I might have been hungry before bed last night, but surprisingly I wasn't hungry when I woke up this morning. I managed to evade the after lunch munchies by taking a nap. I hadn't intended to do that -- I am working on scraping all the paint off our kitchen cabinets so we can repaint them -- but suddenly I couldn't keep my eyes open. So nap it was.


Today's food journal:

bowl of bran flakes with milk
14 oz. glass of water
20 oz. bottle of water
bran muffin
large mug of English Breakfast tea w/2 teaspoons of sugar
peanut butter and jelly sandwich on multigrain bread - I tried to go light on the pb&j, covering the bread with a very thin layer, rather than slathering it on
14 oz. glass of sweet tea
4 oz. lowfat cottage cheese
1/2 can of pineapple chunks in juice
14 oz. glass of water
14 oz. glass of water
mashed potatoes (they are another weakness, and I ate more than I should have, but not as much as I normally would have eaten)
peas
roast beef
14 oz. glass of sweet tea
large mug of decaf English Breakfast tea w/2 teaspoons of sugar

My mom called this morning to tell me that she had been at the calling hours before the funeral of one of her cousins yesterday. Sandy was 52, and by all accounts was the picture of health. She ate right, liked to exercise (running, yoga, etc), didn't smoke. And yet a few days after her birthday in May, she began treatment for what they thought was pneumonia, only to find a tumor in her lung. Further investigation revealed the cancer to be everywhere. She had no idea. Her husband remarked that two months ago she was jogging down Michigan Ave. in Chicago, and now she was gone. Kind of makes you stop and think, and wonder if it's all worth it. But I'm not going to use that as an excuse to eat everything in sight, so here is my food journal for today:

1 bowl of bran flakes with milk
14 oz. glass of water
20 oz. bottle of water
1 bran muffin
large mug of English Breakfast tea w/2 teaspoons of sugar
1 small pancake w/syrup
3 sausage links (tried to stop at two, but I love sausage)
14 oz. glass of sweet tea
4 oz lowfat cottage cheese
1/2 can of pineapple chunks in juice
brown rice
green beans
pork chops marinated in honey, mustard and ginger ale
14 oz. glass of sweet tea
large mug of decaf English Breakfast tea w/2 teaspoons of sugar

Good grief I'm hungry tonight. My tea is brewing right now, so hopefully that will help. Maybe in a few days I will no longer feel like eating everything in sight.

Ok, so I've got a pretty good exercise routine going. I spend 30 minutes on the cross trainer, "running" just under 3 miles. My thought is that when Alison is back in school, I'll try and get that up to a whole 3 miles. Right now, I'm trying to keep to a time limit. After the cross trainer, I stretch for a few minutes and then spend about 30 minutes +/- a few minutes using the weight machines. They have them separated into a row of upper body machines and a row of lower body machine. I alternate, doing upper body one day and lower body the next, so that over the course of two weeks, I've done each 5 times (except for those weeks when we're not home for part of a week).

So my exercise program is in place and now I need to stop eating like a truck driver.

I've read that people who keep a food journal are more successful at their weight loss program. That is makes them really stop and think about whether or not they really want to eat what they're about to eat because it's going to be there for a family member or weightloss partner to see. Well, I got to thinking, what better way to keep myself accountable than to put my "food journal" on my blog where anyone that happens by can see it. So here it goes.

1 bowl of bran flakes with milk
14 oz. glass of water
20 oz. bottle of water
1 bran muffin
1 large mug of English Breakfast tea w/two teaspoons of sugar
1 bowl of Campbell's Bean with Bacon soup
14 oz. glass of sweet tea
14 oz. glass of water
4 oz. lowfat cottage cheese
1/2 can of pineapple chunks in juice
1 pancake w/syrup
3 sausage links
14 oz. glass of sweet tea
1 large mug decaf English Breakfast tea w/ two teaspoons of sugar

When it comes to my tea, I'm a southern girl at heart I love sweet tea, and I'm not going to give it up. I'm compromising, though, and using half sugar and half Splenda. Now, there have been a few times that I really wanted to go get something else to eat. After I put Alison to bed I really wanted to get the rest of the ice cream that was in the freezer, but I didn't. I guess maybe they're right about the food journal thing. Only time will tell, I guess.

