Our Holiday Traditions

There are three things I do the day after Thanksgiving.
1: Shop like a mother fucker.
2: Get Christmas Ornaments (more on that)
3: Set the house for Christmas. Tree and all the stuff.

Let's begin with number 1. It was a cold son of a bitch today. I woke at 2:15AM, showered, and left to get my mom and sister to stand in front of Target 1 hour before it opened. We were there at 3 am. I wanted to get Claire a keyboard. It was half price and it was the EXACT one she wanted. I didn't HAVE to go, but I love her and I wanted to.

It was cold. So cold that when you sniff in, your nostrils freeze together. I think it was 9 degrees with a wind chill below zero. And yes, we stood outside of Target for 50 minutes. Dumb. But I do it every year. I've done it since I was 17. Today was my 20 year anniversary of stupidity and saving money. Meh.

So there is this long line of folks. And some howdy-do woman comes sauntering up and cuts off at least 150 people. There was quite a kerfuffle, and then when security came up to ask her to go to the END of the line, she said, "I didn't know you had to stand in line." Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha........wait for it.........ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. That woman was on some kind of crazy shit. The guy behind us said, "lady...seriously? There are 300 people standing here. IN LINE!"

I was able to make very nice purchases. Ryan and I make a list. Then I go for it. It's almost a full contact sport.

Then on to number 2. Get Christmas Ornaments. When Ryan and I first met, we decided we wanted to have our own little tradition of sorts. He used to join in the shopping torture with me and my mom, but after the second year, he knew he was in with the family and had no need to impress. So we decided when I was done with all my shopping, we would go to Target (those corporate-monopolizing-giants-who-get-all-my-money-weekly) and we would pick out an ornament. It's been years now, and we have a really cool collection of ornaments.

When we got the kids, we allowed them to choose one too. They love this tradition and we hope to keep it going.

Guess who's is who's.





And third, we always put up our Christmas decorations and tree the day after. It's something my parents did when we were kids, and I love it.

This year was especially different and pretty damn amazing. The kids decorated the ENTIRE tree by themselves. It looks fabulous! And I got to drink wine. Best Christmas Tree puttin' up EVER!

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Life lessons from Charlie Brown

Screw Peppermint Patty. I'm going old school next year!!




Happy face-stuffing-belly-busting-eat-till-you-puke day!

Tweetle dee dee

I'm a sheep once again. BAAAAHHHHHH...Twitter has sucked me in. Granted I only did it cause I was bored as hell the other night, whilst the children and Ryan played Lord of the Rings Monopoly.

Or was it the time Ryan and the Skog brothers were sitting around partaking in Ryan's new homebrew. UGH. Either way, suffice it to say I was bored. And just decided, "I'm going for it!"

Social networking monopoly be damned. (You do know I've only been a Facebook user for a bit.) It's like stay at home mom crack. And with the iPhone. Oh my damn. It's ridiculous.

I have about 8 posts. Oh I'm sorry....tweets. 2 of which are replys to my BFF and to Steve Martin, who incidentally is hilarious and clever all at the same time!

I have big shoes to fill. However, I feel that twitter is a good way to say things that go into my head and usually head out my mouth, but only to Ryan and some of my closest friends. This way, I won't offend 60% of my Facebook friends. Cause...I can be offensive. Just saying.

I'm excited to begin this NEW format of sass. Although it's nice to see it's well established. Screw being the guinea pig. I want to be a follower and see how it goes. And now after HOW many years? I feel that Twitter is safe. And....look out.

It's been a rough couple of weeks

I won't bore you with the details. Suffice it to say, my family has had the stomach flu. It started with Miles last week. Then at the end of the week, Ryan and Claire got sick. Then this past Monday......your's truly got it. And I still "got" it. Boo.

This is what we are doing tonight.

Eating frozen pizza. Watching, in this particular order, Billy The Exterminator, iCarly , and Star Wars The Clone Wars. Because we are all feeling crappy still, we are having a sit-on-the-sofa-and-veg night. It's perfect.

Now if we were all feeling stellar, we'd be aces.

