When Does Love Stop?

Last night I saw two people whom I used to be very close to, and who used to be close with one another.

They loved, laughed, and lived together. They shared Christmas’ and birthdays. Children and friends.

They were one.

I remember when they decided to separate and how she tried to comfort me. I remember when they sold their home and started new lives. I remember losing touch.

I remember seeing her again for the first time in a long time. I remember when she remarried. I remember being happy for her.

Last night I saw them together for the first time in years. They were talking together about the kids and it was almost like it used to be.

I shed a tear for what once was. I shed a tear for him.

For he is lonely now, and he’s the only one to blame.

I Almost Choked on my Lemonade

Whoever found my blog this morning by googling:

“How to tell sister-in-law to get lost”

gave me a lovely morning pick-me-up. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard over how someone found me. I think though, that if your feelings toward your sister-in-law are such that you’re looking into telling her to get lost, you should probably just say it like that.

 Get Lost.

Could Today Get Any Better?!

 So I am in like heaven. I’m doing a meme. Not just any meme. A Christmas one. I know you’re all ecstatic. Here you go.

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Hot. Chocolate. Really what’s better than that with marshmellows on a snowy day? 

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Wrap. What’s the point if you can see them all? Granted, Santa always stayed up until 2:30 in the morning because of the wrapping, but, it was fun for us kids. I will wrap also.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? White. White is classy. Colored is circus. 

4. Do you hang mistletoe? No, I don’t need an excuse to kiss my husband.

5. When do you put your decorations up? My mom and I always did them right after Thanksgiving. I’m not that good yet. 

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? Um, that’s tough. My mom makes this really good Crab and Broccoli soup. Yummy.

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child: Spending time with my family.

8. How and When did you learn the truth about Santa? I was 8. Rumors were circulating around my small class that Santa wasn’t real, so I just went home and asked my parents point blank and they told me the truth.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Yuppers. Every year since we were kids my parents bought us all Christmas pajamas so they would let us open those on Christmas Eve.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? I will be decorating with the hubby for the first time this year. Popcorn and Cranberries, and an assortment of ornaments. 

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? Love it. And of course, I never get a white Christmas

12. Can you ice skate? I can. I’m not good at it, but I can do it.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? I don’t really have anything that stands out in my mind. I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve gotten for Christmas.

14. What’s the most important thing about the Holidays for you? Remembering why we’re celebrating, which can get difficult in all of the hub-bub. I love being with my family also.

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? Peanut Butter cookies. YUMM-O!

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Christmas PJ’s and of course the search for the perfect Christmas Tree 

17. What tops your tree? A Shiny lit Star

18. Which do you prefer giving or Receiving?I LOVE giving. I love the challenge of finding the right gift. I love wrapping it. I love seeing the face of the person who opens it. It’s fabulous! (Receiving ain’t so bad either ;)

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? Silent Night

Oh, if you’re reading…….Tag!!!!

Why Do They Call It “Black” Friday?

A funny story inspired the title of my post in spite of the fact that it’ll only take up a small paragraph.

While on the phone last week getting pricing and sales info for a Charter Bus (before the big cancellation) I had a very interesting conversation:

Me: Yes, I’d like to get prices for renting a bus for the day after Black Friday to go to NYC.

Black man on the phone: What did you just call that day?

Me: Huh?

BMOTP: You said Black Friday, what’s that BLACK for?

Me: Um, Black Friday is like, the biggest shopping day of the year.

BMOTP: Yes, but what is the BLACK for?!

Me: Oh, it’s like an economic term. It’s when all (or most, as the case may be) of the businesses move from the “red” into the “black”. Black is a good thing in economics, you know. It’s not like a racial slur if that’s what you’re thinking.

BMOTP: Oh, ok.

Ok, so now moving on.

I’ve decided that all people who walk into a Mall or shopping center or what have you, on Black Friday should not walk out of said place without a purchase of some sort in their hands lest they be fined $1,000,000,000. And of course turn that money over to me.

