Oh boy, I am a terrible xanga person.
When I blog, you do not have to comment.
I am terrible!
I hardly ever have time to be on the computer now, and much less in xanga land.
I am always busy here. Why? I do not know why.

What is the oldest item of clothing I own? I have so much olde clothing I cannot count it all, but I have plenty.
I have some jeans that are atleast 10 years olde, my winter boots are 17 years olde, they are ugly, I need new ones, they do not even keep my feets warm.
I have stacks of olde clothing… and most of it still fits. It just looks bad. I am hoping one day some of that stuff will come back in style, hahaha right.

Today Blizzie and I went out and looked at agenda/calendar/assignment books for her. We also walked around the mall. There was some olde guy playing the piano at Nordstroms. That is waht Blizzie wants to do. That is her dream job… to play the piano all day every where, mostly nice places and not stupid bars and restaurants. She could do this.
Blizzie goes back to the compound on the 7th. She has j-term at her college and she is taking accounting. She bought the huge book that is required for it. It is used and she received it in the mail. It weighs about 7 pounds. The book looks reallllly awful.
My father was a CPA…

Oh the wedding. We went to a very nice wedding on the 27th. It was the wedding of Christabelle’s good friend Karen. It was a very nice wedding.
Christabelle and I could plan a wedding like that.
Fort Belvoir (beautiful view in French uh-huh) is where the reception was held. That was a nice reception on that military base. We could have the reception there but it really is far from our house. Hubby is not military but… he has some privilages just being super DOD guy.
Okay so yes, I have been doing some research. Christabelle and I are taking a one and a half hour class on planning a wedding, at the end of April. Actually I found the class before she was engaged and signed up for it… knowing.

I have eaten a lot of sugar and junky stuff this Christmas holiday. A LOT!

My sister felt guilty about the Hilary Clinton Nutcracker and yesterday she went over to my parents house and Jason and Christabelle went over there too.
Joyce gave Christabelle a bag with some Starbucks coffee cups. They are really cute. I need to call Joyce and tell her the cups are really cute and I am not mad at her. She is my sister and she drives me completely NUTS.
I wonder if I drive anyone nuts….. 
I am telling you I have no use for a Hillary Clinton nut cracker. I will give it back to her and she can sell it on ebay in 4 years.

Okay. I think we will put on some perky myooozik and do some dancing around.
Tomorrow is New Years Eve?
1. What are you going to do tomorrow day? evening?
2. What is the funnnnnest or most interesting New Year’s Eve party that you have ever been to? tell me about it.
Two NYE parties stand out in my memory. One,just a few years ago, the other when hubby and I were single and living in Alexandria, Virginia doing the party scene.

Oh gosh I am sick of almond paste pasteries (mom made, I ate) and cookies and cake and snicker’s bars, and chocolate Lindt reindeeers and eggggnog.
not.
My mom’s 85th birthday is on the 8th. WOW I am going to make her a cake.

I hope everyone is happy and healthy.
Happy New Year!

Happy Day after.

Happy Caesar in the papers and sunshine.

We have been relaxing today and eating a lot of cookies.
I gave the kitties some flooids and they are okay now.

I hope everyone had a very nice Christmas.
Mine was very very interesting, happy, funny, and FUN and then I allowed my sister to make me feel very very very sad.
Now, after several cookies… I feel better.
My mom bought these german yummy things at the Old World Market in Baltimore. they consist of a small round waffely looking sugarcracker about the size of a Ritz, and then on top of that is a huge 3/4 cup tall  blob of marshmallow cream then the whole thing is covered in chocolate.
I have had a few of those. They make me feel happy. I do not feel like throwing things anymore.

I do not really think Christmas gift should be about how much money you spent on it but that you thoughtfully picked it out.
Give me a pair of socks or a package of pencils and I will be happy if you picked it out just for me.
No regifting crap. I hate that. When I recieve gifts I do not care for, they go into the Purple Heart charity box. They love “knick knacks”
My sister likes to give gifts that she recieved that she does not like. This makes her life very easy.
Yesterday she gave me a Hillary Clinton nutcracker. What the heck am I supposed to do with that?
If you would like it, it will be sitting ontop of tomorrow’s trash. You can drive over and retrieve it. The trash guys do not show up until 4:30 so take your time.

