'Tis the Season to be Jolly! Fa La La La La

Hubby has breakfast every Saturday morning with a good friend.  This morning he came back with our Christmas tree!  Yay!  It smells wonderful!

I'll have to get my son to go up in the attic to bring down our decorations.  I really enjoy decorating the tree. It's a good thing too since I'm the one who does the majority of it.   We have a tradition of each of us putting our "special" ornament on first.  We take pictures...which look the same every year.  : )

We don't have a lot of tradions related to Christmas.  Each Christmas Eve my mother has a party which is always a lot of fun.  After the guests leave the whole family opens presents from each other.  We've done a grab the past several years that way everyone gets one significant gift instead of a bunch of small things.

I'm really excited because I bought my husband a kayak!  He's going to be very surprised.

My daughter is married with a child this year!  (Wow.  I'm too young to be a grandmother!!!  It's a ball though.)  She has her own tree and just loves it.  She said that she wants to have a tree like ours where most of the ornaments have some meaning behind them.  That made me smile.

She said it herself.  It's funny how when children grow up they finally understand the "why" behind so many things that you taught them or did.  So, those of you with young children, there is hope.  They really will get it one day.  : )

Tomorrow is another tradition.  My entire family gets together at a hall for a Christmas party.  We have a yankee swap, yummy food and Santa even comes with gifts for the young and the not-so-young!  I have a wonderful memory of my dad in his red sweater sitting on Santa's lap and laughing it up.  I miss him : (

Last weekend I went to my annual Christmas party with my  high school girlfriends.  What a blast!  We all consider ourselves blessed to have each other.

I'm off today to get the makings for the salad I'm bringing tomorrow and for the pie I make for Christmas day every year.  Yum!

Tonight I have a "class" of sorts.  I am a mosaic "artist", if you will, and I'm getting together with others to make something for my mother in law.  Fun!

I hope that you're all enjoying the season.  Merry Christmas!

Jackass Quote...I love it!

I just had to steal this from Brene Brown's Ordinary Courage blog.



"Don't try to win over the haters. You're not the jackass whisperer."
-- Scott Stratten, author of Unmarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging.

Refudiate? Really?

On Nov. 21st  Karen Maezen Miller at Cheerio Road (http://www.karenmaezenmiller.com/) said,
"A couple of weeks ago the sucky New Oxford American Dictionary named Sarah Palin’s twitter flub refudiate their word of the year." 

Huh?  Are you kidding?  It's not a new word people, it's a mispronounced word!

Karen went on to say that "The dictionary folks are just trying to sell more dictionaries, even as they undermine the relevance of dictionaries."  That's what it's all about these days, it seems.  Money, money, money!  Never mind if it makes sense, is ethical or even beneficial, if it makes "us" money let's do it!

She then went on to make list of the words that she wouldn't mind never hearing again.  This is part of her list:

connectivity  crowdsourcing   earmark   eyeroll   fail   grizzly   hashtag   hater   influencer   kanye   kardashian   launch  manifesto   mashup   meh   optimization   palin   platform  rogue   silo  smackdown  socialist   sucky  summit   tea   trending   transparency  viral  zenlike

I can't think of any words other than most of the “words” in the, I guess you would say,  “hip hop” world.

the schniz
booty
booty call
“word”
gangsta
the hood
my crib
s’up?

and so on!

I understand that new words come along every once in a while and are added to the dictionary (like floppy disk, cd rom, etc.)  These words are new words with their own meaning and areneeded, useful and relevant to our changing world.  Therefore it is necessary to add them to the dictionary.

Words that are morphed from other words, mispronounced or made up really have no place in an official dictionary.

Do you agree or disagree?  Let me know!

It's All About Taking in the Flag

This morning I woke with a profound sense of gratitude.

It began last night.  I was home taking a break from helping my daughter with her newborn, my first grandchild.  I've basically been living there for five weeks now and I am exhausted.  I got my husband to take duty this weekend, (dd has PPD and therefore needs help when her husband's at work).

I'm the type of person who needs her alone time, daily.  So, to be home alone last night was delectable.  When I let the dogs out front I saw that our flag was still out past sunset.  My father was a very proud Marine and taught me two important things about the American flag.  Don't ever let it touch the ground and always take it in before sundown.  I have no problem with the first one, but  often times forget to take it in before it gets dark.  Last night being one of those nights.

It was a beautiful night.  The sky was dark and full of stars.  There was a stillness in the air.  Sato and Leo, my dogs, were enjoying the crisp, night air and the crunch of the fallen leaves.  I decided to slow down and be present in the moment.  It may sound a little odd, but I really enjoyed taking the flag in last night.  It wasn't just a chore this time. 

No, last night it held great meaning for me.  My heart swelled as I thought of my father and the love he had for our country and it's flag.  The sacrifices he made for our freedom and those he made for our family.  I felt both full and empty at the same time.  I miss my dad. 

The act of taking in the flag also reminded me of how blessed I am.  I live in a great country.  I own my own home and am blessed with a beautiful family and two dogs.  I watched a line of cars pass as they made their way home from the city.  I thought of how blessed and priviledged I was to be able be home performing the minor task of taking in the flag.

Semper Fi  Dad. Thank you and all of the men and women who have served or are currently serving to keep this country free.  I am blessed beyond measure.

I opened myself up to someone...trusted them...and lo and behold I've had my heart crushed.

I guess you can't live a full life without giving of yourself, but man does it hurt sometimes. 

So many times in my life I have let myself be me and in turn been hurt.  Maybe that's why I've been depressed for 20 years.  I stopped being myself and have been trying to be who I think I'm "supposed" to be.

Already Gone

Remember all the things, we wanted
Now all our memories, They're haunted
We were always meant to say good-bye
Even with our fist held high, yeah
Never would have worked out right, yeah
We were never meant for do or die

I didn't want us to burn out
I didn't come here to hurt you now
I can't stop

I want you to know that it doesn't matter
Where we take this road
Someone's gotta go
And I want you to know
You couldn't have loved me better
theres no moving on
So I'm already gone

Looking at you makes it harder
But I know that you'll find another
That doesn't always make you wanna cry
Started with a perfect kiss
Then we could feel the poison set in
Perfect couldn't keep this love alive

You know that I love you so
I love you enough to let you go

I want you to know that it doesn't matter
Where we take this road
Someone's gotta go
And I want you to know
You couldn't have loved me better
theres no moving on
So I'm already gone
I'm already gone
I'm already gone
You can't make it feel right
When you know that it's wrong
I'm already gone
Already gone
There's no moving on
So I'm already gone

Already gone
Already gone
Already gone, Ooooo,
Oh
Already gone
Already gone
Already gone, Yeah

Remember all the things, we wanted
Now all our memories, They're haunted
We were always meant to say good-bye

I want you to know that it doesn't matter
Where we take this road
Someone's gotta go
And I want you to know
You couldn't have loved me better
theres no moving on
So I'm already gone

I'm already gone
I'm already gone
You can't make it feel right
When you know that it's wrong
I'm already gone
Already gone
There's no moving on
So I'm already gone...

What Have I Done?

I've just spent at least an hour fiddling with the look of my blog.  I'm not so sure I like it, but I'm tired of working on it.  I'm done for tonight!