Christmas Survey #2

Christmas Ornaments 2011

Have you been naughty or nice this year?
Both.
But definitely more nice.

What do you want most for Christmas?
Health.
Happiness.
Love.
Gratitude in my heart.

Do you believe in Father Christmas?
I’ve never encountered him,
but that’s not to say he isn’t around.

Have you started your Christmas shopping yet?
Yes.

Have you finished your Christmas shopping yet?
Almost.

What is your favorite Christmas movie?
A Christmas Story
The Christmas List

What do you look forward to most at Christmas?
Gifts and food.
Time with my family.
Taking photos.
Desserts.

What are you doing for Christmas this year?
Aidan and my mom fly in on
December 20
(which also happens to be my birthday)
We’re going to eat good food
bake cookies
watch holiday programming
and have a relaxing holiday.

Who do you want to kiss under the mistletoe?
I don’t have mistletoe
but if I did
I’d want to kiss
Adam
🙂

What kind of Christmas tree do you have?
Artificial.

Do you take part in a Secret Santa?
Not anymore.

Do you go to any Christmas parties?
I go to the Moksha holiday party.

Have you ever had a white Christmas?
Oh yes.

How early do you wake up on Christmas morning?
I usually sleep in until 9 or 10ish.
It will depend on when Aidan gets up.

Do you still get a stocking?
Most definitely.

How many Christmas cards do you normally send out?
A lot.
Probably won’t send out as many
this year.

What is your Christmas wish?
That’s a secret.


Feel free to do this survey on your blog as well, but please comment and let me know so I can come check it out.

Comments Off on Christmas Survey #2

Christmas Survey #1

Presents

Egg nog or hot chocolate?
Recently, Adam brought home
some dark chocolate hot chocolate.
Not only does it smell heavenly,
it tastes that way, too. Yum.

Does Santa wrap your presents or leave them naked under the tree?
Santa wraps most of the presents,
but he leaves the really big and awkward ones unwrapped.
A variety of people visit Aidan, though.
One year, even Brutus Buckeye left him something.

Colored lights or white?
White.
I think they look classy.

Do you hang mistletoe?
No.

When do you put up your decorations?
First or second week in December.

What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?
Cornbread dressing.
Mac & cheese.
Honey ham.
Turnip/mustard greens.
Gravy over everything.
Mmmm.

Christmas Dinner

Favorite holiday memory as a child?
I have a lot.
My mom always went out of her way
to make Christmas extra special for
my sister and me.
Lots of toys.
Good food.
Good music.
Good times.

Pandernoodle I Love Christmas!

YAY Baby Skates! Merry Christmas!

When did you learn the truth about Santa?
That depends.
What do YOU consider the truth
about Santa?

Do you open any gifts on Christmas Eve?
Sometimes.

How do you decorate your Christmas tree?
My tree is pre-lit, so all I have to do
is put it together and put on the ornaments!

Snow: love it or hate it?
Hate it.

Can you ice skate?
Sort of.

Do you remember your favorite gift?
I love all my gifts.
Some that come to mind, though, are a 10-speed bike,
Hangin’ Tough Live (a New Kids on the Block video),
the O.C. season 1 on DVD,
the Tiffany necklace Adam got me last year,
the handmade art Cassidy gave us this year.

What’s the most important thing about the holidays for you?
Being with loved ones.

What is your favorite holiday dessert?
Dutch apple pie.
Especially the one Adam’s dad makes.
Gotta have the crumblies.

What is your favorite holiday tradition?
Watching A Christmas Story.
Eating cookies.
Sending Christmas cards.
Receiving Christmas cards.

What tops your tree?
An angel, of course.

Which do you REALLY prefer: giving or receiving?
Equal.

What is your favorite Christmas song?
March of the Wooden Soldiers sang by Harry Connick, Jr.
Christmastime by Michael W. Smith.
Ding Dong Merrily on High sang by Blackmore’s Night
Jingle Bells sang by The Andrews Sisters & Bing Crosby
Joy To The World sang by Whitney Houston
…just to name a few

Candy canes: yummy or yucky?
I’m not a fan.
They are pretty, though.


Feel free to do this survey on your blog as well, but please comment and let me know so I can come check it out.

