So this Christmas was perfect for us, as usual. No biggies, and the torment of having a pair of socks wrapped up with every single one of Addison’s presents went over well. He smiled anyway.

The girls are excited that they’re going bunk bed shopping, and not once did they say “Is this all?”, not even at Little Nanny’s.

Our big present to everyone else was family photos, which they all liked. “Even if they were taken at Sears,” said one unnamed recipient.

Ron’s parent’s stopped in on Christmas day, to drop off and pick up presents. They only live across the road, they could’ve taken off their coats… I don’t know what they thought of their Left Behind books, and I don’t care. We’re making a point, however subtle.

Where was I?

Oh… Ron did make it home on Thursday night, and I did have an actual pleasant visit with my mother, who gave me a very comfy brown chenille sweater, among other things, like the Muppet Christmas Special. Which I asked for. Honest.

Friday morning Ron & I high-tailed it to Freddy town early to finish shopping for the kids. I can’t believe we were done at Wal-mart by 10:30am. Divide and conquer works every time. We even managed to catch Wendy home and left the kids there while we went in town. Ron said he’d give them free snowplowing for the rest of the year in exchange. Ha ha ha.

We spent Friday afternoon wrapping presents in separate rooms, with much secretiveness and giggles. It’s always fine. That night we went to a candlelight service at church, and I sang God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen with Ron coming in on the chorus. I wasn’t sure if my voice would hold out, but it did.

My cold got worse instead of better and I spent Sunday lounging around in my housecoat and napping. I am also going mad looking for kleenex because I am sure I bought a mega pack of 12 at Wal-Mart for only $7.50. I can’t find the receipt to be sure, though.

The lowest point today was when I was on the phone discussing an upcoming baby shower for a favorite niece, with niece’s friend’s mother.

“Well, since she’s out of the hospital now…” she said.

Uhhh… no I didn’t know she was even in the hospital….

I mean, it wasn’t too bad or anything, excess amniotic fluid I think, but it was nice of someone to call and let us know what was going on. Considering most of our neighbours are family, ya gotta love that!

I am cold. I mean freaking cold. It is 15 below zero. In Celsius, too. Don’t ask me what it is in Fahrenheit, I don’t know, I learned metric for cryin’ out loud.

Times like these I wish I had no convictions about anything, for I would be burning up those non-renewable fossil fuels to a toasty 20 degrees in here.

Anyway, the mental fog due to Ron’s absence has cleared. Well, somewhat. Seems he may be home as late as Thursday. Christmas Eve Eve. Other people are more freaked out about this than I am. Oh well, as long as he’s home in time. He didn’t sound too impressed on the phone either.

I do have shopping to finish for the girls, but I may just get a sitter. That’s a little hard when you’re cheap like me and want a free one. Too bad Wendy went and got a job, she’d do it, I know she would.

Anyway, we finally managed to really clean the house. At least the kitchen and living room. I think the girls were mad that I threw out a lot of their creations, but who really needs all of them? I did save a couple of the best for posterity, but I figure if they wanted to keep these things special, they’d keep them off the floor. And we really didn’t need to keep a Barbie box from last birthday.

And amazingly enough, we found enough pencils to outfit a classroom. Told them they were here somewhere. There’s complaints every day lately that they can’t do their work, because they can’t find a pencil.

And my neat freak grandmother came up Sunday, giving me a reason to really want the house clean. I also told her how I let the kids decorate the living room. They even put garland around the TV. She just looked at me with raised eyebrows. She takes a week to put ornaments on the tree, and nobody is allowed to touch it.

The kids showed her their rooms. I thought she was going to have a heart attack. She threatened to come up and spend a week to clean them. Rock on Grandma! You can sleep in my bed, and Ron and I will camp out in the yard! Woo hoo!

I also rearranged the kitchen on Saturday, switching fridges. It’s bigger, cleaner, and a nice white, which I’m sure I’ll complain about because it shows the dirt more, but at least it’s not yellow like the old one. I almost called up a big strong man to move my old stove out of the room, but after the clutter was gone, I pushed it in a corner and you hardly notice its there. I also piled presents on it so it’s very Christmassy.

I joked to Sarah that we could have just opened up the patio door and pushed it out to the ground below (because there’s no actual deck out there…) and she thought that was pretty funny. But the car was parked in the way, so we figured it was a bad idea.

I have also been sick. I think. Some of it may be more asthma, or maybe my cold. It’s hard to tell. All I know is ever since I got another hated inhaler, after trying to go without, I’ve needed it almost every day.

Well, well. Seems I am back.

Someone has been using the computer (hogging is the term) mostly at night and it seriously interfered with this. Since said someone was writing a computer program which shall pay the bills, I’m not complaining too too loudly.

Now that Ron is away for a week or more, installing said program on a system in Maine, I should be updating regularly, which can only be a good thing if anyone is actually reading. So if you do, just email me and say hi, ‘kay?

I figure also, since I wrote to say Hi to some journallers I read, I better get crackin’.

Most things are the same as we last left them, and on top of this, I am not very ready for Christmas. I tried to do some shopping, and did get some accomplished, but it was hard to buy things for the girls when I had them with me.

You know what annoys me about shopping at this time? Things you know stores have at all other times of the year, seem to be in short supply now! Or, they have tons, but not in the size you were looking for. Case in point, I wanted plain old jammies for my grandfather. The kind that Beaver’s Dad wore (if they ever showed him in jammies). Anyway, it seemed pretty likely that Sears would have them, and whatta ya know, they did.

As long as I wanted Extra Large with Extra Long legs & sleeves. Now I am a short person, and I got these genetic traits from both sides of my family, so NO I did not want extra anything! And yes, Sears had stacks of these. I eventually found 3 in the whole pile that were the right size. Then I got to pick from grey, grey, or navy.

Sarah, of course, asked for one of everything in pretty much every store we went into. By the end, even Meaghan was tired of it, and started to lecture her older sister on not asking for everything she can see.

We did however, make plans as to how to annoy Addison for Christmas. He really hates getting socks as a present, so we will wrap up a pair of socks in every single present we give to him. Hee hee, we are soooo mean.

Makes me wonder what they have in store for me?