Sunday....

After watching a very satisfying Bear's game on TV (lucky we got it here...this is Cowboys country....I can root for them now since the Bears are out of chances...)
I decided to move the Christmas Village from under the tree so Zack and I can set it up on a table in the Texas room. The little fat fart Pepi and that damm cat keep trying to sleep under the tree, I guess because of the warmth of the lights. Anyways to my sheer disgust I found Snickers poop in there. She must have liked the snow blanket that I have used for years...which is now safely in the trash...all houses and stuff wiped off with disinfectant wipes. Grrrrr, I swear, if she wasn't so old and it being Christmas and all, I would have thrown her out the freakin' door to fend for herself in an unknown territory. UGH. Ick, Ick, Ick...

I am having a wonderful Sunday afternoon all by myself, setting up really for the open house we are having on Christmas night. I sent the three fools off the Mexico...they'll all come back tipsy on those two-fer margaritas. Of course, BOTH grandpa and Paulie claim this shindig has NOT been discussed. Screw'em both for being stupid. I have been making lists, buying stuff, decorating and making stuff for WEEKS. Where the hell have THEY been? I can understand grandpa, he won't wear his hearing aides so he may NOT have heard some of my discussions with him or he's getting senile, but PAUL!?! Foolish goofman. Grandpa made out the guest list for cripes sakes...HE was the one who invited 45 people...I don't KNOW 45 people here....I have been talking menu for days and I get this struck dumb look. OK, dumb and dumber...I wrote it all down and made them READ the menu, where the setup and tables will be, what the drinks were....man, I am NOT happy.

We did pick up Zack on Friday and then had a nice dinner at Chili's. He looks very good, but then the hair thing is a bit unusual for him. He looks like a bearded Josh Groban...but really cute. I'm his mother so I can say that he looks cute!

Yesterday we took him to South Padre Island. Ate at Dirty Al's then took the "tour". The place was deserted, I am not kidding. You would think it would be jammed for Christmas....nope. We also stopped at the micro-brewery and had the sampler. Last night Zack and Paul played Texas hold'em and grandpa went to dinner and the Elks. I watched a tv movie, had two beers and was in bed by 8:30 for heaven's sake.

Well, I am off to make fudge for the party...and later will do my stollen. I still need some little things from the store, but I won't trust the three of them to pick it up for me on the way home...

I was gonna write a nice piece about Christmas but I am a bit on the frustrated side with the "menfolk" and losing what little patience I have left. Mom and Cecil arrive at one tomorrow afternoon...great, the airport is right across from the mall.....can't wait to make that trip.

Merry Christmas from the land of bedlam.

hugs

Dee

Tuesday

I had my third guitar lesson yesterday. I swear it is the most fun I can have on a Monday at 8:30 in the morning! There are between 23 and 28 at any given time, most of us beginners. Yesterday, the gentleman behind me was admiring my L'Boutique Target guitar. When I told him that I had gotten it on clearance for $32 he almost fell off his chair. It certainly isn't the best guitar around, but for a beginner it suits me just fine...and it has a built in tuner and it came with a case! It sounds as good as the rest of the beginners....if I decide to continue, I will look for a better one, but so far, this is it! I can now do FIVE songs...four with the same tune (Honky Tonk Angels has four songs with the same melody) and yesterday we learned.....Blue Eyes Cryn' in the Rain....can ya believe it? I am anxious to do something besides the downward strum, but Tom the instructor has his reasons for us to stick with the simple down stroke until we all understand the concept of timing. We are still working the key of C which has some tricky fingering but I shall persevere. My fingertips hurt like the dickens but I shall survive.