37 today. *sigh*

Things I did/am doing on and around my 37th birthday. In chronological order.

~ Meet up with 12 amazing women. Drink. Eat. Play inappropriate board games. Win inappropriate gift for being 5th in the door. Laugh. Hug. Laugh. Drive home in a blizzard at 2am.

~ Wake up to a 4 year old yelling at 7am...."IT SNOWED MOM!!!! GET UP!!! Oh yeah..Happy Birthday. GET UP!!!! SNOW!!!!"

~ Take photos of kids and husband in the snow at 7:45 AM.

~ Go back inside to watch tv and drink more coffee.

~ Fix hot cocoa and popcorn for a mid morning snack

~ Un-tangle the It-should-never-get-tangled-but-we-lied-cause-we're-apple-and-we-can-do-whatever-the-fuck-we-want iPod cord.

~ Clean out entry way...cause oh my GOD there's a lot of wet snow clothes.

~ Sweater shave the bathroom rug. Seriously. I can't stand little nubbies on my feet. It's just gross.

~ Try to talk to the kids...but they are so mesmerized by the snow it's like this..."Hey kids...blah blah blah"...their answer..." blah blah bla...ooh snow..."

~ That's about it. I may throw some laundry in for good measure, but I still have Sunday to be snowed in too. Wouldn't want to overdo it.

I'm going to start making a HUGE deal out of my birthday. More than ever!! Friends...Family....get ready.
I spend about 99.9% of my time putting my family and friends first. I do. All the time. And this is going to be the ONE day of the year that is ALL ABOUT ME. Selfish? Sure. But it's gonna be great. Now if I could just get my family and friends on board with this...I'm all good.

I'm happy.

Here are two songs that make me happy. Not sure why, but they just do.





Happy Weekend.

Don't call me crazy.

When I go to a movie, I have to see the previews. If I miss one, I will do the following.

Leave, exchange my ticket for the next show, wait, see the next show with ALL the previews. I have only had to do this once, and no matter who I go to the movies with, they know I will do it. And we're always early. ALWAYS.

When I'm in the bathroom taking a shower, and there's a magazine on the counter, I will turn it over so the faces aren't looking at me when I get out. It just freaks me out. And NO...I'm not kidding.

When a green arrow light STAYS green for me to get through it, especially if there's a long line of cars, I will say, OUT LOUD, "Thank you green light thank you green light thank you!" Can't hurt right?

I have to check on my kids every night before I go to bed. No matter what time I go to bed or how tired I am. I have to see if they are sleeping and breathing.

If I have a dream that Ryan's been cheating on me (it doesn't happen all that often) I'm mad at him for the rest of the day. Even though I know it was a dream. Poor guy.

I still cross my fingers like it will REALLY work. Not the "hope you don't know I'm lying" cross my fingers, but the "please please PLEASE!!!??!!" crossing of the fingers.

When I've seen a scary movie, and when I say scary movie, I mean scare the shit out of me scary, I will look around my house and make comparisons from the movie to my real life. If there are similarities, I will do what I can to change it so it won't happen to me too. Example: I had a creepy hand made clown that my grandma got me. It was so much like the Poltergeist clown, I gave it to my sister. Cause, there was no way in HELL that thing was gonna get me. And so what if it got her? She was annoying to me on a pretty regular basis. Sadly, I still make the comparisons.

Now..this one I know is weird. But...when I'm at someone else's house or in a public bathroom, I will put a piece of tp in the the toilet before I go. Just in case there's a camera in the bowl. No kidding. I saw a movie that it happened in and now I think, "It could happen, so I might as well prevent embarrassing things from popping up on Youtube.

I DO realize that professing these things, makes me sound exceedingly paranoid, and at the very least certifiable. But...I'm not crazy. I at least know that. I like to think of myself as "quirky." It's a much more endearing term that looney.

And...I also get that I have major bathroom hang ups. Oh well. You don't have to live with me. (Oh wait, Ryan, you do, but you love me for my quirkiness.)

Yeah..and I'm bossy. But everyone I know is bossy. That's nothing out of the ordinary.