Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Please, no more dough.

Due to a measuring mishap, I ended up with a huge pile of doughnut dough last night. Over thirty cups of flour were used! I started out frying them, but by late morning switching to baking seemed like a better idea. It was, not only was my pile shrinking faster, the smell of grease had a chance to clear out of my kitchen. They rose too much for kolaches, I could not get the indention to stay in the middle. Since my oven was still hot I pulled out the cookie dough that was in the fridge and made sugar cookies. It looks like a bake sale exploded in my kitchen.

My life is usually not very structured at all. I like it that way. It feels odd looking back at the last few weeks and seeing how much scheduling I've been doing. Today a friend called and told me where to show up in my swimming suit at 5:30 to have a few glasses of wine. After leaving the job she called me at and going to my other part time another phone call came, this one telling me two kids would be arriving at my house that evening, one of them sick. I showed up a little late for the wine, but managed to fit it in. I have to keep my priorities straight.

Sunday, December 25, 2005

December 25th

3:45 A.M.--Heard television in living room. How can he be up so early? Closed eyes went back to sleep

4:00 A.M.--Was woke by laughing and talking from living room. Great now they are all up. Put head under pillow tried to sleep.

4:10 A.M.--9 year old son runs in and really quietly said, "Mom, my present is the largest." Smile, send him out of room, know it is useless to try and sleep. Do it anyway.

4:15 A.M.--11 year old boy climbs across bed to say good morning, 6 year old girl turns on light. Scream send them both out of room.

4:30 A.M.--13 year old boy lays across bottom of bed with head on my leg. Sigh and keep eyes closed.

4:45 A.M.--Hear 4 year old girl skipping through house singing "I love Christmas. I love Christmas. How can I not get up now. Yell at someone to put on the tea kettle.

5:06 A.M.--Cup of tea in hand, the present opening starts.

8:00 A.M.--Turkey is in oven I am back in bed. Finally two more hours of sleep.

Friday, December 23, 2005

So tired...

Wrapped presents until two. I couldn't stop myself so I read until three. Woke at eight to go finish my shopping, yeah I really thought I would finish today. Came home around 3:00 p.m. and went to work. My bed still has a few presents on it that need wrapped, but they will probably get shoved in the closet. Work starts at seven in the morning.

I didn't notice what music was playing in the stores today. I was too busy humming Christmas music. After several hours and four stores I sat in the drivers seat ready to go home. Suddenly I felt the need to de-Christmas. Jet's Cold Hard Bitch playing very loudly was just what I needed.

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Beautiful day

It has been so frickin' cold here lately, not that I'm against cold days. A nice warm day like today is enough to make me smile. Carrying my niece, I walked a few blocks just enjoying the sunshine. I had tons of crap to do inside, but could not stand the idea of going back in. So if you were expecting Christmas cookies from me this is my excuse for being late. I sat on the porch and watched the boys play basketball until a couple of friends came by with a bottle of wine. This and a couple of old movies drug me inside.

Monday, December 19, 2005

Spent the weekend out of town, visiting the inlaws. Glad to be home. It snowed here the day we left. Not a lot, but enough to make the roads a sheet of packed snow. I almost fell down three times today. It probably would have been poetic justice if I had, because I laughed when my neighbor fell earlier today. Believe me, he had it coming.

I spent the evening playing cards with my boys. It is nice now that they are old enough to make a game competitive. When they were younger it was tricky to make sure I only won by a small margin. Now I have to really play and don't always win.

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Gift buying, an Olympic event?

Glad to be home. Getting a large chunk of my Christmas shopping done feels good. I am exhausted though, trying to shove a Christmas party, reading, sleep, shopping, and an hour lunch with my sister into 18 hours can wear a girl out. Gift shopping is one of the few types I enjoy. Books and browsing hardware stores are the only other good kinds I can think of. Shopping for clothes is tedious, and groceries are fun but the stores are usually too crowded. With gifts it is fun to sit down and really think about another person and what they like until a great gift idea pops into my head.

A good clue about somebody is what type of gifts they give. Most people buy what they like and think everybody will like it. This has gotten me in trouble in the past. A group of people I belong to draws names every year. At the start of December around five years ago one of them said to me "We started drawing names so that everybody could get one really nice gift instead of a bunch of cheap gifts." Things would have been fine had she stopped there, she didn't. "I got ripped off last year." She must have a bad memory or she would have decided to have this conversation with one of the many people who didn't have her name the year before.

I like useful gifts, not necessarily something practical , but something I will use often. One of the best presents I ever received was a kitchen journal. It is something I use often, and would not have thought to buy myself, I love it. Not everybody is the same though and I need to remember that. That very year I drew her name again and pretended I had drawn my own name and dropped the slip of paper back into the hat. Good idea, because I'm sure bitter shoppers buy bad gifts. This year I drew her name again, but it has been long enough for me to let it go. Hopefully things will go better this time. I tried really hard to buy something she would like.

Just wanted to quickly add that every store I went into had some sort of Christmas greeting or farewell. Oddly enough it did not make or break my holiday season.

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

I am getting out of town today. Yeah Christmas parties and shopping. That should be changed to holiday parties just because this whole 'war on Christmas' crap is getting on my nerves, both sides. The good part is that is gives us moderate citizens something to laugh at.

