In case anyone wonders and is reading this, I am going to suspend this blog until further notice.  I know, I know.  You're heartbroken.  Actually, no one really reads it except for a good friend of mine.  Feel free to petition people to read it and the overwhelming response might just force me back into action.  And if not, well, I'm pretty sure the world will go one without one more random blog.  Hopefully.

We have a Christmas Eve tradition in our family.  Wait... how many years does it take to make something a tradition?  Two?  Five?  I guess if you have kids, then it's a tradition if you do it more than once, even if by accident.  Like, say, you have spagetti for dinner the night before their birthday two years in a row.  Not on purpose, but suddenly it's a tradition that can't be broken and heaven forbid you try to have tacos the next year.  Not that I'd know anything about that.

Anyhow, our pseudo tradition is one that I don't really want to keep up.  It's that someone is sick on Christmas Eve.  Last year it was the oldest, who had the flu and kept throwing up, but was recovered in time to open presents on Christmas.  This year it's me.  Does it make me a bad parent to wish it were them?  I mean really, what do they have to do today?  Despite feeling like I've been run over with a truck I've still managed to get the dogs from the kennel (we were gone for a few days and got home last night at midnight), go to the grocery store, make lunch, clean the house, and wrap a crapload of presents today.  Still haven't managed a shower yet, but it's only 2:40 so there's still time. 

Right now I'm going to take a break.  Have some tea, which will hopefully clear out my head so I can breathe because I'm partial to getting air in my lungs, and catch up on the football scores.  We've already decided to forego the Christmas Eve dinner (I am SO not up to cooking that tonight) and just have pizza instead.  I'm pretty sure the kids will appreciate that.

When bad things happen to good people.  You hear it all the time in the news and think "that stinks" and then promptly forget about it.  Well, here's the latest one.  It's about a man who goes to the doctor with worries and after tests is told that everything is ok.  Then, months later, he's diagnosed with Stage 3 cancer.  What makes this so horrible is that I know the guy.  I did MOPs (Mothers of Preschoolers.  A fantastic organization if you have little ones) at his church when my kids were small.  Many of my good friends go to his church.  I am friends with his wife.  It's the sort of thing that makes you feel helpless. And what's most amazing is that he hasn't lost his faith or gotten angry.  There's a lesson in that.  Anyhow, if you want to read more or are just morbidly curious, check out his blog:

Randy's Blog

Another one of my friends just announced that she's pregnant.  They all just hit the end of their first trimester, so everyone is letting the world know they are expecting.  But what's strange about this is that all of them are having their first kid.  It's all my friends that missed the first round of babies when we were in our mid-20s, so now that we are in our mid-30s, they are all getting pregnant.  My husband asked me if it makes me sad or makes me want another kid, and I can honestly say no to that.  I am so thrilled that my kids, while not very little anymore, are competent.  They can walk, they can can dress themselves, feed themselves, they are potty trained, they can get themselves in/out of the car.  They are functioning people.  It's really nice.  The only thing I miss about the baby stage is the cuddling, because there's nothing quite like holding a sleeping baby that snuggles up into your chest.  But I'll trade that for kids that can go without naps, allowing us to do more stuff each day, and I'll get my baby snuggle fix in about 6 months when all my friends have their babies.

We put up our outside lights this past weekend and noticed that no one else seemed to have any up.  Then I saw this on my way out this morning.

Now, in theory, this should convince people to put up more lights, but somehow I think it's just incentive for people to actually put up lights.  I mean really- there are 1500 houses in our neighborhood (I still get lost driving around), and maybe 200 of them have up lights.  Really?  As someone who loves Christmas, I think that's just kind of sad.  On the up side, maybe it means that we'll win!

Call me a dork, but when this

came in the mail today, I was pretty excited.  The yarn is called Cherry Chip and is shades of brown and dark red.  I'm working on making a blanket for my mom.  It was supposed to be for Christmas, but that isn't going to happen, so I am shooting for her birthday in February.  I couldn't find the yarn in any store around here, so I had to order it online.  I'm a bit miffed because when I looked for it online it was $2.50/skein (yep- we're talking real quality stuff here), but when I got around to starting the project and ordering it a couple weeks later it was up to $4 a skein.  Rats.  At any rate, it's going to be beautiful. 

What the heck happened to my post? 

We'll try this again.

I ran the Freedom 5K and it was the most fun race I've ever run.  The race was in honor of the Army/Navy game and so each person had to pick a team- either Army or Navy (as a side note, the Navy bibs were printed in Blue and said Go Navy). 

Much of the course was lined with little American flags, and around the 3-mile mark people were handing out mini flags to the runners so you could carry one to the finish.  Not only was the course beautiful, but it was a little bit road and a little bit trail, so it was intereseting.  The top 100 finishers got a commerative dog tag (if you care, I was 74th overall and 3rd in my age group), and the first "team" with 50 people to finish won the race overall.  In this case, it was Army (yea!).  So everyone with an Army bib gets some cool free stuff- a t-shirt (the race gimme was a knit hat), running socks, pizza, popcorn, coffee, etc.  Nice!

