What To Do With My Front Entry

Once again this year I have really really enjoyed having the small pre-lit Christmas tree in my front entry.  The soft glow is very comforting from both outdoors and in.  What’s even better for the early to bed person I am is the dusk-to-dawn timer attached to the tree.  I plug the tree into the timer, plug the timer into the outlet and voila…

…a soft welcoming glow when the hours are dark.

There’s even the added bonus of being able to see the key hole if for some reason I’m going in the front door in the dark (like say when the garage door decides not to open!).

Unfortunately after another week the tree is going to have to go back into the closet until next November and my front entry will once again be dark.  But I’ve decided that a dark front entry in 2010 is completely unacceptable. 

There is an overhead light in the entry but it’s too harsh, and besides, it’s a bug magnet, only releasing said bugs so they fly into my house when I open the front door.  I also like the dusk to dawn timer as I don’t have to tax my memory banks with remembering to turn the light on and off.

Late this afternoon I went outside to photograph a hummingbird in the top of my tree…

…and when I turned back to go into the house I was nearly flattened by the solution to my dilemma!

I will move this table and chairs to the other side of the front door along the wall where the tree was, and I’ll put a nice little tabletop light on it!  I can take the dusk-to-dawn timer and wind it around a table leg so that it gets the best light possible.

Now I have just a few days to find the perfect lamp, one that is welcoming, smallish and a perfect match to the person who lives inside. 

Wish me luck…I’m gonna need it!!!

The New Carpeting Has Been Installed!

One more thing to check off my vacation to-do list!  Woo-hoo!!!

See the new color??  It’s a hot cocoa or light mocha color…

It’s darker than the old carpet but still very neutral in tone…

I really think I’m going to like this darker carpet, especially when it comes to stains.

Now, see the stripes?  Aren’t they uniform and even?

The problem is I didn’t order stripes!  I’ve never looked good in stripes, though I do wear them at times, so why would I think my bedroom floor would look good in them???  And if I were to order stripes, why would I order the brown and tan version of a green and white football field????

The carpet installer told me that the stripes would disappear as the carpet relaxed, they were simply marks left in the pile from being rolled up.  If for some reason the stripes are still evident in two months then I can call Empire Today and they will replace the carpet at no charge.

In my head I know this “relaxing” issue is true as I had the same issues three years ago when I had the front bedroom carpet replaced and all was fine within a couple weeks.  However, once the installers left I was on my hands and knees examining the carpet only to sigh heavily when I discovered the color in the thin and wide stripes matched perfectly and the more I scratched the pile the less evident the stripes became.

The only problem is I have zero patience.  When I was being created and genes were being added to the blob of cells that would become me, the patience gene line was too long so I bolted back to the creativity line and doubled up on that gene so that I would never be bored.  It worked — lock me in a room for days with nothing more than a pad, a pencil sharpener and some pencils and I’ll be a very busy happy camper.  Ask me to exercise patience for anything that exists outside of the realm of creativity and you’ll see me throw a temper tantrum in embarrassingly short order.

I’ve thought about ways to speed up the carpet relaxing — doing aerobics in my bedroom, doing laps in shuffle-my-feet mode, rerouting the Los Angeles marathon to my bedroom – but none of the ideas seem practical.  Instead I will wear blinders whenever I’m in my bedroom in the hopes that one day in the not too distant future, I will be pleasantly surprised by a stripe-less carpet.

So, the carpet is installed…for now.

Float Decorating – Tournament of Roses Parade

Yesterday was a great experience and left  me with so many memories, so much more understanding of the float decorating process and a sore and exhausted body.

Before I go into details here are some general thoughts on the whole process:

The day waffled between organized and unorganized chaos, at times seeeming like the co-ordinators have been doing this since they were born and at other times seeming like this was their first year.

For example, when we arrived we signed in on a clipboard, there was no cross-checking against volunteer registrations.  The result?  There were more volunteers than they had jobs!  The four of us who drove up together along with a couple dozen other people were put to work in the flower cutting tent until they could find room for us elsewhere.  We stayed there all morning cutting flowers.

There really didn’t seem to be any “policing” of volunteers.  After lunch my co-decorators and I wandered around taking pictures, asking questions of decorators and just checking out the whole process.  After half an hour or so we just went up to staff members and asked if they needed help and happily jumped in wherever we were needed.  I definitely don’t think the process should be run with an iron fist, but I really felt that more monitoring was in order so that the work could get done.

