Should auld acquaintance be forgot....

If we are all awake at midnight tonight, you will likely find us down by the Belltower ringing in 2010. It's supposedly good luck if you pull the rope and ring the bell at least once. Adios, 2009!

We worked out a solution to the sleep situation. I sleep in the bed originally intended for Daniel - it is the darkest and quietest and since I am the worst insomniac, that's where I go. Daniel sleeps in the room with his dad. While this is certainly not ideal, it works. I sleep better, and so does my husband, since I am not thrashing around trying to get comfortable AND kicking him every 5 minutes or so because he's snoring. :)

My mother keeps the dog out on the pullout sofa with her, and he doesn't get up and wander, nor bark. Yay!! I like him a little more today than I did yesterday.

Being home is so much fun, even if my husband and I get conscripted to be the slave labor. I cannot tell you how right it feels to drink Cheerwine in this county! Oh, and Daniel and his grandmother are at Discovery Place today....so we kind of get the house to ourselves.

Wee one is having the time of his life here with my mother's dog. I am NOT. I enjoy being here...it's just that the dog is not my favorite being.

For starters, he's little, and I'm a fan of big breeds. If you're going to get a dog, get a big breed, a DOG. If you're going to get a small dog, you may as well get a rat. It would be cheaper. Plus, he severely interrupted my sleep last night. I had forgotten that dogs have to get off the bed (of COURSE he decided to sleep with us) to investigate every siren, every leaf that rustles, and every creak of the house. That did not go over well with me, as I'm not a fan of anything that interrupts my sleep before I'm done sleeping. And, he's a barky nervous little thing. Ugh.

Sorry. I'll take some cheese with the whine. One thing that doesn't surprise me is that he loves my husband. All animals love my husband.

In serious need of....

....some CAFFEINE!

I don't know how people who live without it. Especially who switch their bodies' schedule between nightshift and dayshift (hehe....that originally came out nightshit. not entirely inappropriate.)

Carpal tunnel is still bugging me so typing is still minimal. My husband says it's too bad carpal tunnel doesn't affect my mouth. :)

Going home!

Tomorrow we are leaving to go to Salisbury to celebrate Christmas and Hubs' birthday with both our families. We're stopping on the way in Chapel Hill to see Hubs' niece and her kids and drop off presents that way.

I'm excited, mostly because it's rare that we leave our town for much of anything. And, because there are some things that we can only get in Salisbury - DJs Pizza, for one. Plus, even though I have a 12-pack of Cheerwine in the kitchen, it just doesn't taste the same outside Rowan County.

Can't wait to see both sets of parents and just be 'home' for a while.

Our luck

Our digital camera died - I mean, kaput - Christmas Eve. So there will be no Christmas Day pictures. Sorry!

As soon as we remedy the camera situation I will take pics of my boy in his new 'housejacket' (bathrobe) and playing his new (real) guitar, complete with shoulder strap. Those were by far the two biggest hits.

Oh, and we all got matching t-shirts. That's gonna be cool.

Linus breaks it down

Happy Birthday!!!

....to two fabulous people.

1) Jesus (the Christ)

and

2) Jesus (my husband)

I could not have picked a better husband had I searched the universe far and wide. I know he won't read this (he never reads our 'family' blog) but I am so grateful he's MINE, and I hope his birthday is as awesome as he is.

I'll let y'all guess how old. ;-)

Christmas Eve Gift

A longstanding family tradition here is that of 'Christmas Eve gift'. That is, whoever is the first to holler said phrase at the top of their lungs on Christmas Eve gets to open one of their presents. I hear stories of my long-deceased great-grandmother either a) staying up 'til just after midnight or b) rising at the crack of dawn and waking the rest of the house hollering "CHRISTMAS EVE GIFT!"

So we're carrying on the tradition here. Usually it's me that wins the prize, but my mother got hold of the wee one this morning before I woke up and reminded him. As soon as I stumbled out of bed still wiping the sleep crust from my eyes...."MOM! I WANT MY - how was I supposed to say that, Dad - I WANT MY CHRISTMAS EVE PRESENT!"

