The world

Doesn't the world seem a little smaller now with the internet, MySpace, blogs, etc.? Plus I'm always amazed at how lives touch in a Six Degrees kind of way. I read a blog from a great woman in Omaha (www.omahamama.blogspot.com) - I've never met her, probably never will, but I like her. Her joy is my joy and her sadness is my sadness. I stumbled across Omaha Mama's blog when she commented on another blog I read (www.benandbirdy.blogspot.com) which I read because I've been reading Catherine Newman's stuff (she's the author) for years. Without the web I would have no idea what was going on in the lives of two moms - one in Omaha and the other in Amherst, Massachusetts...and I've learned a lot from both of them. I imagine they could each write a post of their own about how they read somebody's blog that they ended up reading because it was on someone else's blog and so on and so on. I guess it's a kind of a virtual penpal thing!

Christmas Crazy

When I was growing up we had two trees - one in our living room and one in our dining room, both of which were in big windows that faced the street. The one in the dining room had been my grandmother's tree and she LOVED red. The whole tree was decorated in red - red lights, red feather garland, red birds, red decorations. Some of her decorations were the craziest things I had ever seen. I loved that tree - it was garish, but I loved it! The living room tree was the family tree - the one with macaroni ornaments, personalized ornaments, souvenirs, multi-colored lights, etc. It was not a theme tree by any means. That's the kind of tree we have now - it's a giant tree and I don't have nearly enough stuff to fill it up, but almost every piece that goes on it has a story. We have a box with ornaments from various countries that David's mom collected for us when they were on vacation in 2001...a vacation they cut short when Kyle came early! My favorite is the Swedish girl...who I'm sure has a name...because she always reminds me of my friend Heather. We have ornaments from Disney World, one from Topeka, various penguin ones from years and years ago. The bows that go on top, which are missing at the moment because they need to be fixed, were made by my friend Tonya when I couldn't find anything I liked to go on the top of the tree. And of course now we have awesome ornaments that Kyle has made - with many more to come I'm sure.

I also have a small snowman collection which makes me laugh now that we live in Georgia! In fact today when we were watching College Gameday on ESPN I was shivering in empathy with all the fans at Arrowhead Stadium for the Kansas-Missouri football game tonight. It was misting, snowing and blowing all at once! It's a lovely day here!

Nope, my tree will never make the cover of "House Beautiful" but it's beautiful to me!

Thanksgiving Fun

Okay - I think my thoughts of Thanksgiving with just the three of us were much worse than the actual day has been. Kyle has invented his own Thanksgiving tradition of wearing nothing but underwear and a t-shirt and watching Cartoon Network for hours on end - plus he's made a giant $100 bill that he believes will purchase him all of the Planet Hero toys at the after-Thanksgiving sales. We ate a delicious Thanksgiving lunch, made chocolate chip cookies, watched football, talked to my parents on the phone for a long time and I read three People magazines cover-to-cover and nobody bothered me!

Tomorrow is the all-important clean the house before we get out the Christmas decorations day so that may or may not go well depending on my level of motivation!

I hope YOU had a great Thanksgiving, too!

Traditions

I crave traditions - something we do each year because we have always done it. I grew up in a nuclear family of four - my mom was one of ten (!) kids so I have 61 first cousins on her side of the family, but we moved to Nebraska from Utah (where they all live) when I was four and any self-respecting Nebraskan knows you do NOT travel across Wyoming to get to Utah during the winter so we never went there for Thanksgiving or Christmas. I can only think of a few times when my dad's parents (he was an only child) came to Nebraska for Christmas. Once in awhile we would go to Kansas where a lot of my dad's relatives lived for Thanksgiving, but Christmas was almost always spent with just the four of us. I don't have memories of Aunt So and So's famous cranberry sauce or the post-turkey game of Crazy Eights. I honestly can't imagine it was that exciting for my mom to whip up a Thanksgiving dinner for just the four of us...cooking and cooking and cooking, just to have us finished eating in like 10 minutes! Plus, I was always the odd-girl out after Thanksgiving...I was ready to play and hangout with my friends, but none of them could because they were off at grandma's house or grandma was visiting or whatever.