In many cases the spirit of volunteerism was only half-hearted, most notably amongst the high-school and college kids.  They all wanted to be ON the floats decorating and were none too happy to be cutting flowers, stripping roses or anything else that was not a hands-on-a-float task. 

Volunteers came from all over the country and many have been decorating for years.  We chatted with adults from Illinois and Utah and with kids from a U.S. high school not far from Tijuana.  Many of the volunteers working the same shift as my co-decorators and I were sporting t-shirts and sweatshirts from years gone by.  Every volunteer is required to wear a Petal Pushers shirt but it does not have to be the current year’s shirt (each year the color and design are different and the paraded year is included).  Here’s a picture of me in front of the Banner Float wearing this year’s t-shirt (I’m bent over a bit so you can’t see the 2010 below the flowers)…

And here I am with my friends/co-decorators…

Now, on to the details…

This building was home for the day…

…and cutting purple Status was the morning job.  You need to cut off just the colored petals of every flower on every stem, no leaves, stems or stamens allowed.  These tiny petals might end up being put through a blender to be made even smaller before being added to the float.  After nearly two hours, this was my pile of purple (at the end of the box, to the right of co-decorator Lisa’s hands)…

After a lunch of an individual pepperoni pizza from Pizza Hut and a can of soda (a cost per volunteer of a mere $3.50) my co-decorators and I ventured upstairs to the viewing area to see all that we could see.  As volunteers sporting our volunteer T or sweatshirts, this viewing was free.  For the non-volunteering public the cost was between $5-$7.

Though the floats in this picture may look like they’ve already been decorated, they haven’t.  Once the structure is complete the entire float is painted prior to the organic matter being glued in place.  On several floats, beans, flower petals, pine cone pieces, leaves and bark were being attached, but the flowers will not go on until just hours before the parade so that they stay fresh and colorful.

There are 9 floats in the building I was working in, including the Banner Float which is front and center in the above image.  I know there’s at least one more building, that one in Irwindale, but I’m not sure how many more float buildings there are or how many floast are being decorated.  Though my fingers never touched a float, if you see bright purple on any of the following floats it may be courtesy of my cutting.  I did ask all my snippings to jump up and down and shout “Judy cut me” when they’re on camera, but I’m not sure they’re going to co-operate, so here’s the float list just in case:  Banner Float, Farmers Insurance - Salute to The Bands, Ronald McDonald House Charities - Space Odyssey, City of Glendale – America’s Pride, City of Alhambra – On Track in 2010, Odd Fellows and Rebekah’s – Family Nest, City of Los Angeles – Celebrating the Arts in Los Angeles, Lions Club – A Decade of Service and Luthern Hour - The Ten Commandments.

Did I mention that there are LOTS of flowers that need to be prepared???  From what I could gather, additional flowers are delivered throughout the week so though it looks like there are already a lot of them, there will be more coming.  Here are just a couple images for you…

Those are carnations in the buckets and I-don’t-knows in the boxes…

Since this IS the Tournament of Roses Parade, I had to show a picture of the wrapped roses as well as some of the ones that have already been sheered, cut, water-tubed, trayed and placed on shelves in anticipation of their float home (each tray is labeled with the name of the float on which that roses will be used).

The float decorating is really all about preparation, and said preparation is so very much more than just ordering supplies and lining up volunteers.  There is an incredible amount of laborious and painstaking floral preparation between the time the flowers arrive and they can be put onto the floats.

The flowers used for cutting are all dried flowers, though some of the purple Status in our box did have some mold on it.  All flower varieties and colors must be kept separate so the true color is visible when on the floats.  Inside the cutting tent it was all about Status – bright purple, bright pink, light purple and light pink.  Some of the bright purple was also being cut in the main warehouse but at most tables, the flowers being cut were dried mums.  Though the Status was trying because of its size, the Mums were just as trying because of how airborne the petals would get as they were cut.

No matter how tiny the cut petals are, when they’re being used for fine detail in small areas the petals are run through blenders so that they nearly become powderized!

There are only two other live floral preparations that I’m aware of, in addition to the rose preparations indicated above.  I know that there are lots more things to be done, but they swirled around me while I was busy doing other things so I don’t know what they are.

