Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Christmas Blessings

I'm up in the wee hours of Christmas morning. I thought I would come post some thoughts while I wait for the chaos that is the merriment of Christmas morning in Great Falls, VA, to begin.

Today(yesterday, Monday, Christmas Eve) at work we were talking about our holiday traditions, both present, and from childhood. There were only a few of us working, but it was very interesting to me to hear how varied and diverse these holiday traditions are, and how much they change, and stay the same, over the years.

What I told my work friends was about my awesome memories of Christmas Eve at my Granny & Papa's house. My brother and I were the only grandchildren and only niece/nephew for 9 years (until Heather came along and ruined it all for us, i mean blessed us with her beautiful presence! hehe). I am the oldest of 13 grandchildren. And every year all/most of my mothers brothers and sisters (and later their wives/husbands and children) would gather at my Granny & Papa's house for Christmas Eve.

It was *magical* for me. I think I loved Christmas Eve as much or more than Christmas Day! *Everyone* was there (mostly). Some years we had a big dinner, which was painfully long for my brother and I (and our cousins when they started coming along over the years) because we couldn't start opening presents until the table was cleared and the dishes were cleaned. It took sooooooooo looooonnngg. I can remember running up and down the hallway of their shotgun double on Friscoville from the front room to the kitchen checking on the progress of the cleaning. Finally it was time to open the presents. Being the only granddaughter/grandson and only niece/nephew for 9 years was totally awesome. We were showered with gifts! One package after another! And when my cousins came into the world it was actually fun to share Christmas Eve with them because they were little babies and little kids and by then I was a teenager and the little ones really helped to keep the magic of Christmas alive in our celebrations.

After my Papa died in 1987(? now that's just wrong that I'm not completely sure of that date :( ), our Christmas Eve celebration moved to my Uncle Randy's house. This was done to take the pressure off my Granny, etc. And even though I was an adult, already a school teacher, the change did not sit well with me. After all, I had spent my entire life experiencing Christmas Eve one way, and this was a major change. But just like I got used to and learned to enjoy my first cousins sharing Christmas Eve with my family, I learned to enjoy our new version of the Celebration.

I only went to one (maybe 2 my memory is foggy for various reasons related to grief and depression) family Christmas Eve celebration after my mother died in 1992. I was still consumed with grief and had absolutely no desire to participate in a family ritual without her. The following year, 1993, my Granny was in the hospital over Christmas. I remember visiting her in the days before Christmas, I remember the beautiful knitted sweater overlay she bought me that year and how she smiled when I wore it to visit her. She died shortly after new years 1994 and I don't recall attending the annual Christmas Eve party again for a while. Perhaps to pop in and say hello. But without my mother and my granny it simply wasn't anything close to Christmas for me.

In the years following my mother and grandmother's deaths our family traditions continued to change. Her brothers and sisters families were growing, my cousins and I were adults and some of them were starting their own families. The last Christmas I spent with my mother's brothers and sisters gathered together was in 1998 in Ocean Springs, MS, and that wasn't held on Christmas Eve, it was on a Saturday a few weekends before Christmas when all/most of them could get together.

Today, each of the Odinet brothers and sisters have their own traditions that are growing and changing as their family grows and changes. Many of those traditions were changed again by Katrina in 2005.

For me, Christmas took on a whole new meaning in 2000 when my nephew Richard was born. I was absolutely shocked when my brother invited me to spend Christmas with them that year. And that has become my tradition! This marks the 8th year I have spent Christmas in the DC area at the Gauthier/Diely family Christmas celebration. It took a few years to convince Grandpa he needed to come for Christmas as well. Christmas eve is not a huge production like it was in my childhood. Tonight was a simple takeout dinner, Grandpa and I kept the kids for my brother and sister-in-law to go to a neighborhood party, we put out milk, cookies, carrots and cheese for Santa
and his reindeer, and the kids were packed off to bed. Miraculously no one trotted down the stairs to check on Santa once they settled in (Richard usually needs water or something so he can see whats up down here!). Then Grandpa, Aunt Christine, Mommy and Daddy worked feverishly as Santa's elves to make everything perfect for Christmas morning.

I think it is going to be a wonderful Christmas morning. At 7, 5 and 2, the kids are at wonderful ages. They still live the magic of Christmas.

