Day After Santa Day

Merry day after Christmas.... How was your holiday?  Mine was good. I spent the majority of the day with John and my girls, but in the afternoon John's parents came over and had dinner with us. I tried a new recipe - Roast Beef with a Dijon/Horseradish Crust. Turned out pretty good - smelled great when it was cooking. (Hhmm, I think I'll make myself a sandwich in a minute....)

This was my first Christmas holiday spent with a partner in about 18 years. John is getting me a washing machine. I'm very practical, so that's my idea of a great gift. I just need to find one and he'll go get it. 

I gave him a haircut today and was worried that I cut the front too short, but then I ended up cutting the whole thing super-short and it turned out great. I've been cutting hair for years, since I was 14 and I was a hairdresser when I lived in Washington, but even so I'm not immune to distractions and a house full of kids and pets usually includes some distractions. It seems that the shorter his hair is, the younger he looks. I'll have to get a picture of him today... I think he looks beautiful.

Today is my second day off of work. My hours are super-light next week which is worrisome.  I'm a bit tired of being broke. I'd love to be able to go see a movie and pick up a pair of basketball shoes for Sarah. Time to look for a second job............

We have a new cat. Her name is Tinkerbell, but we'll call her Tink.

Happy Birthday Sarah!

Happy birthday to my wonderful daughter, Sarah!!

She is 12 and only a couple of months away from jr high. Dang, where did the time go?  It seems like it was only a year or so ago that I was giving birth to a 9 lb 14 oz baby girl, who was so big that she broke her little collar bone on the way out. (Don't worry, she was fine.)

Max's Mohawk

Today is my son Max's 19th birthday. In honor of the day and because I thought it would be a good look for Halloween, I gave him a mohawk. Do you have any idea how hard it is to hold up a kid and cut his hair at the same time? It's near impossible, but here's how he turned out........ His hair had grown so long, because..........well he's Max and Max has a lot of hair, but he was sick for a few weeks and I didn't want to hassle him with a haircut. Here's what we started with.... I already had one side buzzed when I remembered to ask Bay to grab the camera. You can see from the other side that his hair was down to his shoulders.

After I buzzed it, I couldn't get the mohawk to stand up, so I had to cut some of the length of it off. If he was someone who walked around, we could use something extra to really stiffen the spike part, but I don't want to make the kid miserable. He spends so much of his time napping. I think after this, I'll leave the mohawk for a bit and just let it lay down.

I hope he enjoys showing it off at school today. His school has students of all ages - preschool all the way up to the early 20s. He's probably one of the oldest guys there.

Today is also my last day at Relationships - I finished Food/Nutrition a few days ago. I'll still be at Splendicity Fragrance and Pretty By Nature. I'm starting at a new place very soon. Relationships was my first blogging job - it was called Dating Dames back then - my first writing job after a few years away from freelancing. I'm ready for a change, but I'm a little sad about leaving it behind.

**Okay, not my last day at Blisstree Relationships because I can't post. Maybe tomorrow?**

Happy New Year

It's New Year's Eve, as I type this....

This year, well it's been an interesting one. I've felt a bit off all year, but I've also taken on some exciting challenges. I'm working on my resolutions right now. Do you do resolutions? I usually complete some, but not all of them. This year I have some of the usuals - get fit (again), get organized (again), and try to be less of a yell-y mom (someday my kids will hear me when I speak in a normal tone. Right?)

In the coming year I want to accomplish a few things. I want to run a half marathon and I want to ride the 60 mile loop of the Wildflower. Last year I did the 30 all by myself. I hope to have roped in a partner for the 60 because that's a long way to ride all by myself. The run, not sure I can get someone to do that with me, but I'm going to try to get Jackie to do it. Shh, don't tell her, but she's also the rope-ee that I have in mind for the ride. Hee hee.
I was looking for some good graphics to use for my New Year posts for my Dating Dames and the Scented Life blogs. I have been finding some cool shots at All Posters.com. I can use them because it's a shop. That's something that I found out by working on TSL. I use shots all the time from Sephora or MAC or wherever and I just give credit at the bottom.

I love this New Year's Kiss. They are so lost in the moment and the photographer seemed more focused on the gentleman. I wonder what the story is here. I'd love to know.

This one looks like a fun party. That will be Max, Sarah, and I in a few minutes. Okay, well if you switch out fancy party clothes for pjs first. :D

Happy New Year to you!! Thanks for reading my blog.

Image credit for two New Years posters - All Posters.com

The Day After Christmas

I have to make this very fast, because Sarah and I heading to bed.

My brother's family came for a visit today. It was the best day after Christmas that I've ever spent. Here's a shot of the kids playing with some moon sand. I got Brad Jr a set that includes this little plastic truck.
Hayden was in constant motion, until he fell asleep on his mom's lap. He's got the blur-thing going here.

Here's the whole family. Brad Jr by the front door, Ashlee leaning over talking to Dad, mom Shawna, and baby Hayden. And my feet. Can you see them? Pretty silly looking.

Here's a close-up of Hayden. He is such a handsome little guy. I couldn't use the flash - it made him cry, so it was hard to see if these shots were in focus. As you can tell, they really weren't, but my family is beautiful in spite of my faulty photography.

I hope you enjoyed your day, as well. Thank you for reading. :D

Surviving the Week

Hello. I haven't written in a week. I'm sorry. It's been kind of a tough week.

