You are currently browsing the monthly archive for December 2006.
Snagged from Jacquie (post and title) to fill some blog space and I’ve seen it on some other blogs…just a neato little way to get to know a little something about someone.
A is for age:
33
B is for Beer:
Bud Light or Corona. I don’t like dark beer, red beer or beer in green bottles. No home brew or micro brew, either.
C is for Career:
General manager for cabinet company. I also design kitchens, order office supplies and reap the benefits of goodies from vendors.
D is for my Dog’s Name:
Pom Pom
E is for Essential Item I Use Everyday:
Hair dryer. You don’t want to see me air dried.
F is for Favorite T.V. Show:
Grey’s Anatomy, House, NCIS. Friends and King of Queens re-runs always fill in gaps and a good dose of crap tv always does the soul some good.
G is for Favorite Game:
Scattergories.
H is for Hometown:
Moved a lot growing up. I guess my favorite place I’ve lived is Wilmington, NC
I is for Instruments I Play:
iPod
J is for Favorite Juice:
Orange or cran-grape
K is for Whose Butt I’d Like To Kick:
No one today – but it is still early
L is for the Last Place I Ate:
Local seafood restaurant
M is for Marriage:
9-1/2 years
N is for my Name:
Susan
O is for Overnight Hospital Stays:
December 2004…Salmonella.
P is for People I was With Today:
Co-workers
Q is for Quote:
“Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart”
-Confuscious
R is for Biggest Regret:
Not many but none I care to share here 
S is for Sport:
Not much into sports. I’m trying to learn more about football in an effort to be part of conversations with Will during the season. Ahh, the life of a football widow.
T is for Time I Woke Up Today:
6:14
U is for Current Underwear:
Hanes
V is for Vegetable You Love:
Squash
W is for Worst Habit:
Junk food.
X is for X-rays I Have Had:
Head for sinus surgery
Y is for Yummy Food You Ate Today:
Left over Christmas cookies
Z is for Zodiac:
Cancer
It’s so hard to believe that Christmas is here. It was just yesterday I was fretting over no Halloween costume and the day before that we were at the coast celebrating the 4th of July. Oh, and the day before that we were meeting Miss O. My how time flies. Another year has come and gone.
It’s been quite the year for us at the L household. This time last year we were staring the ink off O’s referral picture and she was officially Olivia (promoted from Baby L). We were getting well wishes and buying all the girly things we could stand. I hope my friends in waiting – especially those who are next – are enjoying the holiday even though they don’t have their referrals yet. It was our last Christmas as a couple and this year it’s our first as a family. I hope next year I’m able to read those same words from you. I’ve said it before, and probably will a bajillion more times: what a difference a year makes.
There has been so much going on around here – much of which can’t be brought to light – that I got behind in life sometime at the end of September. Christmas cards were late being mailed and for those who didn’t receive one: I’m truly sorry. I’m hoping to send out updates after New Year’s.
I hope everyone enjoys their Christmas, or whatever it is you may celebrate. May God bless each of you and be with you and your families throughout the Christmas holiday and for always.
Will, Susan and Olivia
I’m here. I’ve gotten a couple of emails asking was everything okay. It is and I’ve actually started a post but it hasn’t made it past drafts yet. Soon. We took our vacation to visit Will’s family a couple of weeks ago and I’m still catching up from being gone. It’s funny how no one took care of the extra laundry while I was away. Note to self: Invisible help isn’t any good.
So, since I’m behind in blogging and ’tis the season, I’ll post answers to the quiz Shannon sent me.
1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?? No nog…it creeps me out so hot chocolate it would be.
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Under the tree.
3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? This year colored – the big, retro kind we all had as kids. I usually have mini white lights but loved these when I saw them on my bro and SIL’s tree. They are super neato because they don’t get hot like regular C9 bulbs do. They have a mini light in them with a bright colored shell. On our 7-1/2′ tree I would normally use about 10 strands (maybe more) of miniature lights but with these bad boys, only three.
4. Do you hang mistletoe? No.
5. When do you put your decorations up? Normally Thanksgiving but I managed to get behind. Tree went up this past Saturday. Has all lights and most ornaments.
5. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? My mom’s collard greens, potato salad and sweet potato pudding. (looking forward to them, mom!)
7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child? Not sure I have one.
8. When and how did you learn there was no Santa? We go on “You stop believin’, you stop receivin’” around the L household. I dare Will to tell me he doesn’t believe. But, to answer the question, I was about 8 or 9. That was the year Santa wrapped his presents in the same wrapping paper my mom used. Hmmm. There wasn’t much said about it at all – it just kind of passed.
