Now your New Year's is complete...

Happy New Year!

For those of you who have already rung in 2012, I have one question:  Do we have floating cars yet?

No?

Bummer.

Okay, so this year I decided to break my resolutions list into two lists:  I have a writing list and a rest of my life list.  This is my resolution list for my real life:

In 2012 I resolve to:

1)  Take a multi vitamin every day.

I don't take pills well.  Except for my arthritis pain killers I forget to take stuff regularly.  Makes you wonder how I managed to have only two kids.

2)  Read 12 books.

That's about how many I read this year.  While one book a month doesnt' seem like much, I have resolved to write a lot this year, so reading might get pushed out of the way.  My Shelfari account keeps reminding me I've fallen well behind my reading production of 2010. 

3)  Go to Gold's at least 2x per week, and the Wii 3x. 

The goal is three for the gym, but we all know that I'm truly lame.  However, HUBBY got me a yoga mat for Christmas.  This means I MUST take the yoga mat requiring class on Saturday mornings.  So that's one trip there already in the books.

4)  Do something about that little facial hair problem.

Maybe I can get a two for one with some circus woman or something, but darn it all, this is the year I regain my girlish face.

5)  Every time I buy a book, CD, piece of clothing, I donate an old one to a charity resale shop.

STOP THE CLUTTER!  Actually, this resolution may prove helpful in the opposite direction.  I may simply stop buying new stuff because I'm attached to the stuff I have.

So there you go, your New Year's celebrations are now complete.  It's a new year, a new page.  Let's see how well I do.  First test will be that AM multivitamin tomorrow.  Egads.

Happy New Year all!

Have a Holly Jolly...oh whatever!

Hello everyone!

So...where exactly did December go?  I remember getting to the end of Nanowrimo in November...and then...it's December 21st.

Yikes!

Okay, clearly I've been remiss in keeping you posted as to my silly life.  I am so excited that once again, I believe for about the 8th year in a row, Bob and Brian read my holiday horror story on the air.  I don't think I won the grand prize, but I was named as a "friend of the show."  That makes me happy.

Since I did all my holiday horror stories for you last year, I really should share my story from last year with you.  So...here goes?

Christmas 2010. 

Every year for Christmas Eve hubby and I open our home to relatives and friends, and whomever may not have plans for Christmas Eve.  Hubby makes something magnificent to eat, and we do a "crap Christmas" present exchange.  (For those of you not in the know, "Crap Christmas" is when we scour our homes, and local charity stores for the most ridiculous, stupid, ugly items we can find.  We wrap them with love, and foist them on friends and relatives.) 

We've been doing this for 14 years.  Last year, when we realized that we had the potential of nearly 50 people showing up, Hubby and I decided to have a "quiet Christmas," just the grandparents and our kids, on the 23rd.

Hubby's mom came, as did my parents.  It was really a nice evening.  About 11, parents left, mom in law went to bed, kids went to their rooms.  Hubby, who had been battling a pretty bad cough for a week, suddenly could not breathe. 

A bed for the patient...do you see a bed for
the patients wife who took a sleep aid and
now can't stand still?

We spent about 5 hours in the ER.  The great part about going to the ER not being able to breathe is that you don't have to wait.  The bad part, for me, is that I'd taken 2 Tylenol PMs and was battling furiously to just keep my eyes open.  And if you take Tylenol PM, you know that if you don't let yourself fall asleep, you can get twitchy.  By the time we left, they were eyeing me as a potential drug abuse candidate.

Getting home at dawn, with a diagnosis of pneumonia, Hubby and I decided to cancel the party.  We called everyone, and our friends completely understood.  They were bummed, but they understood.

Our family, however...

I called my mother, who insisted they would still come over  (remember, we've already DONE Christmas with them) AND they would bring my brother and his three kids.  "But we'll just stay a little bit."

So...that meant, since Hubby was hard down with meds and no sleep, that I had to cobble together some sort of meal.  Mother in law swore she'd help, "WITH EVERYTHING."

Yeah.

So I cooked, Peaches cleaned, Skippy hid from everyone.  Hubby slept and mom in law read a book.  All day.  I've never seen anyone work so hard at reading.

By the time my parents arrived with brother and kids in tow, the kids were in a foul mood.  The two youngest spent the night screeching at each other.  Brother and mother spent their time griping about how our three cats  (new additions at Christmas last year) were going to make them sick.  (For the record, my father is allergic, my mother is not, but my father would rather cut off his foot than complain about anything to the host of a party.)  Four hours later, mom in law went to bed and my extendeds left. 

Did any of them help clean up?

Hey no problem.  You guys just sit perfectly still.
Pneumonia man and sleepless girl will
clean up.