Tonight I had to explain hydrocephalus to my 5 year old. She had a bug earlier this week that involved one episode of vomiting, a headache and sleeping on and off for the rest of the day. Now, those three things, especially all together like that, can be symptoms of a shunt malfunction. I wasn't too worried about it because Kevin had had the same thing the week before, and I'd had it the week before that, and she was fine and back to school the next day. But since then, Alison will just randomly complain of a headache. Most likely because it gets her attention, even though I try very hard not to make a big deal out of it. She did it tonight while we were talking before bed and I knew she didn't really have one. That led to a conversation about why it's very, very, very important not to ever lie about having a headache. And that's what led to the explanation of hydrocephalus.

See, Alison thinks that all kids have a shunt. Actually, she thought that all people have a shunt. She was pretty surprised when I told her I don't have one. That's when she readjusted her thinking to it just being something that all kids have. From there she figured that since I'm a grown-up and I don't have a shunt it must mean that once she gets grown up, they'll take her shunt out. And it just doesn't work that way.

She seemed to get the idea that there's fluid in the brain that is supposed to go from the inside to the outside but that in her brain the fluid gets stuck in the inside. She got the idea that when the fluid gets stuck like that it makes her brain blow up like a balloon, but then took it a step further to thinking that if her brain blew up too big it would pop. She seemed to understand when I told her that her brain wouldn't pop because her head (skull) was really hard and wouldn't let her brain get big enough to pop, but it that her brain could get really hurt if the fluid kept filling up the inside of her brain. She already knows that there is a bump behind her ear and a tube that runs down the side of her head, down her neck, across her collarbone, down her chest and into her stomach area. I'm hoping that she now understands that there is a tube that goes from the inside of her brain to the bump (valve) and lets the extra fluid out of her head so that her brain doesn't blow up and get hurt. I'm hoping that she now understands that headaches are one way we know if the shunt stops working and her brain is starting to blow up like a balloon.

We've talked before about how they had to cut open her head to put the shunt in. We talked about it again tonight, how if her shunt stopped working she would have to have surgery to fix it. She told me she did not want to have surgery because she then she wouldn't be able to talk. See, because the only surgery that she remembers having was the tendon release in her thumb and because she had to wear a cast on her arm after that, she thought that she would have to have a cast all over her head if she had to have surgery to have her shunt fixed. I think I managed to convince her that that wouldn't happen.

Things were so much easier when she was little. They just were what they were. Do/don't do this or that because I said so. Now there have to be involved explanations. And it's really hard trying to explain complex medical conditions in a way that a 5 year old can understand them.

I've been using the cardio equipment in the Wellness Center at our Community Center for almost a year. I've decided that really like using the cross trainers. I get a good aerobic workout and it's easier on my knees than running on the treadmill. I've been attempting to lose the ten or so pounds that I gained last year, particularly during the time I took a break from regular workouts (bad idea on my part, but I was burnt out). I've been losing and gaining the same three pounds for the last 6 weeks, so I thought perhaps I needed to mix things up a bit and decided to get my (re)orientation on the weight machines. I used them many years ago, but they've since re-done the gym and have all new machines...some of them work the same way, but others are completely new.

I've been trying to do my orientation since Friday. When it was time to start, I found that the person who was supposed to be taking me around had called in sick and the person covering for him/her really wasn't prepared to do an orientation. I offered to reschedule to make it easier for her. So then Monday was supposed to be the day. Except the Monday times were supposed to have been blacked out because they had some job shadowers coming in that day. So I rescheduled again. Yesterday was finally the day. I was shown how to set up each of the machines and did a few reps on each to make sure I was doing the exercises correctly. Since I am there pretty much every day, my trainer suggested alternating between upper body and lower body each day so I can still get in a good cardio workout every day. It sounds like a good plan.

