Finally the true meaning of Christmas!

Now that my melancholy has passed I can write about our Christmas! Our families actual Christmas took place on Christmas eve this year. Since my divorce the ex Mr. & I have switched off days for the holiday. One year I will get Christmas morning and he will have the whole day and Smirk's birthday (boxing day for some in the world, but our holiday is Smirkday). Each year is different. This year it was my year for Christmas eve and morning. But something has changed, more on that later.

Christmas eve was a wonderful day. Both of my daughters slept in whist I got up and started cooking other wise known as over-cooking according to Smirk. I also was cleaning, or stressing as they put it... What they don't understand is that maybe twice a year when people come to my house, I have to give it a really good clean.. The rest of the time is just surface clean... So it is my time to trick the ladies into really scrubbing!! We were going to have my family over for the evening. That consists of my auntie, my granny, brother, his wife and the two youngest members of the family, Shrieks & Giggles. Shrieks is 8 and just has the loudest laugh I think I have ever heard. She looks like my brother, with light brown hair and his nose. Giggles is 3 1/2, she looks like her mom, dark hair and fair skin and is amazing. They are so much like Grin and Smirk except reversed. Shrieks' personality is more like Grin's and Smirk and Giggles are so much alike it is frightening... They are and were both very independent and had/have no fear. It was a delight to have small one's in the house, but it was very strange. Since they are Jewish, my tree nor decorations had any affect on them. We have had some little ones come over and are just in awe of the tree and the living room ceiling full of lights, but nothing from these two... But they were there...We had a lovely buffet dinner consisting of ham and chicken strips, scalloped potatoes, veggies and dip, hummus, spinach dip and crackers, and desert. For desert I made key lime bars and blackberry apple crumble. YUMMY

I have discovered that my girls now have a new emotion... Compassion... They have always had hints of it hiding below the surface, but this year... New levels... Smirk and Grin wanted to be with me in the morning to open presents and have our normal cup of cheer (coffee to most, hot chocolate for Grin) but they wanted to leave as soon as possible... Why you ask...Had they had enough of me and wanted to get to the good presents??? No, they wanted to leave because they didn't want to make their 9 year old half brother T wait too long to open presents... You see, Christmas morning has usually lasted until 11am and poor T sits longingly looking at his gifts piled under the tree, waiting until his sisters arrive. Poor little thing.... So we opened presents at 6:30am and then dressed and were on the road by 7:30. It made me happy to think that my girls finally realize what it means to care about someones feelings above their own. Isn't that the true meaning of Christmas. Best wishes to all and a happy new year!!!!

Very merry real birthday to her!

Today is Smirk's 18th (Gasp) Birthday... Stand by for a moment while I go breathe into a paper bag.....

are you still there? Almost done...

Ok, better... She is 18... Legal, an adult... (HA) She can vote, drive her friends legally in my car, she can stay out past midnight (not that I will allow it, but she could). She is grown...

I sit here fondly reflecting on the past 18 years and how much she has changed. She was always an independent child, never afraid, didnt show pain and was always smiling.... And now she is still independent, but also has become strong, fearless and cannot wait to enter the real world.

I envy her, she has her whole life ahead of her. Many choices and wonderful things to see and become. She has decided to go to junior college until she decides where to go and what degree to pursue. She wants to join law enforcement but isnt sure where. But even when she becomes the top cop or federal agent, she will always be my baby!

Strange things where I live

There are some really strange things in California... People, Hollywood stars and socialites, did I mention people. But this was the first time I had ever experienced a strange building... I took a friend to the doctor yesterday... She was having some sort of shot into her vertebrae to help alleviate a pinched nerve, and we couldn't find the address...This isn't the strange thing as building numbers in Orange County tend not to make sense, either they don't follow numerical order or they are the same length as the national deficit, but this building didn't seem to exist. We followed the directions provided but did not see what seemed to look like a doctor's office. They only thing we saw was what looked like apartments... It seemed to be on a hill so I drove that way just to see if maybe something wasn't tucked in with these apartments. Imagine our surprise as we drove around to see this surgery center in these apartment buildings. The whole apartment complex had been converted into office suites and most of them medical offices... It looked really really shady, but when my friend went into the back office, she said it looked just like her doctors office.... What is next hospital in a food court??

