happy shopping

I was at the store at 4am. I walked the entire mall. I'm almost done with the Christmas shopping. I am at work now. I will leave early because today's the second round of the playoffs. I am tired. I am blessed but I also must be crazy!
Somebody, save me from myown self!

happy thanksgiving

Just a note to say that I know I am blessed and I am thankful.

Hope you all had a lovely thanksgiving!
Gobble Gobble!!

The day after...

Maybe you noticed but I was in quite a mood yesterday. It was evident here at the office too. When someone handed me the ginormous stapler that we have asking if I could fix it it had some staples stuck) I proceeded to forcefully bang on the arm (3 times) only causing 3 more staples to jam while I was on the phone. They very quietly took it away from me, got a pair of pliers and removed all the jammed staples themselves. I even told my boss that I didn't want to answer the phone anymore because the info I was giving was apparently all wrong. He had taken a call from someone I had already spoken to 3 times and gave the exact opposite info that I was giving. He came back later to try to tell me that I hadn't done anything wrong, I just hadn't been told where to get the info. But I wasn't having any of that I told him I didn't care and I was working on another client. So, when 5 o'clock finally rolled around and I called out a Have a Happy Thanksgiving! Since I didn't call out the name of the par-time file clerk that we have, the bosses thought it was directed at them. One ran to the other's office and said she's coming tomorrow right?! while the other was yelling out Aren't you coming tomorrow? But I was already out the door and didn't hear a thing. They looked at each other, asked each other what day it was and agreed that they had really pushed me over the edge.

Naturally, I found this out this morning. When one boss told me "I thought you were off today. " "and why would you think that?" "Well, you wished us a Happy Thanksgiving and we thought either she thinks it's Wed or she's taking the day off." "No, silly, that was for -temp-, not you. We won't see her today and so I wished her a Happy Thanksgiving. " "We thought the day had gone so bad that you gave up on us." and I laughed a good laugh from my toes laugh because I couldn't have planned that if I tried. I get all bothered, tell them I don't care and then take off letting them think I'm taking off! LOVE IT! We all enjoyed that one.

Enough!

Today is the kind of day that if I could quit my job I would! My planets must not be aligned or whatever. I have a horrible headache and want to run away! Well, not run, that would be exerting too much energy. How about everyone just leave me alone for a while and I don't HAVE to do anything or talk to anyone or go anywhere.
...and this too shall pass...
Gimme Patience!

To shop Black Friday or not to Shop Black Friday

For years I have been getting up at the crack of dawn after studying the sales ads fro days and strategically planning my attack on the stores to get great deals on Black Friday. My planning always served me well. I saved loads of money and got great stuff. The past few years I have been going with 17. We have a blast. We split up in the store to go get great deals and meet in line. We take turn standing in the checkout line while the other one cruises the store looking for additional deals. We save lots of time calling each other on the cell phone (yes, we are in the same store) and many times 17 has brought sale items to others in line so they don't loose their spot. Much fun us had. A typical Black Friday sees us up at 3:30. We drive to the first store and I stand in line while 17 keeps sleeping in the car. I call him to wake him up and join me @20 minutes before the store opens (5am) and we are typically one of the first 100 people in the store, assuring we will get what we want and the available door buster sales.

This year, I don't know if its me or the stores but the sales don't seem to be so hot. Most of the ads can already be found online. As I get email notices every time one is added I have perusing them for a few days now. The things I want to get just aren't that fantabulously on sale this year. What a bummer! I don't know what I am going to do. On top of that I will be on my own this year since 17 has the next playoff game that evening, he will not be crack of dawn bargain shopping with mom. I guess I will keep looking, I have a few more days to decide. I can't imagine NOT going. I usually am 95% done Xmas shopping after that weekend. Actually I would say I am about 40% done now. I'll let you know what I do.

Do you shop Black Friday?

What a weekend.