Now I seem to have created another non-tradition-filled family. It's just the three of us...in Georgia. Who wants to make a turkey dinner for three people? My parents are just getting too old to travel so far anymore and we're planning to see David's family at Christmas. So, what should we do? Personally, I think we should start our own Thanksgiving tradition of a mini vacation. Someplace nearby so we can drive and we aren't just sitting around the house staring at each other for four long days! Pick a place with an indoor pool and some nearby attractions and just go. Let me know if you have any ideas!!!!

Funny Stuff -

Demetri Martin: I like parties, but I don't like piñatas because the pinata promotes violence against flamboyant animals. Hey, there's a donkey with some pizzazz. Let's kick its ass. What I'm trying to say is, don't make the same Halloween costume mistake that I did.

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Demetri Martin: Employee of the month is a good example of how somebody can be both a winner and a loser at the same time.

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Demetri Martin: I went into a deli and got an egg sandwich and a hot chocolate. And then I went outside and I had to get a cab, so I had to put up one of my hands. But I already started eating my sandwich; I took it out of the bag, I was impatient. So my choice was hold up an egg sandwich or hold up a hot chocolate to get a car. So I chose the hot chocolate. And I put it up there and no cab stopped and I realized it was because I looked like I was toasting traffic. Standing on the street, 'Here's to you guys, to everybody heading west, I just wanna say I like what you do... but one of you needs to stop, pick me up.'

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Demetri Martin: I wrapped my Christmas presents early this year, but I used the wrong paper. See, the paper I used said 'Happy Birthday' on it. I didn't want to waste it so I just wrote 'Jesus' on it.

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Demetri Martin: 'Sort of' is such a harmless thing to say. Sort of. It's just a filler. Sort of - it doesn't really mean anything. But after certain things, sort of means everything. Like after 'I love you' or 'You're going to live' or 'It's a boy.'

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Demetri Martin: I got some new pajamas with pockets in 'em. Which is great, because before that, I used to have to hold stuff when I slept. But now I'm like, 'Where's my planner? There it is. "Keep sleeping." All right, perfect.'

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Demetri Martin: I went into a clothing store, and the lady asked me what size I was. I said, 'Actual'. I'm not to scale.

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Demetri Martin: I like fruit baskets because it gives you the ability to mail someone a piece of fruit without appearing insane. Like, if someone just mailed you an apple you'd be like 'Huh? What the hell is this?', but if it's in a fruit basket you're like 'This is nice!.'

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Demetri Martin: My favorite fruit is grapes. Because with grapes, you always get another chance. 'Cause, you know, if you have a crappy apple or a peach, you're stuck with that crappy piece of fruit. But if you have a crappy grape, no problem - just move on to the next. 'Grapes: The Fruit of Hope.'

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Demetri Martin: My plumbing is all screwed up. Because it turns out, I do not own a garbage disposal.

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Demetri Martin: One of my friends has a stutter and a lot of people think that's a bad thing, but to me that's just like starting certain words with a drum roll. That's not an impediment, that's suspense! What's he going to say? Car?... or Carnival?... Carburetor? Man...

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Demetri Martin: Canoe + waterfall = I don't go camping anymore.

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Demetri Martin: I think it's interesting that 'cologne' rhymes with 'alone.'

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Demetri Martin: I wanna make a jigsaw puzzle that's 40,000 pieces. And when you finish it, it says 'go outside.'

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Demetri Martin: Saying 'I'm sorry' is the same as saying 'I apologize.' Except at a funeral.

Oh my gosh!

I was going to blog about the perfectly miserable time I had trying to get Kyle motivated about his homework, but when I logged on to my blog there was finally a place for me to add video!!!! So, without further ado, I present to you Kyle's version of "Dancing with the Stars!"

Super Mario Kyle

Halloween was great! Angela put together Kyle's costume for him...a costume he has been talking about for months and months. Everywhere we went people would say, "Hey, it's Mario" or "Where's Luigi" - almost to the point that Kyle would get embarrassed about it. The funniest was when a girl down the street said "Where's Luigi?" and Kyle said, "Right, like I haven't heard that one before." Sarcasm...hmmm...I wonder where he got that from????? Of course those not "in the know" when it comes to video game culture, pretty much think he was a hobo!

I will say Halloween in Georgia is certainly different than Halloween in Nebraska - I mean I seriously doubt anyone's costume is going to be hidden by a parka and boots in Georgia!