Grandma Howell would be proud.

More books!!

I probably have a pathological addiction to books. I have probably ten on my shelf that I'va yet to read, and here come four more that I've ordered thanks to an unexpected gift deposit into my Paypal account. Two Dostoevsky and two Ernie Pyle, all of which I'm excited about reading. First things first, as I'm not done w/ Citizen Soldiers yet.

This will have to do as a blog post today - typing one handed thanks to carpal tunnel!

Christmas play

and I had to put a pic of my handsome boys!!

Away in a manger

This is not my favorite Christmas song, but it is my favorite version of the song. Third Day's album 'Christmas Offerings' is probably my favorite of all time, even more so than Elvis' Christmas (actually a compilation of the two Christmas albums he put out). That's saying a lot!


In other news, I joined our local YMCA last week in hopes of really getting my fat butt in shape. I like the variety - don't have to do the same old treadmill every day, and if I do decide to run a little bit I can do it on a treadmill which is not nearly so bad on these joints as the asphalt in our neighborhood. I really like the elliptical and cross-country ski machines the most. Plus, the weights are the best. When summer hits you can bet I will be swimming. Hoping to get the boys to join and sign up the little one for karate, just to see how he does!

Blogger block

I'm having a hard time thinking of something meaningful to post today.

Oh. I guess I should mention something about the Christmas program at church. It was, by all accounts, a success. I love it when my son really 'gets' things about God and participates fully in church - singing, dancing (it is a Pentecostal church, after all), and generally behaving well. It makes me proud as a mother, and it makes me grateful as a wife to know that my husband is just as vested as I am in making sure our child(ren) understand that God exists and loves them. (Hubs is the one who gets him up/ready and takes him to church, as I am generally worthless on Sunday mornings. That is a great blessing.

Pictures forthcoming tomorrow, as I'm on the baby laptop and the pics are stored on the big one.

Try saying this three times fast...

"...I gotta bring the freakin' frankincense."

Apparently Wise Man #2 said this at play rehearsal today and my boy (Wise Man #3) has repeated it ever since.

Please disregard all that whining in my previous post, for a couple reasons. 1) It did not snow; and 2) I did not have to go to work last night. I got flexed on call for the entire 12 hours, and it could not have come at a better time. Apparently census was REALLY low, so they put me 'on-call', which means I have to stay at home/reachable on the phone but otherwise free.

I didn't get called in. Woohoo! So along with one more night of decent rest I am feeling fine. Maybe Daniel felt better than I did - as soon as they called me, he skipped around the house - "She's not going to work, she's not going to work, la la la la la la la, she's gonna stay with me..."

I might actually get to go work out today, and Daniel has rehearsal for his Christmas play at church, so I might get to take him to that as well! And, since I'll only have worked one night instead of two, I might actually feel good enough to go to church and see him perform. That would be supremely triumphant!

(Forgive the stream-of-consciousness, mundane nature of this post. I have a fairly boring life. What can I say?!)

No to snow!

I am normally a fan of snow, but not today! That's because I'm about to have to drive 48 miles to work and back tonight and tomorrow night. The great state of North Carolina does NOT do snow very well, and unfortunately, hospitals don't close just because nurses don't feel like driving in the bad weather. Sigh. Suck it up.

For those of you who are wondering...not pregnant yet. And if you weren't wondering, well, now you know anyway. :)

Jesus vs the Abominable Snowmonster

I wish I'd been smart enough to take pics of this...

One thing that I have always loved about my boy is his imagination - from turning train tracks into skates and a hockey stick to making musical instruments out of - well, anything - his little imagination is about as vivid as they come, and has been since he breathed his first.

Last night he decided that the pieces from our Nativity set - already explicitly explained that they are off-limits and not toys - were going to be characters in his own little drama. First, Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus were sleeping, then eating. And then, one of my lightweight dumbbells morphed into the Abominable Snowmonster . Mary, Joseph, and Jesus decided this was no good. They stopped what they were doing, jumped all over the Snowmonster, knocked him over, and then "went back to Bethlehem to have a party." He then laid the other dumbbell in front of them so that "no more Abominable Snowmonsters can get back into Bethlehem". All this in our livingroom floor, ladies and gents. So much for the rules around here....oh well.