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? It used to be that Will and I opened our new pajamas on Christmas Eve so we’d be all svelt when we made the mad dash to see what Santa left. Since my bro and sil go to her mom’s Christmas day, we’ve started doing family gifts at my mom’s on Christmas Eve. Will and I still open each other’s gifts and from his family on Christmas day.
10. Snow! Love it or Dread it? Dread it in a big way. I’m so not a snow bunny.
11. Can you ice skate? Not even a little bit.
13. Do you remember your favorite gift? No, not really. The best keeps getting better every year. I guess two of the big ones would be the gold herringbone necklace and panda coin ring I got while in high school – it was the 80’s and I was so cool . The chain turned into a knot but I still have the ring and still love it and wear it from time to time. It’s probably the only gift I still have and use.
14. What’s the most important thing about the Holidays for you? I really love shopping for our angel tree child from the Christmas Bureau and Toys for Tots. It’s so much fun and I tend to go a little crazy. Also, spending time with our families. I love watching our nieces open their gifts. The wonder and excitement is fabulous and this year we’ll be able to experience it with O.
15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? Mom’s apple walnut cake. It’s delish.
16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? We don’t really have one other than opening our pajamas on Christmas Eve. Hopefully we’ll be able to kick one into full swing with Miss O.
17. What tops your tree? This angel
18. Which do you prefer: Giving or Receiving? Giving but I like to get, too.
19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? Oh Holy Night and O Little Town of Bethlehem are two.
20. Candy Canes- love em or leave em? Leave ‘em.
21. Favorite Christmas movie? A Christmas Story (“You’ll shoot youreye out, kid. Ho, Ho, Ho) and I love, love, love the marathon that begins on Christmas Eve.
It’s back with a vengeance. We have the crud. All of us. I had it last month after my Atlanta trip. Miss O hasn’t been acting “ill” other than just turning down food, which she does when she’s teething or she’s got a cold. When I picked her up from school Friday there was a note saying her nose had run alot and she didn’t eat much. I knew about the runny nose and her appetite kind of came and went. Miss Jane said she knew she didn’t feel well because they had pizza and she usually cleans her plate. Saturday she ate about a handful of Fr0sted Fl@kes, 4 or 5 crackers, a little bit of cheese and some croutons. Will had drill last weekend and his unit had Family Appreciation Day Saturday afternoon so O and I met him and she rode home with him. I made a couple of stops and was about 15 minutes or so behind them and as soon as I walked in the door he shouted at me to burn it all…her butt had exploded and he was having to deal with it. Part of me wanted to giggle as he was hosing her off in the tub but the other part of me was angry because he scared the bejeezus out of me screaming at me. While he was hosing her off, I gathered up the poo-laden stuff and did a load of laundry on the sanitary cycle. And it began. Saturday evening we had our Sunday school class Christmas party and we all went to it and by the time we got home at 8 I felt like I was swallowing a bucket of nails. I was miserable. I put O down – after a major struggle – and crashed, too. Sunday she and I stayed in bed all day long. Still no eats. She would drink, though. Last night was the first time my kid has thrown up in 9 months – other than a handful of car sickness. She woke up about 1 a.m. and I went and laid down with her and she asked for something to drink. I gave her a cup of milk and thought since she was acting like she felt okay that maybe she would eat some Cherri0s so I got her some of those, too. She drank her milk as we watched ‘rella (Cinderell@). She put the first one in her mouth and thar she blew. Two changes of sheets, blankets, pajamas for the both of us, she went back to sleep about 4. Luckily Will is off today so he’s taking her in to be checked out. At my last check up phone call she was boogying. (is that right?) Anyway, although she’s spewing from both ends, she doesn’t have a fever and she’s not acting sick. Oh, let’s just keep our fingers crossed she fares well at the doctor’s this afternoon.
I’m on antibiotics. Will is on antibiotics. What will little chicklet get? Hopefully not the case of pink eye one of the kids in her class has I found out about this morning.
Happy Monday World.
Not really but I found it interesting. Olivia has her referral picture on the night stand in her room and knows that it is baby Jia Jia (her Chinese nickname) and also knows some of her more recent pictures as O/Jia Jia. From time to time we’ll call her Jia Jia.
Last Wednesday night we were at W@l M@rt picking up a few things and decided to let Miss O run free to wear her down since none of us had to be up early on Thursday morning. She loved the toy aisle – surprise, surprise. We were ready to go and called to her and told her to come on. Miss Independent looked at us, ignored us and kept right on with what she was doing. After the third try, I said, “Come on, Jia Jia. Let’s go.” She ran down the aisle to us and we went on our merry way. Will and I kind of looked at each other and thought it was a fluke.
We have since tested it and she responds to both – Jia Jia better than Olivia. Interesting, I guess.
