My Weblog

There's life after Christmas

Well, I'm here to testify, there's life after Christmas.  One thing I've learned--Christmas is easier when you're dead flat broke!  No massive gift wrapping required.  No lugging gifts to the post office or to other people's houses.  No need to spend a day or two baking cookies.  No need to spend two days cooking to provide dinner for loved ones.  If you didn't miss all that, it would be a wonderful way to have Christmas, very relaxed.  But, I'm trained to it--trained to all the baking, cooking, gift shopping, gift wrapping, lugging gifts here and there, and so, it feels a bit empty this year.

We were blessed to receive just what we needed this year--cash and cash equivalents.  My mother and Joe's mother sent checks.  Because of them, we were finally able to make the December house payment.  It posted to our bank account yesterday.  Only 26 days late.  That was a cooperative effort between what Joe has brought in from signings, everything I could scrape out of my bank account and the Christmas and Birthday money we received.  December's car payment is still not paid.  Joe says the bank account is getting close.  We seem to need about $75 before we can make that.  That still leaves various utility bills to be paid.  I'm sure glad these are God's bills and not ours.  We were bought with a price (the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross) and now, being bond slaves of God's son, these are His bills not ours.  We are merely the funnel through which the money flows...  Only when it flows to us can it flow through us.

Jennifer and Jason outdid themselves in the gift department as well.  We got gift cards from Sunshine Market (groceries!), Petsmart (dog food!) and Shell Oil.  All good stuff.  And Jennifer gave us lots of nice goodies in our stockings as well.  Matt and Patti gave me a pink bathrobe and Joe received a very nice wallet. 

It's been quite cold here.  Cold and windy.  We've had quite a few overcast days, and a number of days when it was obviously snowing in the mountains around us.  I went to work on Friday and it was so cold in the office when I arrived I could hardly stand to touch the desk.  This in spite of the fact that I was wearing two shirts, one quite heavy.  Of course, this is pretty much the way I dress in winter and I stay pretty comfortable.  Joe, on the other hand, runs around in bare feet and short sleeves.  Then he whines about being cold.  Well, duh!  What do you expect when you dress like that?????

I did not go to work on Tuesday and Wednesday.  I had planned to, but Matt more or less invited me not to.  In fact, he was pretty insistent on it.  Perhaps he thought I really wanted the days off but with so little Christmas prep, it was nowhere near as important that I be off from work as it was that I make some money!  I still planned to go to work on Wednesday anyway.  But, Joe had two people who wanted him to do signings at 11AM so he scheduled me for one of them without asking.  Now, I work about 4-5 hours a day and there was no way I could work around an 11AM signing and still get in a decent number of hours without working until after dark.  So, I didn't go to work after all.  And, Matt did payroll for everyone but me!  How nice.....  And, for once, there was actually money in the bank to cover the checks and this is the week I didn't get paid!  I had not turned in my time sheet on Monday because I fully expected to be there Wednesday and he never does payroll til Friday anyway.  Friday I tried to call him wherever the heck he was but the phone connection was horrible.  The first try, I couldn't hear him properly.  The second try, either he hung up or I was cut off.  SO, when I left the office yesterday, I left my time sheet taped to the computer screen of his laptop.  He can't miss that, right????  So, on Wednesday, I traded one signing for 4-5 hours of work, about 50% of what I could have made without Joe's "help".

We really enjoyed our Christmas Day.  We were at Jen and Jason's house by 7AM.  Had to be there for the opening of the presents, you know.  The big present for the boys was a battery-powered car.  It's in John Deere colors.  It was the last present they got, but it sure impressed them!  Will was out there in his PJs, driving it and Atticus was wearing nothing but a tee shirt and his diaper!  They rode around a little and then came in for warmer clothes as soon as the initial excitement wore off.  Then they were back outside riding around again.  Eventually Jason herded them back into the house and put the car in the garage.  Atticus went back out into the garage several times--he was just sure he should go for another ride or two.!  Will had driven one of these cars at a friend's house so it took only 2-3 minutes for him to get used to handling this one.  Atticus just got in and waited for Will to drive, as though that were a given. 

Atticus got a wooden truck, a replica of a "trash truck".  Joe got delegated to assemble it and it was quite a deal.  There was one hole mis-drilled entirely.  And all the other hills were not drilled deep enough.  He struggled with it for several hours and then we went home for a few hours.  When he came back, he had a drill to work with so that made it easier.  Finally by the time we were ready to sit down to dinner, he finished.  The truck is really cute and Atticus loved it. 