This is my life. Every day. And I must say, I have a pretty good life!

Books!!!

Some books I've read this year:
To End All Wars by Ernest Gordon
Goodbye, Darkness by William Manchester
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque (that was a reread)*
The Road Back by Erich Maria Remarque*
We Who Dared to Say No to War by Murray Polner and Thomas E Woods, Jr.
Jesus for President by Shane Claiborne*
Generation Kill by Evan Wright*
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini*

Some books I've started this year but not finished:
Lying-In: A History of Childbirth in America by Richard & Dorothy Wertz - a little too dry - even for me.
The Mahabharata - one of many sacred Hindu texts, and the world's longest epic poem (literally - I'm not trying to be funny). I should have done some research before buying this, at least so that I'd realize it's 900 pages long. I fully plan on finishing it, because it's quite fascinating, but it won't happen in 2009. :-) Obviously, I am reading an English translation, and not the original Sanskrit.
The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers - interesting, but there was a limit on how many consecutive times I could check it out of the library.
Maverick Marine: General Smedley D. Butler and the Contradictions of American Military History - I started reading this in one of my book-ADD spells and consequently never finished it. I think it will be good, I just have to get back in the right mood for it.
Forever War by Joe Haldeman - recommended to me by my adopted brother. It's a bit too sci-fi for me; the concepts I get, but the details get in the way and I lost interest about 30 pages in. (Sorry, Spook.) He insists I give it another shot, so I probably will -eventually.

Hoping to read in 2010:
Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman - Spook insists this is not sci-fi, so I'm giving it a go. I really do want to like Joe Haldeman.
The Mahabharata - I dunno, this one might not happen 'til 2011.
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson - recommended by a like-minded friend from work
The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan
Anything by JRR Tolkien that I haven't already read

* - extremely good and I recommend it.

11 days and counting!

We have a big day planned today - finally making things look a bit Christmasy around here, since we are all mostly feeling better from whatever bug that was that made us all feel like crapola! #1 on the list is a Christmas tree, since we've not yet put one up! We have to go find one we like and get the lights on it (at the very least).

I promised Daniel we'd make Christmas cookies today and hopefully that won't be too terrible. He loves being my 'kitchen helper' (as he calls it) but now I know how my grandma must've felt when I got old enough to want to help her in the kitchen!! When he gets older I want him to look fondly on his childhood Christmases - fingers crossed for a good time in the kitchen today.

At 10ish is his school's Christmas party, so we're going to that (probably going to skip the rest of the school day), then we have to get to Target and find our last remaining Christmas presents - for grandparents and I'm going to try and throw some clothes in there for Daniel since the poor child is outgrowing everything he has.

Books:
Currently I'm reading Citizen Soldiers, by Stephen Ambrose. Really interesting book. Firsthand accounts of the push across Europe from D-Day until VE day, from the perspective of American GIs and German soldiers. I listened to about half of it on CD when I checked it out from the library but reading it is so much more fulfilling.

I love this song anyway, and this is probably the best version (at least in my opinion) of it that I've ever heard. What's your favorite Christmas song? (Or if you're like me, you have a multitude of favorites...)

Happy Birthday

I doubt she will read this, but this is a birthday shout-out to my sister-in-law Guadalupe! It's easy for me to remember because she was born on el Dia de la Virgen de Guadalupe.

This is a HUGE holiday in Mexico and for Mexican Catholics everywhere. I remember once, when I worked in the community health center that I worked at previously, we scheduled a diabetes education class for Dec. 12. Yeah, that was a mistake. Hmmmm. Food and festivities, or learning about what NOT to eat when you're diabetic....lemme guess.

Christmas 1915

I never get tired of hearing this song. The Christmas truce actually happened in 1914 - the song is a year off - but the point is the same. Stories of peace in unlikely places warm my heart and give me hope.

