Wednesday, December 31, 2003

"Deck us all with Boston Charlie ..."

Hey! Remember me?

Three weeks since I updated here. Hardly even checked my e-mail, so much was going on. There's probably no way I can give a decent recap, so I won't even try. I'll just pick up from here and move on. Fresh starts and all that.

I will tell you this: The last month was THE most stressful month in my almost-45 years. It was impossible to pretend that things were alright, so you have to feel sorry for my holiday houseguests. My Christmas wish was that things would never be that bad ever again.

It was so very good to see my family, but at the same time I was worried about how they must be feeling so uncomfortable with all the stress in the house.

My Christmas gifts (in no particular order):
*down comforter and duvet from my mom
*Nautica cologne, "About Schmidt" dvd, and "Adaptation" dvd from Laura and Melody
*Cup o' drug rep pens, a pretty candle, and a candle holder from Kay
*A framed senior picture of Beth from Beth and Kay
*3 pretty wineglasses (for the 3 Sisters!) and a small winerack from Josh
*Pretty candle holder with good-smelling tealights from Beth*Elton John cd (all his hits!), a dvd set with 3 classic musicals: "Gigi", "An American In Paris" and "My Fair Lady", and pretty coasters from Adam and Brandy
*Blue drinking glasses, a sweet card, and a beautiful framed picture of herself from Emilie
*A big ole box o' money from Jimmy (I have no idea what to spend it on ... leave your suggestion in the "Comments", if you please.)

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Today is my 25th wedding anniversary. That's right. 25 years ago this afternoon ... I was skinny. Waaaaaa!

There will be no celebration ... Jimmy is in Puerto Rico.

However, I will be spending an hour or so this afternoon at a family counseling session. Emilie has been getting some intensive therapy through a "partial hospitalization" over her Christmas break. And today is the day that I get to go in and try really hard not to sob loudly and embarrass the hell out of her.

How I pray that she will find some help and some healing through this program she's in.

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So that's about it. I'm extremely happy to see 2003 out the back door. What a bitch she was.

If you go out tonight, be so very careful of the drunk people careening down the roads, will you?

Happy New Year to you and yours. God bless us, everyone.

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Outside My House Today:
High: 58
Low: 28
Sunny

Sunday, December 14, 2003

"You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch ..."

Short hello for this drippy, cold Thursday ...

Today was my yearly check-up ... the doctor very wisely pronounced me "just fine". So there.

Mother and I shopped all afternoon ... 'twas freezing out there but it added to the Christmas feeling.

Also, in case you were wondering ... the job on Tuesday went well! The lady is from New England, and quite the character. I drove her to her lawyer's office so that she could cut her son out of her will (ha!), she treated me to lunch at a Chinese restaurant, we visited the mall, and she did a bit of grocery shopping, and at 5:30 PM I dropped her off at her home. She talked almost constantly, so there was little for me to do except drive the car and listen. I'll go back on Tuesday ... I think she has a salon appointment for a perm. Whoo hoo!

Sleepy already. Please take good care of yourselves. :-)

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Outside My House Today:

High: 35

Low: 31

Icy, rainy, and quite miserably cold!

Wednesday, December 10, 2003

"You're a bad banana with a greasy black peel ..."

Trip on, trip off. Trip on, trip off. (sigh)

Emilie and I were lured into looking forward to a trip to Puerto Rico after Christmas, and then the Off And On Game began. Jimmy's boss encouraged everyone to have their families join them for part of the holidays, since they will be working so hard they will only be home for a few days. So the planning began. Only flights are hard to come by at this time of year, and timing is everything. I thought that he had given up, and decided we'd just do a trip somewhere fun at a later time ... but tonight he tells me that he's still trying to get us down there for a week.Trip off, trip on!I had already decided that, if the trip was off, Emilie and I would take off on a road trip to Charleston ... maybe Savannah ... and surrounding areas and do some exploring together. Might be even more fun to do that.

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(The dash key is working again.)