I gave my sister a Sony walkman CD player. She expressed interest in one about two and a half months ago and hubby said perhaps “Santa would bring her one…” basically implying that we would buy her one for Christmas. She knew we were giving her this, so why did she feel the need to give us a worthless “gag gift”  

reading here what I have just written makes me gag…

It is raining here.
I am typing on my new keyboard I got for Christmas. It hooks up to my lap top so I can put my lap top up higher and I do not get neck cramp.
Did you get anything cool for Christmas?
We are not a big presents family… but hubby got me some surprises. “Beautiful” lotion from Estee Lauder, and a tiny Blackberry called a Pearl.
I do not know how to use it. I have a bit of the lotion on. I am not a huge perfume person, but I like a bit in the winter months when I will not attract the biting insects that love the taste of me. I received a lot of very nice gifts form my family.

The big news. Chrystabelle is engaged. She has a ginormous diamond ring.

this is a photo from last night. They are sitting on my couch in our very messy house!
clickify to biggify and you will see the ring!
my mother made this embroidered treasure for them!

She and Jason plan to marry in 2009. We were surprised, very surprised but not shocked. She told me last month or so that it would happen before the new year, so … there you go.

My brother and his wife and one of the daughters are coming to my parents this evening  from NH to visit. They arrived today. We will not be able to see them as we are going to a wedding tomorrow.
What a silly idea to marry around Christmas. We have to put nice people clothes on tomorrow and go to a wedding. The bride is really tiny. She is tinier than Blizzie, and she is short. She is teeny tiny and short. She wears childrens shooz she is so teeesy. The groom is a super tall skinny guy with flaming red hair. This is going to be preety exciting.
Post wedding, we will go to a wingding at a local military base, as the bride’s daddy is a military guy.

I am just rambling here. It feels good.
we are watching NatGeo channel, some story about Jesus. Pretty cool.

Okay Okay… the kwestchin… I have not forgotten
here is my answer:
What period of your past life do you think or dream about most?
Think about? I think pretty much in the present. I think about how it was only a short time ago my girls were little.
Time flies people. If you have little ones, cherish and enjoy each day.
I do have some demons. My sister Joyce. I love my sister, but she is a frightening person.
Dream about? sometimes I do not even remember my dreams, but then I will go through a streak of remembering type dreams.
I frequently dream about being an orthopaedic nurse in the ortho-surgery practice I worked for.
Everything is crazy but I am working there. once I had a dream about Lab coats and I had to look in several closets to find the clean ones…. mostly they include my goofy boss. He was soooo anal. He used to (seriously) make me fire people he did not like. I had to d the firing. I hated that. Anyway. I dream about that whole nurseslaving job frequently, still.
I also have dreams where I see Dolley. I tell her I miss her. Then she is gone.

Here is another kwestchin…. you will like this one.
It is easy.
2) What is your oldest article of clothing that you still wear?
As stated before, the answering of this kwestchin is optional.

Well, I am beat! We have video-chat tomorrow morning with my parents and my brother, Johnny and sister in law.
Then we have to get out of here for the wedddddddding.
Christina is already there at the wedding place about an hour from here.
Her fiancé is going to drive over here and then go with us. He is a nice guy. Christina has a wonderful boyfriend, er fiancé.

This is all I feel like typing now. This keyboard feels different than my usual keyboard so I have made a zillion typos.
now I am exhausted from corrrecting and corrrecting and fixxxxing

I hope everyone is healthy and happy and that your family issues are tolerable and that you are feeling sooothed now after all of that.
I hope your gifts were not regifts, unless they are useful ones.

Hugggs and Happy Day 2 of Christmas!

Happy Christmas Eve

The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: 
the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other. 
~Burton Hillis

He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree. 
~Roy L. Smith

Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold,
everything is softer and more beautiful. 
~Norman Vincent Peale

Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love! 
~Hamilton Wright Mabie

I have some exciting news.
Cannot tell yet…. soon.
me

Okay right this minute I am getting ready to go to Cabin John. I have a big bag of cutie gifties for my frinz.
Then after two hours of hard skating I am going to go to Wegmans and Shoppppppp, then on to Target, then home.
Then maybe I will do a bloggie. I have loads of thoughts swirling in my head.
Lots going on here.

