Happy New Year!

Happy New Year friends! I just love a new year, especially when it's an even number! I know, I know, the last even-numbered one was a bit wonky with the pandemic starting and all, but I have confidence that the year will turn out to be a good one!

How were your holidays? Ours were good and fun and the weather on Christmas was super good and warmish! I hate to jinx it, but we've had the best late fall/early winter! And, of course, you know that the cooler temps and low humidity are good friends to my hair -- which is always uppermost in my list of worries -- how's my hair look???

It's been SO wonderful to have Maddie at home for an extended visit as her classes don't start again until January 24! She had a very good semester -- even with an insane amount of work in an English class being taught by a grad student. OY!!! I can't even explain how awful that class was for her and such confusing and WEIRD assignments for an English Comp 102 class. PTL - it's over! Grad students should never teach classes without a real instructor overseeing them. Reviews of her on "rate my professor" are not going to be good.

Miss Maddie turned 20 on December 20! What a fabulous girl! I love her so! We went out to a breakfast place called Good Evans for a birthday lunch!And we had cookies with the Chick-Fil-A logo! LOVE that place! We had a good time out at Philip and Catherine's celebrating on Christmas Eve. It was a "breakfast for dinner" theme. I do love that as not much beats french toast casserole and my famous quiche! The next day we celebrated at home with just Connor and Maddie and had Olive Garden- YUM!

In other big news, the Rickster retired - so that made our December rather busy as we tried to get rid of 25 years worth of stuff out of the office and either shredded, moved to storage or to his home office -- here at home. Good thing no family events coming up as there is no room in the dining room for anything -- just saying -- we should have gotten rid of more stuff. I told him that! :) He has a few cases he will continue to work on. My temporary gig at his office went on for 7 years (after 32 years at my old office), so I must admit I am tired of the law (that's putting it nicely). I'm still in charge of checking phone messages, printing stuff off and other assorted duties. Yes, I am a saint! I would show you a photo of all the stuff - but it would scare you -- yep - it scares me. This is gonna take a while (a long while) to get through. The job never ends!

I also worked as a part-time gift wrapper. I LOVE that job. Such a wonderful group of mostly old ladies. One lady is 86 and has been gift wrapping for 18 years! She said she hopes to make it to 20 years -- hope I can do it that long too. It hasn't been as busy since the pandemic and all, but gets crazy the closer you get to Christmas. One guy brought in 25 gifts to be wrapped! Couple days later, he brought in 20 more! We gift wrappers like to be busy, so we were good with that.

In case you're wondering, I'm just putting in Photos here and there because I've had trouble with formatting the blog and the only way to not have it end up ONE LONG PARAGRAPH is to Insert photos.

Also, our attempt at Christmas photos was a bust. I thought I looked ok -- you know I am getting older -- but the photographer freaked me out when we told me I had a fake smile and needed to try harder. UMMM -- well, that actually made it even more difficult and every photo was awful. Mads and Rickster looked good, of course. Now, I ask you -- is that a fake smile?? Yep I guess that was, but believe me, the photos she took were bad -- very bad. <

That's my report for now. Hope you are enjoying a warmish January. Let's get this month over with and on to Spring!!

Christmastide feelings . . .

Source:  Facebook

Back to blogging soon! 

Happy New Year!

Counting Down!

Wow -- the countdown to Christmas is on

and . . .

I feel a bit behind.

Every year I have a vision in my

head of getting everything done early,

wrapping as I go, decorating up a storm,

baking and merry-making.

And

every year,

that vision does not materialize and

I feel behind.

 

But, that's ok.

There is still time to do some baking and

wrapping and decorating, right?
I was busy last weekend shoveling snow,
don't you know! :)

 

Love how pretty our house looked in the snow!

 

We did go to our neighborhood "adults only" party

(that sounds kinda creepy, doesn't it?

it wasn't creepy at all).

It was lots of fun and tons of yummy food

and drink!

 

Muffy loved every minute of playing in the snow!

 

We really have the best neighborhood!

One elderly lady told me she's lived in her house

for 60 years!

Wow -- she knows something about every house

and who lived there.

