Monday night stuff

Here is 411 before her recital, I told her to smile and this is what I get!












Here she is looking all cute and stuff. I have to give her the credit, she took this and I LOVE this picture of her. She is going through another phase of 'I am soo neglected' so I thought I would share a couple shots of just her. See, she is getting more attention then the others. That counts right?!? J/K

So there is really nothing new, just kinda waiting for the countdown to Christmas. SO not in the spirit this year, I think all the work to the house and knowing we are moving so soon after is really cramping our mood. I am really grumpy today, fighting with a hormonal teen first thing in the morning tends to do that to me. I finally hit my limit on how much nastiness I was gonna take off of her. I am so not looking forward to the other three going through it.

We got the dining room in the new house painted an interesting shade of red and the living room a warm shade of sage. Right now I am fighting for drywalling the ceiling (over the existing lathe and plaster) and getting rid of the existing false ceiling. I HATE false ceilings. Really really hate them, they look cheap to me. I understand what Mike is saying though, we are running out of time; we wanna get moved the week after Christmas. Still have to rip out the upstairs bathroom vanity, toilet, shower doors and surround. Then replace all that stuff, finish painting the downstairs bathroom, sand the floors, varnish them, finish the plumbing in the kitchen and get the sink base set back up as well as a vanity for the downstairs bathroom. We moved the washer and dryer hookup out of the kitchen and onto the back porch/mudroom, that is why there is plumbing issues in the kitchen. Mike's got a friend who is a plumber that is helping him. Now if he could just befriend an electrician and a carpenter we would be set. LOL

I wrapped all the gifts I had so far today. Boy, knowing what I spent, it sure doesn't seem like much. I am hearing that from a lot of people this year, though, it is a tight one. They keep saying that the economy is just going to get worse, scary times indeed.

I started another stocking, this one is for the newest edition, Aubree. I had made one for her older brother, so her mom came and asked me to make one for her. That made me feel good. I always worry when I make something, that people are just being polite when they say they like it. There's that low self esteem again, ssiiigghhh. It irritates me cuz like when my mom said "it's so beautiful" I hear in my head her telling me "even if it is the most horrendous gift ever, you tell the person you love it so you don't hurt their feelings". Which I understand the lesson she was trying to teach, and it is a good one, BUT now I always wonder.

There are officially 17 days left till Christmas. For me, it is only 11 days till the family grab bag. That is the most fun of the season for me. Mike is one of eight kids (for the one or two of you that don't know and aren't a member of the family) and each of those 8 is married. Most of them have kids, some even have grand kids and kids-in-law. It makes for a HUGE get together. So we reserve the Saturday before Christmas to have our get together. We all bring way too much food, a grab bag gift for each adult and gifts for our kids to open if we have kids. Then, when our bellies are screaming because we ate entirely too much, we play bingo for the gifts. Then we play another round for stealing. There always is a way cool gift that everyone is envious of, and of course, a gift that no one wants. I always shoot for something in the middle. I am chicken, I don't want to give the gift that everyone goes, 'gee, you really shouldn't have. really.' When I was married to my first husband, they did something similar, and my sister in law took a package of Depends as her gift and thought it was hilarious. The recipient didn't but it wasn't me so I didn't care. Anyway, the point to this is, I am more excited for that then I am for the actual Christmas day. Mike and I rarely get each other anything and that is a little disappointing but at least that day I get to enjoy the holiday for me and not just the kids.

I had a friend leave me a message on my myspace a couple a days ago. I hadn't heard from her for quite awhile and out of the blue, she left me a message saying that she misses me and thinks I am a cool person. ( so totally paraphrasing but you get the warm fuzzy intent) That was really nice. I wish I was thoughtful enough to leave random notes of kindness for people. I actually tried it once. Michelle is always giving me compliments for random things completely outta the blue. I was sitting there thinking one day, 'I wish I could do that, just tell someone atta girl kinda thing' so I texted Michelle I thought she was a good person and that I was happy I got to be part of her world. She immediately called me and asked if I was suicidal cuz that text just didn't sound like me.