My new office!

Finally!! A picture for everyone to see - can you believe it?? Here are a couple of pictures of my office and desk. The second picture is there primarily so that you can see what the ceiling looks like. I really love the way the plank ceiling turned out - it looks fantastic irl. The floor is great as well. I'm looking forward to officially moving all my scrap stuff, but first I have to go through and donate or sell a bunch. I am planning on keeping this office neat and I can't do that when I've got a ton of stuff I don't need or use.

A whole houseful...

Of sick people. All four of us have strep throat. I talked to my brother and all four of them have it as well. Nothing like sharing over the holidays. I'm not feeling great, but I'm on my feet. Lee's doing better than I am. Matt was in really rough shape today and Adam's not showing any symptoms, but tested positive. I wonder how long the strep bacteria can live on surfaces... All the doctors said that we'll be contagious until we've been on antibiotics. I guess I'll have to start disinfecting everything tomorrow.

On a happier note, I'm partially moved into my new office/scrap room. My computer and bill paying stuff is down here, but all my scrap stuff is still upstairs. I have nothing to hold it all in yet. I need to decide on a system soon. I'm considering a cube system, but those don't look as nice as I would like. My new desk is fantastic - I'll post a pic of it tonight after I get the boys to bed.

Merry Christmas!!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. We sure did. We had dinner at my parents' house Christmas Eve. It was the traditional Lithuanian dinner - 12 different foods, no meat and lots of traditional foods - several types of pickled herring, some salads, Lithuanian bread... It's been a few years since I've done this, so it was really nice. Growing up with it, I tend to miss the strange dishes this time of year. Lee did ok through it - there was shrimp cocktail, tuna casserole and several other less traditional dishes that he was willing to eat. Adam tried just about everything I had and Matt had mac and cheese. It was quite the houseful at my parents' house - 2 of my 3 brothers came with their wives and it made a total of 5 grandsons there for the evening. We did miss my other brother and family (and the only granddaughter), but they couldn't make the trip this year.

Christmas day, we went back to my parents' house and Matt and Adam got to decorate a gingerbread house. My mom baked a gingerbread house for each family who had kids old enough to decorate a house and they all had a different day on which to decorate. It was lots of fun seeing the boys work on their house - and actually cooperate!

We're all fighting colds right now and Matt's running a bit of a temp. Hopefully, we'll be over it soon. Happy holidays to everyone!!

Christmas is only a few days away!!

And I'm so not ready! I've had my Christmas cards done and addressed, but haven't mailed them - I usually try to include a newsletter, but haven't had a chance to write it. I think I'm done with Christmas shopping, but I've been so forgetful that I'm not really sure. :-/

I got my packages mailed to the in-laws, but nothing else has gone out. I've got several other gifts that need to be mailed, but I just can't seem to get it all together. Last night I worked like crazy getting sets of cards made for Adam's preschool teachers so that I could run them by today since he doesn't have school tomorrow and I remembered that I had to do that at 1 pm - they're all gone by then. I'll just have to give them to them after Christmas. I just hate it that I the gifts ready in time, but messed up on the follow-through. I've been baking cookies for most of Matt's teachers, but I've got a house full of cookie monsters and I lose half of what I bake to them!

Matt's home from school - gotta go bake some more cookies and get him going on his homework. His holiday concert is tonight, so he can't goof around all afternoon and not get his homework finished...

We finally saw Santa!

Well, I had resigned myself to not being able to see Santa with the boys this year. My favorite scrapbook store usually has Santa come and visit for a few hours every year, but they didn't this year. I was so sad. I loved it there because the boys could take their time, I could take as many pictures as I wanted and everyone left happy. And I got to go to my scrapbook store and look at all the goodies!

Anyway, I was driving around on Saturday and heard that Santa would be visiting the Missouri Botanical Gardens. Sunday, Lee wanted to get the boys out of the house (so they would stop fighting), so we went to the botanical gardens. It was such a fun day! The boys got to spend some time with Santa - as much time as they wanted and I got to snap as many pictures as I wanted. Rudolph was visiting as well. I guess Santa had Rudolph bring him down from the north pole. After we visited with Santa, Adam followed Rudolph around outside. It was hysterical! We also saw the train exhibit they had set up. I think Adam liked that more than talking to Santa, lol. I got to see the Chihuly exhibit. I've been wanting to see it since it opened here, but have never gotten around to it. It was really great to see. It's amazing what can be done with some glass and talent!