A guy told me he could not take off of work for Christmas because that is a religious holiday and that their business does not recognize religious holidays. If this is true it is the first example any actual infringements. A store substituting the word holiday for Christmas is not an infringement on my rights as a Christian. Who cares if they are trying to market to non-specific holidays? I am more concerned that they keep rearranging the shelves so my shopping trips take longer than they should.

I have heard people say they get offended when a clerk greets them with "Merry Christmas". WTF? When I fully intend to have a crappy day and a clerk says "Have a nice day" should it bother me? These people have to deal with hundreds of people in the course of their day. I would not be surprised if they greeted half of us with "f#ck off". Honestly most of the people who celebrate Christmas aren't Christians. It is really more of a secular holiday now.

I didn't grow up in a Christian home and we loved Christmas. If you would have asked me back then what Christmas was about I would have answered spending time with family, giving and receiving. If you asked me now as an adult Christian I would give the same answer.

The whole right running off about a war on Christmas is even worse. How hard will these idiots look to find a reason to feel persecuted. The worst part is that fear is such a great marketing tool that most preachers are preaching this now on Sunday. One more week of it and I may walk out in the middle of the sermon.

It must be the time of year I seem to be full or rants lately.

Monday, December 12, 2005

Information is not the enemy

Ironically, after my post yesterday the school my son attends gave its human growth and sexuality course today. When I asked what he learned he said that we MUST choose abstinence, condoms do not work, homosexuals are the cause of aids, and birth control must not exist because it was never mentioned. The smirk with which he said this led me to believe that he doesn't put faith in a program that even kids could tell was biased and full of shit.

Communication has never been a bad tool for making decisions. So why are we trying to send a message that talking about choices we don't want them to make is a bad idea. I love that so many inappropriate things are shown on the television shows we watch. It brings things up in conversation I never would have brought up on my own. When characters do something I don't agree with instead of jumping to change the channel I wait for a commercial to point out the negative results of their actions. I am not saying I am a perfect parent, believe me I've made a vast number of mistakes, and will probably make many more. I just wonder what the powers that be would think of the fact that even with all the 'corruptive information' my children have been exposed to they are not wild. They are actually very mature for their ages and have refrained from much of the destructive behavior many of their peers are involved in.

Sunday, December 11, 2005

Regrets

I was talking to a friend the other day about the high number of junior high school students that are sexually active in our town. Unlike most other parents who have expressed an opinion about this I have mixed feelings. Like most adults the thought of 12-13 year old people having sex makes me shudder. On the other hand, it is just sex. I would rather they be having sex than doing drugs, not that some of them aren't doing both.

The suggestions on how to solve this problem have ranged from ruling with an iron fist, to we can't stop them so why try. I fall somewhere in the middle. If somebody decides they want to do something, no matter what their age, they will find a way to do it. Arranging more supervised activities for them could deter them a bit though. I think education is an important part of the answer. They are the ones making the decisions, we should help them to make informed, and hopefully safer ones.

This conversation with my friend turned to talking about our decisions and rather we have any regrets. She was much more conservative as a teenager than I was and regrets having sex before marriage, even if it was only with the man she has now been married to for many years. I was older than the kids we were discussing earlier, but only by a year or two, when I started being sexually active and have no major regrets. Sure I have some of those 'what was I thinking about that guy' moments but people of all ages have those.

The major difference is the amount of guilt these decisions have caused us. She has felt guilty since before the first time was finished, and I really don't think I would change many of my experiences. This raises the question, should we raise our children to feel like sex is wrong and hope the guilt keeps them safe or raise them to think of it as a part of life so they don' t have to worry about the guilt?

Friday, December 09, 2005

Day two

It took me over five minutes to figure out how to create a new post. That was longer than I spent yesterday setting up the whole thing. You did not believe me when I said I was no good at this kind of stuff did you?

Any day that starts off with over an hour of reading in bed counts as most excellent. The book that kept me in bed this morning was Memoirs of a Geisha, recommended. The rest of today has been nice too. I spent it alone cleaning house, belly dancing, eating, watching last nights Daily Show. Life is good.

Thursday, December 08, 2005

Can it really be this easy?

I wish I was a geek, but sadly am not. Last night in the shower, which is when I do most of my thinking, I decided I needed a place to sort through my thoughts. I keep a journal but it is mostly rants or silly thoughts, not quite the format I was looking for. Also, I have privacy issues, anything I write in my own home, on paper, I guard with my life for fear of somebody finding and reading my thoughts. A blog came to mind, but really I did not have the slightest idea how to start.
To address the question of why a blog feels more private than a journal I will now explain. If people ever stumble across this blog, that is hidden in the endless fields of blogs out there, they will not know me and have ordinary conversations with me. It is these people who know me that I hide from, not random unknown readers. When I know the answer to why that is I will correct it and become a better person.
Back to my shower. I dismissed the idea of a blog because I did not know how and really don't have the time to learn any new skills. Today while reading the Croatian sensation I clicked on the start your own blog button. Can it really be this simple? Can I have a blog this soon, or will I suddenly realize I've made some mistake and all the known internets will now crash down around me. My head is starting to hurt. I need another shower, but do not have time. If I was a cleaner person and found more time to bathe maybe I could become the geek I dream of being.