Will got a hydrogen powered car and a pogo stick and some artist sketch books.  Aunt JoAnne sent lots of clothes and a collection of books.  I'm not going to sit here and list off Christmas presents, but that part of the day was fun and the boys (as well as Jen and Jason) got some lovely things.

Jen had a good dinner for us.  I brought scalloped potatoes, pumpkin pie, and red devilsfood cake.  She made pumpkin curry soup, a spinach salad with blue cheese, candied walnuts and cranberries, roasted vegetables, a lovely roast beef (fake roast beef for Jason), and rolls.  She did a good job on it.  The only hangup was that the beef took longer than expected to cook.  And, the scalloped potatoes were a bit "rare".  I melted the butter in the microwave and poured it into the casserole hot.  I popped the whole casserole into the microwave until the milk was hot.  Then I put the whole thing into the oven here.  After about half an hour, we had to take it out of the oven.  I covered it to hold in the heat and we headed to Jen's house.  I put it back in the oven with the roast and it was in there for a good long time, but the 'taters didn't quite get cooked.  Darn!

Well, that's about it for now.  I've got a kit ready to go in the store tomorrow, together with a set of 4 quick pages.  I don't want to post it here til it's in the store, so I'll come back and post about it later.  I'm also proud that I have another kit finished all but the previews for next week.  I'm trying to get a few kits ahead so that I have less stress trying to add one a week to the store.  I want to get a decent inventory built up and then perhaps I will try to add another store.  That seems to be an easy (not that anything about designing is "easy") way of finding customers.  Prospective customers go to a specific store to see other people's kits and while there may happen upon your stuff and decide to try it out.  Anyway, no second store for a while.  But, someday....

Gotta go.

Christmas Eve

Well, no white Christmas for Vegas this year.  It's snowing in the mountains with beautiful low lying clouds dumping snow on them, but too warm down here for any of that.  Still nippy down here and we are expecting rain and that's always a good thing in the desert. 

Jen and I are collaborating on dinner again, though I think she delegated the lion's share of the work to herself.  I doubt I can remember the whole menu, but I know there's roast beef and roasted vegetables (she's on for these), au gratin potatoes (me), rolls, pumpkin pie (me), red velvet cake (me), boiled shrimp and dipping sauce, and more........  I've got the pie ready to go into the oven and shortly I'll peel and slice the potatoes and just leave them in cold water til the morning.  I forgot--I'm bringing a blueberry french toast casserole for breakfast too, so I'll put that together and bake the cake later today. 

I was celebrating earlier that so far I am healthy this year.  So very many Christmases I have had a cold or the flu or stomach flu or something of that sort.  Not a single symptom this year though!  Praise God!

Although I am frequently nursing (or better, rebuking) an ache or pain here or there, Joe trundles on, seemingly healthy as a horse.  However, he spent hours and hours on his feet last week, acting as an usher for the 5 performances of the Christmas program at church.  The floor is concrete and I've noticed his knee is bothering him and he's limping a bit....  Guess he's not as young as I thought he was.

Monday evening Jennifer, Jason, William and Atticus took Grandma (and Grandpa) out to dinner for Grandma's birthday.  We went to Macaroni Grill.  Dinner was delicious and everyone was in a happy mood so it was a lot of fun.  Will sat next to me and I made sure to throw an arm around him and love on him.  For so many years, he was an only child.  He's extremely loving with and very good to Atticus, but I wonder sometimes if he doesn't feel just the tiniest bit overlooked.  He's NOT overlooked and he's very much loved, but Atticus is a real attention-grabber and loves to be on someone's lap.  Sometimes that doesn't leave much room for Will.  He is SUCH a good kid and SUCH a help.  He makes me very proud to be his Grandma.  I had picked up both boys from day care that afternoon and it was so special to watch William carefully zip up and snap Atticus's jacket for him, making sure his little brother would be warm enough when we went outside. 

Atticus was in fine spirits too.  He visited each and every one of us throughout the meal, starting with Grandpa.  Joe ordered spaghetti and meatballs which is his standard fare at an Italian restaurant.  Before Joe got his napkin on his lap, Atticus had picked up Joe's fork and was digging into Joe's spaghetti.  He had some of everything on the table, I think.  It was funny to watch him work his way around the table from Joe to Jennifer to Jason to me and then to Will.  After he'd visited each of us once, he just started over again.  Hilarious!