Anyway! The big deal this year in my tiny little state was that our Mall was opening it’s doors at 3:00 am so that all of the psychopaths shoppers in our area couldget an early start on all of the fabulous Black Friday deals! Did I rebel against the system? Of course not!

I dragged my tush and those of my sister and cousin out of bed at 1:30 am on Black Friday. You know, so we could get there a half hour early, to beat the rush. Ha! It just so happens that the rush started at midnight and by the time we actually got to the mall at 2:40 (after sitting in traffic, yes traffic, for 10 minutes) they had already opened their doors and some of the stores inside followed suit.

They must have been giving away a million dollars somewhere in that mall that I missed because there were just too many people there to justify their presence. I mean sure, there were great sales and all, but most of them were going on for the entire weekend!

What justified my presence was the fact that one of the stores I needed to go to was only having their 60% off sale until noon. So there.

Anyway, I  must say that there were entirely too many teeny-boppers hanging around, just taking up space, and some adults who were there doing the same thing. GRR! Here’s my thing: Unless you REALLY need to be there on Black Friday, unless you’re their to buy Christmas/Hanukkah/Whatever presents on sale, for the purpose that Black Friday was intended, you need not show up to the mall. Otherwise, you just drive the rest of us who really want to shop for something, absolutely nuts.

Anyway, I did get a lot of shopping done this weekend. Some people I’ve completed altogether! Yay me!!!!

Hope you all had a GREAT Thanksgiving weekend!

Gaining Perspective

After my whiny session yesterday, I felt temporarily relieved. I mean, who doesn’t need to get stuff off their chest every now and then?

That’s at least what I thought until I ventured over to my wedding photographer’s blog today.

Turns out my little “problem” pales in comparison to the loss he just experienced. His beautiful wife of 10 years passed away last week. I’m not sure what from, but I’m absolutely positive that regardless what it was that took her, it was harsh and unexpected and just terribly, terribly saddening.

Please keep Joe and his family in your prayers. They have three beautiful children together, and I can only imagine how awful this is for the kids.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.”         James 1:2-3

Sad/Depressed/Angry…..GRRRRR!

So I told everyone that I was going to NYC this Saturday right. Well, scratch that. Why? Hmm? Why? You ask?!

Well, because people are stupid irresponsible unorganized. See, this is what happened.

About a month ago, I received an email from a co-worker telling me that she and some of her family were planning a trip to NYC for the day after Black Friday for some shopping and site-seeing. I thought, awesome! I would love to do something like that! She also told me that the more people we invited, the cheaper the cost of the bus fare, and to invite as many people as I wanted.

So, I extended the invitation to friends and family and out of the 32 people that were on the list to go, 24 of them were my invites. What can I say? I have a large family.

So of course I get asked for all the details from the people who are coming and turn these questions over to my co-worker. Turns out, she never actually booked a bus, she was waiting for people to actually sign-up before doing the booking. No biggie, we still have 2 weeks to go….

Over the next week I was constantly reminding her that the bus needed to be booked, but she kept stalling on the grounds that there weren’t enough people going and that it would be $35/person at this rate. (Which, I would like to point out, is what we signed up for in the beginning anyway, so I still don’t see what the big deal is)

Finally, on Friday after being fed up from waiting so long and worried that I would have to cancel on 24 very disappointed people, I tried scrambling for more people to come. I made some phone calls, was told by most that I would have to wait until today to find out a final answer, but I was confident that we would have more than enough people to significantly drop the price per person.

This morning, after coming into work and logging on to my computer I opened the following email:

“Hey. I tried to find your phone number this weekend but I have no idea what I did with it. I’m sorry, but I am not going to be able to do the trip this weekend. My sister and the people from her work can’t go so that’s 6 people right there. If you guys still want to go I can give you the number to the place I contacted on Friday. I think they have smaller buses that maybe you could get. Again, I’m sorry, but this just isn’t a good time right now because I have a lot going on. Thanks”

Um, shouldn’t we have thought about it being “not a good time right now” before we extended the invitation? Because now I have to call all of these people up and tell them that this trip is cancelled. Some of “these people” include children who really had their hopes up and were really looking forward to going.

