart are you? Extra points if you can guess the 2 I missed...

1. Name the one sport in which neither the participants nor the spectators know the score or the leader until the contest ends.

2. What famous North American landmark is constantly moving backward?

3. Of all vegetables, only two can live to produce on their own for several growing seasons. All other vegetables must be replanted every year. What are the only two perennial vegetables?

4. What fruit has its seeds on the outside?

5. In many liquor stores, you can buy pear brandy, with a real pear inside the bottle. The pear is whole and ripe, and the bottle is genuine; it hasn't been cut in any way. How did the pear get inside the bottle?

6. Only three words in standard English begin with the letters "dw" and they are all common words. Name two of them.

7. There are 14 punctuation marks in English grammar. Can you name at least half of them?

8. Name the only vegetable or fruit that is never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked or in any other form except fresh.

9. Name 6 or more things that you can wear on your feet beginning with the letter "s."

I told my mother not to send this to The Professor. If he gets more than me, I'll cry in my cereal until morning. However, I really don't see that happening. Without the incessant ticking of the Jeopardy clock, I believe I may have him beat!

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Christmas List

A friend of mine sent me one of those emails where you answer the questions and forward it to all your friends...then hopefully they'll do the same...and you'll all learn something new about each other. I don't have that many friends, so I figured I'd just put my answers on my blog and maybe some random stranger in Michigan might read it. How fun.

This is a Christmas dealio, hence the blog title. Here we go...

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Both

2. Real tree or artificial? Real - although one year I tried to convince SH and the boys we could just paint one on the wall

3. When do you put up the tree? 2-3 weeks before Christmas

4. When do you take the tree down? Before January 1, preferrably December 26

5. Do you like eggnog? GROSS

6. Favorite gift received as a child? I don't recall any specific gift, but my grandparents and aunt used to give us an ornament every year on Christmas Eve. I still have all of those.

7. Have a nativity scene? Yes - at my aunt's house. I get to visit it every year until she dies - then I get it back.

8. Hardest person to buy for? My grandmother

9. Easiest person to buy for? FrogBoy - Legos all the way

10. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? I had a boyfriend in high school who gave me a board game called "Intimate Commands" - in front of my parents - as a joke. It wasn't funny.

11. Mail or email Christmas cards? REAL cards - the only way to go - with pictures!

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? Scrooged, with Bill Murray. If you can get past the language, it's a great story.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? August

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? No...that takes all the fun out of it

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Used to be Grandmama's stuffing...now it's Aunt Linda's stuffing...someone probably needs to teach Ann how to make it eventually

16. Clear lights or colored on the tree? Colored

17. Favorite Christmas song? It's a tie between Joy to the World and Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Home - everyone's here, so it's great

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? OF COURSE

20. Angel on top of the tree or star? Angel

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Just 2 options? Seriously. We have Christmas with my mother, my family on my dad's side, Adam's mom (all before Christmas) and then at our house Christmas morning.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? Vendors accosting me in the mall. I'm a get in, get your gift, get out kind of gal.

23. What I love most about Christmas? Watching my kids open their presents.

24. Best Christmas dessert? Grandmama's boiled custard.
I think that's about all for this little quiz. Sorry there's nothing overly interesting there...but that's what gets it for me at Christmas.

Saturday, December 08, 2007

Help Needed

I have somehow managed to screw up my blogger settings - again. I can no longer choose which font I want to use, and whenever I try to bold something, it inserts a little dealio that I can't even copy here, because then I get an HTML error.

So if anyone know what the stink I've done, please help me.

Sunday, December 02, 2007

I'm Gonna Pee My Pants

Michael Jackson is on the cover of Ebony magazine this month.

The only thing funnier than that is the conversation I had with Spanky when I saw it. I was telling him that I found it quite humorous - and why - when Spanky said, "He used to be BLACK?!"

Awesome.