High kicks, sparkles and camels...oh my!!!

Last evening Grin and I were treated to a lovely holiday outing by Grin's best friend Princess Smiley Face and her mommy. It was a Mommy / Daughter outing to the Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa to see the Rockettes Christmas Special. Yes, the real Rockettes, straight from Radio City. The young ladies got all dressed up (some less than the others...GRIN... she doesnt like to wear dresses you see). Pictures will be forthcoming as the family camera otherwise known as Grin's christmas gift last year, was on loan to the Ex Mr. Amused but the other Mommy's had cameras with them... Anyway, we got dressed up and made up and went to the show. Everyone looked great and the show was wonderful but then the strangest thing happened... Santa & the Rockettes left the stage to be replaced by a camel, several wisemen, sheep and a donkey. From what I understand the original RadioCity Rockettes show has a live nativity scene at the end of the performance so.. in turn... did we.. But it just seemed out of place and a little anti climatic. Not that it wasnt beautiful, but after an hour and half of sparkly out fits and high kicks and Santa suits, to have Mary & Joseph parading across the stage with the "baby jesus" and his livestock just seemed weird.. I kept waiting for the wisemen and followers to drop the robes and start high kicking and jazz hands around the baby...I wanted the camel to do the splits and sheep to sing.. Is that wrong???

This is what scientists do all day???

I thought the scientists of the world were supposed to be out there curing diseases or finding new forms of fuel to ensure survival of the species.. Are you telling me they sit in a lab and study pregnant women to determine why they don't fall over...


http://www.nature.com/news/2007/071212/full/news.2007.374.html


What a cushy job... I want to sit around and determine the obvious... Are you seriously telling me that it has taken 5000 years of mankind to determine that women carry pregnancy weight by using the flexibility of the spine and vertebrae?? Gee is that why we walk like ducks when pregnant or stand with our hands in the small of our backs due to pain and pressure??? I had not even realized that... Maybe this should the the Duh award for the year? Where are my drugs to eliminate all disease or the magic pill to make me thin and fat free?? Where is the car that will cleanly on a non fossil fuel??

The epitome...

I have seen it all now... Not only are we a materialistic country, but we are also very very lazy.... I saw this on another blog (Thank you to the Food Whore http://www.thefoodwhore.com/) but I just had to check it out for myself... I do love this store... I have never purchased from this store, but it is just a beautiful place... But to pay $99.95 for this...

This machine is an electronic martini shaker... From Sur La Table. Are you kidding me... We have gotten to lazy to shake a martini??? How much time does it actually save??? I think the cocktail shaker is a romanticized notion from the swinging past that should be continued. The cocktail shaker makes one think of a smoky bar, with a piano player pounding out tunes, and a sultry singer on stage crooning a sad ballad from days gone by... A notion of a rat packer shaking out a martini for Deano.... Or the Donna Reedesque housewife in her starched apron shaking out that drink for her hubby who will be walking through the door in 5 minutes... Or of Bond ordering that martini shaken not stirred in his debonair way.

What should I expect from the store that has the most beautiful chefs knife on sale for $299.95....

Snow flurries...

Do you hear it?? .......... Isn't it great... the sound of nothing... After a week of activity, flurrying and hurrying, praying at every possible moment for snow in mammoth.... it is quiet at my house. Grin and Smirk have gone skiing with the Ex Mr Amused. There are not 6 teenage bodies lounging in my living room, sucking down any food that hits the counter in my kitchen. But wow, were they needy... They wanted cookies for the trip, then to borrow my warm clothes, then to wash all the clothes in the house....So finally after baking 4 dozen peanut butter cookies (half of them we dubbed Reece's cookies as I dipped them in chocolate) and doing mass loads of laundry..... The house is silent. Except for the hum of the Christmas lights hung from the ceiling (no tree yet) and the TV babbling softly in the background, there is peace in the house....

The saddest part of this story is me...What do I do when my kids are gone?? Sit on the couch at night like a loser and sing along with Mary Poppins... Do I need a life or what.....