I'm in biiiiggg trouble. My arms and shoulders were sore this morning after just those 3 or 4 reps on each machine that I did yesterday. I did a full upper body workout this morning. I figure that by tomorrow or Friday, I won't be able to move my arms!! Tomorrow I'm going to do a lower body workout. By Saturday, there probably won't be a part of my body that doesn't scream in pain when I move. Just have to keep reminding myself that it will be worth it in the end.

Well, not much is happening. Yesterday I took Alison to meet some friends for lunch and play at Chuck E. Cheese. All in all, it was not bad. She's big enough that I felt comfortable letting her go off and do her thing....as long as she only had about 4 tokens at a time. That way she had to keep coming back and checking in with me if she wanted more. She actually at two pieces of pizza and I didn't have to harp on her to get her to eat them either. I was stunned.

Today has been a pretty laid back day. I tried to sleep in this morning, but I've picked up Alison's cold and I woke up coughing and couldn't get back to sleep so I finally gave up and got up. After that, I accomplished nothing other than taking a nap this afternoon. So now I am wide awake when I should be thinking about going to bed. The time change tonight is going to make tomorrow really difficult!

I could have killed Kevin this morning. Alison said last night that she wanted to go out and play in (what's left of) the snow today. He thought about taking her sledding at the City Forest and I immediately vetoed that idea because she has school pictures again on Tuesday and an orthopedics appointment on Wednesday and I didn't want her coming home with her face smashed up or a broken bone, which is not outside the realm of possibility on the hill at City Forest. So they just went out and played in the yard instead. And he still managed to bring her in with one whole cheek, her upper lip, and her nose scratched up. He was pulling her around in on her sled and dumped her off and she did a face plant in the hard/icy snow. He assures me that it's going away and she will be fine by Tuesday, but I'm not so sure.

For the rest of the night, I'm going to ignore all the things I could/should be doing and kick back and watch a movie. I haven't decided which one yet....Pride and Prejudice with Kiera Knightly is on TV, but that's not my favorite version to watch and I don't know if I'll keep it on or not....so I guess I'll finish this up and peruse our movie collection to see if anything piques my interest.

Not a whole lot to write about today. Thursdays are kind of busy here, though. Alison started taking a new tap class last session, which is an hour later than her previous class, so she is able to be in choir at church now. So we go to choir, inhale some dinner afterwards (Subway, unless it's Papa John's pizza night for school) and then go to dance. Then Kevin comes and picks her up and I have my class. So that's what we did tonight. My class is going pretty well. It's a beginner class, and I'm not a beginner anymore, but it's still ok. I figure it's a fun way to get a little extra exercise.

Tomorrow, we're going to Chuck E. Cheese for lunch with a few friends. It should be a good time, at least for Alison. It caused a problem today, however. She was adamant that she was not supposed to ride the bus home because I was going to pick her up. I was standing at the bus stop when the school called me to see if she was supposed to ride the bus or not. The other to ladies picking up kids were like "they're still there." And I to say that yes, they were still there and it was Alison's fault because she wouldn't get on the bus. @@ They laughed. If it's not one thing it's another with this kid.

I've only been back at this blogging thing since Monday, and already I skipped a day.

Yesterday ended up being quite busy. Alison had PT in the afternoon. She actually did a really good job for a change, which Eileen and I were very happy about. From there, we raced over to a friend's house so she could have a playdate while Kevin and I went to a meeting with her teacher. She had a great time and we had a good meeting (more to follow). After that I raced back to pick Alison up. It took me nearly 20 minutes to get settled down enough to get her shoes and coat on so we could leave. Then we were off to Petsmart for a contribution for the Dog Lover's gift basket that her class is putting together for the silent auction at the school carnival next week. Then we were finally home for the evening.

The meeting with the teacher went well. We wanted to find out why her evaluation made it sound like she the worst child on the planet and no one had bothered to tell us. It really wasn't as bad as it sounded. We know she doesn't have poor self-help skills, but she'll often be in such a hurry to get back to whatever is going on in class that she doesn't always get her pants back up before she comes out of the bathroom. She's so easily distracted that it's very hard for her to get her work done, even when she's off by herself. Most everything goes back to the distractability. She can tell a great story, but her writing skills are not so good so she can't get it down on paper. We are working with her at home, and she's going to have an OT evaluation, which will likely result in OT for next year, so hopefully we'll get things straightened out. The teacher knows that we're as on top of things as we can be and she appreciates it.