Finally, after 20 years, our

house is no longer referred to as the "Wilson" house.

(The Wilson family lived here before us --
we still get some mail for them sometimes!)

 

 

Muffy and her BDF, Dixie, playing tag!

 

And since, I seriously do not like to have

a post without a photo, I've

thrown in some random ones

for your enjoyment!

You're welcome!

 

xoxo

 

 

Have a great week!

 



Christmas Revisited

Wow -- am I slow or what with updating the old blog?!? Hey, I was still decorating the house on Dec. 22!! Well anyway, we had a lovely holiday with the family! On Christmas Eve day, we put out luminaries and lit them before leaving for mass at 4:30 PM. One of our wonderful neighbors provides the bags and sand every year, so all you need to do is provide the candles for your walkway and on the boulevard in front of your house and light them up. Our street has quite the reputation for decorating (not us really, but everybody else!), and there is a steady stream of traffic all evening long. Other years, we've waited until getting home from church in the cold and dark to light the candles. Finally [duh], this year we figured out that we should light the candles before we left! And it worked perfectly! The street has an incredibly lovely warm glow from the luminaries -- very magical indeed.

Maddy getting ready to go to church and wondering if she can take Santa Bear along too -- doesn't everyone take a stuffed animal to church on Christmas Eve??


And on Christmas morning, Santa really came through!! I'm calling this the year of the Wi*i and Wi*i Fit and the year of the dog. I've heard that Wi*i is loads of fun. We still have one Wi*i left and I'm thinking of keeping it. Mr. Tennis thinks I should just return it, but I may be able to finally improve my tennis game by practicing with a Wi*i. Anybody else get one? Let me know if you like it and if it's difficult to figure out. Mr. Tennis and I are not the most technologically proficient!! :)



Guess what Maddy got?? A pet --no, not just one, but two dogs!! Electronic dogs, that is! I love them! No vet bills, no messes to clean up and when they get annoying, you can just turn them off. Santa brought her Biscuit (a big, sweet Golden Retriever) and she received Lucky, the wonder pup, from her aunt and uncle. She loves her doggies!! I think one of her favorite gifts is an ATM bank! Oh no -- where'd she figure out how to use an ATM so well, I wonder???



Of course, we should have spent a lot of our free time cleaning the house, etc. but we didn't. We slept late, shopped, put money into the bank ATM, took money out of both the toy and real ATM and dinked around a lot -- a perfect break!! I didn't take as many photos as I should have.


Maybe I'll get more of our rockin New Year's Eve celebration!

Wordless Wednesday - Merry Christmas!!

Weekend Update - It's a Visit From Santa!!

What a busy weekend!!! On Friday evening, our new neighbors (they moved in about 6-7 months ago, so it's their first Christmas on the block) hosted a wonderful Christmas party. They said they did it every year at their former home and are planning on continuing the tradition in their new house! So many new friends to meet as they invited friends from their old neighborhood and all the kids too. Guess who was the star of the evening??? Of course -- Santa and his elf!! And he brought a gift -- a book for every child. [Parents had been informed ahead of time to get a book, wrap it and put your child's name on it and stash it in a red bag (of course!) on their side porch during the week leading up to the party!] It was so much fun and Santa was in great form! He brought Maddy the book called "A Very Marley Christmas." I think a movie is coming out soon based on Marley, but this book was not the Jennifer Anis*ston, Owen Wils*on version. I checked with Maddy to see what she asked Santa to bring her and she said a surprise! So sweet!

And then Saturday was Maddy's 7th birthday! She accompanied me on some shopping and then we went to the movies and saw Desperaux!! He's not a mouse -- he's a gentleman!! Even though I do not like rodents of any kind, it was a good movie! Last evening, the temps were below zero with wind chills well below zero (like -20) so we opted for pizza at home instead of going out to eat. A good decision, I think as the streets were very icy.

And then just before bed, another exciting thing happened! Maddy lost one of her top front teeth! She had two bottom teeth pulled last year due to their slowness in falling out, so this was really the first one to lose on her own. Actually, I helped it along and pulled it -- not one of my favorite parental duties. Her smile is so different and so cute!