I'm sitting here trying to ignore my kids, who are currently upstairs complaining because I didn't let them do what they wanted.  When asked why, I told them it was because I was mean.  Funny how easily they accepted that. 

I want to apologize to my mom, for all these moments that I gave her when I was younger.  She keeps telling me that payback's a bitch, but of course she's much more polite about it.  I can only hope my grandkids (which will magically appear when my kids turn 30, and even then by immaculate conception) give my kids as much grief as they give me on a daily basis.  And why do they do that?  Is it genetically imprinted in kids to annoy their parents?  They ask for/to do something and automatically get pissy when they don't get the answer they want, but when I give them the long drawn-out explanation as to why things are that way, they lose interest and don't really care.  I am going to revert to that old standby- "Because I said so." 

See this poor little basil plant?  I've been trying to grow it since we got here.  I love basil, but it's so darn expensive in the store that I usually just grow my own.  It works much better in the ground then in a pot, so I plant it in the spring and use it fresh all summer, then dry it and use it all winter.  Well, I'm alsmost out of dried (the horror!), so I thought I'd try to start a new pot.  We tried to grow basil ijn a pot when we lived in upstate NY, but it was way too cold and the summers were too short, so it never amounted to much.  The problem is that it likes warm weather and sun.   Before moving here we lived out West, where it's sunny all the time.  But here?  I'm not sure they even really have sun, because I've hardly seen it.  So this poor little pot gets carried around the house chasing the sun.  I checked yesterday and we have 1 sprout, so maybe it'll work. 

Ah.....  Isn't it beautiful?  The sale was finalized today (i.e. the buyer closed on the house today and it was recorded as an official transaction in the country records).  Yea!

I heard on the news this morning that Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping was up from last year.  Estimates were something like 15-18% up from last year.  Does that mean the economy is recovering?  I remember was back when I was in high school (hey, not too long ago.  We haven't had out 20-year reunion yet!) I was in an economics class and we were learning about the last recession in the 80s.  My teacher told us about how President Reagan lied to the public and gave a speech on how the recession was over, which caused consumer confidence to rise, so people went out and spent money, so that spurred the economy to recover faster.  Now is that true? In college I learned that it was somewhat true, but what I've taken away from that particular lessons, all these years later, is that the economy won't grow or recover unless there's money put into it.  While I didn't get up and go shopping at midnight (or at all) on Friday, we managed to our share of holiday shopping.  I think Black Friday is blending in to Gray Weekend (trademark pending- don't steal my catch phrase!), so with all the great deals out there, how could you not buy those things you were going to buy anyway but are now not only on sale but have free shipping?  So how much did you do to help the economy this past weekend? 

Happy Thanksgiving! 

Woke up and it was sunny (a rarity for here) and cold.  I decided to put off my run until later when I won't freeze to death.  After all- who can cook if they are frozen?  Or dead?

We have the best reason to be thankful this year- I have, in my hot little hands, the final paperwork for our house!  All we have to do is sign it before a notary and our house is sold!  It took 3 months from the time we put it on the market until we close next week.  I'd like to say it was our awesome house or fabulous agent, but really it's just luck.  There were 2 other identical houses in our neighborhood for sale (1 was a foreclosure and the other was on the market for 2 years) so why did the guy choose our house and not those?  Well, the foreclosure takes 6 months to buy, but the other one?  I'm not arguing.  3 months!  I'm so thrilled and can't wait to sign those papers and mail them back.  Yea!

We did it- moved 2500 miles cross country- and are now living on the east coast. Everyone we knows thinks we are nuts and will be back. Really? That's a lot of work to just change our minds and move back. I figure there are 2 types of people with regards to jobs- those who stay put and find a new job at a different company and those who move to the job. Apparently we are those who move to the job. I spent my whole life before college in the same town in the same house. That's how you end up in a rut. Moving isn't a bad thing. It broadens your horizons, gives you new perspectives, forces you outside your comfort zone. Nothing wrong with that.


Things aren't perfect, but I'm still glad we moved. Our house is smaller so we've had to get rid of a lot of stuff. The schools require a physical (complete with psych eval!!) before kids can start school, so they were out longer than expected. It's rained almost every day since we've been here (What's that stuff falling from the sky? Rain? Huh. So that's what that is.). I keep getting lost in our neighborhood (it's huge with lots of winding roads), but only when I'm really trying to find something. The things they call mountains here are little more than bumps. But all in all it's not bad. I am trying to focus on the positives. I've found Target and a grocery store. The local school is supposed to be the best in the area. We have a huge yard and there are lots of other kids in the neighborhood to play with. It's only 11 hours from our families (as opposed to a 4-hr flight or 3-day drive).  And, best of all, there's a running path the goes around the entire neighborhood (and in this case I wouldn't mind getting lost). 