I hope everyone is doing well.
Are you happy?
hafta run.

This is an old picture I scanned. Caesar and Prinnie when they were kittens, 1991.
They were very very wild silly kitties, very fast and agile, like monkeys. Caesar used to jump on top of doors!
Princess was much more sensible but she did get into things….  old pictures bring back lots of nice memories
They used to make me laff and they made me mad sometimes!

Caesar and Princess are happy. Yes, I still give both of them subq fluids every other day. I was giving Caesar treatments everyday, but I do skip a day now and then. they are both eating the Prescription Hill’s k/d canned food, they like it and they are comfortable. Princess is a happy kitty, but she has a lot of stiffness or arthritis in her back hips. She has a hard time with the stairs and just getting up onto the couch. I need to make a vet appointment for them and see what we can do for Prin. She found some catnip toys I bought for Christmas… so they have had their Christmas already. Princess loves catnip toys.
Caesar is happy and just his usual naughty self, but he has slowed down. I put them in their own room upstairs at night. It has a huge mattress on the floor covered with lots of blankies (including the bloo blankie) the litter box and all the comforts they need for a quiet comfy night.
Caesar would love to sleep with me… but he is a bed hog and I need my sleep. Also, hubby and I like it fairly cold in the house at night, so the kitty room also has a very safe space heater.
 
I have been bizzy.
I baked sugar cookies yesterday after I skated in the morning. I ate many, decorated a few and stored them in the fridge. That was fun!
I have lost count of how many cookies I have eaten.

I skated twice this week. I love my friends at Cabin John rink.
I never skate at Fairfax anymore. I am not taking lessons, I am a huge goof-off, but I still skate very well.

um, what else. We had video chat today. We have chat now at 2:00 on Thursdays. There was just too many Internet problems when we had chats in the evening at 8 PM, mostly, we believe, that everyone is online, probably looking at YouTube . So, yeah, 2:00 in the middle of the day is kind of an inconvenient time but oh well. Thursdays are now the days I rush around in  the morning and do stuff in the house in the afternoonie – and have chat with my parents.

 My parents are doing great. Mom is doing just fine. Her heart is still very irregular. She continues to take the coumadin.
The irregular heartbeat makes her tire easily, so she quit her volunteer job with the Red Cross, and she has not been going to her Annapolis Choral groop, but she is singing in her church choir.
She is going to have cardioversion on January 2nd…. I just might go out there and be with them when they do that.

OH Joyce called me. Interesting conversation.
She needs to back off of Andrei about school, forgetting stuff, forgetting homework. I do not feel so comfortable about giving advice to her but gosh, she really gives him such a rough time and he is only in 4th grade. My only suggestion, was that instead of always being on his case about forgetting things, is let him make these mistakes in elementary school. Then just gently remind him that he needs to work toward being independant for middle school. That gives him a year and a half to know about that goal.
Anyway, poor Joyce. I would not want to have a ten year old now… and she is older than ME.

She said something very strange at Thanksgiving. We were just sitting around Christina’s apartment (yes, we all made a quick visit over there after dinner here. We had dessert there. What fun!!) I do not recall how this came up but she told Andrei right there that he was going to take her to all of her docotr appointments and take care of her when she gets old, then she turned to Andrei and said “right?” and he said yeah.
Wow, what pressure that poor little boy has. Sometimes it bothers me. I wish we lived closer.
I think Joyce is the reason Andrei is so quiet and confused. She directs his life, tells him what to think, talks and talks and talks.

So, what’s new?
Are you ready for Christmas?
I am planning on getting up early tomorrow and doing some shopping again. Our mall has been crowded, I shopped on Tuesday and it was pretty lively in all of the stores. Our family, we are not expensive Christmas people.
We are going to a wedding of one of Christabelle’s close girlfriends. Actually Christabelle is going to be a bridesmaid. Christabelle is bringing her boyfriend to the wedding…. so I  finally went out and found something really nice for a gift.  the wedding is on the 27th of this month.