Last night Philip and Catherine came to spend the night. Maddy and I made blueberry muffins this morning for breakfast. She is so excited to have Philip and Catherine here for a visit. They are headed to the Children's Museum for some more fun this afternoon! What a weekend! And yes, Philip is a bit of a bed-head in this photo, but he consented to have his picture taken so bloggy friends can see Maddy's smile without that tooth!

Sounds of the Season

Tonight was the annual Christmas program for Maddy's school at our church. Last night was decision time . . . what to wear??? For her, not me! Yes, her outfits are more important than mine -- when did that happen?? She wanted to wear a Christmas dress -- a size 4T Christmas dress! Although it still fit last year, it was definitely getting a bit too small. A few weeks ago, I bought her a darling little plaid skirt at the G*ap and black turtleneck, so she modeled it for Rick last night. He told it looked like a dress and was very pretty -- just what she needed to hear. Yay -- fashion emergency averted!

It was so incredibly sweet. I just love hearing those little voices singing such beautiful Christmas songs. Maddy says her favorite is "Joy to the World" -- that's one of my favs too and it was the finale --they did such a good job. I almost thought the program might be cancelled as we are having below zero temps here and had about 3-4 inches of snow today. It certainly would have been enough for me to call it off, but the program went on without a hitch. The kids looked so cute all dressed up instead of in their usual uniform jumpers and khakis. Funny -- Maddy was pointing out some of the kids in her class -- noting how cute one looked in his blazer (he used to sit next to her, so I think he is a special friend). She also pointed out her friend Ian. Earlier this school year, when she talked about Ian, he was always described as being shorter than her (very important as she does not like being the smallest in class). but he seems to have suddenly gotten taller. And, of course, her friend Mei was there --- she's a 2nd grader and loads of fun! Mei is only about 9 months older than Maddy, but quite a bit taller as you can see. Such sweet pretty girls!

It was a perfect ending to a crazy day! Can I just say how much I admire you folks in Colorado and up North in the wintertime!! We always have snow here and I'm sure I'll get used to driving in it, but oy-- it makes me a little crazy and I am a very nervous driver! Whew -- I had to talk to myself (out loud) all the way home and tell myself what a great job I was doing! Seriously, I'm thinking of taking the bus back and forth to work!

Craft Ornament + Paint = Christmas Tree Mishap

You know how you see those adorable crafts in magazines or on some blogs and you think -- wow, that looks easy, I could do that! Well, that's what I thought too. I bought some of those glass craft ornaments a while back and had some acrylic paints on hand. What a great idea -- recycle that paint and make some new original ornaments for the tree! Sounds good, doesn't it! So, I squirted some paint into the ornaments, swirled it around, let them dry. Voila -- a masterpiece!! Initially, I was going to send my creations around the country in an ornament exchange. But, they were taking forever to dry out and I didn't think the others in the exchange would be too keen on receiving ornaments oozing paint! Not to worry, I made little star ornaments out of scrapbook paper [yes, adorable -- but no photos] -- it was a green - recycle exchange. Anyway, I thought my paint masterpieces were surely dry -- it had been days and they didn't seem to be leaking paint anymore - definitely a good sign, or so I thought.

Look -- aren't they so pretty!! :)

I hung one on the tree. Gorgeous -- damn, I'm an artist, I thought! I hung another ornament, stood back to admire its beauty and then . . . it fell and shattered, splattering paint all over the wood floor! YIKES!!! At least it was just acrylic paint and it cleaned right up -- so don't tell the Hub what happened, will you. He already went to bed so he knows nothing about the mishap and great ornament disaster of 2008! It'll be our little secret, ok!?!

Flashback - Photo Christmas Cards!

As I get ready to do this year's card, I thought it would be fun to look at some old ones. This one is from 2003 -- the first year Maddy was home for Christmas. She was just about to have her 2nd birthday -- what a sweet little round face, eh!! :) My oldest son (in the back) was a freshman in college here and Cboo was a junior in high school. It was such a great holiday season having a little one in the house again!