So this has to be the last post for awhile.  I know, shocker, right?  I haven't been so good at updating this fall.  What with the birthdays and the cleaning the house and the selling the house and the moving.  Sigh.  But it's almost over.  We sold our house (thank you God!) and are leaving next week.  Yes, I said next week.  Don't worry, it still doesn't seem real to me either.  The movers come in 1 week and I'm still thinking that I'd like to dig things out of the boxes we've already packed. 

Anyhow, the house looks fabulous.  Moving, or should I say selling your house, is really good for some things.  I'm not one of those people who vacuum every day- I mean really, get a life- but I kep the house clean.  But with it being sold and having to be show-ready, it is spotless.  This forced us to do all those things I've been thinking we need to do but haven't managed to get around to doing, like painting the whole house, cleaning out the window tracks, cleaning all the screens in the windows, and all those other little things that I just keep putting off.  And man are my windows clean!

The only downside I can see about this is that the kids aren't thrilled that we are decoration-less.  My husband loves Halloween and the kids love decorating, so they are going through withdrawal.  We take the dogs for a walk every night and the kids have resorted to counting the number of houses that are decorated.  All I can say is thank goodness we are moving before Christmas! 

As the boxes pile up around me, literally, I'll just say don't miss me too much.  I'll be back after we're settled and have the internet again. 

Last week was Fall Break.  Think Spring Break, but in the middle of October, but without the big trips and partying.  Who wants to go hang out at the beach when it's chilly out everywhere?  I don't think it exists anywhere else but here, and I know we didn't get a random week off in October when I was a kid, so my kids were pretty lucky they got the week off.  Sorta.  They both have October birthdays, so I take the week to schedule their annual doctor checkup (with flu shots!) and a dentist appointment for them.  So at least that way they were tortured as much as I was.  I mean really.  A week off in October?  What's the point of that?  This week is parent teacher conferences, so there are 2 half days on Thursday and Friday, so they basically won't have gone to school for 2 weeks.  School starts the first week of August, so maybe this is payback for starting extra early, but I personally think it's 1) to torture parents, and 2) because the teachers are sick of the kids by now.  In that order.  Come yesterday, guess who didn't want to go back to school?  Yeah.  They were still complaining about it last night. 

We went fishing last weekend and I got stung by something with a stinger.  It hurt.  I felt something fluttering around where your arm attches to your body (chest?  shoulder? upper arm?) and absently scratched at it.  Next thing I know there's this incredible pain right there.  I thought it was a really big red ant biting me, but it hurt much worse than a red ant bite.  So I looked down and saw nothing.  So I pulled down the neck of my shirt and there was a stinger sticking out of my body, with hair/fur from the thing still attached.  I grabbed it and pulled it out, but there was still 1/4 inch stuck in me.  Yeah.  1/4 inch!!  What the heck was that thing?  I looked around and couldn't find a body and it wasn't in my shirt, so I have no idea what happened to the owner of said stinger.  I yelled for my husband to come look (he was only a couple feet away, but I was a bit panicked by then) and he had to take the pliers out of the fishing bag and pull the stinger out. 

Now normally a bee sting or wasp sting or some kind of flying bee-type creature sting isn't a big deal. But I'm allergic.  At least I used to be.  I remember being sent home from school in junior high because I got stung by a bee and my arm swelled up.  I think I was in high school before I realized that most people didn't swell up and get welts on their skin when stung.  I haven't been stung since I was a kid, so we weren't sure what was going to happen.  As it turns out, not much.  I got a welt and it was red and swollen and super itchy in an area about the size of your fist on Sunday.  Today, 4 days later, the red part is about the size of a half dollar and the itching is gone.  Huge improvement.  I'm not sure if this means I'm no longer allergic or if the reaction has lessoned (because I'm bigger?), but I'll take it. 

First, check out this post on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/photo.php?fbid=2545702681966&set=a.2545702521962.2154719.1235752135&type=1&theater

I am slightly offended by this.  Part of me says "yeah!  Good on ya!  Why should our self esteem be dictated by our weight?"  Initially I thought "yep- that's what women need to hear."

But then I read on.  The rest of the note below the picture.  I think it was somewhere around the the middle that I started getting irked.  Yeah.  I'm skinny.  I'm not a mermaid.  I work out.  I eat right.  I'm blessed with good genes.  I kept reading and started to be a little resentful.  Yes, it's a good thing to encourage women- especially children and teenagers who are growing into this society- that you don't have to be thin to be beautiful.  But don't hate those who are thin.  I'm loved.  I have friends.  Kids.  A husband.  I don't obsess over my weight and, quite frankly, I'm a bit offended that this article implies differently.  It started out with a positive message, but ended up ticking me off by going too far as to imply that all thin people have problems and aren't "real" women.  Why can't we all just be happy at the size we are?  Why can't we accept that everyone is different- different sizes, shapes, colors, personalities, ideas.... how boring would life be if everyone was the same?

