That's What I Mean...

I love to read. I read almost everything but historical fiction. I don't love biographies, but I like a couple of them. I just picked up Barbara Eden's yesterday from the library. They were holding books for me, which is not a big surprise. I also have Patrick Swayze's and Lisa Niemi's. I've started that one, but it needs to pick up soon. I get reading inspiration from lots of places. Friend's posts on Facebook, the library "knowledge portal", a particular subject we're learning about in school, wherever. But I also get inspiration from my friend, Hillside Hollow. Her tastes aren't always mine, but she has yet to pick a bad book. She keeps a running list on the side of her blog. If I am lacking inspiration, I go there.

The last book I got off her lists is The Christmas Chronicles: The Legend of Santa Claus by Tim Slover. Very good book. It was only 160 or so pages, but they flew by. I finished it in about an hour and a half. I highly recommend it. It could also be read to the family to help explain Santa and they hows and whys involved. I was thinking about reading it to my kids. I still haven't decided yet.

There is one passage at the end that struck a particular chord with me. It's true, unfortunately.


 "Alas! Too few are now the places where the Straight Road may find purchase on the earth. For as Saint Nicholas predicted, the demon struck at Christmas, and struck hard. Unable to come at Klaus himself, it has assaulted humanity. Hundreds of years of simple gifts freely given out of the fondness and mirth in Klaus's soul, gradually at first, and then more rapidly, have turned into a frenzy of commerce and competition, until many grow heartsick as Christmas approaches. And that is the demon's work."

That's what I mean. It has become something ugly and mean and we wanted no part of that. So we took no part in it. It isn't too late to change and start over and we needed to. We needed to break the cycle of commerce and competition. And we were the better for it.

The freezer is stocked, we have extra batteries for the Wii remotes, and you should see the pretty roast I bought for New Year's Day. We are going to eat the broccoli from our tower, which is big and beautiful. We are going to add our cowpeas from the tower to the black-eyed peas. We are going to drink sparkling grape juice at the stroke of midnight. We are looking forward to a new year and new traditions. What are you looking forward to?

Big Top

I am here, there, and everywhere these days. I wish I meant physically. My emotions are over the top, I want to cry and beat someone, or I am over the top happy and want to cry and hug someone. It fluctuates from second to second. Meanwhile, the bullshit gets deeper and deeper and deeper. That cave in Tahiti is looking better and better and better.

Big Sis says she done. She's tired of playing the game, everybody else wins. I let them win, too. By taking myself out of the game. You will hardly ever see me throw a game. I needed to throw this one. It was either that or throw someone, and that would get me jail time. I'm almost thinking it's worth it. I'm hard headed enough to convince myself, too.

Hubby's brother has been sending him messages on Facebook. Amazingly, he hasn't asked to be his friend. Wonder what that's about? He's asked me twice, but I've declined both invitations. The first message was actually kind of nice and we thought, ok, maybe. It said he loved my hubby and always would. Yeah, the second one, not so nice:

                       dido. WHY ARE YOU SO ANTIFAMILy?

Um, the first word confused me. I thought he left out an "l". No, he meant "ditto". The rest of it made me want to cry, then scream, then beat the holy living hell out of him. Antifamily? Who's the asshole now? I wanted to respond. I wanted to send an email back and make a fool of myself. I didn't. Good thing. Hubby called me a little while later and asked if I had. No, but I wanted to. Badly. Good for you, hubby said. Hubby called him. And stood his ground and told him to back off. BIL said hubby hadn't been to the parents house and hadn't spoken to the brother that is between them. Hubby said been there twice and spoke to brother last night. Quit talking about things you don't know anything about. If you have anything to say about me, talk to me first. Phones work both ways, too. He should know, he's the phone man. Oh, yeah, and SIL should stop using her sons FB account to take digs at me. Yeah, she's classy that way. Go away!!

I have been trying so hard to take the high road. That is one of the most difficult things I have ever done. I am a throw it down, in your face kind of gal. I guess you already knew that, though. My flesh screams at me to yell and scream that they know nothing. It won't do any good. We have remained quiet, except my blog. They can kiss it if they think I'll be quiet on this thing. At the park, I said "The view from the high road is AMAZING! It's boring as hell up here, but the view is worth it." Just want them to go away. And on to better topics...