Grandpa is feeling poorly, I think he has that rotten bug that is going around the park. It starts with a fatigue and achy bones thing than slams you to the ground pronto. We have plied him with Zicam and nyquil/dayquil so hopefully he will be running at full speed by the end of the week. Zack gets here on Friday...I am anxious to see him since I haven't seen him since July. I can't wait to see how good he looks 100 lbs thinner either. I bought him some goofy undies like I usually do for Christmas and it was neat to by xl instead of 4x. Mom and Cecil will be here on Monday...at least their flight will be in at one instead of 4...I do have a lesson that morning (hey the guitar class voted and I am not gonna miss a class) so I guess I will just have Paulie and Zack drop me off, they can go have breakfest and then we can go to the airport to pick them up. They have rented a car, but there is NO WAY I am gonna get in the back seat with Mother driving. I wanna live a few more Christmases...maybe she will let Paul drive...then Zack and I can follow in our car. We have a Christmas Eve Party at Bev's...if we get them to Victoria Palms where they are staying which is just down the road from us about a mile, then maybe they can rest and have a bite to eat. There is an IHOP and a Luby's just down the road from them at the Palms. Christmas day will be a simple breakfast here, early because the park dinner is at noon....waaaaaaay to early for my taste. Then, we will be hosting an open house at grandpa's place with lite appetizers and rum and fruitcake. I am making "Mexican hot cocoa" which is really cocoa with cinnamon and some booze, and then some fake egg nog, made with milk and vanilla pudding with real rum and cool whip. I am not doing cookies this year, except Paul's favorite oatmeal raisin and chocolate chip (how very Christmasy his choices are....but who the hell knows where my cookie press is...spritz are MY favorite and I can't have any....saves on the pants size I guess.) I have all these plans in my head to do this and that and wind up just letting it go...I had to have Paul stir the fruitcake batter...I couldn't do it because of the fibro. Days like that really suck.

I am off to the doc's again this afternoon...bladder infection for the like 15th time this year. There is obviously some low level infection going on here that keep rearing it's fugly head. Enough is enough....

I have gotten some pictures from back home of the snow...ooooooh. I feel your pain....it is in the 70's but a bit overcast today...supposed to pop up to 85 and sunny on Friday...but then highs in the upper 60's on Saturday and Sunday. Anything is better than 2 below with a wind chill in the teens...of course, Christmas lights do look lovely covered in the white stuff, but I'll take my palm tree wrapped in twinkle lights and going out to pick an orange off the tree in the back yard.

Hope this finds everyone well, and not to far behind in your Christmas preparations....its only a week away yanno....be done already!!!!!

hugs

Dee

Tuesday

Well, yesterday the poor woman who is to be my new primary care doc got to meet me. I say "poor" cause I don't know if she knows what to make of me yet...all she kept saying was...."really" or "seriously" when we discussed my various afflictions. We did the obligatory blood work, urine test, etc. She did tell me that my cymbalta has probably contributed to my inability to lose that stubborn rotten #)($)(#*$# 20 lbs I have managed to slap on my butt. *Sigh*.

I have been practicing my guitar...my fingers are feeling a bit on the sore side...as the teacher said they would followed up by a "tough, get used to it" comment. I have now learned, well er, shall we say, I can "do" 6 chords. I can sing and play Honkey Tonk Angels, the Kitty Wells version, all by myself with just a bit of fumbling around really really badly. Practice makes perfect so I guess I just have to keep plugging away.

I am still searching for the Christmas spirit. Is there such a thing? I used to have it in freakin' October, now it's hard to come by. Maybe because I can't do the things I used to love to do. Bake, make candy, gingerbread creations, all the stuff that made the holidays so much fun...well fun to eat anyways.

This year I did make a batch of fruitcake...don't know how it will turn out...by the time I had the fruits prepared and soaking in brandy it was a whole week before the cakes were made....thanks to the flu. The raisins had soaked up so much brandy, Paul kept adding more. By the time I added the fruits to the batter the raisins turned it dark! It was ripe right out of the oven!

The tree has finally been finished but Pepi and Snickers have ransacked the town I had so laboriously put together underneath it...rotten flea bitten creatures. I am gonna have Zack fetch it outta there and we'll set it up on a table in the Texas room. We are planning an open house for Christmas night...we never really do too much entertaining during the holidays anymore and I figured folks could use a bite after such an early noontime Christmas Dinner. I will have fruitcake, rum cake, Mexican Hot Cocoa, Christmas punch, and some lite appetizers like sausage balls, hot crab dip, cheese tray, some sliced baked ham and little rolls and maybe a relish tray. I have added a request for Christmas cookies on the invite or a Christmas speciality to be brought along. Should be fun unless Paulie turns into the Grinch again like he usually does.