Will be linking up with:
Miscellany Monday @ lowercase letters

8 Comments

Christmas Prep Take One

Christmas Decorations 2011

I’m just about done decorating. I need to get new stockings for Adam and Aidan. Seems one of the cats left a “present” (in the form of pee) on those two particular stockings, and I didn’t find it until this year, when I went to hang them. Luckily, only those two stockings got hit. Aidan’s was personalized, which was a shame, but the pee didn’t get the name so I cut it out and hung it in his room. Not a total loss. And now I get to go buy more stockings!

Christmas Decorations 2011
My non-peed on stocking

Thursday, I complained on twitter that I failed at being a grown-up. And I had. I’d gotten some disappointing news, which put me in a funk that resulted in me not accomplishing a dang thing except playing on the computer for hours. And reading. And playing “dozer” games on my iPhone. And also Whirly Word. Adam read my tweet and asked why I felt that way, and I told him that it was because I was supposed to clean and I didn’t. He said that there was no point in cleaning now because I’d just be doing it all over again on December 19, the day before Aidan and my mom arrive for Christmas. I tried to tell him that if I cleaned now, that the work would be less by then, but he thinks that if I clean now, we’ll just mess it all back up and I’d have ended up doing twice the cleaning.

I couldn’t articulate that if I cleaned now, then I wouldn’t have to clean the normal mess by then PLUS the accumulation from not cleaning this weekend as well. The words just wouldn’t come. My brain had turned to mush from all the games I’d been playing. So he made me some tea and that was that.

When he cleans, he sees only the obvious, big picture messes and clutter. And he doesn’t see any point in cleaning all the time because the big, obvious messes aren’t always there. I see almost all the messes, and I can especially see the little details. He does the heavy lifting (taking out the trash, cleaning the fridge, scrubbing the stove, mopping the floor) while I handle the littler things (scrubbing faucets, cleaning mirrors, dusting, etc.). So, I guess what I need to say is that if I am not taking care of those little details all the time, or at least every week or so, then the big messes will come sooner and with more impact. And if I waited until the last minute to do all my holiday cleaning, I’d be looking UGLY come December 19. So, it’s always better, in my opinion, to do a little bit every week. Maintenance, if you will. Otherwise, the clutter will just build up and cleaning day will be exhausting and overwhelming. So I cleaned today because I can’t, in good conscience, decorate while the place is messy.

Snowflake

Friday, I pulled out the rest of the decorations and got to work. I even wrapped a few presents! I’m not totally hopeless!

Christmas Decorations 2011
The snow family salutes me.

Christmas Ornaments 2011
More ornaments. Why? Because I like them.
See what I did there?

So, all I have to do is stay on top of the cleaning, and all should be OK. 🙂

Christmas Ornaments 2011

Disclaimer: I am sharing my holiday home decor and cleaning tips for the chance to win prizes from The SITS Girls and Great Cleaners.

Ten days till my birthday. God help me.

6 Comments

No Bueno

I’m not doing so well today. I am worn down, exhausted, and have zero motivation to do a dang thing. Mercury is in retrograde and OH WOW is it showing.

1. Web browsers are acting weird. Google Chrome is acting weird with my WordPress dashboard, so I have to use Firefox to add posts. I also need Firefox to work on the newsletter for Moksha because Namaste Light does not play nicely with Chrome these days. However, Firefox is SLOW once it gets going and it really lags on my system. Plus, it doesn’t always play nice with LiveJournal. So now I get to bounce back and forth until one of them gets their act together.

2. Monthly newsletter went out and there were some hiccups AGAIN. I asked them if they wanted me to step down and she said no, that I’m doing a great job, and it was just one of those things. I’m doing a good enough job on everything else that they’re still going to trust me with January 2012. So, I will DO DAMN BETTER. I promise.

3. I ran MacKeeper to get rid of duplicate files, but it decided that many different original files were the same, so it tried to delete all those as well. I caught them, but now it’s a disorganized mess. Fortunately, I have backups of most of the organized folders, so I can just overwrite the messed up ones.

4. My iPod crashed. It crashed and deleted all of my music and playlists. I manually sync because I don’t have the same things on my iPod that I do on my computer. Saturday evening, a Tori Amos song kept erring out, and I think that’s what did it. iPod corrupted. Hours of hard work, selecting and sequencing those playlists by hand… gone. *sigh* The Christmas 2011 mix was the best mix I’d ever made, too. And the yoga practice mix? That was freaking hard to put together and now I have to do it again. But first, I have to get the thing to mount. And also to stop crashing and locking the library. Time to restore all systems, I suppose.

