Time off begats neuroses.

Today I was in a Target store, which means that I did finally buckle a little and buy some presents (matter of fact, I have spent way more on the kid than I thought I would). And after I had made my selections I was waiting on others I was with to finish shopping - just browsing around looking at the shelves with all sorts of stuff on them, when suddenly, to my great astonishment I realized that I had been SORTING. Yep. The games were all out of whack - monopoly all up in the chutes and ladders space, balderdash sitting sideways two shelves up from where it was supposed to be, puzzles in the wrong space, tag reader books lying on the shelf or hanging in the wrong spot altogether. There's no telling how long I had actually been "cleaning up" before I realized it. Actually it wasn't until another shopper, a woman, asked me if I worked there because she needed help with something! Seriously. I didn't even have a red shirt on! I was proudly wearing my black NKOTB concert shirt. You know, even after I realized that I was sorting out stuff and putting stuff back -- I KEPT DOING IT! What does this mean for me? Time off is too much time for my brain. I have four days off now. I traveled the first day, rested the second, started waking up yesterday, and now I guess I'm looking for stuff to do! I do have a few things to unpackage and a few batteries to install...muh ha ha ha!

Bah humbug!

No matter what I do, I just can't seem to get the Christmas spirit this year. I'm not spirited at all actually - I'm better described as a mediocre ho hum. I went to look at Christmas trees but walked away empty handed. Now I don't even care if we have one or not. They were either too tall, too short, too fat, or too skinny - too sparse or too thick. They came with lights, without lights, with pinecones and berries and just plain old pine. The Santa that I saw in the mall the other day even made my nose turn up. We were walking by and Sarah is going nuts shouting, "looook Mommee, it's SANNA CLAWS!" He barely waved at us. If Santa only gets excited when folks throw money at him, than he can stuff his bowl full of jelly belly right up his...chimney. You know what I mean.
And then there's the gift giving. This year I actually had a slight increase in my budget for the holidays, but I could care less. The only thing I want to shop for is New Kids on the Block memorabilia off Ebay. Something about it soothes me. Nevertheless, I tromped around Target for two hours one night and watched Sarah prance around the toy section playing with things to get a better idea of what old Santa could bring her after he finishes with all the mall photo shoots he's got going. All my other relatives might be S.O.L this year simply because I don't care if they get a present or not! It's bad. I can't say this has ever happened to me. Shall I call it Christmas Apathy? It's like after we moved up to Maryland where we actually have a snowball's chance in hell (pun definitely intended) of having an actual white Christmas (or at least something white on the ground in the same vicinity as Christmas) I seem to have been stricken with a crappy attitude about the whole thing!
If it weren't for the 4 year old living with me, I'd probably just try to ignore Christmas until Janurary when I'd probably become depressed all over again that it was gone and I didn't do anything to celebrate. But since I have this child, I'm trying to figure out how to get into the swing of things. I purchased the New Kids Christmas album from years past and that worked for a few days. We played it over and over. We bought a copy of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas and that had a never before felt effect on me. I actually could see where the old Grinch was coming from. To hell with their Who-ville celebrations! To hell with all their presents and their roast beast! But in the end his heart grew the two sizes and the rest is history. The Grinch came on board with the Christmas thing because something was so moving it actually made him stop and think. That's what I need. One of those stop and think moments. Like maybe Grandma would almost get run over by the reindeer and it would be a harrowing experience until some sort of Christmas angel would swoop down out of the clouds, shimmering in the moonlight, and rescue Grandma from the road. Something like that. Eh. Forget it. I think I'm a lost cause this year. I'll just blame it on the economy...

Welcome (back) to Maryland...brrr

I went home for a visit, and I came back. Took forever to drive the truck back, but we did it. At least gas wasn't upwards of 3.50 a gallon this time!

Thanksgiving in GA was nice, although I worked for part of it. Right when we stepped off the plane we started shedding our jackets and gloves - ah yes, the deep South. It's like being hugged by the sun.
But I did come back, and it's still cold here. Still freezing. So now I'm working on ways to get warm. Any suggestions?

Bye Bye Gallbladder

So I had to back to the Emergency Room because of the gallbladder thing - was having a terrible night, in a lot of pain, and just about inconsolable.  This time the ER was in Maryland, and this time I had health insurance, and bada bing, bada boom - they did all sorts of tests, found that the little GB was completely blocked by a 1.1 inch stone, and was not functioning at all - so I had emergency surgery to get the thing out, they sliced it open and in it were probably 40 or more stones, most of them fairly large.  And they were swimming in a major infection too.  So this was actually life threatening!  I could have died had it gone on much longer.

The surgeon was very nice to me and told me that I had been sick and suffering for a long time.  No kidding?

Moral of the story is not to put these things off.  Take care of yourselves.  And make sure you have health insurance since hospitals seem to take much better care of you if you do.

Could somebody pass the Duke's mayonnaise?

I just moved to Maryland...not even 72 hours ago, with my kid, my husband, my Jetta, my cats, and a 26 foot long U-Haul truck.  Changed my life in one fell swoop.  One weekend.  Seriously.  It's nice up here even though I'm still tired.  The trees and mountains are beautiful.  All of the leaves have changed into gold, red, or orange.  The campus I work on is gorgeous, and my apartment here is amazing!  But there's a few things I've noticed so far that surprised me even more than all of that.

I'm a southerner.  Definitely.  Even though I previously wrote about how bored I was at times with my country upbringing, now it's almost a source of pride.  Yep, there were cows next door.  And yes, I have an accent.  I say y'all.  I like Duke's mayo on my tomato sandwiches.  I talk about my "Granny."  It's colder up here and I have a legitimate right to complain if I want to.  I'm from Georgia for crying out loud.  We don't have winter.  It just gets a little nippy in January.   

People here say, "I'm from PA," instead of I'm from Pennsylvania.  Fortunately this southerner was smart enough to remember the state abbreviations!  And they don't pronounce Maryland correctly either...it's like the y and the d get left out.  But they are nice and I'm reminded everyday that I'm still below the Mason Dixon line.  So officially I'm not a Northerner.  Not that anyone in a million years would ever think that anyway.  

It will be a very interesting transition for me, but so far I'm having a good time.

Message from Granny.

There is a lot of sorting and packing going on at my house right now because we are preparing for a big move to Maryland.  I have gotten a great new job and we were so lucky to lease the house to a great family that's moving in the day after we move out.  Everything has fallen right into place, in spite of me.  So tonight I was going through stuff in the garage and looked over at my grandmother's little nightstand that came home with us after her death.  I brought it home and stuck it in my garage and have left it alone since.  Tonight I decided to look inside.  I found all sorts of little treasures of hers, but one thing in particular brought tears to my eyes...lots of them.  In a little notebook that I had given her years earlier, she had written on the very back page, "You better take time out to study your Bible [out] of your busy day of work & thank God."  I clipped the little note out and promptly put it in a frame.  I think it will go on my new desk at my new job in my new life that I've been given, that I am, by the way, very thankful for.

Toddler dictionary

like: as in "time to go to bed, turn off the like"

mayked: adj, meaning without clothes

note: command, as in uh uh, no way.

werts: refers to the little men in the famous story, Snow White and the Seven Werts

lello: one of the three primary colors - not red, not blue

bonny tail: what you have when you pull your long hair together in the back and put a rubber band around it.

copy: noun, refers to the piece of cloth that brings great comfort when you're sleepy
familla: a flavor, such as familla ice cream.