As you know this was a pretty busy weekend. It was Football Friday and we went to the school early, helped with the team meal. There was a lot of leftovers because they were nervous and didn't each much. After that we went to the field early to tailgate and hangout with the other parents. The game was so much fun! We won and next week play in the Orange Bowl! After the game we celebrated at a local Tavern with other parents and the coaches. Everyone was so wired, no one could go home to sleep. We didn't get to bed until 2am.
I was up at 6:30 to go to the HarvestFest. Even though I forgot my Christmas gift list, I remembered some and was able to do some shopping. We were home by 11:30 and then I continued Christmas shopping at Pewter & Pearls. At that point I was exhausted by we had to keep going because there is no rest for the weary. So, after taking a short break fro lunch and the read the paper's coverage of our high school game. I pulled out my Thanksgiving recipes and made a grocery list. We do our grocery shopping in to parts. One at the local warehouse store and the other at the regular grocery store. Hubby went to the warehouse store list in hand while I started the laundry and took a shower to see if I could get a second wind going. I took my shower extra quick so that I could have a few minutes to lay down before he got back. It worked! I was able to take a 30 minute nap before he got home. After the boys unloaded we went to Publix for the remainder of the groceries. After that it was fix dinner and keep washing and organize the gifts that I bought, removing prices and setting aside for wrapping hopefully next weekend. While hubby took 15 to a party I made 2 bottles of crema de vie and then we just laid around and watched Cane and other Tivod shows.
Sunday we were up by 8, waffles for breakfast and keep the laundry going. I got a flan in the oven and then sat and cut out all the articles I need to copy for the scrapbook. I made the dough for 3 pies and refrigerated them. Went to Office Depot and made all my color copies. After lunch I was ready to start sorting through digital pictures for the scrapbook. I picked out the pictures for the cheerleader's page and set that to print 30 copies. I laid out 2 other pages and made lunches for Monday. 17 isn't going to start using the gym until after football season is over so I have a few weeks to get him signed up for that. I made Sunday Chicken for dinner and put away all my clothes and got to the computer to answer emails and blog. I'm exhausted. I got a lot done even though I didn't make it to the scrap store. I still have to layout the Senior page for the yearbook but at least hubby and I talked about it and decided on a size and that we want on it.
I'm off to bed now. Good night!

They did it!

They won the first round of the playoffs! It was soooooo exciting! Next week round two against the defending State Champs. They are ranked top in the country. We are playing them in the Orange Bowl. We have nothing to loose. The pressure is ALL on them!
Toooo Exciting!

All about 17

So, tonight is 17s big game. It's the first round of the playoffs. This is very exciting. His team has already made school history by going 11-0, they are the second team in school history to go undefeated, they expect to win, they really do. We are up against a tough team that has only had 2 losses and one of those losses was to last year's State Champions and on of the country's top ranked teams.

17 is an outside linebacker and usually lines up on the weak side, if you know what that means good for you. This week, as he did last week, he will also have to punt because the regular punter sprained his ankle VERY badly. So, we are hoping and praying for lots of first downs. Last week he actually punted decently, better than at the beginning of the season before they found a punter but he doesn't like it at all.

I am leaving work early, I help out at the team meal and then we go tailgate. It's lots of fun! So tonight it's all about 17 and football. I truly hope they win and make it to the next round. That would be a nice bday present for him.

Since this post is all about 17, I should update the college front. He scored abominably on the SAT and is taking it for a 3rd time in December. His ACT wasn't that hot either. He's a horrible test taker. We have been having this problem since 1st grade. He gets soooo worked up he can't even think. He's taken a prep class, a review class and now he asked for a private tutor to just go over a few things before he takes it again. Hopefully that will give him the confidence to sit and take the test better. He has the rest of the resume to get into any school of his choice, the GPA, the class rank, the extracurricular but the scores- argh! So far he has applied to 10 schools and in the past 2 days coaches from 2 schools have called to talk to him. He talked to a coach from Washington Univ. in St. Louis and one called from Colorado College and left him a message. Loyola has also called him a couple of times but they keep playing phone tag. Football is not a priority for him in college. If he's able to play, that's fine but he's not working that angle as hard as some of his friends are. Whatever he wants is fine with me.

So many things...

So much is going on this weekend that I'm already starting to get ancy about planning it. I know what I have/want to do but I don't know when I'm going to get it all done.

Friday:
17s football playoff game
Talk to photographer about the collages he owes me
Sat:
go to Harvest Fest
go to Pewter & Pearls
go to scrap store for more supplies
Sun.
Figure out with family how to celebrate 17s bday which is Monday!
Go to LA Fitness and get him a membership for his bday- that's what he asked for

Somewhere in there:
Plan cooking for Thanksgiving
Do groceries for Thanksgiving
Make photo collage for 2 football games
download pictures from camera and order prints as needed
call ALf and ck on GM
get baby picture of 17 for football scrapbook
find Senior pictures for scrapbook and yearbook
layout and complete forms for yearbook page for 17 (deadline is the end of the month)
Review Xmas list vs. what I bought on Sat to get ready for Black Friday shopping
Make Crema de vie for Thanksgiving so that it has time to properly blend
Make copies of newspaper articles for football scrapping
Layout at least 3 pages for football scrapping on Tuesday

And that's just what I can think of off the top of my head. I am sure there's more like I didn't put laundry and silly things like that. Gimme Patience, puleeze!

Oh no!

My son who will 18 on the 19th of this month got his Selective Service Registration. I held the envelope in my hand and sent up a prayer that he never have to put his life on the line. Is that bad? Don't get me wrong. I am proud of all the men and women who serve and have served. I'm proud to be in this country. But my baby having to go out and do all that- OMG! I pray, honestly that he never be called to do so. If that makes me unpatriotic and bad well, so be it.