The Mums came in buckets of water, each bucket holding 20 bunches.  Each bunch was in a plastic bag cone thing like you get when you buy flowers at the store.  All those bags had to be carefully removed.  A bucket of flowers was placed on a table, volunteers removed all the bunches, stood them up one at a time and gently pushed down the plastic, grabbed the flower stems and pulled them out of the plastic then carefully placed the bunch back into the bucket of water while tossing the plastic in a barrel. 

There were buckets and buckets and buckets of Mums…

And how did these buckets full of flowers and water get onto the tables then back onto the floors?  Volunteers of course, including yours truly (though I didn’t do most of them as I was busy elsewhere)!

The second live floral preparation that I worked on was fluffing the carnations.  The red carnations will be covering a majority of the bugler on the Farmers Insurance Salute to The Bands float so they needed to be fluffed out to increase their size. 

The fluffing doesn’t hurt the flowers, it just encourages them to open up.  While fluffing I had this weird sensation of getting a bit too personal with the carnations as I was reaching deep into the bucket to fluff those atop shorter stems as well as dipping my fingertips into all flower heads in order to force them open.

I also ran into this crazy “Supply and Demand” situation.  I was demanding that the flowers open up more but space for the nearly doubled-in-size flowers was in very short supply.  There were 250 flowers per bucket which was fine when they were tiny but not so fine once they were enlarged!

As most of you know, all the coverings on the floats MUST be natural.  As I wandered around I tried to make mental notes of what was being used (besides truckloads of flowers).  There were beans and leaves of all colors, sizes and shapes, bark, pine cone nubs (the individual little pieces that stick out – I guess they’re actually the seeds?), pampass-like grass (furry whitish stuff that is the plume on the bugler) and straw.  There were lots of other things but unfortunately there wasn’t always someone around to ask what the items were, but I’m sure the parade announcers will fill in the blanks.

The biggest surprise to me was in the area where the roses were being prepped.  I was fully expecting to be blown away by the overpowering smell of roses, but there wasn’t even a whiff!  It could be  because there was enough fresh air moving around, but I still expected SOME aroma…

By the time I got home last night I was completely exhausted and my muscles were already starting to complain, but honestly, my experience was wonderful and I plan to make this an annual event! 

I hope I’ve given you a bit of insight into the world of Tournament of Roses Parade float preparations!  If you’re one of my Facebook friends, stop by and view the 46 pix in the Float Preparation photo album where you’ll also get to see the 9 floats that were in “my” building!  For my non-Facebook Friend readers, I didn’t include the float pix here on purpose.  Now that you know what goes on behind the scenes there still needs to be some mystery, otherwise its like seeing all your Christmas presents before they’re wrapped!!! 

Where Am I Today?

I’m right here (Phoenix Decoration Barn)…!!

And what am I doing???

I am decorating part of a Tournament of Roses Parade Float!!!!  WOO-HOO!!!

Two previous attempts have met with incredible disappointment.  The first try never materialized thanks to a dental emergency and the second try was last year…the year of my incredible 3-day odyssey trying to fly home from a Christmas visit to my sister’s house in Virginia.

But this year?  I’m healthy, home and excited!!  It’s like Christmas morning all over again!!     

Check back tomorrow for as many pictures and stories as I’m able to relate, along with the specific float and area on said float that was in my hands for a few hours.  On New Year’s Day, when watching the parade with friends and family and “my” float appears on your television, you can tell your co-viewers that you know someone who slaved over it for hours… 

My Most Interesting Gift

Every year I receive great gifts, most of them very telling about how well others know me.  Then there’s always that gift that has adjectives such as “interesting”, “intriguing” and “?????” flying through my head.

This year’s gift came in the box from my friend with these two bottles…

 

 Now for the unveiling…this year’s most intersting arrival is…

Being a person who looks at the front of packages first, I’m sure you can understand my confusion, head scratching and exhaling the word “huh”.  Not, “huh?” like I was confused, though I was, but “huh” like a statement of fact.

Then I turned the jar around and read the rest of the information on the label…

…smiled and screeched “KEWL”!!!!   I immediately thought this would be awesome to use in the post celebration of the skydive my friend and I are taking next month.  Then I started giggling like a kid at this thought…how interesting will the 5th flower openings be after we’ve each had 4 flowers???  Think about it…1 flower per glass of champagne…and there are appprox. 11 flowers.   I think I need 2 bottles of the bubbly 

Now for an interesting twist…

As I was emptying the packing peanuts into my packing-material-storage-garbage-bag I came across the notecard from my friend.  Seems I opened the whole box upside down, finding the card at the bottom instead of at the top (there was no “This End Up” on the box I swear) and the flowers ARE for our post-skydive celebration. 