Our guinea pig got sick all of a sudden. He wouldn't eat and I fed him with a syringe - water and applesauce (he likes apples). The next morning he seemed a bit better, but still very subdued. I made him up a box and he sat next to me all day while I did my work on the computer.

Well, it ends up that he wasn't better and that afternoon he died. It was so sad. I could tell when it was time to go, he leaned to the side and it looked like he was trying to squeak. Sarah and I petted him and told him that he was a brave boy and a good friend. We told him that he was strong and handsome and sweet. He looked pretty peaceful, but it was heart-breaking. I wouldn't want him to hang on just for us if he was hurting, but it's so quiet here without his squeaking. I miss that little guy.

The whole thing happened so quickly. I think he just got to be an old guy - he always seemed like a youngster, all hyper and super-fast romaine chomping. The romaine would give him a green beard. So cute.

I still feel so out of sorts. Bay was gone when it happened and Whoobie was officially her pet. He slept in her room for years. When she came home, she cried, but then she seemed okay. That is until she and my mom got into an argument last night and she slammed into her room. She has messed her doorway up over the years and it's all loose. The frame moves back and forth. This time, she slammed it so that I couldn't get it open at first. Darn kid.

This morning the kids enjoyed their Christmas, I think. Sarah and I looked outside and all the reindeer food was gone. Do you make reindeer food? They like to eat oats and glitter. It's so pretty when you toss it out, sparkles in the lights. Reindeer get pretty hungry with all that flying. Sarah slept in until 10:30. Can you believe that? She and I were up until midnight tracking Santa on NORAD. So hard to go to sleep when you know that he is coming.

I better get busy now. Happy holidays to you!!

Baby's 1st Christmas

I was playing around with my camera the other day, something that I've not had a lot of time to do lately. I was trying to take a shot of a candle that I was reviewing, I wanted to show it lit because the holder was so pretty.

I don't know the trick to taking low light photos. I tried changing the shutter speed and that was interesting. Then, because I had the camera in my hand, I started pointing it at pretty much anything in the room. Do you do that? It reminds me of when I start watering the garden and pretty soon I've sprayed off the entire patio, including the overhead spiderwebs because it's just so darn much fun to play with the house.

Later, after I drove Bay over to Greg's house, I held the phone in my lap and would put it up and shoot blindly down the dark road in front of me. The lights looked like streams, slippery, swirly, stripes.
I decided to try some closer shots of my tree, which got tricky because I couldn't tell if the camera was fully in focus. Can you see me in the pink bulb below?

One of our family traditions is the Baby's 1st Christmas ornaments. Here is Sarah's ornament, from 1998.

And Bailey's little bear from 1992.

Max's ornament is a little harder to see. It's a white baby bottle. Can you see it? It's in the middle. Max's first Christmas was 1990. That was probably my most exciting Christmas ever. I can remember opening all my presents with my tiny little boy in my lap.

Mom got all the ornaments for me. I'm very excited about the holidays this year. I think we are going to do a bunch of baking this weekend. We make chocolate chip cookies, decorated sugar cookies, snickerdoodles, fudge....... and I think we'll do something else, something new. Maybe some sort of brittle. Any suggestions?

I still haven't heard from Steve. I have an ad up at Match.com, thinking that if he doesn't want me, doesn't want to continue to pursue a committed relationship maybe it's time to move on. But he never said he didn't want one, he just said he did not know about the future right now. I'm so confused. I want him, but he does this out of contact thing that makes me crazy. It hurts to be ignored. For days. For weeks. Doesn't he feel that I'm interesting? I don't want anyone else, but I feel like an ass sitting up here on the shelf for so long.

So, I made an ad and I really think I'm very relieved that nobody else wants me either and that's why I'm baking and taking picture after picture of my tree. I'm focusing on Christmas. I bought Max a little iPod Shuffle. Shh, don't tell him. He's going to love it. I hope.

A Very Girly Christmas

I took some photos of my family's Christmas decorations. For most of my life, I did the traditional real tree with a bunch of collected multi-colored balls, including many that were used when iIwas a kid or were made by me. Then, one year I was at Walmart and I saw the cutest little tree all done up in pink, purple, and a funky lime-green. I loved it! So, I picked up a little tree, set it up on a table (eek, so not what we did growing up), and I decorated the rest of the place in girly colors. My little tree saved me so much money and I liked the idea that I wasn't hurting any live trees.

I usually put shells in this glass vase. I really like the bubbles in the glass. You can see my little white tree in the background, above.

I know that a pink, purple, and blue is not for everybody, but I really enjoy it. It's fun to change things up - to hang purple stockings and ropes of pretend pearls (I hung those above the artwork in my living room).

Here's the tree. It's almost like an Easter tree, in a way. I couldn't take a photo that didn't wash out the pink glow with the stronger flash. Trust me when I saw that it's pretty.

I hope that my kids enjoy Christmas this year. I'm trying so hard to make it special, but I can feel myself starting to slip into a sad place. I miss my boyfriend and I'm pissed at him, too. I miss my Grandparents and I worry about how the holiday is going to be for my Grandma. This will be her first Christmas without Grandpa.

Mom, it's going to hard for Mom, too.

Sometimes the holidays can be tricky. There'a a lot of pressure involved, pressure to make things nice and memorable. Special. I look forward to them, sure, but there's also a part of me that wants them to hurry up and be over. I'm really fighting that part of me right now.

I'm going to sit back and enjoy my pink Christmas. I'm determined.