Hubby had some vacation time he needed to take before the end of the year. It was just a couple of days, but it was amazing. We took a drive about an hour north of us to buy his Christmas present. We are all about instant gratification. We could have ordered it online, but then there's the wait as it ships. Who wants to do that? Hubby got a solar kit. It isn't much. It's only 45 watts, but it's enough to power our shed. Hubby is like a kid. He prepped the kit, cleaned the shed out some, rearranged some things, and realized he didn't have a good battery to store the power. So off we go, 9:30 at night, to the big box store so he can buy a battery. That man is crazy and I love him. You should have seen the smile on his face. And if he wasn't at work right now, he'd still be smiling.

This summer when I was home, my mom gave me some jewelry that had been sitting in her jewelry box, just looking pretty. One of the things she gave me was a ring that had belonged to my grandmother. Correct me if I'm wrong, Big Sis, was it her wedding ring? The diamond had actually belonged to my great grandfather. He bought it with moonshine money. People always look at me crazy when I say my grandfather ran moonshine. Well, hello, different time. When he had it, the setting was a locomotive and the diamond was the headlight. It was cut without electricty. Too cool.  My mamaw had it reset. I wanted to wear it right away, but we needed to have the prongs checked first. Prongs are good! The next issue was that my grandmother had these little skinny fingers. So do my mom and sister. Beautiful hands. The big girl got them, too. They skipped me and I have chubbier fingers. I had to wait for the weather to get cooler and my fingers to shrink a little so I could wear it comfortably. It's cooler. I love wearing it. It connects me to the past and to my grandmother, who I love very much. And miss every day. I look at my finger and I feel like she's with me. Just makes me happy.

When I blog, I usually have my headphones in. Music inspires me. Before when I plugged in, I either had to wait 'til hubby got home or put my phone where I could see it light up or feel it vibrate or both. Not with my iPhone. I am so liking this phone. I still would like a QWERTY keyboard, but I wouldn't trade this thing for another phone. Hubby is eligible for an upgrade now. He's pretty sure he's going to get one. Beware the power.

That's all I've got now. Hopefully, it's enough. If I don't see you before Christmas, make it a merry one. And screw the haters. They don't know you like I know you.


 

Getting It Off My Chest

Gotta love a random blog. That means I got stuff on my mind. Hang on, y'all!

• Hubby and I seem more stressed out this holiday season than ever before. We know why, and we're doing what we can to counteract it. It acts like a poison and tries to work it's way between us. The one thing that hubby and I have always agreed on is that we need to talk our way through it. Don't pull any punches and be honest but not hurtful. I will say it has led to some pretty amazing discussions. My man is incredible. If we can weather this storm, we can weather anything. Prayer helps, too, so while you're at it, if you could add us to your list, that would be awesome.
• High horse alert: Lowe's is catching flak because they have pulled their ads from TLC during the show about Muslims. A Christian group has bombarded Lowe's with complaints that the show is nothing but Muslim propaganda. Looks like I'll be shopping at Lowe's alot more. Between Sister Wives and this show, I may be boycotting TLC. Wait, I kinda already am since we got rid of satellite. That was easy.
• All of my spices are now all organic. Love it. My friends and I have all been on this health kick for about the last two or three years. I have one friend that has concentrated on bread and grains. I have another that has concentrated on getting all the sugar out of their diet. We all have those things that concern us the most. You already know I focus on the produce aspect. And since I love to cook and herbs and spices have such a great benefit, that was area number 4 hundred something. I love it! my spice rack looks so pretty. I ordered a Hawaiian black sea salt that is beautiful. It's almost a sweet salt. Lovely! I bought these cute little spice jars to put some of them in. I got those on sale and I had a coupon. I bought in bulk. You should see my great big bag of oregano. Glad I didn't get busted for that one, hehehehe.
• I do all of that because we hit spells when we are horrible eaters. Hubby and I had date night, we had a very busy weekend, and I could go on and on. By the time the weekend was over, the kids were complaining that they wanted mama cooked food, hubby was complaining that he wanted mama cooked food, and I was compaining that we needed a chef. Wait, I guess that would be me. On the band wagon, off the band wagon. Around and around we go. 
• Between soap, spices, curriculum, and a couple of other things, for someone that doesn't like to order stuff from the internet, the UPS, FedEX, and postman may have to go on my Christmas card list. If I had a Christmas card list. Which I don't. It got to be one more thing. And that had to go. 

