Just setting up some music ...
The table is full of snacks ...
a little wine ...
and MONOPOLY! Settling in for a long game.
Hope everyone enjoys their New Years Eve -

I do ... I do ....
If you haven't seen Peter Pan, go see it!
A wonderful cast of characters and for the soft of heart - a little more of an emphasis on first-love - and growing up.
Loved Wendy(Rachel Hurd-Wood)! and Hook(Jason Isaacs)!
One problem though - doesn't the rest of the audience get it that you have to participate in the "I do believe in Fairies" part? That has been a part of every Pan movie and show ever created!!!!! Was it really just the three of us chanting "I do believe in fairies ... I do ... I do".

Hey! A day off. Hmmmm... what do people do with a day off, when there is no holiday preparations?
Looks like we are going to do a little scrapbooking - last spring's "trip to Disney" photos are all in a box and we have a day to start going through them.
Well, that's after we hit the supermarket and buy up all the snacks we can for tonight. Skipping dinner by the way .... no need for real food, it doesn't leave any room for snacks!

The question of the day - everybody asks everybody else
"What are you doing New Years Eve?"
Somehow "staying home" does not seem like the right answer.
But ... we like to stay home!
(it's only 31 hours until 2004 and many of the people I talk to still do not know what they're doing)

So ... anyone want to tell me? What are YOU doing???

I love my parents!
Why? Well, lots of reasons of course - but here's one more:
Yesterday they took the typical seniors-bus-trip-to-Atlantic City.
They have not done this before. When I asked how it was ----
"long ride"
"a long way to go to waste your money"
"had a good time I guess"
"we enjoyed walking on the boardwalk"
"we had a good time because we were together"
THAT"S WHAT I LIKE ABOUT THEM!
They are not typical stereotyped retired people!
They are unique, they are where I got my love of nature and especially birds (I know they were on that boardwalk looking for shore birds), and they like each others company!
Way to go Mom and Dad! I love you!

Did I mention that I am a nature-lover?
(No - not "loving" in the all-together in the great-outdoors)
I mean I love wild birds, animals, and nature itself.
We live in a great place for me to persue these things, so often I'll add entries to my "nature notebook" about the sightings-of-the-day.
Check out our "National Wildlife Federation - Certified Backyard Habitat"
here Sunybank of the Waywayanda
So ... today? A fox! trotting across the back yard, while we were getting ready to go to work. Beautiful! Red with black stockings and ears, incredible full red/grey tail. The fun part was that as we watched him (note: any animal or bird sighting is cause for all three of us to stop our morning preparations and glue ourselves to the windows for 15 minutes), he was "hunting" through the tall grass when his hunt uncovered a neighbors black-and-white cat! Well the cat chased the fox up the path and into the woods! Not exactly the outcome we would have expected!

The end of a five-day-weekend. Five days may be too many days spent home with my family. Too many days of domesticity, I fear I may not be able to return to my business self. Two-day weekends never cause this problem. I never completely relax unless it is at least a three-day weekend. But FIVE DAYS! What was I thinking? And five days at home is more of a problem than seven or ten spent on a vacation. Vacation has a different routine and it's own stresses (not that home has no stresses - you have only to read my last week of entries to be convinced of this).
Alas, I will go ... and by mid-morning I will feel that I have never left, never been Mary Bailey (or even ever wanted to be).
But it was fun while it lasted.

Oh no!! I forgot the plum pudding that I bought for my dad and I to share on Christmas Day! (We're the only ones who like it).
There it is ... still under the tree. And it was going to be a suprise for my dad.
Would Mary Bailey forget the Plum pudding???

I think I have finally made it.
My house is again clean, my daughter is playing her new air hockey game with neighbor's kids - while I dance over to the "game room" with bowls of snacks.
I put up a fresh pot of coffee while I bake one more batch of cookies. The love of my life and I sit and talk over coffee and cookies - in a Christmas-decorated house.
- - sigh - -
(now, don't even go upstairs where the laundry is taking over every available space - and you too can live this illusion).

Had a great time yesterday with the grandchildren and my step-daughter and her husband. The boys and Jess played with all their new stuff and we ate more snacks then any other 7 people could consume in a week. On a purely selfish note - I GOT MY NEW DISHES!!!! Well at least got started on them thanks to my wonderful step-daughters (who are also my best friends) - (not just because of the dishes).

Any there's still one more day to the weekend!!!!

In retrospect, we are able to look back and see what the defining moments were, and what the frenzy was all about.
These are some of my defining moments:
The anticipation of it all
Before we tear into the presents
For unto you is born this day...

I love getting the first cup of coffee, and settling by the tree to begin the sharing of presents.
Want to know what else I love?

It is a wonderful life.
Merry Christmas to all!

Early New Years resolution:
This time next year I will definitly be on medication ... prozac anyone????