WOW — that day is going to be so awesome!  Not only will I twice be kept airborne in a tunnel by huge forces of air and dive out of an airplane by choice (weather permitting), but I will also eat flowers!!!

Vacation Has Started

Christmas is over and now my vacation has started…and turned into a massive two pronged to-do list!  There are “me” and “work” prongs, and fortunately, or unfortunately, the “me” prong is longer but the “work” prong is filled with quicker projects.

I won’t go into details about the “work” prong since the chores won’t make much sense to anyone but me, but the “me” prong?  Well folks, strap in and prepare to get tired!

The quickies — a haircut and buying blue and green paint and 2 sections of wooden picket fence at Lowe’s (interesting supply list, huh?).

The long stuff —

I absolutely need to use the blue and green paint on a wall and prime and paint the picket fences as this is setting the stage for a January project with friends (more on this project in a future post). 

Another absolute is pulling up a section of my bedroom carpet & padding where my late kitty Scotch had litterbox misses, pulling up the exposed tack strips and washing the concrete floor several times with bleach.  I also need to remove the small things from my bedroom and the clothes from my closet.  This MUST be done before Tuesday morning as that’s when the guys from Empire Today are coming to replace my bedroom and closet carpeting.  They’re moving the big furniture AND putting it back afterwards…sometimes I like being a girl 

A truly fun absolute is decorating a Rose Bowl Parade Float!!!  I and four of my friends are scheduled to do this on Monday.  We’ll be leaving here around 6:30AM or so and then spending the day in a climate controlled facility (think “cold”) gluing, painting or doing whatever we’re told to do.  Don’t worry…I’m bringing my Elph camera and taking pictures as well as making lots of mental notes so I can give you all a behind the scenes look at the decorating process.  That post most likely won’t show up until Tuesday morning…

High on my not-absolute-but-need-to-do list is heading out to San Juan Capistrano to purchase some native plants for my backyard.  Of course, I have to figure out exactly which ones I want, and once I do, I may also have to make another stop at Lowe’s for some planting material, but I soooo want to add plants to my backyard that this will also be a fun chore.  That is until the next morning when my shoulders ache from using the pick ax to break up the clay soil.  I’ve slotted this little jaunt into Wednesday morning.

Speaking of yardwork, there’s some square footage in the front yard that could use a trimming and some plants that could use some pruning.  First I have to upend my large yardwaste barrel as it has some water in it right now.  Why?  This barrel lives outside and the lid is always open so that any yardwaste doesn’t “cook” in the Southern California heat.  This is great except that I never remember to close the lid on those rare occassions where we get liquid sunshine.

I do need to haul out my sewing machine for 9 reasons – 4 of them for work and 5 for me.  The work projects are sewing backs on 4 latch hook stocking.  The me projects?  Two valances and 3 barstool covers.

Both valances are for the front bedroom and use this striped fabric…

This is a perfect match with the aqua walls, white furniture and red chair, and I’ve had this fabric longer than I care to admit (let’s just say it’s been more than a year).  So, why have I procrastinated so much?  The valance going over the window is an awning but I can’t find a pattern so I have to create it myself.  The valance over the closet doors is just a regular horizontal tube that fits over the curtain rod, but I can’t make that until the awning is done, its simplicity being a reward for completing the complicated one.

The other 3 sewing projects are cushions for the barstools…

I’ve had the fabric and the foam for this project longer than for the front bedroom valance project and its been shuffled aside for the same reason as the awning valance — I can’t find a pattern so I have to create it.  Naturally I’m not making this easy as I want fitted cushions.  Not only will the foam be covered, but there will also be a flap of sorts that hangs below the covered cushion and that has elastic around the edges so that the cushion will be held in place without ties. 

How long as this been in the works?  See this valance over my sliding glass doors?

It’s made in pieces, and I sewed enough pieces to cover the sliders as well as 3 other windows…and the valances have been up for 2 years.     The fabric I’m using on the cushions is the leftover from the valances.