Here's a link to Chihuly: http://www.mobot.org/chihuly/default.asp and http://www.chihuly.com/

Here's a link to the train stuff: http://www.mobot.org/hort/activ/hs8.shtml

Coming up for air

<<>> It's been a crazy week here. I spent two days sick - one day I spent in bed literally all day. I'm mostly over it, but if I overdo it, I can really feel it. I've been madly working on calendars for Christmas gifts, but I've gotten July done and life intruded. The calendars will have to be late this year.

Got Christmas packages wrapped, packaged and shipped out today. Had some technical difficulties with some of them and almost didn't have anything to send, but dh being the technical guru that he is came through for me. He's such a sweetie when he's not being all Grinchy.

FINALLY got the Christmas tree up today. Nothing like waiting for the last minute! Since things in the basement are all crazy, I just went and bought new lights and ornaments for the tree, since I couldn't find the lights and the Hallmark ornaments take forever to put up (each one is still packaged in its original box). The boys helped with the tree, dh not so much. He did help with the lights for about 10 minutes, but I just don't get him. He disappeared into the garage to get greasy and I had to ask him to come back in to distract Adam who was "helping" and breaking ornaments.

Anyway, I'm still stressed out for Christmas, but things are getting done little by little. Now, I wonder if I can get Adam to help me in a productive manner when I bake cookies...

PMSing

Ugh!! I hate this time of month. I just turn into a very unhappy person - little things that everyone does drive me bananas and I have no patience. This is a bad thing with two little boys. I just seem to get pissed off for the smallest reasons and I have a hard time letting it go. There's really no reason for me to be so pissy. Things are going well and I can tell myself that, but my emotions think differently. It's like if things don't go the way I think they should (and with Adam, they rarely do), I just get pissed off and bitchy. Hormones suck.

Merry Christmas to me!

Well, I went and bought a die cut machine today. I found a 50% off coupon for Michael's in my purse this morning that was still good, so I thought I'd go and browse around. The first thing I saw as I walked into the store was a Cuttlebug. The last one they had in stock. It's supposed to work with all types of dies and comes with all the adapters you'd need. I thought I would give it a try. This will be Santa's gift to me. :-) It was a great deal with that coupon and I think it's more versatile than a Sizzix. If it doesn't work as I think it should, I can always return it, but I've heard good things about it.

Progress

There's progress being made on the basement! For the first time, I am really beginning to believe that it might be done by the end of the week. A carpenter was in installing all the doors and working on the ceiling in my office. The ceiling there is a plank ceiling, but they're having trouble with it since it's not really wood - all their staple guns and nailers just go through the stuff. The bathroom will be painted tomorrow and I hope that the trim will be done tomorrow or the next day. That would be great!!! Woo hoo!!

What was I thinking?

I don't know what I was thinking this afternoon. I had to get to Archiver's today - I needed blank calendars and I didn't order any, so I had to go out and buy them at triple the cost. I mentioned this to Lee while Adam was napping this afternoon. I thought we could go out to the mall, grab a quick dinner and I could run to Archiver's right after. Well. Lee was wrapped up in his game on the computer and although Adam woke up from his nap at 5, we didn't get out of the house and to the mall until 6:30.

• The mall.
• Christmas season
• 6:30 pm
• Saturday night

Needless to say, we had to wait to get seated, service was slow and it was 8 pm by the time we were done with dinner. We didn't get out of the mall until 9:30 and Adam cried the entire time because he didn't want to leave Sharper Image. I have to admit, though, that the boys were very well-behaved all through dinner. Adam wanted to sit next to Matt and they got along the entire time. It doesn't happen often, but I'm glad it did tonight. I got my calendars, though, so it's time to get creative!

Winter's storm

We got slammed with a winter storm yesterday and last night. Luckily, we have power and so far, most of our trees are doing well. We had sleet and freezing rain all day yesterday and sometime in the night, it turned to snow. We didn't get that much snow, though. Maybe a couple of inches. Matt was released from school early yesterday and school was cancelled altogether today. We've been in and out of the house all day. Adam liked going down the hill on a sled with me this year - last year I couldn't get him on the sled at all. Matt's been enjoying his time outside as well. Unfortunately, there's not all that much snow with which to build snowmen or have a good snowball fight. So we've been spending out time sledding down the hill. At least the back yard is useful for a change. The layer of ice is so thick that I can walk on top of it without breaking through in some spots. All that white stuff that can be seen on the trees is sleet covered with ice - it's not snow. It's just amazingly beautiful outside right now as the sun is setting, but it's so dangerous for our trees. As a friend put it to me this morning, it's nature's pruning service. Hopefully, mother nature won't decide that our trees need significant pruning.