I absolutely loathe being sick for this long. A day or two, no biggie. This has been going on since Sunday night!!!! I'm tired of it! There is so much to get done around the house - we have not even put up our Christmas tree, nor wrapped any presents. This is NOT a good time of year to be sick!

Today I woke up at 2:30 this morning and couldn't go back to sleep but lay in the bed anyway because I didn't feel like doing anything else. After Daniel got up and I got him his breakfast and we hung out for a little while I went back to bed (Jesus was up and about by then - woot for stay-at-home dads!) from 10am til almost 5 this afternoon! This is really crazy. I'm trying to make myself useful - working on paying some bills etc. - but really feel like crapola and would rather get back in the bed right now.

Bring 'em home

In 1965


A little more recent:

Sick day

One upside about being sick: my husband's beef soup.
Wait, two things; the second is being able to catch up on all the Netflix I've missed. Right now I'm watching SNL's Best of Chris Farley...classic!

I just finished watching 'The Killing Fields', about the Cambodian civil war and the horrid things done to the Cambodian people by the Khmer Rouge. I'd give the movie an A-/B+, but had I not read books about it beforehand, I'd probably rate it lower. The film assumes the viewer knows history and politics of the region; not much background explanation to be had.

I'd put off watching it for a long time, because I wasn't sure if I could handle all the grisly scenes I'd heard. In actuality it wasn't as bad as I'd thought, so that was (for me, at least) a plus. That's not to make light of what these people endured - because I'm sure there is no cinematographer that can do justice to that. Just saying, that especially with my brother just having come home from a war I didn't want to have to go back to that place in my mind.

Anyway, it's a good movie and worth the 2.5 hours I spent watching it.

Let there be peace on earth

Let there be peace on earth
And let it begin with me.
Let there be peace on earth
The peace that was meant to be
With God as our Father,
Brothers all are we.
Let me walk with my brother
In perfect harmony.

Let peace begin with me,
Let this be the moment now
With every step I take
Let this be my solemn vow:
To take each moment and live each moment
In peace eternally.
Let there be peace on earth,
And let it begin with me.

I remember singing this song in my church choir when I was about 8, when the conflict making the most headlines was that of Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland. I remember thinking to myself even then that the world would be such a nicer place if we all could take those words to heart, and today as they came back to me (for reasons I may never know!) I think about how much hasn't really changed. Most everyone I know says they want a gentler, more peaceful world...and it has to begin with us. Making my world a more peaceful place has to start with me.

Cold, rainy weather is perfect sleeping weather. And when you work nights like I do, you look forward to perfect-sleeping-weather days!

Not feeling well today. I think it's whatever Hubs had. Not bad enough to stay home from work tonight but bad enough to be miserable in the process. Thanks, honey! I look forward to sharing all my snot and stuff with you just as you have so kindly shared with me!!!

Three most common words heard around here these days: "Mom, I'm hungry."

I have given birth to a freaking eating machine. He's five, and already he will eat for lunch a hotdog (or two), a string cheese, a whole orange, and a glass of milk, followed by a yogurt or some other dessert and an hour later he will be hungry again. Genuinely hungry.

He's perfectly normal height- and weightwise, so I'm not worried about it in that regard. I just worry about what the heck I am going to do to put food in the pantry when he's 15 if he's already eating like a horse at five.

Playing Hockey

When you don't have actual skates nor an actual hockey stick, you improvise with train tracks. I think he looks a tad like Chad LaRose, myself.

(And when you've fixed the datestamp multiple times and it still insists on staying in 2006, you throw up your hands in defeat!)

Treading water

Hubs is sick. Not sure if it's just a bad cold or if it's H1N1 (who cares, really, the point is that he feels like shyte and is in bed asleep). I am barely awake, my midday nap having completely thrown off my sleep schedule. I didn't fall asleep until about 8am today, but it wasn't for lack of trying. I slept from then til about noon, and now am trying to hold my eyes open.

The wee one, however, is wide awake and feeling great!

We are in survivial mode today. Don't come over; you won't like what you see!