Holiday Celebrating Is Coming to an End

It has been a whirlwind of activities since December 20, and now it is winding down with our last guests leaving for their flight home today. All the scurrying around started on December 2oth when my husband flew "home" for two weeks to be with us during the entire Christmas Break. My parents drove 600 miles and arrived here on December 22nd; they left this morning to start out on their yearly migration South to Florida. My sister and her family flew here on Saturday for a rather abbreviated visit since their original flight was cancelled due to the bad weather in Indiana. During this holiday, we have been to Arlington Cemetery, The National Spy Museum, the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, and the newly refurbished American History Museum. Our legs were pounding the pavement all over Washington, D.C. and it was fun to see all the preparations being made for President-Elect Obama's inauguration. There is much to be done before that momentous day! Some review stands along the parade route have started to take shape, and row after row of bleachers are being set up. So far, no sign of "porta-potties" but I am sure they are on order. The White House looks beautiful with it's Christmas dressings, which I suppose will be replaced soon with the buntings and flags for the welcoming of its new tenant. All in all, our visits with family were good. Our house, that continues to be on the market, also had several visits from interested buyers (much to my surprise!). In less than a week, my husband will be boarding an airplane and heading back to Indiana to get back to work. We all keep hoping that 2009 has good things in store for us--the last two years haven't been all that great, but if our house here in the Washington Metro area sells, things will really be looking up for us!

I Have Room For Obama Family

I kind of feel the Obama's family's anxiety about trying to move to Washington, D.C. before January 20. I know the feeling of trying to speed things up so your kids can start school at a certain time. It only makes sense for the girls to start at their new school on January 5, when all the other students return from their Winter Break. We are trying to do the same thing with our move back to Indiana, so I sort of get what the hubbub is about. It is too bad that the house we are currently living in isn't a little bit closer to Washington, D.C. because the Obamas (at least the girls and their mom) could stay at our house until the White House is cleared out. I checked on MapQuest and our house is approximately 5o miles from Sidwell Friends School in Washington. That means over an hour drive to school from here; however, people make that commute everyday to go to work. My husband did it for over a year. Perhaps the Obama girls could do it for a few weeks in January. I also have a couple of girls here who are close in age to the Obama girls. Wouldn't that be fun? It could be a month-long sleepover--sort of. The area we live in is crawling with security and secret service workers and the like, just because a lot of government employees choose to live here, away from the D.C. craziness. I had considered renting out our extra rooms to people who want to go to the inauguration, but I didn't want to have just anyone staying here. Our house is currently up for sale and my husband has moved to Indiana in order to start his new job, and we have extra room in this big house. I just want to send out this open invitation to President-Elect Obama and Mrs. Obama that if things get desperate, I have room for them just outside of Washington!

19 Years of Marriage Deserves Meat!

I have always had a difficult time figuring out what to give my husband for our anniversary. He never needs anything. He doesn't particularly like clothes; he already has every possible tool (hand and electric) that any one man could possibly want, so I have a hard time finding unique and usable gifts for my dear one. This year (today to be precise) is our 19th wedding anniversary. The past couple of years have been pretty tough on our relationship, and this year, he is 600 miles away, so I feel like I need to give my husband a special gift this year. I thought and thought, and finally it came to me! He loves meat. He gets so excited if I fix a steak for him, so I did some checking to see if Omaha Steaks was one of the stores I could shop through the www.sendearnings.com website. Sure enough, it was, so shopping I did. I chose a nice assortment of steaks and a cheesecake for his gift. While I was there, I also ordered a few things to have on hand for the next week when we have out-of-state visitors here. Right now Omaha Steaks is offering free shipping and it looks like the gift of meat will be here right when my husband arrives back home for the holidays. I don't think I could have found a more perfect gift this year!

Paula Deen Reading Glasses

Last week Paula Deen was a guest on "The Bonnie Hunt Show" and she brought Bonnie a whole bunch of different reading glasses which Bonnie (and Don Lake) wore during the show and they were quite attractive in a retro-Paula Deen-out-there kind of way. Since I have crossed the threshold of forty, my eyes just don't see what they used to see, so I have graduated to wearing reading glasses when I have my contacts in or using my bifocals when I don't. Being the kind of funky gal that I am, I refuse to wear those ugly drugstore reading glasses that cost $22.99. If I have to admit that I need help seeing to read, then I might as well use a pair of glasses that are funky and funny so I can laugh about it, and feel better about my old self. I looked on Paula Deen's website to see if the glasses could be purchased there, and sure enough, she has a few available. I didn't the ones that Bonnie wore that are the shape I need for my face, but here were some pretty cute ones there. All of the frames are studded with Swarovski crystals, and all of them were bewtween $21.00 and $31.oo, so forget those ugly old man reading glasses at Rite-Aid! I'm going to order some from Paula Deen.