Why no, no they did not.  No, they all said they had to leave, after eating all the food in the house because they just couldn't take the cats one more minute.  They couldn't breathe.

Meanwhile, Hubby is barely able to sit upright.

So, this year we are going to Nashville.  People ask us why we are going to Nashville for Christmas.  They ask if we have family there.  The answer, always, is a loud, joyful, "NO!"

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and I will see you all in 2012...hopefully with a completed Elsie book in my hands.  (She has to stop giving me material, however!)

Some things should just stay in the privacy of one's blog!

Good evening!

I am happy to report, my friends, that I have completed my word goal for "Stupid."  I am at 30,000 words, where I thought I would be when the first draft was completed.  Here's the thing:

I'm about halfway through my outline for the book.

What this means, my friends, is that I must rely on your patience a while longer.  "Stupid" won't be out for Christmas, mostly because Elsie continues to give me amazing material every single day.  I do plan on being done with it and having it out during the winter months yet, so please stay tuned.

In the meantime:

Ladies...you know that uncomfortable itch you get every once in a while?  You get it from wearing a swimsuit all day, or nylon panties, or maybe using toilet paper that leaves pieces behind?  Well I had that recently and my usual treatments of taking an acidolphilus tablet and ignoring it until it went away didn't work.  Which means I had to go to my local All-green's to purchase something a bit more medicinal.

Now clearly I'm not a person who is easily embarrassed.  At least, not in the world of blogging.  I've spent many hours regaling you all with my feminine punctuation issues, my unwillingness to dirty a glass, and pretty much every moment I've spent at Gold's gym.  (which reminds me:  Dee convinced me to sign up for another body challenge.  Will I post the embarrassing "before" picture on this blog?  Only if the "after" picture makes me look something like Catherine Bell.)

There's something about this itchy issue, however, that will make even the boldest of women whisper.  I've been in a group of women that have been shouting out the most intimate, gory details of their labor and delivery, but conversation will silence if someone whispers  "You know...I've been having some...feminine itching lately."

So late one night last week, under cover of darkness, I decided I needed to run down to my local All-greens and pick up a tube of something.  The errand actually started out as Hubby running back a copy of "The Town" to the local video store.  (Never did watch it.  Just forgot to.)  Well, I just can't be that cruel to Hubby to make him have to buy something I'm not even able to pronounce.

Thing is, it was late.  I was already in my jammies.  But ladies, you know, when you need something like this, you need it.  So I slipped on my stylish pink Merell clogs and got in the car.  Oh yeah, Peaches came along because, well, she wanted a reason to get in the car late at night.

We dropped off the movie and headed to the All-greens.  As we got out, I said, "Here I am, breaking my number one fashion rule:  I'm wearing lounge pants in public."

Peaches said, "The only thing that will make this more funny is if Tick Nelson is working."

I should explain Tick.  Tick is a boy who was Skippy's best friend in first grade and then, over Christmas break, turned into Eddie Haskel.  Tick is now 18 and works evenings at yes, you guessed it, our local All-greens.  I'm sure he's a lovely boy now, but he still looks like Eddie Haskel and, since I have to see him in church on a regular basis, I wasn't all that excited about the fact that 1)  I was in my jammies and 2)I was about to buy something with the words "Anti fungal" in the title.

Sure enough, there he was, right at the check out counter.  "Good evening Mrs. Bradley,"  he said in that sugary sweet voice that I've known since the boy was five.

Crap.

I sent Hubby and Peaches into All-greens to find something, anything to purchase to cover what I was really buying.  As if buying large amounts of crap would cover the tiny tube.  Wouldn't you know it...the ONE time neither of them needed a single thing.

I slunk my jammied self to the feminine aisle where I found several products that would suffice.  However, I was at war with myself.  Did I want to purchase the high priced, euphemistically titled item, or did I want to save 50% and go through the humiliation of buying the store brand that shouted out "ANTI FUNGAL TREATMENT FOR YEAST INFECTIONS!"

I am, first and foremost, frugal.  Besides, I knew, even as I bought three bags of candy  (don't judge me on how much I spent to save myself $4.)  to cover up my real purchase, that THIS was going to be a good blog post.

My courage wavered, I'm not going to lie, as I approached the counter.  Tick addressed me pleasantly, ignoring the howls of muffled laughter emitting from the hand covered mouths of Hubby and Peaches.  I managed to get through the encounter without making any eye contact, an odd experience for me.  ( I don't have this much trouble when I'm buying the BIG BOTTLE of Jack Daniels and a former Sunday School student is working the checkout lanes.)

Maybe I'm old fashioned.  Maybe I believe there should be a woman on every shift at All-greens so that I don't have to suffer this shame outside the privacy of my blog.

Maybe I'll just eat more yogurt.