For some reason, I woke up at 5:15 this morning. That really sucked, because I didn't need to be up for 2 more hours. I layed in bed trying to go back to sleep and finally succeeded between my 7:07 and 7:14 alarms. I have no idea why I woke up so early and I hope it doesn't happen again tomorrow.

This week, Kevin started working out in the mornings before work. It's been great for me because he can sign me up for the cardio machine of my choice, which lately has been the crosstrainer, and I don't have to worry about them all being taken when I get to the gym. I can just walking, hit the bathroom, and hop on my machine. Even better, he signs me up for the #1 crosstrainer, so I'm in front of a brick pillar and the person on the treadmill behind me can't see/watch me. I know it's highly unlikely that anyone behind is paying any attention to what I'm doing, but it makes me feel less self-conscious.

One other thing did happen today that I was not real pleased about. We take latex precautions with Alison bcause she's at high risk for developping a latex allergy. It's in her IEP that contact with latex is to be limited. So what does she tell me that she did in gym class today? They got to play with balloons! So I e-mailed the teacher to see if they were playing with latex balloons in gym and, if so, could she please tell/remind the gym teacher that Alison isn't supposed to be around latex, and if the balloons weren't latex, could she find out where they got them from. I didn't hear back today. Hopefully I'll hear something tomorrow.

So it's been a long time since I've blogged regularly. I've decided to give it a try again, though I don't know if I'll have much worthwhile to say. Today, Alison stayed home from school so we could see if her yo-yoing fever from yesterday was really gone or if it was merely yo-yoing again. It's been down all day, so she's back to school tomorrow, which is good because she has a playdate tomorrow afternoon while we go to a meeting with her teacher. There's a long involved story about why we're having a meeting with her teacher, but I don't have the time or energy to get into that right now. I had a pretty productive day around the house, since I was kind of tethered to it. I've got all the laundry washed and half of it put away, so that has to count for something. I also, finally, finished a blanket for Alison that I've been working on -- in fits and starts -- for nearly a year. It turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself.



That's about it from here. Time for me to do my part in getting Alison ready for bed, and then go off to bed myself. Back to school for her means back to the gym for me, so I need to get some sleep so I don't fall asleep on the crosstrainer. :)

Well, now isn't this a fine kettle of fish

It's December 8, and I am supposed to be baking cookies. And that's what I was doing this morning. I have dough for two kinds of cookies in my refrigerator waiting to be baked. I have two batches of bar-pan type cookies that I baked this morning waiting to be cut. So why am I not actually baking any of the waiting cookies? Well, that would be because the oven kind of blew up just as the second batch of this morning's cookies was finishing up. Ok, maybe "blew up" is a little exaggerated, but the heating element did start arcing (which caused a very tiny fire) and it shorted out the oven control board. Our oven is toast. And a new oven was not on my Christmas shopping list. I guess it is now, though. With limited funds for this type of purchase, I went shopping at HomeDepot.com and found a range that looked promising, and it was even on sale. We checked it out tonight after supper, and while I don't love it, I can live with it, for a few years at least. They don't have any in stock, though, so the earliest we could get it would be Wednesday. I happened to find the same model at Lowe's -- in stock, but not on sale. If they will give us Home Depot's sale price, we'll take it, because there is no place one can go to do one's baking when the oven is on the blink, as opposed to being able to take the laundry to the laundromat when the washer or dryer is on the fritz, and you don't realize how much you use the oven until it's not available. At least I didn't.

I haven't blogged in forever, but today I'm having a really crummy day.

At our church, we have a group of paid sitters that we use for childcare for various church functions. I'm in charge of scheduling these people when they are needed. We have one older woman, a grandmotherly or even great-grandmotherly type lady, who has been my go-to sitter for the last couple of years. She has been Alison's sitter on the Sunday nights when Kevin and I are working with the middle school youth group since Alison was about 18 months old. Today I called her to see if she would be available for a sitting job on Monday morning, and found out that she is having some medical problems, which could be quite serious. She was going to call me tomorrow to tell me about it, because she won't be able to do childcare for the near future. I felt so bad for causing her to have to tell me about it before she was ready to. I've been crying all morning because she is such a wonderful person and I don't want her to be sick. She's, obviously, very upset, and not just because of the possibly serious medical problems. She truly loves taking care of these kids and is upset at the thought of not being able to do it anymore.

