Santa Claus Is Coming To Town

So it appears that we survived our first (and possibly annual) Christmas Party for my employees. Good food, good drinks and yes even an appearance by the jolly old man himself!! There was some smack talk around the pool table, some busted knuckles thanks to the air hockey pucks, and lots of laughter. We have been wanting to install hardwood floors in the dining room and now thanks to some spilled cocktail sauce, it looks like that will be a reality in 2008 (apparently Rascal is not a fan of the cocktail sauce because our little hoover vac declined the open invitation to clean it up). What's not to love about this time of year!!

Christmas Shopping....oye

So Christmas is only 15 days away which means that it is time for me to really start shopping for that perfect gift for that special loved one. Now normally I am Wal-Mart's biggest fan...but when it gets this close to Christmas...that is the last place I want to be. So my solution to this little late shopping predicament....gift cards!! You can buy one of those things for practically anywhere. Now my personal favorite this year is the one that you can get that can be used anywhere. Let's face it...not everyone loves Wal-Mart and Lowes. So for those special family members, I have elected the "use it where ever the heck you want" gift card. Gotta love Visa!!

Right before Thanksgiving, my Mom asked me for my list. So I emailed it to her before I went to her house for a big turkey dinner..lol. Yeah she rolled her eyes when she asked for my list after dinner and I told her to check her inbox. But low and behold it appears that she did retrieve it and she actually called to ask about one idea in particular today while she was out fighting the masses at the stores. Looks like my attempt to bring Mom into the techno age is working. HA!

Here's hoping that each of you find that perfect gift for that special someone in your life!! Now I must go figure out what the heck a Nintendo DS is and where to get a game for it....here I come Amazon.com.

Holiday decorations....Charlie Brown style.

With the Christmas holiday fast approaching, Tracey and I decided it was time to hang up our outside decorations. Usually we go all out with way too many lights and blow ups in the yard. This year we decided to scale back a bit. We decided that we no longer needed the icicle lights hanging from the gutters (after about 90 minutes of getting six strands of them to work correctly). We also decided that we had fought our last battle with the outdoor snow globe. Who knew that those things were very sensitive to rain and snow...resulting in the little "snowflakes" sticking to the inside walls of the globe. We opted for simple white lights around the deck railing, the front and back doors, a Merry Moose and Santa blow ups, and two reindeer in the front yard. After several hours, our work was finally completed.

After dark, Tracey decided to head to the little store up the road. Upon her return home she informed me that the front of the house now looked like something Charlie Brown would do and that we needed animated reindeer and some of those spiral tree thingys in the front yard. Apparently me telling her that we are out of outside outlet space to plug these additional items in didn't seem to be a concern. I now fear we may need to call our electrician.

Ssince the downstairs is finished now, we apparently are in need of a Christmas tree down there too. So this week should be entertaining assembling and decorating my 9 foot tree upstairs and our new 7 foot tree downstairs.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.......

Enlightening young minds

So as part of my job, I get the opportunity on occasion to go to the local schools and give speeches and presentations. Last week I spoke to two groups of 9th grade students about career paths and college education and their value and importance. Today was similar but different. Today I had the pleasure of speaking to 4th and 5th graders about my job in all it's glory. Now I am sure that each of us enjoys starting our day off with a word of support and encouragement from our loved one. Well as I am leaving the house this morning to head off for my morning at school, Tracey sends me off with these kind words....

"Now remember to not get all huffy when one of those cute little students calls your sanitary landfill a dump."

Me...huffy...naahhhh. Now granted I have been known to politely correct an adult or two about the correct term for the place where they dispose of their garbage. But hey...these are cute little kids that are just happy to have me there (or could it be that the sooner I quit talking the closer they are to getting out of school early). And in case you are wondering....not one of those precious little angels called my prized landfill a dump. Gotta love that!!

A

The First of (Hopefully) Many Blogs

Well here goes....first off we should make a disclaimer up front that neither one of us have been very good in the past about keeping up with blogs. But we are willing to give it another shot. Some remember the infamous Midnight Rambles from Tracey waaaaaayyy back when. Who knows..those might be resurrected....if you're lucky. In a casa with 5 animals, life is never dull. Hopefully we can gather some photos of the gang to post later on. Some of you may also remember hearing about the famous basement finishing project. Well that project took 22 months to complete but alas it is done and has hosted a couple of pool tournaments. Apparently I had a lapse in judgment recently and thought it would be a good idea to host my employees and their guests over for a holiday gathering. I am sure that should make for a few good posts in the not-to-distant future. In the event that there isn't another blog before turkey day....here's wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!!!