Thanksgiving Travels

We're leaving in the morning (theoretically*) to go to Bend/Sun River for Thanksgiving, to celebrate with friends (theoretically**) and family and enjoy the snow (theoretically***) without me having to do the bulk of the cooking.

Unfortunately, the weather God are not shining down on us, unless "shining down" includes dumping snow, snow, snow and more snow, albeit not on us directly, but on the route that we need to travel to make it to our destination.

My husband, born and raised in Chicago, land of ice and snow, assures me he is fully capable of driving us over a mountain and through a blizzard. Myself, born and raised in New Orleans, land of sun and humidity and the occasional hurricane, is planning to drink to excess tonight so that I can sleep through the drive tomorrow.

And just to keep it exciting, Carlie drove out with her uncle today, so deciding to cancel our trip due to inclement weather is not a particularly good option, what, with her being the overly sensitive little flower that she is.

So when you're putting your turkey in the oven, think of me braving the elements on the road (i.e. sleeping in the passenger seat). And when you're mashing your potatoes, send good vibes as I (Tim) am chaining up on the side of the road on a treacherous mountain pass.

Happy Holidays. Are we having fun yet?

*if the world has not ended in snowpocalypse 2010

**the friends have already bailed on the trip, but the family? diehards

***I hate snow

Christmas Eve Party Eve

It's the most stressful day of the year for my family. It's the day we clean and clean and clean before our 50+ guests descend for our Christmas Eve Open House. I try to make it a festive and cheery cleaning extravaganza with music and snacks and even prizes for various cleaning contests, but my children are too sophisticated to fall for that shit and basically just ignore me, do their chores as quickly and half-assedly as possible and get the hell out of my way.

But this year, Mother Nature is on my side! No one can go anywhere to escape Christmas Eve Party Eve because the snow has basically made them all my captives. Ha ha! Snow day that, kids!

I asked a question a while back re: what other people were spending on or buying for their kids, and didn't get a lot of responses. My shopping is finished and here is the final tally. NOTE: feel free to stop reading right now if you could not give a shit what I bought my kids for Christmas. You won't hurt my feelings at all and if you choose to leave now, good bye and Merry Christmas!

Also note, We were keeping things pretty simple and then grandpa sent cash asking us to get gifts for the kids. So that bumped up each kid a notch from "small gifts" to small gifts plus one biggish gift from us and grandpa.

Out of towners: I sent Maggy pajamas ($30), Iris three DVDs that Maggy requested ($40) and a gift certificate to a restaurant for Maggy and the boyfriend ($50). 

For the in-house kids: Taylor has a hat that I have knitted for him, a pair of gloves, pajamas, a gift certificate to a favorite local coffee house and a "credit" from us/grandpa towards the purchase of a new bicycle, which he desperately wants/needs for commuting to school and work, but wants to wait until after Christmas to purchase as he is a frugal lad and knows he'll get a better deal. And when I say credit towards, that's because his idea of a good deal on a bike is $600, and my idea of a Christmas gift is under $200.

For Erinna, I have knitted a hat and purchased an iPod touch, which was a 50/50 gift from us and from grandpa, otherwise she wouldn't be getting it. Also pajamas and a CD that she wanted.

And for Carlie, a combination of gifts from mom and dad and grandpa and Santa: Flip video camera (from grandpa, actually), pajamas and everything on her list, which was a pretty flimsy list so it was easy (a couple of music CDs, a movie DVD, Starbucks gift card, two games for Nintendo DS). I'll be holding back one of the Nintendo games and one of the CDs to save as birthday gifts for her on 12/28.

And for my husband, I knitted him a hat and a pair of socks. Purchased new pajamas. And he's getting a homemade card with the promise of a back scratch every night for a year. A back scratch at the end of the day is, like, the way to get that man to do practically anything. So it's a win win.

I was having a philosophical dilemma today about the "snow days" we're both having from work. Last time we lost time for winter weather was in 2004 when we were hit with a raging ice storm. At the time, we were both gainfully employed by someone other than ourselves and it was like, OH YEAH, BABY, SNOW DAY. Because no work but you still get paid? Who doesn't love that.

But now we're both self-employed. And no work = no pay. Period. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. While we're enjoying the chance to be home during this holiday build up week, we're going to be paying for it monetarily this time next month. And that reality sucks.

But then I go out in the snow, and slide my car to the grocery store to get bread and diet coke, and realize that attempting to get anywhere would be suicidal. Which is why everything is closed and no one is venturing out. So there's really no choice but to relax and let nature take its course and deal with the consequences when we get there. That perspective helped me be able to enjoy the down time tremendously. Someone remind me of it when I am crying broke in January and wondering how I got so broke.

To wind down the day and celebrate the eve of Christmas Eve Party Eve, we had a lovely dinner at La Bottega and booked our New Years Eve reservation for a wine tasting dinner. Now are dropping the kids off at home and going over to the home of friends for poker and cocktails. Tomorrow? Another snow day. My booked jobs have cancelled and Tim cannot get to his office in Gladstone, Oregon. Hopefully we can keep the anxiety and bay and enjoy it.

Weekend Review

We've got snow. If I weren't snuggly warm under the covers, I'd go down and grab my camera and show you the snow. Our precise measuring technique indicates over a foot of snow on the ground in my yard. This was precisely measured by poking a stick that was about a foot long down into the snow until it hit the ground.

Saturday was spent doing a whole bunch of nothing -- other than making fairy houses -- until it was time to party like it's 1999 at a birthday bash for a great friend. Good food, the awesomest friends in the world, the wine was flowing, the house was cozy warm and the child was on a sleepover. What more can you want on a snowy Saturday night?

Sunday morning came early, and my aching head wanted to sleep it off, but that kid on the sleepover? Yeah, she was singing in the choir at mass and had to be met there and brought home. I gave some serious thought to sneaking into the back of the church for the last five minutes of mass and pretending like I had been there the whole time and, wow, you did a great job up there, honey. But my conscience got the best of me, so at 10:40 we decided to warm up the car and make the 10-minute drive to church.

And then we saw the car under, like, four inches of SOLID ICE and it took half an hour to dig it out. Seriously. It was crazy. And the 10-minute drive was a little dicey. But the good news (not so much) is that my husband is from Chicago. He is all about driving in snow and ice. And he loves to show off his mad snow and ice driving skills. Which he did on the drive home from church in an empty parking lot. Carlie and I screamed our heads off until he got back on the road and brought us home. Why do men think doing donuts is fun? I don't get it.

We hunkered down for the snow day and everyone read books, watched movies, ate cookies and was generally cozy. I finished knitting two hats. Carlie and I finished making her Teen Beat crafty gifts for her friends and Tim and I watched a couple of hour of Mad Men.  All was well until CABIN FEVER set in at an alarming rate. The snow was still falling, the roads were covered, and at 5 pm we bundled up and took a walk to Mint Tea for a tasty treat and a break from the house. The poor Mint Tea people were scheduled to have a rocking Grand Opening in their new location yesterday, and pretty much all they got was us. Mint Tea and Walgreens were the only things open on Main Street, and oh how happy we were to have them open!

Trudged home, defrosted and played an epic game of Monopoly that lasted approximately 17 hours. Good times! After Carlie went to bed, we watched yet another episode of Mad Men, which puts us at six episodes watched in a 24-hour period. That could be indicative of a problem.

Now it's Monday, and from the looks outside, it's going to be more of the same. Only problem is: we're almost out of cookies. Crap.