I'm stressing out trying to figure out how I'm going to cover all the babysitting jobs that she was set up for, especially since there are jobs that I was having trouble staffing before this. The Associate Director of Children's Ministries, who I work with on childcare, is currently in Liberia and will be there until the end of the month. I talked to her counterpart to get some help today, which was hard because I needed to tell her that there was a problem, but it's not my place to tell the details. I didn't know what to say when she asked if I thought L could use a ministerial call or visit. She knows L well enough to know that it's a physical problem, because that's about all that would keep her from watching these kids.

And then there's the whole issue of what, if anything, to tell Alison. For right now, I don't think I need to tell her anything, but we'll probably have to in a few weeks. I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Today is my birthday.

I'll even tell you which birthday it is.

Today is my 35th birthday.

So this year, my husband actually remembered that my birthday was coming up. Last week he commented to Alison that he needed to go to the grocery store. I kind of looked at him funny and then realized that he meant he needed to order me a birthday cake. So he asked me what kind I wanted. I told him he knew what kind I wanted and that it just wouldn't be the same coming from the grocery store bakery. Then he said that he could buy a box mix and a can of frosting and make one that way. Yeah, that's true, but it still wouldn't be the same. And somehow it just didn't seem fair that Alison gets a homemade cake for her birthday (even if it is is just a chocolate cake) and he gets a Mississippi Mud Pie for his birthday and the only way I would get my favorite cake for my birthday would be to make it myself.

So for the last week, Kevin has been making plans to bake a Red Velvet Cake with Ermine Frosting....from scratch. They got hit with a (computer) virus at work last week, so he spent just about every free moment all weekend at work fixing computers so no chance to make a cake. Therefore, today was the day of the Great Cake Bake.

Alison had PT this morning, so he came home after we left and got started. I gave him some efficiency recommendations (do the cooking part of the frosting first, then mix the cake and the frosting should be cool enough to finish when you're done). Still, as I'm sitting and watching Alison go up and down the hallway on a scooterboard, the phone suddenly rings. "Where is the cocoa powder?" So I tell him and he's good to go. About 5 minutes later, the phone rings again. "I don't see any more flour and I'm a little bit short." Well how short are you? Since he was only half a cup short, I told him to use the white whole wheat flour and it would be fine. Crisis averted.

When we got home from PT, the cooked portion of the frosting was cooling and he was in the midst of mixing the cake. I just left him to his work and got Alison a snack. I did notice, at one point, that he was mixing the cake with a teaspoon, which I thought was a little silly, especially when there were plenty of mixing spoons in a crock on the shelf, but I didn't say anything. When we were ready to leave for dance class (about 20 minutes later) he was just putting the cake in the oven and getting ready to finish the frosting.

When we arrived home from dance class, he had gone back to work. The cake was done (sitting on the top of the stove to "cool" -- I did move it to a rack on the counter for him) and the frosting was waiting in the fridge. Alison wanted to help "decorate" the cake, so the two of them went to work on it after lunch (I got the cake out of the pan and onto a cake board for them.....the scraps that stuck to the cake pan tasted pretty good.). Kevin's not used to baking, and he's really not used to having a "helper," but he did let her do a little and the cake is sitting on the counter right now. It actually looks pretty good. :)

Can't wait for tonight to be able to eat my homemade, from scratch and not by me, Red Velvet birthday cake with Ermine frosting. :)

For one reason and another, I got messed up in my Christmas plans. I was going to have all of my baking done by the end of last week. I tried a new recipe for one type of cookies I was making and it totally didn't work. Unfortunately, I had made a double batch, so I had to throw away a lot of cookie dough. That put me behind schedule and our activities last weekend threw me off even more. I'm back on track now though, I think. I have one more batch of cookies chilling, waiting to be baked tomorrow, and the Cut Out cookies to frost and then I will have all my cookies ready to go into the mail. Then I have one more batch of Diamond Cookies to make for us and I think Alison and I are going to make Gingerbread Cookies just for her to decorate (since she's not going to get to help frost the Cut Outs). Then that will be it for the cookies this year.