And so I sit here, in the wee small hours of the morning, reminiscing about old times, tearing up a few times, smiling a whole lot, and counting my blessings. I am here with my family of 2007, waiting for the pitter patter of little feet to come running down the stairs any minute now. I am miles and miles away from other family, but I am thinking of each of them, wondering what new traditions are starting and being continued for them. And I am thinking of my growing family of choice, my wonderful friends scattered about the country spending Christmas with their families and their traditions. I am truly blessed in 2007 to have so many wonderful people filling my life. I have a LONG list of people I want to talk to on Christmas Day. Too long, if that's even possible!
I hope each and every one of you is waking up this morning to your own Christmas blessing! And I would LOVE to hear about *your* Christmas traditions both old and new!

Here's a small bit of silliness at the end of my post.....I misspelled traditions every time I wrote it in this post as *tradtions* LOL. I'm sleep deprived!

Love y'all!

Sunday, December 23, 2007

FREE FREE FREE Advice

DON'T GET THE FLU!!!

I woke up feeling fine Monday morning, had a sore throat at noon, went home feeling awful at 2 and woke up barely able to swallow with chills and fever at 7. I spent the rest of the week in bed.

I'm quite disgusted by it because I've been working hard to take better care of myself and eat healthier, etc. Sigh. I know, I will still work on making the good healthy choices for myself.

My dad is in town for the holiday. We took the kids to Toys R Us where Grandpa let them pick out 2 things each. It was a riot! We had alot of fun and were totally worn out by the time we got home (the adults, not the kids!).

If you don't hear from me, or I don't answer my phone for the next couple of days, its because I'm still fighting laryngitis left over from my flu.


I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas that is filled with laughter and joy,peace, and love!

Sunday, December 16, 2007

And here I was thinking I didnt have anything important or interesting to share!

Well it's been a while since I blogged, and I was sitting here staring at my computer knowing I needed to blog and thinking....'but I don't really have anything to say right now'! Wrong! There's LOTS I want to share. /me shakes my head :)

OK, so, first off I want to apologize to 2 important people in my life for 'forgetting' their birthdays. I knew they were coming and had great intentions, but the stupid snow blew my mind and I completely forgot. So, Nanny and Karen, so sorry to have missed your big day!

Speaking of Karen, she ran the Honolulu Marathon last Sunday! Isn't that amazing! She turned Hawaii 3-0 on the 5th and finished her 2nd Marathon on the 9th! I have amazing friends. You can read about it at Karen's blog if you are interested.

This past Friday we had our department work Christmas/Hanukkah party with a lovely gathering at my boss' house for a potluck luncheon. Everyone in the department was there and we had a fun time. We picked names for Secret Santa's (or Secret Jew as my friend Jen named herself! lol). We ended up picking names 3 times because we couldn't seem to get the right number of people, and it turned out our boss forgot to put her name in the first 2 times! At the beginning of last week I had a funny idea but thought it was too silly and didn't share it with anyone at first. But I was tired one evening after a long day and some of us were being deliriously silly so I told a few of my work friends about it and they loved it, so we decided to do it with an important twist. My idea was for all of us to pretend we had my boss' name and when we started exchanging gifts to start arguing about who had her etc. My friend Andrea had an idea for an important twist to the joke, we would take things from her desk and 're gift' them to her! Well let me tell you, everyone thought it was a great idea and it was HILARIOUS! At first she said, "well I have a couple of extra gifts in the basement for whoever doesn't get a gift in the mix up. Then she thanked people genuinely for the 're-gifts' until someone commented "do these look at all familiar to you?" Then she realized it was all a joke. This was before she got to my re-gift....her nametag! We all had a good laugh and had fun doing the real gift exchange.

I had the new girl, our new tech who started about a month ago. I don't know much about her at all, but her list asked for Bath and Body Works so that was easy, and it said 'I am in love with butterflies', so I decided to make her a scrapbook project using a butterfly motif. I used very colorful papers and a 9inch accordion album. It came out really well. Of course I didn't finish it until after midnight Thursday night and forgot to take pictures. She really liked it alot, as did many of my coworkers. I got lots of compliments and even a couple of requests to have scrapbooking get togethers when I come back to DC next summer to work for a few months again! It was really cool!

Another important factoid about our holiday party: I didn't eat any sugar! Lots of sweets, even in my gift from my boss (which i politely left on her end table!) I decided Friday morning that if I started on sugar on Friday at the party I would have alot of trouble staying away from the sugar this weekend while I was staying with the kids overnight. So I made sure to eat the non-sugar items until I was full so I wasn't hungry when they started eating the very delicious looking desserts! I'm really proud of myself. Tonight makes 3 weeks since I've had sugar! And, I've lost another pound! 42# total! One more and I will have met my goal that I set at Thanksgiving to lose another 5 pounds before Christmas. I can do it!!