Preparate Villa!

Today I went to a funeral mass at an Orthodox Church for a good friend of the family. She has known hubby and his family for at least 40 years and I've known her for +20!

She was one of the most vibrant, loving, positive, full of life people I have ever met. She lot her 17 month battle with cancer last Thursday and was valiant through it all. She decided to stop treatments because she wanted to spend the end of her life with people not in a hospital and not sick in bed. Whenever you told her a story or a problem she would invariably in the advice tell you, "Preparate chica". She was a wise woman and many turned to her for advice. Less than a month ago she was still out and about for small periods of time. She turned 75 last month and her family hired Mariachis and as tired and sickly as she felt that day still came down and sang Las Mañanitas and toasted everyone there. She was one special lady. I have been sending her cards, some funny some inspirational throughout her illness. The last package I sent her was a child's princess Halloween card and a package of lollipops. Her daughter told me today that she had one every day because it made her laugh. It will be tough to think that she's not here with us anymore. She loved so many things, singing, music, dancing, Whiskey, Cuba, her family, her friends. We love you, Villa! Preparate! Adios.

Scrap weekend

I have been scrapbooking ALL weekend. I have only stopped to go to the store for supplies, take my family to the game and dinner with my girlfriends on Saturday night while the boys were at the game. My dinning room is not a dinning room right now. It's the scrap room. Why so much scrapping you ask? Because we are making 30 identical books. One for each graduating senior on the football team. I have a group of 6 women who come over every Tuesday and we make the pages that I design. This week another group is coming on Wednesday. So, I am making enough pages for us to work on 2 nights. It's crunch time because the season is almost over and then we will have a banquet where they are given their scrapbooks of the season and well obviously they must be done by then. So, meanwhile we scrap- lots! It's coming out wonderful!

Very late

I'm late posting because: 1) I forgot and my girlfriend reminded me at dinner and 2) after dinner before I could get home to post I had to pick up the rest of my family. They were at the Miami Hurricanes last football game in the Orange Bowl. I bought them the tickets at the beginning of the season.
Better blogging tomorrow. I promise.

WaWaWhat am I supposed to write???

I'm freaking out over here. I was invited to be a contributor on another blog. What the heck am I supposed to write on another blog when I don't even have anything pithy to say on mine? I ask you? I mean really now. Gimme Patience! What was she thinking?

MEMEtime!

I stole this from The Mind Wobbles...if you want to participate, please let me know in my Comments area.
Name a CD you own that none of your friends do - I'll pick....Josh Tesh's Christmas CD.
Name a book you own that none of your friends do - "Pudd'nhead Wilson" by Mark Twain Hopefully, Hilda doesn't have that. This one made me think.
Name a movie you own on DVD/VHS/whatever that none of your friends do - Again Hilda has tons of movies and most of my friends have all the Disney ones that I have. I'll go with "Dirty Dancing"
Name a tourist attraction in the US that you have visited that none of your friends have - Hmmm... a big group of my friends are big travelers so I have to pick something kinda remote...how about the Civil War reenactment in Harper's Ferry, West Virginia.

Fine. Yeah. I blogged today. Now it's your turn!

Take 2 asprin...

I woke up at 1:13am with a horrible headache. I didn't want to open my eyes or move or breathe too hard. I struggled out of bed and with my eyes closed and my hand sliding along the wall guided myself to the kitchen to take some meds guided myself back and tried to get comfy and go back to sleep. There was a lot of whimpering along the way. I woke up again at 5:42 and repeated this procedure. At 6:15 hubby was shaking my feet yelling "c'mon c'mon get up!" I shhhed him and told him to turn off the lights. He grumbled but acquiesced. I slowly got ready for work. Put my sunglasses on while still in the house and took my meds with me as I couldn't take them again until after 9. At the office I sat in the dark with my sunglasses on drinking 2 cups of coffee before cranking up the computer. The pain was finally subsiding. I have now eaten lunch, the sunglasses are off, the lights are still not on but I am working with only a dull constant pressure from my right temple through to the back of my head and top of my neck. Not that this is interesting at all but it NABLo yadda yadda month and I had to post something. Can't wait for this day to be over....

Year of Magical Thinking

WOW! When I finished reading it I simply took a deep breath and though "yeah, wow".


She writes so beautifully you just glide along her story. Such a heart wrenching thing to write about. She so put herself out there for all of us to read about. Illness, death, loss, grief, bearing it all. I haven't lost a spouse as she has nor a child which I don't even want to imagine. But grief, I know. There were so many parts that I totally understood and related to. How after someone close to you passes you live on relating everything to that last one. Last month today we were...., last year today we were... How one minute you are in the present and the next minute you are flashing back to you last days/hours and then back further to some arbitrary memory. You go back and forth with her and yet are never lost in time but feel suspended in her reality as she deals with her grief and then you remember how it happened to you like that too.


