Wow, it seems like it’s been a long time since I’ve actually blogged a decent post aside from menus. I haven’t had much in the way of computer time recently with Darling Hubby being off from work for the week and it being Thanksgiving and all. Plus, it doesn’t help that Baby Girl naps in my computer room and I can’t be in there (how I wish I had a laptop that could connect to the internet from any room in the house…Anyone want to buy me one?) I’m finally getting myself back on track after having my schedule thrown off for several days. Today was the first time I’ve vacuumed my rugs since Tuesday morning, and with 3 dogs, a cat, a kid and a husband, you know it was in dire need of a good vacuuming. Hairballs and crumbs were everywhere.
We had a good Thanksgiving. (Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, by the way) Better than we’ve had in the past, in my opinion. Thursday morning we got up, got all spiffied up, snapped our Christmas card picture and headed down to my parents’ house 2.5 hours away. We enjoyed a delicious turkey dinner
with my mom and dad, talking about this and that and listening to Bug sing his ABC’s in between handfuls of peas, carrots and cranberry sauce. It was a nice quiet dinner and I could actually hear myself chew it was so quiet. I was very thankful for that quiet meal. Holiday get-togethers usually give me a headache they are so loud. After some more chatting, playing around with pots and pans and Grandma and some pie and jello for dessert, we bundled back up against the wind and headed to DH’s grandpas’ house. 
Generally, we have lunch with DH’s family first and head over to my parents’ house, but we did things a little different this year just for a change of pace. Anyway, we went to Grandpa’s house and had a quick (and again quiet) meal, just the 4 of us. It was nice to spend some alone time with Grandpa. Usually when everyone else is there we can barely talk to one another, so again, I was thankful for the quiet time we spent together this year. He’s getting on in years and has several health problems so who knows how much time we’ll have left to spend with him. Overall, I was thankful that we got to spend some nice quiet time with family. I do feel bad that we didn’t get to see all the aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews, but if you read my prior post about my state of mind you know that I was really stressing this get together because of all the noise, plus it really makes Bug act out because the other children as terrible influences. It really is a zoo and I’m glad we managed to avoid it this year. Some how I don’t think we’ll be as lucky come Christmas. I was also thankful that Bug was a good boy for the whole trip. He hardly had any meltdowns while we were out and about, despite the fact that he only had a 10 minute nap in the car. Bedtime was another story, but at least he was good the rest of the day.
I cooked a turkey for the three of us Friday and we put up our Christmas decorations Friday and Saturday. The outside lights are up and finally working properly, after 2 nights out in the cold checking bulbs, forays to three stores looking for 
replacement bulbs that would fit and not blow out the second you plugged them in and finally the purchase of 2 new strands of lights. The Christmas tree is in a new place in the livin
g room and looks good, as always. Now if I could get Bug to leave a couple of the ornaments that he’s obsessed with alone we’d be in business. Baby Girl on the other hand hasn’t touched it. Go figure. On another happy note, we are pretty much done with Christmas shopping. We bought only one gift per person and a few extra for each other and for Bug from Santa. I feel like we are being stingy, but with a limited budget we had to go easy, so one present a person. At least I didn’t have to go out on Black Friday. That was a relief. I don’t think I could handle the crazy crowds. I hate going to the stores anytime between Black Friday and Christmas even if it’s for something other than Christmas shopping. Too many crazy people, if you ask me!
Oh I don't think I could write a post without a complaint, so here it is. Gotta be good at something...LOL. A family member on DH"s side of the family has a son who's a year or so older than Bug and a son a year or so younger and we've been swapping clothing back and forth since Bug was a baby. Hey, it saves on having to buy a ton of clothes every year and I'm not one to say no to hand-me-downs. This time I brought down two diaper boxes full of clothes that Bug has out grown for her youngest boy in return for a big garbage bag of clothes her older son outgrew. Everything in my boxes was clean and folded. I didn't send anything down that was super stained or that I wouldn't let Bug go out in public in. When I opened the bag of clothes they smelled of old cigarette smoke (which isn't unusual since DH's dad lived there for a while and was a smoker) and many of the clothes were stained...very badly. I always wash the clothes before I put them away, but as I was attempting to get the dinginess and the stains out, I felt disgusted, almost dirty. I started to feel like I shouldn't bother and that I should just box the clothes and return them in the next swap. I'm not talking the occasional stain here...No grass on a pant leg or ketchup stains on a sleeve. I'm talking all over stains. I mean, the stains were so set in, I was sure nothing would work and I was right. And as the clothes were going through the wash cycle, I peeked inside and was sickened by how dirty the water was. I know that wash water gets dingy and turns gray, but this was nasty brown water, like when I wash the dogs bedding. I had to give them a second rinse just to make myself feel better. Granted many of the pants and some of the shirts and sweatshirts were stain free or mostly stain free, but still…I mean…how would you feel opening a bag of clothes to find what I found? Would you say anything? I mean she is family and we’ve been friends for a long time but I’m just not pleased about getting a bag full of stained and filthy clothes. She has three kids, a husband and several animals, but that doesn’t mean the clothes can’t be clean. I do Bug’s laundry once every week in addition to everything else I do around here, and hardly anything of his is stained as bad as this stuff is. I’m not ashamed to let him out of the house in my clothes. I don’t even want to let him go out to play in these clothes. I feel like people would look at me like I’m a lousy mother allowing my child to wear stained and dirty looking (even though they are now clean) clothes. I know kids get dirty and stain their clothes, but come on! Am I being petty? Am I thinking too much about what others will think than about what’s reality? I know that kids get dirty, but would you share your stained up and dirty clothes with someone else? Ugg…it still gets my goat thinking about it.
OK, rant over! LOL
I'd better go get busy around the house and do something productive. I'm gonna try to be better about posting...really, I am....lol
