Kyle got a deer!

Kyle got a deer 2 days ago! Yee ha   deer meat!

Job

Well, I reckon most of y'all know or soon will that I lost my job the Friday before Christmas. I was 'adminstratively removed' for having to be off longer than 14 days for the back injury, which they said is their policy since I'd been there under six months.Whatever.

I'm trying to look on this as a blessing in disguise in the long run.

Dec.26,2005

Hope everyone had a great Christmas!

We had a nice one, I guess the funniest gift I've seen so far is Kyle got a shirt from his stepsister that had a picture of a tricycle, and it said "Chicks dig my ride". We just fell down laughing when he showed it to us last night.

I got a VCR/DVD combo player, and the first three Harry Potter movies. Since Tony had never read the books(read?what's that?lol)I convinced him to watch the first movie, and we ended up through the rest of Christmas watching the other two after that,so he's hooked now(on the movies, not the books:)

Am currently having car trouble, Tony is in the process of trying to fix that. Lynn let me borrow her car the day before Christmas Eve and the morning of Christmas Eve. The most fun I had this Christmas (besides Christmas day) was picking up April Friday night from her 'progressive dinner' and she and Kyle and I went shopping at WalMart at midnight together to finish up buying Christmas.No crowds:) and it was nice hanging out with two of my kids.

Of course, since it was after midnight when we finished.....as soon as we got in the car to come home they both started arguing their case that because it was technically Christmas eve, they wanted to open one gift as soon as we got home!(we have a tradition of opening one gift on Christmas Eve.)So yes, Mom gave in and said it was OK:)

One of the best gifts I got was a phone call from my brother in Hong Kong, we talked quite awhile. also talked to Mom and Tracy. Dustin stopped by for several hours on Christmas day, which was a nice surprise.

Now as we head into the New Year, we are all hanging in there with Tracy and Adam as they await the word to receive their daughter from China....can't wait to see the newest family member! You can keep up by visiting A Red Thread to China.

Pictures

Sorry   got rid of the pics....didn't realize they weren't private on here,but were creating a 'journal album'....some of those soldier pics were not mine to post, on the yahoo 360 blog the pics only post to the blog and they can only be viewed by the family and friends I give access to the blog.

Dec.21,2005

This is one of my epals, getting a meritorious promotion.

My back is slowly getting better. I hate being less than 100%!

Am waiting on one last gift to be delivered from my online shopping...of course, it's the one I'm most excited about giving! As for the calendars....WalMart told me last Saturday (17)that Fuji was just starting to process calendar orders from Dec.FIRST....yee ha, this might end up being a 2007 calendar!!

April has an assignment to film a movie over the holidays...she adapted that short story I wrote 100 years ago when I was 15, it's for her movie class....I think she did not realize when she took the class she'd have to end up directing and filming a movie! Because of the snowdays, I'm just irked that it got delayed till something to do over the holidays.

Christmas is coming! Besides the 'goose getting fat', I'm not getting any thinner,lol.

Tonight is the Christmas play for Sunday school....Ken and Bryan are in it, and April is singing with the other middle schoolers. Guess we're taking Britney with us, Teresa is at her second job this evening and had asked me to keep Brit till she got back. Monday night was the handbell/choral concert...Britney ended up going to that with us also, and Kyle and Morgan went. It was VERY pretty, I just love listening to the handbells!

Am impressed with how dedicated April is to handbells...she's also joined the handbell choir at church. Kyle gave her his old guitar for Christmas, am thinking after watching her Monday that lessons will be a possible birthday gift...am sure she would practice.

Well, I need to go start supper, as people will be coming and going and eating in shifts.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

Nugget Washer

Ok my new name will have to be 'nugget washer'....yesterday I was making homemade chicken nuggets to fry up in the deep fryer, and as I went to put the basket with the uncooked nuggets into the hot oil.....the handle came off and dumped them all in my soapy dishwater!

It was one of those things that I said 'this will probably be more funny TOMORROW than it is right now!"