Right now, it’s so last minute that I doubt I’d be able to find a place that has a bus available, plus my husband doesn’t want the risk of putting all of that on our credit card and I can’t say I blame him.

So after much consideration, and talking to my parents about it, I’ve decided to cancel the trip. I’m so bummed, because I was really looking forward to this trip as well. I wanted to see the big Christmas Tree in Rockefeller Center, and also go ice-skating. I wanted to shop and spend time with friends outside of the norm of our boring Delawarean-ness.

I of course sent an email in response (that was edited by my friend Rachel, who is also a Believer and had a cow when she read what I wrote initially) :

Jane*,

I appreciate your initial offer to go on the trip; however, I am disappointed that this didn’t work out because there were a lot of people (including children) who had their hopes up, and also one girl who switched schedules with someone else at her work so she could go. Hopefully in the future, the planning and the timing are a little better when it comes to stuff like this.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving! L”

Not too mean, right? It certainly conveyed the message that I was trying to get across.

So now I’m just sad, because I really wanted to go and now I can’t. I know that just sounds childish, but I’m not so sure that I care all that much. I’m just like a kid when it comes to getting excited about stuff, and when I get let down, I get let down hard.

So anyway……

*Name changed to protect the innoce- um, person involved

What Will They Think of Next?

My brother-in-law, being the very intelligent, business savvy engineer that he is thought of this brilliant idea to create a website in which you can start your own online wishlist so as to answer one of life’s hardest questions: What do you want for Christmas?

Not only did he figure that it would be a huge money-maker, (c’mon, who doesn’t want a little extra cash?) but the website itself would be a big time-saver. Plus! It would prevent answering the same question to 8,000 different people and also prevent double gifting.

Great idea, right? I thought so too, and what with my obsession for Christmas, I began giving it a lot of thought lately as well. I had all of these really neat ideas that I was going to share with him because of course, I was going to try to get my grubby little hands on some of the profit from this website, and I was super-excited to see them to share all of the details.

So yesterday, on a whim and out of curiosity, I decided to browse the web, just to make sure nothing like that already existed.

It does.

Ever heard of www.wishlist.com? Well, it exists, and, I would like to point out that they stole* all of my really good ideas!!! Infuriating!

So after I got over my initial anger and sadness due to the fact that I wouldn’t be making millions, I floated around and discovered that they have a pretty decent setup there. Unlike on bridal and baby registries, you cannot see what’s been purchased for you, so that makes it really nice for the people who are doing the buying. You can also choose whether or not to make your wishlist public, a neat feature if you don’t want random people purchasing Christmas/Birthday/Hanukkah/Whatever – gifts for you. I don’t see why not, but, your choice!

So in spite of the fact that I was still a little bitter, I set up a wishlist on the site. And also in spite of the fact that I’m still a little bitter, I think you should check the site out anyway. I mean, I wouldn’t want you to have to answer life’s hardest question more than once this season.

*They did not actually steal my ideas, I’m just being dramatic!

Santa Claus and Other Tales

With Christmas just around the corner (Thanksgiving? What’s that?!) I can’t help but reminisce. I had some great memories of Christmas with my family, in spite of the fact that we weren’t the most wealthy family around.

This, I of course attribute to the fact that we understood the true meaning of Christmas; the celebration of the birth of Christ. This isn’t to say that we weren’t given presents and the like, we were, we just understood that the giving of gifts was symbolic of the gift we received that Christmas morning so many years ago.

There is one bit of scandal, though; we believed in Santa Claus. Close your mouths, I know its shocking. Surprisingly, I turned out to be relatively normal, andI still understand why we celebrate Christmas. It didn’t like, get lost in the shuffle of reindeer and elves or anything.