The Gift of Food

I don't know about any of you, but I enjoy getting gift baskets and food gifts; that is I would enjoy them if anyone would ever want to send me anything like that. One year my sister sent us Kim & Scott Gourmet Pretzels (which were delicious), and also several years ago she sent us Wolferman's English muffins--something the whole family could use! I loved those gifts! Ever since then, though, we haven't been sent anything like that. This year, I decided to send my siblings and grandmother Wolferman's English muffins. I carefully chose an assortment that I thought each family would enjoy, so I hope they really do! This year, have had a difficult time getting out anywhere to shop, so the internet has really been a godsend! With trying to sell the house, having sick girls every few days, and other things going on around here, there seems to be little time to drive to anyplace that I could shop. I found out that the possiblities for sending gifts using the internet are endless. Even with all the bad stuff that is surrounding us these days, I'm glad I'm living in a time when all I have to do is enter information into this little "box" and ta-da! I've sent a gift! There is nothing like the 21st century!

Looking at Oprah Winfrey's Weight Again?

I thought everyone was over all that. Let's face it, some people are not meant to be skinny rails. The world is made up of all sizes of people, why does it have to be such an issue. Sometimes I hate the way I look and wish I could wear smaller sized clothes, but then again, I know I am who I am. I am healthy and active and I want to be able to walk down the street not worrying about my weight. I am a recovered bulimic and just wish that we could all just be comfortable with who we are and what we look like. It is difficult enough for average people like me to feel good, but Oprah has millions of eyes on her and she feels like she has to explain herself and her weight to everyone again. It must be a terribly uncomfortable spot to be in. We all know that less fat on our bodies is better. We all know that we need to eat a diet that is balanced and nutritious. Oprah has the means to pay for a chef to cook for her and dole out smaller portions. She has the means to hire a personal trainer and to surround herself with all sorts of experts to support her, but even with all that, she has yo-yoed with her weight. If that is true for someone like Oprah, then I don't so bad about myself. Everyone has faults; everyone has burdens to bear, everyone has at least one weakness. I like Oprah and I think she has a true gift of inspiring people, but she needs to be a little less apologetic about her weight. She looks good and seems to be able to do the work she wants to do, so why apologize and explain?

Hydrolize My Eyes

The other day I heard an ad on the radio that was interesting to me because I have those dreaded dark circles under my eyes. I guess I inherited them from my mother who inherited them from her mother, who inherited them from her mother. These awful looking dark circles certainly look like an inherited trait. In all the pictures from my mother's mother's side of the family, dark circles seem to be the norm. I hate them, and the older I get, the worse I think they look. Adding to the age of my skin and probable sun damage is the fact that I have worn contact lenses for twenty-eight years. The wear and tear on the skin around my eyes is quite obvious. So, this ad made my ears perk up, because so far nothing has worked to reduce (even a little) the dark circles. This particular product is called Hydrolize and supposedly can "cure" the dark circle problem. I have tried Hylexin and Nulexin and other creams that contain vitamin K, but I had never heard of Hydrolize before. I decided to do a little searching on the Internet and found a review of the product. The review wasn't all that helpful since it criticized the product for only working on one area of the face. Weird, since I thought that was the whole point of the product. Anyway, it didn't get that great of a review, but not a bad one either. I decided to go to the Hydrolize website to see how much the product would cost. It is expensive. $49.99 for just one tiny little pot of the stuff. If you buy four of those little pots, it was $149.99 plus shipping and handling. While I would love to get even a little bit of lightening of the skin around my eyes, I just cannot afford the high cost of such a cream without any guarantees that it will actually work. I don't have that kind of discretionary money anymore. Too bad, I really need to hydrolize my eyes!

Sweet Sixteen

My oldest "baby" was born sixteen years ago today. The old saying that I used to get so tired of hearing when my girls were all tiny was, "they grow up so quickly!" I would internally roll my eyes every time some well meaning senior citizen would say that to me. Now, I realize that there is some truth to that phrase. It doesn't seem possible that sixteen years have come and gone. My daughter is growing up to be a really neat person. She has a lot going for her. She has a great sense of humor, she is an excellent student, she is very creative and she is a loyal friend. I like the young lady she is becoming and even though it scares me to death to think about her growing up and leaving me, I know that that is exactly where she is headed and exactly the way things should be. Happy Sweet Sixteen!