After which I rinsed all the darn pieces of chicken off & started back over with rolling them in flour,etc. for cooking.I think I might need to join that Dorks R Us group after all:)

Dec.15,2005

Playing with pictures again. I have been up since 2:30.....this back thing stinks. between the muscle relaxant and pain meds, I am finally feeling a little better and it is almost 7:30. April is happy,school was cancelled due to an ice storm supposed to be coming. I don't see it doing anything yet.

Tony came in here last night, closer to work for if it had started...he is gone to work since nothing had started, but said his boss had told them if the sleet/rain starts they will pack it in and head back home.

Kyle cracked me up yesterday, he was watching the tree rotate and asked 'is there any way we can speed that thing up?' I guess we both got a mental image of it whirling furiously and flinging ornaments off, coz we both fell down laughing.

Dec.12,2005

Went to the doctor today and he put me off thru the 19th. Which is ok, will give me time to heal. Also gave me muscle relaxants, so I am VERY relaxed right now.

Dec.10,2005

Ended up staying home today, tried to sleep last night & back was hurting very badly. Darn! I think that original back injury will dog me for a long time.

Just chillin' :)

Didn't do a whole awful lot today, kind of hurt my back a little, I guess, the other night while helping Kyle move boxes. Cause it's been aching all day. DID go online shopping & went 'wild' for me:)Yep, we had snow & ice, so got to do my Christmas shopping from the comfort of the computer chair,lol.

Getting ready to work the next two days, but the drive should be ok in the morning, roads were cleared today & I don't take any back roads.Tony & April are going to bake Christmas cookies....yum.

Kyle starts night shift tomorrow night, at Wal Mart.He will be inside the building now, which is a good place to be in the winter!He is glad to bid cart pushing goodbye.

April was glad they had school off today:) She went sledding twice.

Well, I am going to play a few games of online Mahjongg & I think hit the sack...4:30 comes early!

Christmas project completed

OK,here's a completed Christmas ball....how close did I come in my descriptive writing?!LOL.

The last few days have been interesting...Dustin's car also broke down, & as you know,Tony's truck was already kaput.We had snow on Monday....driving home in that Monday night after work was OK, but Tues morning was more difficult ,because it's a bad time to find out you're out of windshield washer fluid while you are driving on the interstate after a snow with trucks blasting by you!

I'd like to say the road crews did a great job laying salt...I could tell by what was on my windshield.

Tony got Dustin's car running again yesterday, and then he FINISHED his Christmas shopping tonight. I have not STARTED, unless you count asking my friend in Baghdad to send me something!

This is funny...Ben & Emma both left their digital cameras here, but in order to get pics of my tree and decorations on the computer(to email them to a soldier in Iraq, she asked for some)...I had to ask Kyle to take pics with his camera phone & email them to me, because I don't know how to operate the digital cameras!!!('Half a geek')

Well, it's late...just wanted to let y'all finally know what the thing I was making looks like.It had been so long since I'd made one, that I had to call Mom & ask her to count the panels!(I never remember to save one for myself)There's 5 on top and 5 on the bottom, and 10 in the middle. My grandfather came up with the idea. I am bummed to find out after saving cards for a few years, I am down to only have enough circles to make 3 of these!!!Tony thinks it would be cool to try it with pictures.

Oh, and the 7th being the anniversary of Pearl Harbor, my thoughts again returned to Hawaii. When we went there in 2003 for Kirby's wedding,we went to the memorial. It was awe inspiring, and humbling and saddening all at the same time.

Which brings me to so many prayer concerns right now...I worry for all 'my' soldiers I write to, but I am particularly concerned about one in particular, who I have not heard from since the Marine's were killed..I know he's not dead, but that doesn't mean he's not injured.

And there are friends of my brother who need prayer, and friends of my sister with a child facing surgery.So,please,spare a moment to remember them.

Christmas musings

Too great....my nephew obviously does NOT like sitting on Santa's lap!lol.