My baby brother was the last to stop believing and he did so at the oldest age of all of us; 11. It was sort of sad because it was almost acknowledging that we’d all grown up and that magical fairy-tail was long gone. We were kind of living vicariously through him, ya know?

So now I’m married and one day I’ll have children who I’ll have to like raise right and stuff. I already know the answer to the Santa Claus question for our family, but I was wondering. What are YOU passing on to your children? Do they or did they believe in Santa? If not, why? If so, why?

I’m just curious (and possibly searching for justification as to why my children CAN believe in Santa :)

Ah! Another Post!

Thanks to girlymama for this idea….
 

You Are Ernie

Playful and childlike, you are everyone’s favorite friend – even if your goofy antics get annoying at times.You are usually feeling: Amused – you are very easily entertainedYou are famous for: Always making people smile. From your silly songs to your wild pranks, you keep things fun.How you life your life: With ease. Life is only difficult when your friends won’t play with you!

The Sesame Street Personality Quiz

 

I guess this is accurate….

Your Five Factor Personality Profile

Extroversion:You have medium extroversion. You’re not the life of the party, but you do show up for the party. Sometimes you are full of energy and open to new social experiences. But you also need to hibernate and enjoy your “down time.” Conscientiousness: You have medium conscientiousness. You’re generally good at balancing work and play. When you need to buckle down, you can usually get tasks done. But you’ve been known to goof off when you know you can get away with it. Agreeableness: You have medium agreeableness. You’re generally a friendly and trusting person. But you also have a healthy dose of cynicism. You get along well with others, as long as they play fair. Neuroticism: You have low neuroticism. You are very emotionally stable and mentally together. Only the greatest setbacks upset you, and you bounce back quickly. Overall, you are typically calm and relaxed – making others feel secure. Openness to experience: Your openness to new experiences is low. You’re a pretty conservative person, and you favor what’s socially acceptable. You think that change for novelty’s sake is a very bad idea. While some may see this as boring, many see you as dependable and wise.

The Five Factor Personality Test

And because we all know I’m OBSESSED with Christmas!!!

You Are a Cranberry and Popcorn Strung Tree

Christmas is all about showcasing your creative talents.From cookies to nicely wrapped presents, your unique creations impress everyone.

What Christmas Tree Are You?

Ironically, this is EXACTLY what I planned on stringing my Christmas tree with! How fun!

You’re It!

Vanessa got me again!

1. What is your current age – 21

2. When is your birthday – December 19th
3. Nationality – I bleed red, white, and blue, next question?

4. Do you have any pets – must…..avoid……tears

5. Sexuality – um, I like boys, you know, members of the opposite sex

6. What colour is your hair- glad you asked, I used to be blonde (I am naturally) but I recently changed it to a more chocolate color with a hint of redishness
7. What colour are your eyes- depends on the day of the week and the color I’m wearing. Also it varies depending on what person you ask. I say green, hubby says blue
8. What ethnicity are you – here we go….I’m mostly German and Irish, I’ve got hints of Italian (I cling to that part) and Cherokee Indian as well. (I know everyone says that, but it’s true for me. It’s my Dad’s great-grandmother, we’ve got pictures and everything)

9. Favourite music – Country and Christmas, I’m weird, I know

10. Favourite films – Hmmm, Chicago, Green Mile, most chick flicks….

11. Dating Status – Married! I’m still getting used to this one!
12. Favourite book – It’s hard to pick a favorite but I love anything by Nicholas Sparks or James Patterson
13. Favourite tv show -Get ready to be disgusted…… I like Friends, Will and Grace, Laguna Beach and America’s Next Top Model
14. Dream man – my hubby

15. Dream woman – I am a woman
16. Can you speak any other languages – I used to be semi-fluent in Spanish, that flew away!

17. Well I guess I’ll tag lemons and girlymama