I guess that's all the damage I'm gonna do for now. See, I said for now. Catch ya on the flip side!

Unlisted Number

I know, I know. I'm a bad blogger. My blog called Big Sis the other day. It told her I needed to sit my punk ass down and blog. Strange part of that is that I got the same call. It's like it wanted to make sure it covered all the bases. Well, ok then, here we go.

• The amputation has been completed. There will be no holidays for the forseeable future with the in laws. It's just easier. Hubby and I are still talking about when and if the kids will be able to see their grandparents. Before you rush to judge, take a breath. Hubby's point is that he feels like he missed out growing up without grandparents. How would he know is my question. How do you miss something you never had? My point is that if I am not welcome, neither are my kids. And they may say that I'm welcome, but I'm not always treated like that. What are they saying to my kids? Better be not a damn thing. It's better to not grow up with all that toxic junk than to grow up with grandparents. Still debating. 
• We painted our bathroom!! I have hated the wall paper from the second I laid eyes on it. So now, almost 7 years later, it's mostly gone. I say mostly because there are a couple of spots that you can see we should have painted better. Oh, well. It's mostly gone. Now if I could get the cabinets replaced. I'd settle for the cabinet doors. If we were going to rip out the cabinets, we would have waited to paint. The next big project is the kids' bathroom. But we would do the cabinet before we paint. And, unfortunately, they have the same tacky wall paper. One step at a time.
• I like to coupon. It saves us quite a bit of money at the grocery store and for Christmas and all that stuff. What I don't like is signing up for a giveaway and getting spammed to within an inch of my life. The spam has been bug nuts crazy. I can't even remember what I signed up for that opened the magic spam portal. I better win whatever it was!
• We are satellite free right now. It's kinda nice. It's still a little freaky to not have TV in our bedroom. It was my timer for so many things. I used the shows and then the commercial breaks as a sort of countdown. We are still working on the whole antenna thing. We have an indoor one, but the reception isn't always the best. Still not going back for awhile. 
• While we had satellite we DVR'd quite a bit of stuff. But when we cancelled, it shut down the whole box. We couldn't even watch the stuff we recorded. The things I'm the most upset about are Hawaii Five-O and Burn Notice. I would have liked to watched the Matisyahu concert I recorded, but it doesn't do me any good to whine about it now. Doesn't mean I'm not whining, just means it doesn't do me any good. 
• I have been trying desperately to clean up all the yucky piles. Clothes that are clean, clothes that need to get hung up, curriculum I was given, curriculum I need to sell or get rid of, junk on my desk, junk around my desk. I'm starting to feel a little penned in. Wish I had a magic wand.
• And now to get up on my high horse. This time of year government offices get all wonky because of one simple phrase: Merry Christmas. Really? You take down the Ten Commandments and now if for any reason someone says those two dreaded words, they could be fired. Do they not realize that nowhere in the Constitution does it say that there is a seperation of church and state? It says the government won't force you to follow a religion. And if people are going to say Merry Christms, they aren't necessarily foisting Christian beliefs on people. Lots of people say Merry Christms that aren't Christians. They also celebrate Christmas with that cool dude in the red suit. Get over it, people. Stop being so damned sensitive. Good grief.

That's all I've got for now. Hopefully, my blog won't have to call again. Ratting me out to my sister. Could be worse, it could have ratted me out to my mom. As long as it doesn't tell her about that time I...just kidding. You know I'd blog about it and she'd find out eventually. MERRY CHRISTMAS, y'all!