Do not be fooled by the above date. It is NOT Christmas eve yet!! It is still Tuesday and I have not yet gone to bed!!!
One could - or should write a book on Holiday Stress. Or perhaps ... one already has. If so, I have not had time to read it.
There is good stress and bad stress. Good stress motivates you and helps you get projects done (it also keeps you up night after night to 2 or 3 am getting stuff done). Bad stress just makes you crazy. Then you take it out on everyone else.
I am currently moving between the two stresses. This mode just makes you become a crazed - tired - snappy - but motivated b-@#$-h.
I do so want to be Mary Bailey (or Donna Reed- same thing), hanging ornaments on the tree and humming while my daughter practices the piano in her Christmas dress. Instead, I have been accused of never taking time for these things.
Well, last night we did. And we had a wonderful time! Want to hear about it?

Today was a little more prep for the big day. Should have been a LOT more, and I kept at a non-stop pace all day, but all of the stuff on my list did not get done. Well, it never does, I should not be suprised. Made lots of cookies, decorated the tree, wrote our annual Christmas letter, refined it, rewrote it, shortened it, shortened it again ... and then when it was done I started to write out the cards. Now it's 2 AM and I'm only about 1/2 way done with the cards and I'm calling it quits. Go ahead, call me a quitter, I can take it, I've been called worse.
Wonderful church service this morning complete with a "call out your favorite Christmas Carol hymn sing" - gotta love that! Great message that the pastor ended with these words ---
"How silently, how silently the wondrous Gift is given. So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His heaven.
We hear the Chirstmas angels the great glad tidings tell. Oh come to us, abide in us our Lord Emmanuel". - enough said
Did you want to hear the story of yesterday's conversation with Santa?

Isn't this what the Saturday before Christmas is all about?
Shopping with the family ... not getting upset that you can't find a parking place ... buying yourself and your daughter festive Christmas sweaters (OK, so that is me in the obligatory 40-something-mom novelty sweater and I'm proud of it) ... watching your child talk to Santa (more about that tomorrow) ... coming home to a quick hiding of presents from one another ... a quick easy dinner of pasta ... and then ... watching "IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE".
So be proud of me that I didn't stress over the Christmas cards yet to write ... the cookies yet to be baked ... the laundry yet to be done ... the house that desperately needs cleaning ... and OH ... there's the tree ... still on the porch! That's tomorrow's project ... after church.
Ahhh... Church on Christmas Sunday, I honestly can't wait. God is good, and today more that usual, I know in my heart that He is good to me!

Quiet, and I want my bed!
Our 9-year-old house guest for a week has left ... leaving behind a much quieter version of our 11-year-old daughter (Peace at last!) No, really, she wasn't any trouble. It's just that when you are used to one child, to suddenly have two for a week, two giggling non-stop-talking girls ... well, let's just say "Ahhhh, quiet".
OK, parties are over, first round of gifts were exchanged with all the obligatory ooohhs and aahhss. Had a great time today at the "day staff" party/gift exchange(well except for the annual minor incident of "who-forgot-their-gift because someone-is-without-a-gift and who-had-that-person")
Want to read this story?

AAaggghhh....
I will never get out of this house this morning!!!!!!!!!!

Gifts wrapped and unwrapped ...
food made and eaten ....
Good friends at work ... the "night crawlers" ... and we had a good time and fun gift exchange.
That's one party down and tomorrow I do it all over again with the day staff!
(after I go home and wrap more presents ... prepare more food ... )
by the way - there is no actual work getting done here.

One more noise and my head will explode -- I just need it QUIET for a few minutes, but as soon as it is quiet I see the presents to be wrapped, gifts yet to be made, potato salad to make, cards yet to be written and the dryer is buzzing!!!!! .. but that other noise is the microwave beeping to tell me that the coffee I reheated 20 minutes ago is still waiting for me to come and rescue it from the microwave ... only to find it's cold and needs to be reheated for 20 sec.
My Advent devotional for today speaks about the gift of time spent with loved ones. I didn't read it before my family went out the door followed by my calls of "hurry up - did you forget this? - where is your homework? - put on your gloves" However I'm sure I managed an "I love you" or two in there somewhere - I hope that's what they are remembering this morning while I go rescue my coffee cup.

Whee!! I have a web log!!!
and most importantly, it is a gift from someone who means the world to me ... and it thrills me to think that she would do this for me --- spontaneously!
THANK YOU Michelle! I love you.
Of course I am not sure who wants to listen to my disjointed-ADD-polyphasic thoughts, but it will be good for me to write them down.
Holiday stress - trying hard to remember the reason for the season (which by the way is not "see who can buy the most and best presents") and enjoy the spirit of love that prevails in the advent season.
This is the year I was going to "Simplify" ---- but I never had the time to read that book!
So... it's shop-till-you-drop .... or have to go off-line and back to work, which is what I am going to do now.
Hang in there, I'll get better at this!

i am one of the luckiest people i know to have one of my best and dearest friends as family...

so an early christmas gift to someone who is very special to me.

have fun....enjoy it!!