Another fun-toid about her – She loves to say China. I know she doesn’t understand she’s from China, blah, blah, blah. But when we feed her from the motherland and tell her we’re having Chinese for dinner she says “Chinaaaah.” She loves “noodles” no matter if it’s rice or not.
Olivia’s vocabulary is huge (I think it is, anyway). We never had her evaluated by early intervention. On the initial interview they told me she is at or above her age level so she would not qualify and if she fell behind in her development they would see us immediately. I made a follow up phone call today and talked to the guy who is over our county and he said it sounds like she is still above level and no concerns and, again, call them if she seems to lag. Good thing, I guess.
Miscellaneous Ramblings:
- Will fell off the ladder cleaning gutters last weekend. He’s okay and nothing broken. I think his ego was a bit bruised and with a knee brace he’s conquering the world.
- The Christmas tree is still in the attic. Lights are down but not the tree. Lights are no good without the tree. But it’s 10 (or 11) feet tall and needs lots of decorations. Hopefully this weekend. I offered to just go and buy a new one so we wouldn’t have to drag it down. Will said no because we have two additional trees up there since
I was too lazy to bring them downwe needed different heights. We have our choice of 3. We didn’t have a tree up Christmases 3, 4 or5 in our house. Year 2 our floor got chipped going up or coming down out of the attic and I had harbored major anger towards the tree and refused to let it be up. Last year I bought a 7 -1/2′ tree but it only ended up with 5 ornaments and some lites. (that’s one of the 3) I lost my mojo to get it done. - The kid who wasn’t going to get much for Christmas, because she’s almost 2 and doesn’t know about Christmas, needs to own the house next door to store her loot in. Plus, her birthday is 3 weeks after Christmas. We now refer to my office as the playroom. We have 24 days to whip it into full playroom status. We’ll be recycling some of her “baby” toys to make room for the new ones.
- She still sleeps on the air mattress on her floor. We decided to skip the toddler bed and move on to big girl bed. Linens are all bought but linens are no good without the mattresses. Soon.
- Our second adventure flying with the little princess is coming up soon. I am armed and ready. I swear it seems as if I spent more on things to pacify her than I did on tickets. Will is going and we will tag team her…hopefully.
- I can’t believe it’s already December. Will’s family is in Oklahoma and they woke up to snow yesterday and in mid afternoon it was 19* there. It was a balmy 72 here – humid because it was going to rain AGAIN. But, the gutters are clean.
- I cooked my Thanksgiving turkey Monday night and I ate turkey sandwiches for all three meals on Tuesday and two of my meals on Wednesday and nibbled on it for a snack. Olivia loves the taste of rotisserie cooked “chicken.” It’s all chicken whether it’s turkey, roast beef or even chicken.
- I have almost finished my Christmas shopping. There are a couple of really hard-to-buy-for people on my list I haven’t gotten yet but I’m sure any day now I’ll get an email from an on-line retailer with the perfect gift and no shipping. If not, maybe my MOM will HELP me out some.
- We purged closets last weekend and ended up with 7 bags (black yard kind) for Goodwill and 10 bags and 2 boxes for the kidney foundation. How sweet it was for them to call me and tell me they were going to be on our street Monday. I finally caved and gave away my suits from my days of being in the corporate and retail worlds. I made Will promise me that if I ever get to be that size again I deserve to have something new. He agreed (and now it’s in print). The perils of losing weight, gaining weight – but not as much as I lost – and back again. Lots of stuff still with tags from both our closets. I went on the premise if we haven’t touched it, seen it, thought about it, used it, smelled it or even knew it was there for the last six months it was gone. And it was. The attic is next. I swear if I ever sell my house it’s going as is, furniture and all. I can’t stand the thought of moving all our
useless craptreasures. - We sponsored an 11 year old boy as our Angel Tree Child this year. There were two left when we picked – a newborn and him. We chose “Travis” since little kids always get picked first and we would hate for him to not have Christmas. Okay. I knew shopping for boys wasn’t as neato and fun as a girl but a pre-teen boy is mega hard. Gift receipts for clothes and a gift card for the toys or whatever he wants. There was one 2-year old that had listed under “suggested/wanted items” a PLAYSTATI0N 2 or 3. We don’t even have those at our house. As much as it hurts to see so many people who need the help at the holidays, that frustrates me. I think it’s rude for the parents to list that and the Christmas Bureau shouldn’t even allow it. But, I guess every 2-year old needs a Playstati0n, right?
I guess that’s enough for now. I still plan on showing updated pictures of O before she heads off to college but I just haven’t done it. Thanks to those who come around even though I’m slack on that front.
Enjoy your weekend and stay warm and dry (or cool – depending on where you are).