5. Computer battery needs to be serviced. Which likely means replaced. Which means bye bye $130.

On top of Mercury’s retrograde screwing with all my technology (and giving me an inexplicable urge to buy an iPad when I don’t need one at all), I’ve just been feeling like a poop log lately. Worn down, nauseated, and just generally tired. And my ear is hurting again. I have so much I need to do and no motivation to do it. This weekend, I was hit with a double whammy headache, one of them being a migraine that was extremely painful. Little appetite, just not feeling myself. I don’t like it. Oh, and the tip of my tongue has been burning the past few days. Feels like I burnt it with food or bit it a million times, but instead of getting better and going away, it’s getting worse.

I NEED TO GET BETTER!

Just to give you an idea of how worn out I’ve been:

1. I turned down a trip to Target. Adam knows that if I say “no” to a Target run then something’s seriously wrong.

2. I haven’t watched one Christmas program/DVD/movie. Not even A CHRISTMAS STORY. I adore A CHRISTMAS STORY. What is happening?

3. The apartment’s not completely decorated for Christmas. Honestly, Adam and I put the tree up Friday, I decorated it, then I was done. I haven’t made any effort to do anything else since. THIS IS NOT LIKE ME.

To add insult to injury? My new(ish) awesome glasses? They have a chip in the lens. I dropped a plate the other day and thought it had avoided the glasses, but I guess not. So it’s back to the ugly cheap frames for me until I can get them repaired or either get a new pair. I mean, I can *somewhat* ignore the chip, but I don’t know if other people can. Suck.

I have so much to do (in no particular order, it just all needs to be done on or before December 15):

01. Christmas newsletter
02. Christmas cards
03. reestablish iPod
04. finish decorating apartment
05. major litter box cleaning
06. organize closet and clothing
07. wrap presents
08. clean living room (this may as well be a permanent on the list)
09. plan Christmas menu
10. make Christmas food shopping list
11. return library books
12. finish Christmas shopping
13. buy cat food
14. laundry
15. two newsletters for Moksha
16. use Body Shop Groupon
17. send packages

Yea, whatever is bugging me needs to GET TO STEPPIN’. I ain’t got time for this mess.

As much as I love iProcrastinate, I didn’t like that it didn’t give me reminders of when things were due. So I decided to use Producteev. It has a reminder function. Except… it doesn’t seem to be working. I should add that to the list of things screwed up by Mercury’s retrograde. *sigh* Or maybe the software just sucks.

So now I’m on the hunt for another To Do program. I might have to break down and PAY FOR ONE. *gulp* I mean, what’s the point of having a productivity program if all it does it make me panic because it doesn’t tell me when stuff’s coming up, just when it’s due RIGHT NOW?

In spite of all this bleh, I had a good time Saturday night. I hung out with a bunch of former coworkers from Schawk. It was so good to see them all again. One can be glad to escape the craziness of the workplace, but the people will always tug at me.

Silent Night...Not So Much
Brad, JT, Hayley, me, Tyrone, Duane

I’m a homebody. I don’t go out a lot. It’s nice to get out sometimes, though. Although I think Saturday night might have done me in. Maybe I’m still recovering from that.

Also, did I mention that my birthday is in 14 days? No? Well, now you know.

Anyway, I’m off for now. Time for more resting so I can get better once and for all. I WILL get better. Hear that, Universe? I WILL get better within the next 12 hours.

Please send me lots of good vibes for many various things, OK? 🙂

Till next time….

13 Comments

Deck The Halls

This is the first year I decided to do a themed Christmas tree.

Christmas Ornaments 2011

Most years, I throw on a hodge-podge of ornaments: nutcrackers, snow people, bows, candy canes, trains, anything I’ve collected over the years.

Christmas Ornaments 2011

It was weird, leaving all of those in the box so that I could stay true to my theme.

I’m happy how the tree came out. I’ve stopped using garland, and I purchased a pre-lit tree a couple of years ago after my poor crooked free tree finally fell in 2009. Here’s my 2011 Christmas Tree:

Christmas Tree 2011

Any guesses as to the theme yet?

Let me give you a few hints.

Christmas Ornaments 2011

Christmas Ornaments 2011

Christmas Ornaments 2011

Christmas Ornaments 2011

Still, I had to add this one:

Christmas Tree 2011

It wouldn’t be a true tree of mine without the banana ornament.

10 Comments