I was also going to have all the presents that need to be mailed wrapped last weekend and that didn't happen, either. There was a mix up with the wrapping paper that Kevin's company prints. It was supposed to be ready last Friday, but because there had been a mix up with the deadline for the kids to get their pictures in, it wasn't ready until the middle of the week. And then, they didn't print as much as they did last year, so Kevin only got 15 sheet...5 sheets of the three different layouts. Which would have been fine, except that Alison actually colored some pictures this year, so we wanted to make sure that we used her paper for most of our presents. Unfortunately, despite everyone else having two pictures printed, she only got one of hers printed (and it wasn't the better of the two). We were kind of disappointed at that. Still, Kevin managed to trade 5 of the sheets that had somebody else's kids pictures on it for 5 more of Alison's. I think a lot of people were disappointed with how the paper turned out this year. Kevin's supervisor has two kids and they both put in two drawings and they got put on opposite sides of the same sheet of paper. Needless to say he was trying to trade to get more, too.

Anyway, my new target date for having all this stuff on it's way is Tuesday. Kevin has three days worth of use-it-or-lose-it vacation to take, so he's taking Tuesday off. That means he can take the packages to the post office for me and I won't have to try and manage them and Alison. I've done that before and it isn't pretty.

And here's my Christmas funny for the day. This afternoon, I wrapped most of the presents that we are going to be mailing out. As I finished them, I put them under the tree. When Alison got up from her nap, she came into the living room and saw the presents under the tree and said "WOW! Santa Claus came already?!?"

Tonight, after calling to verify that it was still taking place, we bundled up and headed to Dow Gardens for their Christmas walk. I think this is an annual event, but, as with the Santa Parade, we often forget to go to or are completely unaware of these things. There are so many things going on in our town this weekend and I wish we could do them all, but alas, time and money are in short supply. We have to miss out on The Nutcracker, but we made it to the Christmas Walk.

It was really very nice. There were light displays. They had luminaries set up along the path that they wanted us to follow. Many of the trees were decorated. There was an area of "stars," luminaries in one of the open areas sponsored by the Hospice. There were choirs, standing out in the cold, performing and sax and keyboard duo performing in the conservatory (two men from our church...didn't know they were playing until we walked in! Bill is behind all the greenery). It was very, very cold, but with the barn open as a warming area, where they were selling cookies for $.50 and hot chocolate for $1, and the opportunity to listen to the music in the conservatory, it wasn't too bad.

And since it was so cold, it meant our crazy trip to the mall was well worth it. After being at Dow Gardens for over an hour, Alison was still ready (read warm enough) to come home and play outside for almost another half an hour while I got supper ready.

We were supposed to be getting a pretty bad winter storm today. Last night, we had sleet, ice, and snow. This morning it was more of the same. The forecast was calling for the sleet/ice to change over to all snow later in the morning. It was also calling for snow to accumulate an inch an hour, 2 inches in some places, with a total accumulation of up to 9 inches. Schools all over the place were closed. (Alison has got to be the only kid on the planet that's disappointed when there's a snow day.)

Well, it didn't happen.

To be fair, the roads were pretty bad this morning. I know this because I was out driving on them. The car needed a little extra oomph to make it over the pile of slush at the end of our road and I did a little fish tail as I was making the turn. Why was I out driving in that crap? Because I waited until there was actually a snow storm (or a least the threat of one) to go out and get Alison's snow clothes. The good news is that, even though I couldn't find a coat/snowpants set, I was able to find snow pants and a coat that match fairly well, so risking life and limb wasn't all for nothing. At least I didn't have to try and find boots....I bought those in October. :)

Anyway, I thought that it would be better to go early this morning since we were expecting all this snow and the roads would certainly be horrible if I waited until this afternoon.

Wrong!