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The heater repair guy came to see us today, since the heater blower got noticeably louder yesterday. He videotaped what he found in the basement ... MOLD ... all over the outside of the unit, plus almost totally clogging the air duct thing. It was horrible. $500 horrible for him to clean the damn thing. And that's only a temporary fix. We'll have to get a new heat pump/air conditioner in the spring ... as well as put down a total moisture barrier in the basement. To the tune of $7,000. Merry Christmas!

Oh, and after all that, the blower is still louder. He said the mold growth probably warped the fan blade, and that's why it sounds louder now. Yeah.

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I went out shopping today ... alone! Yay!

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Cooked a nice dinner for Mother and me tonight ... only she feels a little "blah". (sigh, again) I'll be working most of the day tomorrow, so her mood might even be "blah-er" by tomorrow night. Have a holly jolly Christmas!

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And she needs a hearing aid. :-(

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Outside My House Today:
High: 58
Low: 42
Rain, rain, rain

Monday, December 08, 2003

"You're as cuddly as a cactus, you're as charming as an eel, Mr. Grinch ..."

Another day of running around town for me and my Mom. We ate lunch out at Fuddruckers, and accomplished quite a lot. Yay, us.

Next project is figuring out how to install the printer on a working computer so that I can print out my little Christmas letter to include with the cards I'm sending. Wish me luck.

Praying that Amazon.com will actually come through for me and send everything before Christmas Eve. I ordered it all on November 30th, and I swear I can't understand why they can't get it all here within a couple of weeks. Grrr.

I hope everybody is doing alright ... and that Clemson exams are going well! :)

(My "dash" key has stopped working!)

Outside My House Today:
High: 56
Low: 27
Sunny

Saturday, December 06, 2003

"You really are a heel ..."

We are officially decorated for Christmas at the castle. Today Mother and I pulled out the rest of the boxes of Christmas crap and threw it around everywhere, we hung the wreath, and put the icicle lights out on the deck. We still have a good deal of mess laying around ... hopefully we'll find a place for everything before Christmas day.

I did a lot of wrapping yesterday ... no bows yet, but wrapped. I'm still waiting on several orders to arrive.

Brandy's coming by later to watch the Clemson/USC basketball game with us ... I'm thinking that dinner will be pizza delivery. Easy.

The candles I bought at Pier One smell WONDERFUL!

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Outside My House Today:
High: 45
Low: 31
Sunny and windy

Monday, December 01, 2003

"I'm just bein' honest ..."

OK, that's the last reference I'll make to the ever-popular "Hey Ya" song. Sadly, it's getting old to me.

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Dayummmm, I was gone a long time! And nobody even missed me. Oh well.Let's see ... when we last visited, the Clemson - USC game was about to be played. Happy ...no, THRILLED!... to report that Clemson ate gamecock for dinner that Saturday night. Clemson - 63USC - 17Oh yeah. That's SIXTY three points. I'm figgering it was a disgruntled gamecock fan that STOLE my tiger paw mailbox flag after the game. Grrr. Anyway, Clemson is headed to the Peach Bowl in Atlanta on January 2nd. And I think that's GREAT!

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Hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving. Ours was ... small. We had good food, and we all took a nap in the afternoon though. (Well, everybody except my Mom.)We were among the insane who went shopping on the day after. Wasn't too bad. I got my last paycheck from the closeout place. And spent half of it in there. Heh.

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Speaking of jobs, I'm "working" again. I got a call today from C0mf0rt K33pers ... they offered me a client who wants someone to drive her to do errands and out to lunch on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I'll start tomorrow, so hopefully things will go well.

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Thanks to the kids, the tree is up already. Mother and I have decided to wait until the weekend to finish the house decorations. We shopped today, and combined with what I did online yesterday, I'm well on my way to being finished. Of course, Amazon's delivery may screw up everything. I figure we have the next 2 weeks to shop, then Emilie will be home and having her wisdom teeth removed. (Awww!) That 3rd week of December, we'll stay close to home and get the baking and candy-making done. Ta-dah! Sounds like a plan.

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Well, that's all I've got, considering I'm so far behind in updating here ... I'll be back soon, I promise.

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Outside My House Today:
High: 69
Low: 36
Sunny