Funny Atticus story:  Atticus has taken to carrying around a stuffed monkey.  That's his "baby".  Atticus was breast fed and was weaned about 6 months ago.  The other morning Jennifer was awakened to find that the monkey was hungry, and carefully planted next to her breast by Atticus!  As she told me this story, we both marveled that he'd figured out that he could not "feed" the monkey but that Mommy could.  Pretty good thinking for a just barely 2-year-old!  And you can't help but laugh, right?

Well, that's all I have for now.  I hope you have a blessed Christmas day.  I read this recently and I really liked it:  Santa only gives you gifts under a tree but Christ gave His life to give us the gift of life eternal, on a tree!!!  I could not face life another day were it not for my Daddy, God, my Savior, Jesus Christ, and my Comforter, Holy Spirit.  I believe that little saying will help me remember the symbolism behind the "Christ"-mas tree this year.  I am so grateful for the way my faith has changed my life.  Hugs and much love from Punkin, Max, Joe and me during this beautiful time of the year.

I'll try to end on an upnote

I had intended to write further after posting the photo of Toby, but this silly program wouldn't let me, so I'll try to do an end-around run and just make another post.  Two in one day, wow!

We went over to Jennifer's last Sunday to celebrate Atticus's second birthday.  Actually, his birthday was Tuesday, but Sunday worked out better for the party.  She baked the cake herself--in the shape of a tractor!  She did an excellent job.  The party was lovely with good friends, lots of kids running around, and good food.  Atticus enjoyed the cake and, as required, got himself covered with frosting.  Mom was about to go try to clean him up when I snapped this picture!  By the way, I apologize for ALL the photos in this post--they are straight out of the camera, no time to "fix" them, KWIM?

kids    

Anyway, we've had two days of snow in the last 5.  Sadly, just a week early.  What about a White Christmas?  Not supposed to be a white week-before-Christmas!  Monday, I went over to the day care and picked up the boys.  It was sleet mixed with snow on the way over, but, on the way back, the closer I got to the house, the more snow I saw.  By the time I got home, the roofs were dusted white and so were the trees, etc.  Beautiful.  William loved it and couldn't stop asking when we would take him back up to the mountains so he could use his snow saucer.  Then, again on Wednesday, we got it again.  This time, there was supposed to be a 30-year-record-breaking snow of 3.6 inches.  We didn't see anywhere near that much, but it was still beautiful.  Jen sent me some cute pics of folks at the law school (including herself) frolicking in the snow! 

In faith, we are thanking God for meeting our needs.  It is not something we see with our physical eyes, but, rather, with our spiritual eyes.  We know He has promised to do just that and what could be more bankable than a promise from God? 

Christmas is a non-event at our house this year.  First, the livingroom is a total mess.  We have succeeded, now, in getting two coats of primer on the 4 walls.  And, the ceiling is scraped, kind of.  We have that despicable blown stuff on the ceilings throughout the house and we hate it.  So, we finally made the decision to scrape it off.  However, Joe didn't get everything wet enough so it is not scraped evenly.  That means, he's going to have to scrape it again, in certain areas.  We've got plastic tarps and sheets over most of the furniture and no decent place to put a tree.  Secondly, the rule at our house this year is that if you're not under 21, we can't buy you a present.  So, it would look pretty darn naked and depressing under there.......  So no tree.  We did go over to Jennifer's and watch them put up their tree.  It's fun watching Jen unpack the ornaments and remind William (Atticus is too young to care!) of the memories each ornament represents, much as I used to do with her when she was young.  I don't have her to discuss those memories with, but the memories are still with me when I unpack my own ornaments......

Funny story.  Two years ago, when Punkin was about a year old, we put up our Christmas tree as usual.  We'd wanted to keep her off the couch so we'd let her have the blue recliner as "hers".  It was old and patched, and not much of a loss if she chewed it up or got mud on it.  Well, the tree was right next to that blue chair.  We have no idea why, but that ended her affair with the blue chair.  She abandoned it and couldn't even be coaxed back into it, even after the tree was gone.  Now, for whatever reason, she's back in the blue chair.  This has happened in just the last couple of days and we don't have any idea what's changed!

We also have a new addition to the family.  Well, actually, he's been with us for about three weeks now.  His name is Max and he's a full blooded German Shepherd.  He was abandoned in a foreclosed house and is very thin, but he's slowly filling out a bit.  He's very loving with us and plays with Punkin to her heart's content.  She's a much happier dog now, happier than she's been since we lost Indy.  Here's our new boy:

   

Work is going okay.  Right now, I'm getting a few extra hours.  Greg wanted Matt to put together the documentation for a criminal case against the guy who embezzled from the company.  Either Matt was too busy or it was too detailed for Matt to mess with or he was just out of his element, but the project has now fallen to me.  I don't mind it as long as Greg and Matt aren't at the office while I'm working on it.  We're crammed into one small room, two desks, one printer, just not conditions conducive to concentrated work.  I've gotten more than half way through it.  I even found a receipt for boxer shorts and tee shirts and socks that he expensed to the company!  Not good...........