Another project will have me be hanging with relatives both in this world and the next as I finish up the latest issue of the family newsletter and get it off to my cousin/co-editor for proofing.  This is a very fun and enjoyable project, but I do have a tendancy to get carried away in the creative process, always fearing that I don’t have the right mix of information, words and pictures (the curse of the creative folks — hyper critical of their own work).

There’s a straggler Christmas gift that I have to finish.  Fortunately it’s for a very good friend who is also a crafter, so she completely understands how fingers and the calendar can get out of sync.  I did send her a tin of cookies and a tease of her main gift, so she did have something to open Christmas morning 

I’m starting a new workout routine so I’m going to have to spend quite a bit of time this week learning it so that I can actually do it with some familiarity once I have to start spending part of my day at the office again.

If all of these “me” prongs coupled with the not-listed “work” prongs isn’t enough, when I emptied the dishwasher this morning I discovered that a project I had opted to push out until after the trade show chaos of the next month canNOT be pushed out.

This overflowing drawer full of lids means that the Chez Judy frozen meals in both freezers is dangerously low.  OK, not really dangerously low, there’s still a 2-3 week supply, but a lot of said meals are turkey soup, so its variety that is missing.

Tomorrow I’m going to put my 21 pound turkey in the fridge so that it can slow thaw and be cooked on Thursday.  A good chunk of Friday will be spent restocking Chez Judy with containers of turkey chili, turkey pot pie, turkey stew, turkey stir fry, turkey stuffed peppers and 3 large containers of turkey stock (soup will be made in March).  Of course I don’t have all the supplies I need for this venture so I need to add a comprehensive food shopping trip to the schedule.

I think I’m going to need to go back to work to recover…and that’s not good since I’ll need to be wearing rollerskates at the office for the next few weeks in order to have even the slightest chance of keeping up with everything I need to do!!!

I’m off to take a shower, have breakfast, then head out to the store to get this vacation off to a productive start.  Here’s hoping that productivity lasts longer than the couple hours it’ll take me to do the shopping I need to do this morning! 

Christmas Day

Today was a mix of greatness and frustration.

The greatness was that I hung in my jammies all day and puttered on fun stuff the entire time.  After opening my gifts I plopped in the recliner with a book from my sister, Knit The Season by Kate Jacobs - the third in the series of The Friday Night Knitting Club books.  Not only did I read the book cover to cover by 9:30AM and enjoy it as much as the first two books, but this book also had an “open ending” so I fully expect there will be a fourth book!

My friend Lois called during my reading and we chatted for 20 minutes or so.  After I finished the book I spoke with my sister for a 1/2 hour before calling my brother’s house and speaking with him, his family and my Dad.

Next up was breakfast…er…brunch.  I made a delicious and filling meal of scrambled eggs with chopped onion and diced ham.  This creation used two more Christmas gifts — a chunk of the 5 pound boneless ham I received from the boss and a test drive of one of the new cutting knives my brother and sister-in-law gave me (the set is from the German company Wusthof).

The entire afternoon was spent putzing on various crafts while watching movies on LMN (Lifetime Movie Network).  I switched to the local news at 4:30 or so while I worked on dinner.  I put a Hormel lemon garlic pork loin in the oven, cooked then mashed some potatoes and steamed fresh asparagus.  After dividing up the leftovers and starting the dishwasher I sat at the breakfast bar and played computer games for an hour, talked with my friend Laura for a bit then played some more computer games.

Right now I’m sitting in my bed as I type, ”Medium” is on the TV, not for watching as much as for noise to drown out the next door neighbors as they continue their Christmas celebration in their backyard.

That was the great part, here’s the frustrating part.

I had an invitation to spend time today with a friend – an invitation that I politely declined.  The friend pushed a little before flashing a momentary pity glance my way, one that said how sorry she was that I was spending the day alone.  That thought was repeated multiple times during the movies I watched today.  No one should be alone on Christmas Day; everyone should be coupled up or with friends or family; those who spend the day alone are to be pitied.

GGgggggggggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr……..

I spent my Christmas Day EXACTLY how I wanted to spend it!!!  I gave myself a huge gift of enjoying my own company, relaxing in total jammie comfort and doing the things that I enjoy but no longer seem to have enough time to do.  And the day FLEW by — I can’t believe that it’s time for bed already!