Well, at least we made it to the mall and home in one piece -- which is more than I can say for the car in the ditch that we passed on the way home -- and Alison was set to play in the little bit of snow we did get,

Boy, the things you learn at preschool.

Yesterday I learned that bears do not poop when they hibernate. They do, however, poop a lot as soon as they wake up. That's how you know that the bears are awake....if you were looking you would find lots of bear poop.

I guess it's pretty apparent that yesterday was my day to co-op in Alison's class. They were talking about bears. The good news is that Alison wasn't really paying attention to that part of the discussion. :)

The Christmas season has begun.

I think I'm in pretty good shape. A third of the Christmas presents are bought, wrapped and, soon, on their way to their recipients. Another third of the Christmas presents are bought, but not wrapped or on their way yet. And the other third of the present? Well, some are bought but none are wrapped. Fortunately, they don't have to be mailed, so I'm not on as tight a deadline. :)

We weren't home to take advantage of the gorgeous weather this weekend, so Kevin is taking a day off this week, probably tomorrow, to put up the outside lights. He'll probably get the tree down and set up, too, and we'll decorate it later. I put up two wreaths yesterday. On Friday, I'll hang up the candy tree that I got from my mom over the weekend. It's a relic from my youth and Alison is old enough to enjoy it. I have to replace one of the pieces of yarn because it's still tied in a bow and is stuck that way from some old candy, but otherwise it's in pretty good shape for having been packed away in the basement for probably 20 years.....can't remember how old I was when we stopped using it.

And Christmas baking has begun. We make a lot of cookies here at Christmastime. We do about 7 different kinds and most are double batches, so there are cookies everywhere. We do send a lot of them to our neice and nephews, so that cuts down on the amount that we're actually eating here. :) Yesterday afternoon my "assistant" and I mixed up the Swiss Cookies and after supper she and daddy put them on the cookie sheets and decorated them. They turned out pretty well, and taste great (I broke one, so of course we had to eat it!). Today, Raspberry Thumbprints are on the agenda. I'm hoping to a different kind every day so that we can get them and the present in the mail by the middle of next week. We'll see how that goes.

If all goes according to plan, we will be ready for Christmas in plenty of time to enjoy the season and not be rushing around like crazy people a week before the big day.

One year ago, at 10:04 AM, you were born. Four hours and 50 minutes later, you were gone. But you will never be forgotten.


Happy Birthday Matthew.

This morning was our town's annual Santa Parade. Now, we have lived here for 12 years but, for whatever reason, we have never gone to the Santa Parade. Alison has decided that she likes parades again --as long as she is wearing her big earmuff ear protection-- so we decided that we were going to go this year. Since it was on the parade route, we decided to play it smart and park in the Kroger/Rite Aid parking lot and found a nice spot to sit right across the street. We weren't even thinking that there might be candy for the kids, so we weren't exactly prepared in that regard. If I had been thinking, I would have run into the store real quick before the parade got to us and bought something so that Alison would have had a bag for candy. It really didn't matter that much, though. We did have her backpack with us (and it's a good thing, because right after the parade started she had to go to the bathroom...so we circled up the chairs and pulled out the little potty and the crisis was averted) so she would just pick up whatever candy she could get and throw it in her backpack. Alison's friends from dance class were going to be in the parade with their preschool's float, so we were on the lookout for them. As luck would have it, they were on our side of the street so Alison ran out say hi and give hugs. There were some really creative floats, several equestrian teams, one of the high school's marching band (we have two high schools in town) and the usual police cars, fire engines and ambulances driving by with sirens blaring every now and then. And bringing up the end of the parade was Santa and his sleigh.