We are about a month out from the last auction.  That should mean we'll be seeing some money from that soon.  Joe had 13 signings this week.  We NEED 15 to make bare minimum.  At least we came close and that's the closest we've come in a while.  The title company owes us over $2000.  That's not enough to make us rich, but it sure would help us catch up a bit.  We are expecting heavy signings the rest of the month.  One of the escrow officers who uses only Joe or one other signer says she has about 40 deals to close by the end of the month.  That will help! 

I've not been doing much scrapping.  More designing though.  I just got two new kits up in the store.  How about some previews?  The first kit is called Autumn Angel.  I love the colors and the primitive art featured in this kit.

 

And, I did Quick Pages to go with the kit as well:

 

My other kit is a Christmas kit.  I did it in honor of Atticus who is utterly in love with trains.  Trains are heavily featured in "Atty's Christmas".

I also did some QuickPages with this kit too.  Here they are:

 

Both kits are available at:  http://www.ndisb.com/store/index.php?main_page=index&manufacturers_id=95

I still have not been able to solve my communication problem with the store yet.  But, hopefully, in the next few days.  It will be wonderful to be able to upload my own stuff. 

Okay, I'm all done talkin' now!  I'll try to get back here sooner than three weeks next time!

We've lost another friend

I laid down to take a nap today and Joe went off to get the van smog checked so we can re-register it.  When he came home, we went looking for Toby who has been very sick for a couple of weeks now.  We found him, dead in the backyard.  I am so sad and Joe left here to do a signing, on the verge of tears.  Toby was the best buddy to Joe and the best buddy to all small children everywhere.  In fact, if you'd pet him, he'd be your best buddy too.  We called him the "love me-love me" dog..........

It was just under 5 years ago.  I'd bought Jennifer a suit and some of the buttons on the sleeves were messed up.  We'd headed to JoAnne's to buy replacement buttons when she noticed they were showing adoptable dogs in front of PetsMart.  There I saw this emaciated dog, head down, refusing to look up at anyone.  Finally, he looked up at a small child who walked past him and followed that child with his eyes until the child went into the store.  I knew then that this dog would be safe around Will and I felt so bad for him, all starved and sad, that I brought him home.  Joe thought I was nuts.  We had Indy, Jean and Bubbles then and as far as he was concerned, three dogs were enough for anyone!  In less than 3 weeks, I found Joe in the bedroom, with Toby up on the bed--they were having their morning devotions together and have been pretty much inseparable ever since.  Toby and Indy got along okay and when we brought home Punkin, that was okay too.  He didn't particularly like Punkin, but he tolerated her, and after Indy died in October, he kind of tried a little harder to be Punky's friend, though he was old and crotchety and just not able to keep up with her.  He's been sick the last couple of weeks, diarrhea everywhere, but Joe just kept cleaning it up and we did our best to nurse him.  Actually, the last couple of days, he seemed to be doing better.  Now this...........

We have no idea how old he was.  They told us 4-8 years old when we adopted him.  But, he had been dumped in the desert and they really had no idea, they were just guessing.  Going by his pearly white teeth, our vet guessed him to be much younger.  Originally, we thought the vet was right.  And we got him fattened up a bit to where his bones didn't stick out.  But, he's lost weight over the last year and we've thought that he was older than we'd previously hoped.

Toby was everyone's friend.  He was far more likely to love a burglar than defend us against one.  I remember a couple of winters ago taking him and Punkin up to the mountains with us.  We thought they'd play in the snow and have a good time.  Punkin wouldn't even get out of the car!  But it didn't take long until everyone on the mountainside was calling "Here, Toby!" and Toby would go trotting to them, tail a-waggin'.  He was a good friend to me if Joe wasn't home, but Joe was his pick.  If you wanted to find Joe, just go looking for Toby--they'd be together.  And, he loved the boys.  He was totally protective of both William and Atticus.  When they came to visit, he abandoned both Joe and I and laid by the chair where William likes to sit.   And he was heard to growl more than once if he thought you were messing with them.  He was ever-watchful over those boys and kept his eye fixated on you if you dared to tickle William and make him squeal or pick up Atticus.  I think William will find Grandma's house a strange place without Toby........

Our friend Toby.  He's with Jesus now........