What's new Friday?
This is the first year I've ever shopped the day after Christmas. Usually I have to work, so off I went. First, JC Penney's where I spent $84 and saved $185, then to Belk's where I spent $45 and saved $75!!! So, I still have some money left over, but Gary wanted to do some things together.....sigh
Anyway, it wasn't crowded at all and the sales were terrific. Just might have to go out again later...hehe
Susan
on 12/26/08 1:29 am - Park Forest, IL
I am still recovering from this nasty upper respiratory thing. We had a very nice time at our daughters yesterday in spit of being under the weather. The girls loved their Nintendo DS's and Jen started crying when she opened her commercial stand mixer. One of the things she loves to do is bake and decorate specialty cakes for family and friends. She is starting to get requests from family and friends for party cakes for birthdays and showers so that mixer will make it much easier for her and she'll make some $$$$ from it, always a good thing.
I got so many lovely new clothes, lots of warm things. Earl got me a TomTom GPS and a new digital camera. Jen gave me a digital picture frame so I can load pics of the girls and family on it to enjoy.
Tomorrow we will do Christmas part 2 at my mothers. My brother and his family will be there too.
I have to bake Russian teacakes today to do a big tin for my brother, that is always his Christmas request for me. His favorite cookie. He takes the tin to work and keeps it in his desk so he gets to eat them all himself...good thing he is tall and skinny........LOL!
Time for a cup of tea to soothe my throat and some more cough stuff...
Hope you all have a great day
Hugs, Paulette
Made up the second batch of cinnamon rolls, then baked them off this morning for the neighbors across the street who help me out so much. Even took a drive around town in the p.m. - it was actually sunny here all day.
Woke up this morning to ice everywhere.....the streets were like skating rinks and nothing was moving....it's going on 2 p.m. here now and just starting to thaw a little....doubt the mail man will get here at all today.
Cleaned my house this morning and even put a few decorations away......I'm really ready to take it all down but will wait until next week.
Lots of colds and upper respitory stuff going around....
take care of yourselves.
Pat R.
(on MySpace, MSN, Web pages, Blogs...)
Done! Your Ticker:
I hope that everyone enjoyed their Christmas Day. Here we are spreading Christmas over the week and I will have our big dinner on New Years Day. This is because of the time constraints that both of our sons are going thru. Danny's wife, Amy, has a family that thinks differently than the rest of us. They have claimed Christmas Eve, Christmas morning and Christmas evening as theirs. Now I COULD insist on MY family's traditions and cause my son alot of stress and surely trouble with his wife who has no space for compromise.
However, I choose to give my son the gift of being flexible. Usually, because of Amy's family resisitance to share Christmas Day festivities with us, we have had our Christmas dinner on Boxing Day (Dec 26th here..an old English Custom). But this year, Derek's struggle with equipment breakage during the heavy storms and being down to one truck and no auto-salter so that he must plow each plaza and HAND salt them. Of course, this doubles his time for each property in those bitter-cold, wintery nights. And his brother, Danny, works all day at his R&D centre job and then spends most of his night working on Derek's equipment. The result is that they are both exhausted and stressed to the max.
Many of my gifts for friends and neighbours were hand made..I made Mother a huge crocheted afghan to fit her double bed in white, mauve, and 3 shades of pink varigated cotton yarn which turned out very pretty...It took me over a month of working on it nightly and the white ruffled edging seemed to take forever to get done. I used cotton because it's washable and Mother sits on her bed all the time and sometimes spills her coffee or tea. This will be easier to clean as I already wash her white chenille bedspread anyways.
My neighbours all got homemade cookies and jams and jellies from my garden and one friend, who works all day got cookies, jams, jellies, chilli sauce, tomato sauce and soup and a huge bag of "spicy party mix"...all homemade by me...which she says is even more appreciated than anything else I could give her because to she loves homemade, she doesnt have the time nor patience to make such things.
My one neighbour sent assorted herbal teas and a can of cookies and the other neighbour gave me two quarts of home -raised unpastureized honey from their own bees. Isnt it wonderful that we can share our skills with eachother..what a delight!
Yesterday, we all had Christmas dinner yesterday with Mother at her retirement community because she can no longer handle all the stairs at my place...that was at noon and the dinner was lovely. Then we spent two hours in her room after, giving her gifts and talking and just being together. But I could see that both Dan & Derek were struggling to stay awake and Mother, now 89, was tired, so it was time for everyone to rest a while. Dan still had his in-laws big dinner that evening too, so we all left Mother so she could have a nap.
JB, Derek and I went home and I had a nap (JB slept in front of the TV and Derek rested downstiars) then had Chinese food for supper. I think this change of plans worked well for all of us. Christmas is about being together..being relaxed and enjoying each other's company. We will do that next week when the "crisis" is over.
Today Dan & Derek are working on Derek's equipment and JB and are relaxing..badly needed. I have a huge crockpot filled with homemade soup and a fridge full of Chinese food to last a lifetime....oops!
On Christmas eve, I became a great-aunty again..Emma Leigh was born two weeks early. We will see her Jan 4th when JB's family has their annual family Christmas party.
And so, for us, the Christmas spirit continues...it's not just a "date" but a focus on being kind, thoughtful, flexible, loving and joyous. Too bad that the commercialism reigns supreme. That is not what Christmas is about at all.
Well time to make some of that lovely lemon tea that my neighbour sent over and then a nap...woohoo!
Blessings to all of you and yours!
Nancy B
Kinda late in the day to be signing on. Still feeling headachy and nauseous. Talked to the doctor's office and the anesthesiologist at the hospital today; they said it's something called spinal headache and often happens after you have spinal anesthesia, which I did. Didn't happen the last time, though. I told my friend Rox, the nurse, my symptoms last night, and she said the same thing. Everyone today told me to put ice on my neck or head, drink caffeine (a prescription for coffee ... geez, I think I could like that!) and lay low for a couple of days. It's not too bad now. The anesthesiologist at the hospital said if it doesn't resolve itself by early next week, they may have to do a procedure at the hospital to help me ... little complicated, involves taking some blood from me, putting it back into my spine to get it to equalize the pressure. Hopefully, we won't have to go that far. Right now, I'm doing the caffeine and ice bit (and vicodin). This is the most I've sat up all day.
The home PT person came over today too and we talked while I lounged in the recliner.
Well, that's about I have the energy to do today. Time to go back to the recliner. Wanted to check my other e-mail account and my bank account yet, but don't know if I'll get to that.
Have a good day.
I got my drain removed today and I am very dehydrated. I may have to go and have an IV for a while. But Im trying very hard to drink.
I just got home from a very nice picnic with our friends from North Carolina. We met them at the Bradenton Beach that is about 9 miles from our house.
I didnt get to much for Christmas. Ill probably buy a plane ticket to go to Denver for a few days in January.
It is beautiful here about 77 degrees and a cool breeze. Sun is out and shinning brightly.
I put my toe in the water and it was cold. But I knoew it would be. Just had to test the waters I guess.
Well have a great day. I am not shopping today.
Carla
