And Back Home Again!

This is too funny. I sent Adam a text to see how his taking the test went. Seems he hates Arizona already, so he's heading back home.

Go figure. Now all he has to do is avoid drunks out tonight.

Happy New Year!!

Another One Leaves the Nest . . .

Well, Adam has been talking about moving to Arizona and working at tech support for AT&T. They've got a class starting, and it's filling up quickly, so he and a friend left last night. My baby! *sniff* He sent me a text this morning to tell me they'd made it safely there, and the trip sucked.

He hates snow, so perhaps Arizona will be a good place for him. Of course, he hates heat too . . .

Christmas and New Years

We survived Christmas even though I got strep last week. It came on suddenly, as strep tends to do, but I managed to get on antibiotics in time to go to my son's house for Christmas Eve, and so far no one else appears to have caught it from me. Yay! On Christmas Eve, some family members played Rock Band and others of us watched a movie in Dave's in-house theater. We did the gift exchange and the kids opened their gifts from us. The only thing I miss is the little kids doing a nativity. Oh, well.

Grampa, bless his heart, ended up shuttling between our three homes. I hope he didn't find it to be unsettling. He's such a good sport, he won't always tell us. It was such fun to have him. As soon as the snow is melted, I'm going to send him a picture, so he knows we don't always have snow. I swear we've had so much snow the last two Christmases that he's been with us.

I did a video of our Christmas.I did another one for Grampa and pulled several videos that I'd done from the past and put them all on one DVD for him to view when he's home all alone.



I got a Wii and Wii Fit for Christmas. We bowled and golfed all Christmas Day--and I was sore on Friday! Who would have thought that a video game would make you sore? It was fun though, because I love to bowl but haven't been able to since I started having problems with recurring tendinitis in my right wrist about 10 years ago. And Erin managed to bowl two games in the 240s!

I'm just stressing out a little bit now, as we're within one week of sailing to Hawaii. The weather forecast for the 6th changes. Last night it was only 10% chance of snow, but today it's a 30% chance of snow. But the local weather station said there were no big storms coming, so I'm encouraged--right? The only other stresser is that we still don't have Ed's passport. He didn't listen to me when I told him to keep his birth certificate and send it in with the passport stuff after the cruise. So right now he has neither, and one is required to board the ship. *sigh*

Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!

And they said this storm was going to start out as rain and then turn into snow.

Uh huh . . . .

Grrrrr!

I'm SO frustrated with my mortgage company right now. We had that flood in the basement in October, and with one of the insurance payments, they made the check out to us and our mortgage company. Okay, so I guess I understand they need to know we did the work. Well, we endorsed that check and sent it to the mortgage company, and I requested that they credit it to my December payment, and I sent the balance.

Guess what we got in the mail yesterday from the insurance company? THE CHECK I SENT TO THE MORTGAGE COMPANY!!!!! Oh my heck!!!!! And I'm finding this out at 7 p.m. on the 15th. And then the mortgage company's lines were really busy and it took forever to talk to a real person, and she couldn't take the balance of the house payment with my debit card--which is tied to my checking account--but they wanted the routing number to my checking account. :confused: So she referred me to the automated system, which was down of course.

By this time I was practically hyperventilating. Last June I made a typo on my payment request through my online bill pay, and the June payment was accidentally scheduled for July. *sigh* Got a nice zing on my credit score because of that, so it was very important that this not happen again--especially since it wasn't my bad this time. Grrrrr

If they couldn't use the check to credit toward my mortgage payment, they should have had the courtesy to inform me rather than sending the check back to my insurance company. Morons!!!!

Anyhoo, I got it taken care of today without getting a hit either in late fees or my credit score, but this was so stupidly unnecessary. I called and complained to the department over this, and the lady agreed that I should have been notified when they couldn't credit my account.

On another stressful subject--now if we can just get Ed's birth certificate for our cruise (leaving in 3 weeks!). When we applied for our passports (the 15 day cruise is to Hawaii and back but the last day will be in Ensenada, Mexico), we found out we needed to submit our birth certificates. Well, the certificate Ed has used his entire life (including things like getting a driver's license and joining the Air Force) was the one given to his parents by the hospital and is no longer acceptable because it wasn't issue by a governmental entity. So, he's requested one from Pennsylvania, but I'm worried now they won't respond quickly enough for the trip. It certainly won't be enough time for him to get his passport back.

And they didn't send me back my birth certificate, which the lady at the post office where we submitted the passports assured me they would do.

Man, I need some decent emoticons to show my true feelings! =D

Secret of Christmas

From the song
"The Secret of Christmas"

Look at the happy people.
Christmas is in the air.
Well, I know the secret of Christmas,
a secret I'm willing to share.

It's not the glow you feel when snow appears.
It's not the Christmas cards you've sent o'er years.
Not the joyful sound when sleigh bells ring
or the merry songs children sing.

The little gift you send
on Christmas Day
Will not bring back a friend
You've turned away.

So may I suggest
The secret of Christmas
Is not the things you do at Christmastime,
But the Christmas things you do - all year through.

~~author unknown

Special Christmas Guest

Woot! Grampa Hanson's going to join us for Christmas again this year!! He called yesterday to let me know he'd begin his traveling from Southern California on the 16th. He was with us last Christmas, too, and it was so much fun to have him. It was the first time in over a decade that he'd been able to join us because he'd had to tend Grama Hanson, who couldn't handle the high altitude's thin air and extremes in temperature. He got pneumonia last year, so I hope we have a healthy Christmas this year!

Beginning of the Season

I really love this time of year. Christmas Day was my mother's birthday, and she always went out of her way to make it special. Of course, she had to. She said that as she was growing up, people would give her one present and say "Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas!" It was like she didn't really have a birthday. That was the main reason that we celebrated the December birthdays of two of our children in June--we acknowledged their real birthdays but had the party on their half birthday.

For my mom, you can imagine that it didn't get any better when she was an adult with a family. A mom getting her birthday off? And that day off just happens to be Christmas?!?! *gasp* So she made it worth giving up her birthday for.

She died when I was 14, and it still makes me sad as I have realized how special she was that I haven't been able to tell her that. She would have been 81 this year. It's hard to believe that next June she'll have been gone 40 years. But I have great faith that she's just waiting for me on the other side of the veil, and I will have my chance to hug her and talk with her again. We'll have so much to catch up on.



"Until one feels the spirit of Christmas,
there is no Christmas.
All else is outward display--
so much tinsel and decorations.
For it isn't the holly,
it isn't the snow.
It isn't the tree
not the firelight's glow.
It's the warmth that comes
to the hearts of men
when the Christmas spirit returns again."
-- Anonymous