What frustrates me is why people cannot understand that not everyone wants to spend their Christmas in the company of others.  Please don’t misunderstand, I enjoy spending holidays with family and friends, but when I choose to spend them by myself, there’s no reason for anyone to feel badly for me.  It was my choice, and I loved every minute of it.

I know there are people who spend the holidays alone that do not want to be alone, so in no way am I speaking for anyone but myself when I say that people enjoy spending the holidays alone.  And I don’t enjoy spending every holiday alone — I had an awesome time with family and friends during an extended Thanskgiving weekend, and I enjoyed my solitary Christmas just as much.

Now if only the rest of the world would understand…

Thanks for letting me vent.  I hope your Christmas was FANTASTIC whether you enjoyed it by yourself or in the company of others.

A Chrismouse Meme

The Twelve days of Christmas have been celebrated since medieval times ~ traditionally beginning the day after Christmas Day (now known as Boxing Day) and ending on the Twelfth Night.  And since the festive season is upon us ~ I thought it might be fun to do a Christmas meme!

I found this one over at TerriTerriQuiteContrary’s blog.

The Rules:

1. Copy the delightful Chrismouse picture to your post
2. Copy these rules and the explanation of the meme (above).
3. Link the person who tagged you.
4. List 12 things: either about a Christmas present or memories of Christmas past (or a mixture of both).
5. Tag as many or as few people as you like.

If you are reading this, then you are hereby tagged!

1.  The Christmas Star.  Throughout my entire childhood (and part of my adulthood), the Flanagans would hang a large star in one of the pine trees at the edge of the forest that bordered their property, and every night it was turned on for all to see.  I never saw the star up close, but I would say that it was at least 4-5 feet across and was hung 20-25 feet up the tree.  I loved looking out the window or standing in the backyard and seeing the shining star, and when the glow was reflected off the snow?  There was nothing better.  I remember the first year that the star wasn’t in the tree – there was a bit of sadness in my heart that year.  I also remember the year it reappeared – I literally screeched in delight!  I also sent the Flanagans a Christmas card and let them know how much that star meant to me.

2.  Candle Glow.  There was nothing more soothing to the child I was than the glow of the candles in my bedroom windows.  It was soft and welcoming, and though they illuminated the room, they added so much magic and mystery to the season.  I remember when the nights were really cold, the temperature difference between the outside of the glass and the lightbulb heated inside would keep Jack Frost busy for hours.

3.  Christmas Cookies.  To this day, Christmas is NOT Christmas unless our family’s traditional Christmas Cookies tease my tastebuds.  I won’t go into great detail here, but you can read all about these cookies here and here and oh yeah, here.

4.  Christmas Tree.  The artificial tree we had for most of my childhood is one that even Charlie Brown would hesitate using.  But for me, that tree WAS Christmas!  In fact, when I moved into my first home I asked my parents if I could set the tree up in my living room.  Even though you could see through the tree and the needles were paper thin pieces of green plastic, I used that tree every year until the twigs on the branches started snapping off from being used so much.  I miss that tree.

5.  Christmas Tree Lights.  I’m surprised that the nail on my right middle finger did not suffer permanent dents from the dozens and dozens of times that I snapped it against those big old colored lightbulbs that were the standard indoor and outdoor bulbs “back in the day”.

6.   My Christmas Stocking.  To this day I hang MY stocking, the same stocking that I’ve had my entire life, complete with some missing glitter and a cuff with a hot cocoa stain.  My mother couldn’t understand why I preferred that stocking to one that I could make for myself, either by cross stitching or quilting.  The answer has always been simple.  That red and white (and brown) stocking is MY stocking – it always has been and always will be. 

7.  Christmas Eve.  In many respects, the night before the big day was better than the big day itself.  There wasn’t the pressure associated with gifts – would one get everything one wanted, would the gifts one gave be received in the way the giver anticipated – nope, Christmas Eve was always about family.  And all that family came to my parents house for a night of singing, laughter, music, game playing, talking, munching and just plain enjoying each other’s company.  We cousins would hang on the main level while the adults hung out in the basement family room, complete with a Franklin stove and a bar.  The piano lived in that room so when it was time for carols, everyone would cram into the family room and either my Grandmother or I would play while EVERYONE sang along.  I miss those Christmas Eves.