You get up and do what you are supposed to do and then for a snippet forget the person isn't here anymore because any day you would have done this on your own and then you get to the part where you would have called/seen/spoken to that person and realize now what? They aren't here. There's no one to tell, no one to show, no one to care. Eventually, you find that others do care but not the same way because well, they are someone else aren't they. Special in their own right but not the same. Then you flash back and forth and keep going again and again and again.

Do you ever stop grieving? I don't know. My mother's been gone forever and I still have moments when I realize that I can't pick up the phone and just tell her something. I still cry when my kids do something that she would have loved to see and she's missed it. I still talk about her and refer to things that she would have liked or comments that she would have made. Yet, at the same time I realize that she's not here and when I look up to the heavens and talk to "whoever is driving my bus" I direct my thoughts to her as if she were riding shotgun and has some say as to which direction the bus will go.

But back to the book. I already passed it on to someone else and would recommend it for reading. It was comforting to read that Didion went thru some of the same things that I have and we still keep on keepin' on.

What time is it?

I hate the changing of time from Standard to Daylight Savings and back to Standard. Alright, my momma taught me not to hate that's a strong word. So, I strongly dislike those few days (or weeks) that it takes to get adjusted to the new time. I vehemently begrudge having to get up earlier and be hungrier before noon for lunch etc. etc. etc.


Apparently, almost the whole world does this at some point of the year or another. I did not know this. I thought the US just thought they were better then everyone else and could decide for the world what time it was. I was wrong. Not a first. For enquiring minds, here's a link that explains it: http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/g.html

After perusing the link, I see that I either have to move to Hawaii, Arizona or a country on the equator. It seems those are the industrialized places that don't change their time. Hawaii; I am told is beautiful but uber expensive. Equatorial country; I think I'm close enough thank you. I miss the 4 seasons as it is here in Miami where I at least have a day of cold. Arizona; has strong possibilities. I have heard that Scottsdale is very nice. Of course, that would mean leaving hubby behind because I don't think he will live anywhere that's not here. ever! Some days that wouldn't hold me back. Today, I guess I'll stick the time change out here in Miami but at least I've done the research and know that there are viable options out there. Meanwhile, is it lunch yet?! ARGHHH, gimme patience.

Bloggin' n' learnin'

Did you know, you probably did because y'all are such proficient bloggers and such technical people but I didn't know, that when you write a draft and then post it later after putting on your finishing touches that it publishes with the original date and time stamp of the first draft?

That happened to me yesterday. See it was after 11pm when I realized that I hadn't posted for the day and well NaBloPoMo just started how could I die out this early! So, dash to the computer and pick up a draft that I had started the day before (Friday). I added the last paragraph, did the spell check and quickly published the post. I made it! It's not midnight. Whew! I went to bed, after a few more hours of scrapping and watching Tivo, with no worries.

This morning my girlfriend calls me and tell me to change the time. I know it's daylight savings but that's not what she was talking about. She was talking about the time stamp on my post. She knows that it was late when I published it (how? I didn't ask. She just knows important things like that) but the time stamp is wrong. We conclude that it was because I picked up a draft and didn't do the post from scratch. Who knew? Not me. I do now. So, I fixed it now. Don't think I am cheating, it the time that I actually went in a posted on Saturday. Gimme patience!

Good News Saturday!

A woman was sitting at a bar enjoying an after-work cocktail with her girlfriends when an exceptionally tall, handsome, extremely sexy, middle-aged man entered. He was so striking that the woman could not take her eyes off him.

The young-at-heart man noticed her overly attentive stare and walked directly toward her. (As men will.) Before she could offer her apologies for staring so rudely, he leaned over and whispered to her, "I'll do anything, absolutely anything, that you want me to do, no matter how kinky, for $20.00...on one condition." Flabbergasted, the woman asked what the condition was. The man replied, "You have to tell me what you want me to do in just three words."

The woman considered his proposition for a moment, and then slowly removed a $20 bill from her purse, which she pressed into the man's hand along with her address. She looked deeply into his eyes, and slowly and meaningfully said:

"Clean my house."

(YOU GO, GIRL!)

Money well spent!!!!

Well, I didn't find mine in a bar and it's costing me more than 20 bucks but I hired the cleaning lady that came by today! Yeah for me! She's from Nicaragua and was referred by a friend. She cleans her house on Thursdays. I am so excited. She is going to come EVERY Monday! We'll see how long we can afford this but at least weekly for a few months until we can get a handle on things around here then I may change it to every other week. But she's coming MONDAY!!! YEAH!!!YIPPEE!!!