Well, not much else going on...a cool front has moved in along with some rain and it should be more seasonal....highs only in the low 70's... the hot has been nice tho...with that nice breeze, it really doesn't seem 90 at all...no air, just keeping the windows open lets the cross breeze keeps things comfy.

More later...

hugs

Dee

Wednesday

I am sorry I have been out of it... literally, for four days with the most wicked flu bug I have ever had. Thank goodness it didn't do what it usually does, morph into pneumonia like it normally does. It started Saturday and I finally came back to this world around noon today when the fever broke. I actually did make my guitar lesson on Monday, sitting in a dining hall chair for THREE hours ....but what the heck we learned I have no clue, I was out somewhere circling jupiter. Man. I haven't been this sick since I babysat Janice's kids and I caught pnuemona and laid in bed for four days before one of my "neices" decided to peek into the room I was in to check to see if I was dead yet. Same thing here...I had to call Paul on the freaking phone so he would come in and give me something so I could stop the chills. Zack called and I complained to him and then he called Paul and I guess told him I was really sick and he needed to check on me. I guess it made Paul feel guilty and he did come and check on me more frequently. I guess he thought I just wanted peace and quiet. The first temp he took after I had taken tylenol was 102. I guess he thought I was faking or something, who knows.

Well, Santa Claus is Coming to town is on TV so I gotta go...

hugs

dee

Friday...

Another day lost to the curse of Fibro and Meniere's. I did get the fruit cut up and soaking in brandy for the fruitcakes. I also made a banana bread. By then I was totally useless. The tree is still nekked except for the lights, and to be honest, the look is growing on me, LOL! Hey, I have three weeks to get this decorated right? I also set up the village under the tree, but it really doesn't look good down there. The tree skirt won't let anything stand up strait and that damm fattie Pepi decided he liked the warmth under the tree from the lights and knocked it all down so he could warm himself under the tree. Little p*sser. I will have Paulie move it out from under the tree...I had a bit of a problem getting my arse off the floor between the knees, hips and achy old body, I had to slide on my butt over to the couch and use it to get myself up. Too bad there wasn't a hidden camera, I'd have been the newest hit on You Tube.

I purchased a new photo scanner from Ebay. I bid 47 bucks and won...others older went for 75 to 100 bucks. Think I did ok. It is an Epson and it is designed to do only photos, negatives and slides. You can do four photos at a time and each one will scan as a single jpg. Unlike my visioneer, all photos were lumped into one image and then you had to crop out stuff to make four separate pix. There is an automatic feed for prints available for this, but it is about $150. I could load it with 24 photos and they will automatically feed and scan. I have soooooo many photos, and I have purged them several times. All I want to do is scan the photos onto cd's to make sure we save all of our memories.

The VHS to DVD project is going well...once we learned the correct DVD's to use.
Now all I have to do is find a software program to edit these...I can add music and still pictures and put in titles and stuff. Something to do on those long January nights when TV is so boring.

Paul stood in line for three hours on Wed in order to get tickets the the Weslaco Panthers playoff game. The have won the last two games and are now set to take on San Antonio's champion for some championship. There are several guys here in the park that go to all the games just because they like football. There is a running back on the Panther's that is a phenom...runs like 500 yards per game. He is only 5'7" so I am not sure any big name Texas Univ will take a chance on him, but he is sure to get a full ride scholarship to a smaller Div II school I am sure. This town is absolutely nuts over this game. Signs and posters everywhere. The pep rally last night drew huge crowds and there is a huge tailgate party planned this afternoon...tailgate parties are a bit different here...nachos, tacos, barbarcoa and other TexMex delights will be on the menu. I see how some of the locals eat their nachos....they positively LOAD the entire plateful with jalapeno peppers...just looking at it makes my eyes water and my throat begin burning, LOL!

Well, I guess I better get off my tush and do something around here...I should get all the pictures in one place and set up a work station to begig the scanning process. I will let you all know what happens. You all know how mechanically inclined I really am...

hugs

Dennise