So we had a good time this morning. The weather was pretty good. It was cloudy, but at least it wasn't raining. And it was chilly, but at least it wasn't freezing cold or really windy. I'm glad that we went and we will definitely have go again next year. Alas, we forgot the camera, so we have no pictures. :(

There was one thing that bothered me, though. The whole candy thing just pointed out how rude and greedy some kids can be, and how oblivious their parents are, too. Alison still has enough Halloween candy to last her through Easter, so getting more candy wasn't really a big deal, but as the candy was thrown, the kids on either side would rush to get it and if they could get it all, they would, without even giving Alison, standing there in her braces and clearly having trouble picking up candy off the street, a thought. And their parents never said a word to them. We, on the other hand, are trying not to raise a greedy brat, so when a handful of candy landed in front of Alison, she would pick up a couple of pieces of candy and let the other kids get some, too. A couple of times she even went over and gave the little kid next to us some candy. She gave him her balloon, too, since she really shouldn't be playing with latex balloons

Tonight I am back at home after being gone on a girls' shopping weekend. Two of my friends from church, C -- who is also my neighbor -- and L and L's sister-in-law headed out to Birch Run early yesterday morning to hit the outlet mall there. It was Deer Widow's Weekend, so there were a lot of good deals to be had. One store was giving out coupon packets to the first 1000 people there, a couple of which had $500 vouchers in them. None of us won, but we were glad to have the coupons. We spent the day shopping and just generally having a good time. L's sis-in-law was unable too, but C, L and I were planning to stay overnight and hit the rest of the stores that we didn't have time for yesterday and then go shopping in Frankenmuth today.

We could have shopped well into the evening, and hit all the stores we wanted to last night, but instead we decided to go to a movie. So at around suppertime, we split up with L and her sis-in-law going to hit one more store and then try and get us a table at Applebees and C and I going to the movie theater to buy the tickets so we didn't have to stand in line later. We hit a bit of a snafu when C and I made it to Applebee's before L and her sis-in-law. With a 35-40 minute wait we wouldn't have been able to eat and still make the movie, so L's sis-in-law decided to go ahead and head home and the three of us went to check into our hotel and just hang out and eat some snacks. It was nice to just hang out for a little bit, and then we were off to see "Santa Clause 3." I thought it was a really cute movie....not a waste of money as some can be. There was more funny stuff than what was shown in the trailers, and that's always good. I may have to take Kevin to see it, so he doesn't have to wait until it comes out on video next year. :) After the movie, we finally made it to Applebees. Since we had all just eaten a bunch of popcorn (me less than the other since I managed to spill almost half of mine on L), we decided on appetizers and desserts, rather than a whole meal. Good choice. :)

After staying up late Saturday night, we were up early this morning so we could be one of the first x number of people at Tommy Hilfiger and get whatever coupons and stuff they were giving away. The $5 gift card voucher, which we were really interested in, ended up not being valid until next year, so we couldn't cash them in this morning. How stupid is that!! We still had a good time shopping and by lunchtime were had pretty much hit all the stores we wanted to shop in and we headed off to Frankenmuth to get a chicken dinner.

Now, we only live about 40 minutes away from Frankenmuth, so we could go any time we want to, really, but we never seem to get down there. I think it's fun to look through all the specialty shops down Main Street, and it's always fun to stroll through Bronner's. Frankenmuth is also famous for two restaurants and their chicken dinners (not exactly sure why, but they are) and even though I have lived here for 12 years now, the only time I have ever had a chicken dinner was when my mom and I vacationed in Michigan the summer between my freshman and sophomore years in college. So I had one today. And I have to say, it was pretty good.

After lunch we hit the shops on Main Street. None of us really bought too much. In fact, I think we mostly bought little personalized trinkets to give our kids as stocking stuffers. Then we headed off to Bronners. We wandered around in there for about 2 hours. We all picked up things here and there. I got Alison a new Christmas stocking, with her name embroidered on it, since the stocking that she has is very small and with stocking stuffers come from two "Santas," it didn't really hold very much. I had already knocked off most of my shopping list at Birch Run, but I found a couple of more things here, too, leaving me with only 4 of my "have to mail the presents" family members left to buy for. And it's not even Thanksgiving yet. How great is that!!!

After checking out pretty much everything in the store, we decided that it was time to head for home. After taking L home and dropping C off at her house, I was home at about 6:30. Kevin and Alison were at church for UMYF, so I had the house to myself for a while, and that was nice. Alison came running in saying "Mommy, you're home! I missed you!" And that was nice, too.

Now, since "vacation" is over and it's back to the daily grind bright and early tomorrow morning, I'm off to bed.