Do, and playing with I kept the kids overnight Saturday while my brother and sister in law went to a holiday party and stayed overnight in DC. We had alot of fun doing arts and crafts, playing XBOX, watching Scoobylegos. My dad will be here next weekend for Christmas and I think he is going to be amazed at how much all 3 have grown, but especially how much Jacqueline has changed and how much more verbal (and willful!) she is. I think it's going to be a fun Christmas for all 3 kids this year! And for Grandpa and Aunt Christine!

Today I continued to push the envelope and my own limits by having my first ever manicure and pedicure. Yes, you read that right, I allowed another human being to touch my feet! My friend Michelle was right there with me, talking me through it. It wasn't so bad, though I didn't really *like* it. It's something I will have to get used to, and I plan on just that, getting used to it! I didn't get any color on my finger nails because even thought I'm 42, I still pick at nail polish on my fingers (yes, I know, bad habit). But I did get a very light pink on my toe nails, Wiki Wachee Fawn, yes the names they come up with for nail polish! Here is the evidence that it really happened:
I'm going to go back to the spa with Michelle one more time before I leave. I know I'm going to have another facial because I really liked that, and I'm not sure what else.

9 more work days here in DC. I will be heading south on or about Jan 2. But I don't know my destination yet. Hopefully I will by the end of the week.

I hope everyone has a good, safe, and not to hectic week before Christmas!

Thursday, December 6, 2007

SNOW DAY !!!

Yes you read that right! My worst fears about living in DC came true yesterday. It snowed! An Alberta Clipper came through and we got snow all day long, from before 6am til after 9pm. It was crazy! The rooftops and trees were already covered in white when I got up to check the weather at 6am. I had talked to a coworker who lives in Virginia who had offered to come get me from my apartment on her way to work. Thankfully she was serious and she came to get me mid morning. By the time we left last night it was snowing like mad, big fat wet fluffy flakes. It was dark and hard to see with the snow coming down so fast. I really felt bad making her go out of her way to drop me off before she went home, but she didn't complain at all. This morning my boss called me to tell me not to drive because of the black ice out there. I was trying to wait to let the sun melt some of the snow off, but after she called me I called my friend and she came to get me again. The roads were still somewhat dangerous tonight because of the temperatures dropping into the 20s before I even left work, which caused the snow that had melted to refreeze and cause more black ice on the roadways. I'm not sure what tomorrow will bring. But I will catch a ride if it's not safe to drive.

Here are some pictures from my day:
This was the view out my apartment window Wednesday morning

This was from my ride to work through Rock Creek Park Wednesday


This was the view from my desk at work Wednesday noontime when I finally got in to work


This was the view of the back yard of the nursing home

This was my car when I got home Wednesday night


This was me after a long snow day

Sunday, December 2, 2007

Sooooooo Much to share with you all!

I don't even know where to start, there is so much I want to share.

Well, lets start with a picture of my new eyes and new eyebrows. I got some hip new eyeglasses and got my eyebrows waxed (gasp, yes I really did!). This is a picture I took on my cell phone of myself. . .

Hmmmm, what else? Oh here's some exciting news . . . as of today I've lost 41 pounds!!! Yes, you read that right, 41# since coming to DC! My goal is to lose 2 more pounds and maintain that through the Christmas holidays. I'm working hard to stay off the sugar, and let me tell you, the sugar is *everywhere* right now, but its totally worth it! Go me!

More great news: I got my Florida OT license! So I will be heading to sunny Florida for my next assignment. I'm hoping to be close to one of my best friends, Ann, in West Melbourne. I should get the list of the current traveler openings on Monday and we start working on a new job for me from there.

Even more exciting news: I've been asked to join the Design Team at my favorite scrapbook store, Scrappersaurus. What does this mean? Well, they send me goodies to play with and create with, then I send back what I've made to be displayed in the store and online to help customers get ideas of what to do with various items! Its quite an honor and I'm so excited. I've already gotten my first 2 boxes of goodies and I have been working hard on some really neat layouts and projects. I love it because its making me think out of the box as well as reinvigorating my love of scrapbooking, stamping and papercrafting.

It's brrrr cold up here in DC right now. The high today was 45 and there was/is freezing rain north and west of here. There is a 30% chance of snow showers one day later this week, yikes! Only 4 more weeks for me to avoid winter precipitation! Pray for no snow or ice before January 2008!

Ok, time to make some dinner. Stay warm, or for those of you sweating it out in the south, stay cool! And GEAUX TIGERS!!!