8.  Popcorn Balls and Candy Canes.  Each year our tree decorations included popcorn balls and candy canes.  And every Christmas Eve, as all the cousins left our house, each could remove either a popcorn ball or a candy cane and take it home with them.  Neither were spectacular or personal gifts, but never did a cousin leave our house without one of the two in their possession.

9.  Christmas morning.  While my siblings and I were little, our parents recorded every Christmas morning, the reels of film now safely tucked on a shelf in a back bedroom.  For us little kids, this tradition was an incredibly long and tortuous delay to the morning’s adventure for nothing in the living room, not a present or a stocking, could even be touched until we were given the OK by our parents.  Mom & Dad would EVENTUALLY get out of bed, take turns in the bathroom then Mom would get the coffee going while Dad set up the movie camera and lights.

It took more years than I would care to admit before we kids finally figured out that if we all piled into the bedroom next to our parents bedroom, we could quietly make as much noise as possible, successfully waking our parents earlier than they preferred.  While they were busy doing “their” thing we kids would move to the bedroom closest to the living room and stand in the doorway until we were given the okay to run into the living room to see what Santa left behind.

10.  High School Band.  A select number of band members would rehearse Christmas Carols for a few weeks then over the course of two weeks before Christmas, said members would caravan to various local nursing homes after school to entertain the residents.  We would play in the activity room, the music often piped throughout the entire nursing home, and were rewarded with smiling faces, lilting voices and tapping feet. 

11.  Our traditional Christmas Day dinner.  Every year Christmas Dinner was served in the early afternoon, and the meal was always the same.  Lunchmeat (ham, turkey and salami), cheese, green & black olives, pickles, celery stix, radishes, homemade potato salad, spiced apple rings, rye bread, sliced onions and gahuktas (you may know it as steak tartar).  And for dessert?  Christmas cookies of course!

12.  Stocking Stuffers.  Every year the toe of our stockings held an orange followed closely by a bag of gold foil wrapped coins, tic tacs, a lifesaver book and for the girls, one or two L’eggs.  You ladies do remember L’eggs when they came in the white egg don’t you?  Other fillers could range from books to hand-held puzzles to underwear to chocolate Santas to mittens. 

Holiday Travel

Last year both my Dad and I ventured to my sister’s house in Virginia for Christmas.  Dad had a short hop from MA and I had a cross-country jaunt from CA.

Unfortunately for my Dad (and brother who was Dad’s airport taxi) a major snowstorm prevented Dad from flying out on Sunday.  Even worse was that the flight was on-time when its status was checked before tackling the snow covered roads to get to the airport, but was cancelled by the time the journey was complete.  Back home for the night then a fresh jaunt the next morning and a nearly day-long wait at the MA airport for my Dad and a similar wait in the VA airport for my sister.  But alas, all ended well.

Me?  I hopped on the plane Monday night, took off, landed early at  my layover airport then hopped the next flight and landed on time in VA.  My biggest problem was figuring out how to quiet my stomach at 4AM when not a single restaurant was open during the first hour of my layover.

Fast forward to Friday.  Dad flew home without a glitch (phew)! 

Now move on to Saturday and my flights.  The flight out of VA was delayed but I would still be okay with my connection.  My sister and her family dropped me off at the airport then pointed their van north towards New York.  Within half an hour I was on the phone with her as my flight was cancelled due to mechanical problems and I couldn’t get on a flight until Sunday morning.  The van came back to the airport, deposited my sister and me at her house then headed north, one occupant less than originally planned.  My sister and I enjoyed some bonus girl time Saturday – hanging out, a bit of shopping and treating ourselves to dinner at a local restaurant. 

Unfortunately, an on-line check of my flights Sunday morning showed more problems so my sister dropped me at the airport earlier than necessary.  I ended up with a flight on the sister airline of my original booking and sighed with relief when I went to the gate. 

When the boarding process never started I called my sister and she checked the flight status.  More mechanical issues had the flight delayed at least an hour.  I quickly jumped in-line at the gate and rebooked myself onto another flight that was leaving in a couple hours.  I sat at that gate and smirked when the pilot from my original flight sat opposite me (guess which plane never left?).

The smile soured after we all boarded the plane and backed away from the gate.  The # 1 engine wouldn’t fire.  The pilot shut down the plane and restarted it, just like a computer reboot he said, but unfortunately the engine wouldn’t turn over.  I called my sister and told her not to get too comfy with the idea that I was actually leaving.

And I didn’t. 