Blizzkin is coming home  Toozday. I was hoping that hubby would get her … but he is going to a party, a work people party. So, I will get Blizzie on Toozday afternoon. She is doing amazing in college. She had to write a hymn for her music theory class. The prof is some pompous egomaniac that just got his doctorate, so he thinks he is the music theory god or something. Blizz was pretty intimidated by him, but darnit, she is pulling an A in that class. She made straight A’s in college last year and she is doing the same this year. She works too hard.

This is all I can think of.
Oh, I always end my bloggie entries with a quote.
Now… I will also end with a kwestchin.
These are things that I have been thinking about for a longgggg time.
Your answer is optional. I will not think about who answers and who does not.
Please do not feel you have to write a full paragraph for an answer.. two words is fine
just a thing I thought of, kind of a way to see how we think alike… different.
I might remember to answer each kwestchin in my next blog

So, here is the first kwestchin:
1) What period of your past life do you think or dream about most?

Be well
You are loved (and not intentionally ignored in xangaland) by me

I am going to try to remember to blog tomorrow after I get back from the rink, perhaps while the hand crafted shapie sugar cookies are baking in the oven.
man I have been busy and when I am not busy, I am sleeping…. yeah, because it is night time, heh.
It is all good. I hope for you too.
Be well and happy

Caesar:

Prinnie:

Happy Wednesday December 5!
Happy Sinterklaasdag to any of you dutchies.

Well, I was all set and ready to get out of here at 10 AM and drive to Cabin John rink but …. it is snowing here in Northern Va and the crazies are out. I made it as far as the last exit on the “greedway” (the toll is over $3 now!) and then I had to bail on 28. I should have kept going and gone on the Fairfax, but I didn’t. I drove back home becuase there were too many crashed up cars on the road. Man! rude drivers everywhere.
My car has snow tires on by the way. Hubby put them on last night at 10:00pm. He loves playing with cars.

So, I came home and I have been doing a jillion things here.
For one, rearraging the living room…. moving the ginormous book cases.

I am listening to Christmas CD’s, maybe I will mix up some cooookies.
okay. Later.
Do not forget to put out your klompen tonight, for he commeth.
He is so generous and he loves little children….. okay, well, maybe he won’t know

This is a good one Christabelle found
>>>>cards for our brave soldiers<<<<<

So, forget about that former address. I can thank my brilliant church for that one…. sheeesh

I hope everyone is having a spiff day.

<<Edit>> at the bottom
This is what I am doing right now, and I wanted to share it with you.
I am sending about 10 Christmas Cards to the brave soldiers that are recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
I wish I could send a bazzillion but I do not have that much $$$
I also got some cutie-bootie teddybear stickers I am going to put inside each card.

Here is the address:
To A Recovering American Soldier
c/o Walter Reed Army Medical Center
6900 Georgia Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20307-5001

In fact, instead of sending me a card this year, send a most colorful happy one to these people who fought to protect our country and our freedom.

Happy Week-end

If you have any other great addresses, let me know and share them on your bloggie too!

Okay: according to Nancy, we cannot send mail to WRAMC.
She is correct!
Here is what I found *click*
so, oh well. never mind.
Anyone have any addresses that do take mail.
a quick google will help you see if they are taking mail.
Well, this is too bad, huh?

Fun day today.
Hubby and I went to Annapolis to celebrate my daddy’s 84th birthday.
Now we are home and I am wiped out.
I am going to jump in bed and wake up perky.
I have a zillion things to do tomorrow. No, not a zillion, a squillion!

Mom and dad. Mom finally got a new stovetop (in the background)
Her olde one was ricketty and this one is all flat and flush with the countertop and super snazzy.
She is so happy with it… but right now, they are distracted by this big chocolate yummy thing.
*Click to biggify*

Daddy enjoying cake:

Okay, my coat. I had it on, and then hubby wanted to take a picture so I took my coat off, so now I have coat arm
*sigh* …. and i just got my hair cut and I am still suffering from short hair shock, and gosh, doesn’t my shirt collar look soo cool.
wow, I am stylin’  *snick*

I am sooo busy. Gah!