Well, it's definitely beginning to look a lot like Christmas now. Tony put the tree up yesterday. Since his mobile home he rents is so small, he offered me his tree to use this year...it is a huge, gorgeous, ROTATING tree:) This is the first year in a long time that we have been able to put ALL our decorations up!

Speaking of decorations...I somehow have 'Kirby 72' painted wooden decoration, and also a 'Susie 72' decoration. Have to ask my siblings if they want these back,lol. When we were growing up, Mom every year used to get kits to make decorations for us to make them...then when we moved out, she gave us 'ours' to have. I realized this was a good idea (belatedly) last night when Ben came by & I handed him FOUR measley decorations and said 'here's yours for your tree."

Decorating the tree last night led to a whole philosophical discussion about decorations....I suppose it's all what you grew up with. Tony is from the 'theme' school apparently, where you don't use handmade or homemade decorations, you use Christmas balls & like decorate all in white & gold, or red & green or you get the picture.

Ours is always a chaotic(I like to think 'joyous') mixture of ones the kids made, ones I made when I was young, gifts ones we've gotten, or ones we've purchased over the years.Let's hear it out there...which type do you use?

Remember the Christmas balls that Granddad McNulty used to make...where you take 12(or more?will remember when I try it myself) cut out circles of pictures from Christmas cards andfold over the edges on the sides & bottom of 6 of the circles & the side & top of 6 of the circles & glue the sides ,etc. together with a ribbon for hanging in the middle & then sprinkle glitter onto glue on all of the edges(does anyone have amental picture yet?lol. I don't think I'm good at descriptive writing)ANYWAY, I used to make them....so have been saving my Christmas cards for the past several years in order to make them again,& I beleive this year I have enough.

I am undecided as to whether there were 12 circles or more in the middle...will have to figure it out when I start on some more! I will take a pic & post it when I'm done, as I have the feeling my description is leaving a lot of people saying 'What? is she talking about?'

Thursday & Friday at work were both overwhelmingdays. I don't beleive it is just me, a nurse from downstairs got pulled up & agreed that this is the most overwhelming job she has ever worked...you never feel like you are accomplishing anything & she said she felt 'chained' to the med cart cause of the heavy med pass loads. I didn't get out either night until 8:30 pm...there is just no time during the day to do your paperwork, so I always end up finishing up at the end of the day. I could write more in depth, but I have decided to try & start thinking of at least ONE positive thing each day if I can or else this job is going to kill me!

I AM upset about what is potentially going to happen Christmas weekend...that is my regularly scheduled weekend to work. Originally they told us that we could sign up for 4 hour shifts on ONE of the holidays, like they did at Thanksgiving. Now that my boss has resigned, they issued a memo late last week that said they have decided the 'holiday' is from 10:45 pm Christmas Eve to 10:45 pm Christmas Day night. So that you are supposed to work your regularly scheduled hours before their arbitrary 'holiday' hours begin.

What this means, if I'm understanding it correctly, is that they want me to work my regular 12 hour shift on Christmas Eve day...and then they are potentially still going to run me in there for four hours on Christmas day, which with me leaving at 1:30 pm to get there and returning by 8 or 8:30 pm means I can just kiss the whole holdiay weekend goodbye,except for a little 'window' on Christmas morning to open gifts & celebrate.

I know, I have the wrong attitude...I think of all 'my' soldiers and those serving who are far from home & should be ashamed of myself for griping.

I was offended by the memo for two reasons...A. they said in it"our residents need care over the holidays,too" which hacked me off...I am not stupid, of course I realized that!But they first said they were going to do Thanksgiving,Christmas, & New Years one way, & then changed their minds. and B. when you send me a memo reminding me that our residents need care over the holidays, I am reminded that I have never seen any member of upper management in on a major holiday in all my 12 years of nursing,so it's basically saying that our residents need care and we are going to make YOU do it, while we enjoy sitting home & celebrating the holidays with our families.

Well, I think I have whined enough...thanks for letting me rant!