Bring on the Shit show

I figure that this will probably be the last time that I will have a second to blog for the next few days, so I just wanted to take a second and wish everyone reading this a Merry Christmas and all that jazz. The gas tank is on full and we are ready to hit the holidays hard in the Carr house this year. Mitch of coarse is working on his gifts today but other then that I think we are totally ready. If I can survive tomorrow then it will be smooth sailing for the rest of the days. Now it's time to pig out, be with friends and family (some wanted some not...) and relax a little. Happy whatever the heck you celebrate, please be safe.

L

Tis The Season

Tis the season for joyfulness, love and goodwill. In theory it all sounds really great, wouldn't it be great if everyone for just a moment put aside the anger, hate or thoughtlessness aside for just a few moments and really did something nice for someone else? I am not a religious person so I'm not going to be the one to lecture about losing the real reason behind Christmas but it is sad that we almost all get consumed in the commericalism of the holiday. Give a kid a present that they wouldn't have gotten, donate some food to the food bank, or give a few bucks to the poor dude dressed as Santa ringing his little bell. I for one stood back after looking at the mountain of gifts I have for Hailey and my heart hurt a little for the little kids that don't have it as good. A little know fact about me is I am a recovering Grinch, sometimes I have to tell myself to knock it off when I feel the "I hate Christmas" feelings starting to bubble up from my heart that is a few sizes to small, but in all honesty I just want to create something wonderful for my little girl above all else. I guess what really gets me the most is how fake some people are for one or two days of the year, just for the sake of the holiday, that just kills me. I couldn't tell you how many Christmas' resulted in tears, fighting or some form of awkwardness in our family over the years and we all carried on with the charade every year anyways. Now is the time to make new traditions and stop thinking about all the things in the past that have made this time of year stressful, easier said then done but the end results will be worth it. As I look back on 2010 I am very very grateful for what I have, and who I have in my life. I can officially say I'm going to be leaving 2010 in better shape then I started it, and setting some pretty high goals for 2011. I can't wait to see what the New Year has in store for us. But until then I will sit back and try to be grateful for everything good in my life and try and survive the next few days... I mean love every moment of it...

L

Momma called the Dr. and the Dr. said....

I think I have a sickness, I have totally forgotten how to relax. When did it come to this? I'm not exactly sure but I think I have totally lost the ability to put my feet up and take an evening off. I'm sitting here now trying to tell myself that the dishes in the sink that Mitch said we were going to leave and quote "be lazy tonight" are going to be just fine until I can get my hands on them tomorrow morning *sigh* the presents on the counter can be wrapped tomorrow at some point, and the Christmas baking can definitely wait until sometime later this week. The nice long bath that I was going to take turned out to be about 20 mins long with me thinking the whole time about what I was going to do when I got out. It's sad, I realize but I'm happy the way I am until I start working away into the night and then I think I will need an intervention. However I am feeling better about getting most of the Christmas shopping out of the way, just a few little things that can be picked up close to home and I should be done. Just the humongous pile of presents need to be tamed and wrapped, but those bad boys have their days numbered before they go off to their forever homes and outta my hair.

The last few days this week have certainly been colorful, I have been trying to get an idea of where we are supposed to be this year to see all of our families during the holidays so I made a few phone calls so I can start planning. I guess my aunt and uncle are going to be staying here for about a week, which is fine we offered it up to them in November. It will be right after Lynne and Graham are up for our early Christmas so I'm hoping there won't be any family overlap, as that might be a little to painful to endure. After suffering through the dad's girlfriends' call I had to immediately call my half sister and my aunt to find out the real deal behind what will be happening on that side of the family, as Sal had stated that Christmas is cancelled and nobody was going to see Grandpa... I guess this happens every year, I just don't call that early in the month to hear all her empty threats. Fantastic, you can stay home and cancel yourself while we all enjoy a nice meal without you. Whatever we all will meet at the home like we do every year, and that solves my dilemma on how to fit everyone in. Gotta love the holidays when you can't stand some of your family right? right? Oh well tomorrow me and my little family are heading over to my mom's house for her birthday dinner and we should all have a good time, no drama just good times. Sometimes I just wonder why things can be so easy, and yet things are so hard at the same time, guess that's why my mom got the hell out of her marriage and that family...

L

Back On-line

Sorry I have been MIA for the last few days, we have been busy to say the least but our computer was also very sick as of late and it's finally up and running at a speed that I'm willing to take a crack at writing again. Since Lynne let this crazy virus run rampant on our computer we have had nothing but trouble. We brought in our biggest computer buff to fix it and it finally took formatting the hardrive twice, running multiplele software programs, program fixes, and finally the cannibalization of three computers to get it all running right and about 25 hours of quality bonding time. It was a computer graveyard in my office as we painfully had to step back in to the stone age as Mitch put it, using a Frankensteined set up just trying to get logged into the very basics to get us through the week. We laughed about having to use a "roller" mouse, ha! it was brutal and man that mouse isn't really that old, or the fact that we moved up two mammoth monitors (Remember the one that you gave me Chad? the one that weighs like 40 pounds?) due to the fact that our flat screen monitor wasn't compatible with our slightly older tower. Mitch finally ended up bringing home our PC from the office and with a little magic, upgrading and a whole lot of TLC we are finally back! I realized that I spend an awful lot of time on here and being forced to find other things to keep me company during the day made me realize I am capable of getting more done and wasting less time if I just stay away from the black hole of time sucking, aka the internet.

Losing the last week in November due to Linda's death has really put me behind schedule for Christmas 2010, and that is making me a little nuts. I have most of the kid's gifts all ready for wrapping, but I just need to find sometime to get out and get my mom's b-day gift and all the other "early Christmas" stuff out of the way. Mitch's mom just confirmed that instead of being here next weekend she will be arriving on the 18th so that gives me a few more days to get everything together. My list is getting longer by the day, and it's only the 4th! Man you gotta love Christmas if your a mom, and I only can imagine what it's going to be like when Hailey is a bit bigger! Well at least I have my computer back and I can get back to my spreadsheets and mailing labels (which I have to find somewhere on our back up hardrive that we just got and back everything up... thank the lord... I would have been SOL otherwise!)

Otherwise things are getting back to normal around here, and I couldn't be happier! Mitch and I took Hailey to see Santa yesterday and that was just a total disaster, we all got to be in the picture as Santa is apparently a really scary dude. Then all she could talk about the rest of the day was "Santa, ho ho ho" what I would give to be in her brain sometimes...

Well I'm going to try and recover my lost data, wish me luck!

L