Another round of bonus girl time, but it wasn’t quite as merry as the previous day.  I was getting cranky – I wanted to go home.  And all the planes that were flying over her house seemed to be laughing at me, at least I thought so.

Back to the airport again on Monday and I was feeling like I was in that Groundhog Day movie.  You know the one I’m talking about, where you keep living the same day over and over…?  The feeling evaporated when I got to the security checkpoint and found I was selected for additional screening.  As crappy as that was I took that as a positive sign – that hadn’t happened before. 

The curse was broken!

I sailed through the security check, boarded the plane and smiled a HUGE smile when it was “wheel’s up”!!!  We landed in Minneapolis a few minutes early, I found my connection gate, sighed a big sigh when the flight was on-time then called my sister to let her know everything was OK.

Soooooo naive…

The flight to San Diego was full, not an empty seat to be found and not a square inch of overhead bin space available for anything.  The feeling of dread flooded through me after we all were seated and two mechanics boarded the plane.  When a third made his appearance and headed for the back of the plane I nearly cried. 

The pilot announced that we had a toilet back-up and we should be ready to go in 20 minutes or so.  He came back after 40 minutes and indicated that we had to change planes.  There was another plane bound for L.A. that we could board and the L.A. passengers would use our plane since they weren’t leaving for a couple hours. 

We finally left 1-1/2 hours after our originally scheduled flight time, once all the passengers, luggage and flight crew marched the length of a concourse and boarded this second plane.  More than 2 days after I was supposed to arrive in San Diego I finally did — and I honestly had to use every ounce of willpower to NOT kiss the ground!

So why did I tell you all about last year’s travel odyssey?  Because after what happened I decided that traveling at Christmas is NOT worth the hassles.  After watching the news and being inundated with all the coverage of this past weekend’s blizzard in VA and the upcoming mid-west blizzard, I know without a doubt my staying put is the best gift I could ever give myself.

If, and I do mean IF, the airlines have finally gotten all of last weekend’s stranded passengers where they need to be and their flights are now back to normal, that accomplishment will be VERY short-lived.  The mid-west is going to get a blizzard, preceeded by an icy mess, so travel is going to once again require infantesable amounts of patience.  Even flights here on the west coast were cancelled due to the east coast storm since planes weren’t coming from or able to land at the closed airports.  Can you even imagine the travel disaster that’s going to happen when the mid-west airports, think Chicago, are shut down with this new storm???

Oohhh…so many frustrated travelers, so  many headaches, so many worries, so  many hassles.  If you’re traveling – travel safe no matter the mode and pack your patience, headache remedies and warm winter woolies!

As for me, I’m staying put and enjoying my friends, my kitty, puttering around my home and yes, even work-working (in my jammies) throughout the week.

They Come By The Dozens…

to clutter my snail mail box.  They think their job is two-fold, but I know that their job is THREE-fold!

What are they?

They are all those re-fi, credit card and other loan offers, along with anything else that could possibly contain any personal information that the media has informed everyone is an identity thief’s equivalent of a 7-course meal in the most expensive of restaurants.  In other words, the info that sends their salivary glands into overdrive.

When I receive these offers in the mail I do the same thing every time.  First, I open the offers, quickly scan them, throw away the pieces that are safe to throw away (like the envelopes) and put the balance through my paper shredder.  Second, I silently pat myself on the back for being in a position where I don’t have to jump all over these offers in order to keep myself financially afloat.

Though the companies that mail these offers are well aware of these two jobs, most hoping that people take them up on their offers, they may or may not be aware of the third job these offers must undertake, at least at my house.

I shred the papers, empty the shredder basket into a garbage bag as needed and then at this time of the year, I use said shredded paper as packing material!

I’m fairly confident that if someone is receiving one of these packages from me this holiday season…

…one that, let’s say, contains homemade Christmas cookies, they’re not going to complain too much about all the shredded packing that is not only keeping their cookies safe, but is also allowing me to be “green”!

I will admit that I do enjoy the thoughts of rolling eyes, uttering of choice words and fishing expeditions as the recipients work to pull the goodies out of the box.  This packing material isn’t any more well-behaved here than at the recipients house so what’s good for the giver is good for the getter!   ;-)

Seriously folks, go green when protecting your privacy!  Save the shreds of personal info then use it as packing material when shipping!  It doesn’t weigh anything and it works, it really works!