I'm allergic to sugar.  Well, not so much allergic as intollerant.  Think of somone you know who is lactose intollerant, then think of what happens to them when they eat, say cheese.  If you don't know, go ahead and look it up.  That's what happens to me when I eat sugar.  It's not a huge deal, I've just learned to cut sugar almost completly out of my diet.  I can eat about 5g per meal, but that's pretty much my limit.  And if you were wondering, 5g is about as much as you get in 1/2 a serving of peanut butter (yep- there's sugar in peanut butter!).  So for the most part, that means that deserts are out and so are all those yummy Starbucks drinks, unless I can get them in a "skinny" version.  It took me about a year to really accept this, and every now and then it's hard to not eat a piece of cake or some Halloween candy, but I'm ok with it now.

Now I'll admit- sugar intollerance really isn't that common.  Most people look at me like I'm crazy, so I usually just tell them I'm allergic to sugar.  But what really bugs me is when people feel the need to comment on it.  Let's get this out there- I'm skinny.  I struggle with my weight, but not the way most people do, I have a hard time keeping it on and usually hover around the very bottom of "normal" for my height.  But that is a totally different issue for another day. 

Anyhow, back to the sugar thing.  When I go to, say Starbucks, I'll order a "skinny" drink and I'll hear comments.  Yes, I hear you behind me making snide remarks.  Or when I skip dessert people feel the need to try and force something sugary on me.  Even my friends who know I can't eat sugar do this, which irks me to no end.  Especially my friend who is lactose intollerant- it's not like I try to force feed her ice cream or milk.  Or when people ask me why I don't just eat fake sugar (put all those chemicals in my body?  Ewwww).  Do they really think they are helping?  Does it make them feel better?  It's like kids making fun of someone who is different, but with a little bit more tact.  Sometimes.

So why do people try to cram as many cars as possible into things like parking  lots or through a green light?  We're like ants in a row, or some other animal that tries to cram as many of themselves as possible in one little spot.  I was thinking about this question while driving home today. 

I was on a road with construction, making it one lane in the direction I was traveling.  By the way, this is very annoying because the city had just redone this road a couple months ago, snarling traffic, and now it's all torn up again.  Anyhow, I was behind this guy who paused at the yellow light, then decided to go anyway and didn't really make the light.  That left me as the first in line at the red light.  As I watched the cars line up behind me, I noticed the drivers were getting impatient because I was going straight and they wanted to turn right.  But, because of the aforementioned construction, they were stuck waiting for the light to turn green and for me to go.  So as I sat there thinking about their impatience and the guy who considered stopping but decided to run the light, I decided to do a little experiment.  I inched for about 2 feet.  Then watched every other car in line behind me (about 15) get as close to the car in front of them as possible without actually hitting that car.  Why do people do that?  Personally, it's one of my pet peeves.  Sure, sometimes I do the inch-forward thing, but for the most part I try not to.  Is a few feet really going to make a difference?  Is there really a need to creep forward?  It won't give me a jump when the light turns.  In fact, it's the opposite- that few extra feet will give you a chance to get up your speed.  You know, so you can then slam on your brakes to avoid rear ending the car in front of you.  So what's our fascination with getting there first?  Rushing through the light?  Are we really that important or in that big of a hurry we can't wait the extra 3 minutes (or 2 feet!)?

I recently cut all my hair off to donate.  I have a friend whose daughter has done it a few times and I have two friends that have done it as adults.  When my daughter heard about this she wanted to know more about it, so I told her what they do with the hair and how it goes to people who have lost their hair due to diseases.  She thought that was cool and decided to do it herself.  She'd never had her hair cut more than a trim, so she had a lot to cut off.  And that got me thinking. 

If my kid could be so selfless, why couldn't I?  I mean, it's just hair.  It will grow back.  (On a side note, I've never understood why people are so opposed to getting their hair cut.  Look at those makeover shows.  People freak out at the haircut part.  Who cares?  It will grow back!)  So a bit later I started growing mine out to cut.  It was really short then and it took me 18 months (almost exactly!) to get it long enough, but 2 weeks ago I went and got it all cut off.  I donated 8 inches to make wigs, then they had to cut another 2 inches off to give it some style.  But all in all, I'm pretty pleased with myself.  I'm fortunate- I don't have a disease that makes me lose my hair or one where the medicine to cure makes my hair fall out.  I can grow more.  It's pretty short, but not too bad.  And if I want to, in about a year it can be long again.