Christmas Day Chronicles

Christmas Day 2008 was the first Christmas in 30 years that my husband and I haven't had children (big and small) anxious to get up and see what Santa brought them.

At about 7:50 am, I got up briefly and saw the sun coming up over the eastern mountains. I grabbed the camera and took this picture:


Then I went back to bed. Around 11 AM, husband and I went to our youngest daughter's apartment for our traditional Christmas brunch. Usually, most of the family make it to the brunch. This year it was just four of us....me, husband, youngest daughter and youngest son.
But it was the same good food.


After the two kids opened their presents from Mom and Dad...
(Yes, I know she's sitting on the table, but it was her table.)


my husband and I made visits to friends
(My friend is trying to hide behind her son. She didn't want her picture taken. But I think she looks pretty good.)


and family to deliver the traditional Eggless Cake.
(The oldest and youngest kid in the family. I love it that the Bowie knife is mounted on the wall above husband's head.)

The final stop was at my oldest daughter's apartment to share a Christmas dinner and play Pictionary.
(I'm horrible at that game!)


When we left my daughter's apartment it was snowing heavily. We got a phone call from a gal in our ward who was stuck downtown and couldn't get up to the upper avenues where she lived. We weren't too sure if we could get her home either. But in the Volvo XC 90, we passed others stuck on the hills, got her home and back down the hill to our apartment. My husband talks about selling the Volvo.....but maybe that's not a good idea.

I hope all had a great Christmas holiday and have fun plans for the new year!

Just a little rant

I have a hard time with people who have to see someone, or have an appointment with some body, but they don't know the person's name, or where exactly to find that person. It has happened a lot in the two temp positions I've been working the last month.

At central HR desk, more than once, a job applicant would show up and state they had an interview for a job, but wasn't sure who it was with or where they were suppose to go. It then became my job to start asking questions to try and figure out where they were suppose to be. Don't you think that for something as important as a job interview, you'd have all the contact information before you left home? At least, that's what I'd do, but maybe I'm a little OCD that way. For some reason, showing up and saying "I have an interview, but I don't know who it's with" just strikes me as being unprepared and unorganized and a little ditzy.

A woman just showed up here in Public Affairs with a CD for an employee. That employee wasn't here so she said that she has also been working with Chris. Well, there's no Chris in this department. I ask for his last name, but she didn't know it. I go into the online employee directly to see if I can find Chris. There were only 415 people with name Chris. Uh - not too likely I was going to find him that way. She also had her master copy and wanted me to copy the CD to my computer and email it to our employee. The file was to big to email. She's in kind of panic because there was a deadline involved. Am I wrong to think that she should have been a little more prepared? After all, it's the end of the work day, the day before Christmas Eve and employees around here have been heading home early. She got lucky when the employee in our department happened to walk through the door. Her problem was solved. Lucky for her.

I realize that as a receptionist, I'm suppose to helpful. But I a little help from some of these clueless people would be nice.

And some of the questions I get on the phone are head scratchers as well. Like the one yesterday. The caller asked if I knew if the group "Christmas Brass" that was playing in the Church Office Building that afternoon used percussion. Why? She was a little upset when I didn't know. I hope that she didn't stay away from the performance because I couldn't give her the answer.

Shutter Bug - a camera and a 3 year old

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

Christmas can come. I made the traditional Eggless Cake tonight.

Pay Off

I'm so glad I bought these last Tuesday and wore them to work today:



Because I had to walk home from work in this:



And this:

Joy of commuting - on foot

The walk to work this morning was fun. ;^)

The wind was howling and nearly blew me down. It made for a very, frigid commute.

Then there was the motorist who I seemed to have ticked off because I had the right of way, in the crosswalk, and with the light. She tried to make her right hand turn directly in front of me which would have required me to wait for her. But I didn't play her game of chicken. I put my arm out towards her with my hand indicating "Stop". After I crossed in front of her, she sped up and made a squealing turn up the street only to have to stop at the next light.

The walk home will be exciting too. A huge snowstorm is headed our way. It's snowing right now and the gale force wind is blowing it sideways. There's not much of a chance that it will let up before I leave in 5 hours.

But I can hope, can't I?

Update: Because of weather conditions all Church offices were closed at 3 pm. The walk home wasn't too bad because the wind had settled down.

Miscellaneous thoughts

I was convinced that the charger to our digital camera had been lost in our recent move. Or that it was buried in the depths of our storage unit. After a trip to the storage unit Saturday and not finding any boxes that might contain the charger, I resigned myself that it was, indeed, gone and the camera was useless. I made one last search of likely and unlikely places in the apartment and I FOUND THE CHARGER! It was right under my nose - relatively speaking - the entire time. I swear that I had looked in that particular place before.

One purpose of the storage unit trip was to get a few Christmas decorations, and the ski equipment. I ended up only bringing a few Christmas items back because I didn't want to deal with searching through the plastic storage bins for more, or bring the bins back to the apartment and find a place to store them in the apartment for a few weeks.

On the other hand, the husband's den is starting to look like a sporting goods store. He brought back 3 pairs of downhills skis, boots and poles, 2 sets of cross country skis, boots and poles, 2 ski helmets, various ski jackets and clothing. This was all added to the sleeping bags and fishing equipment he already had stashed behind furniture and in the corners of the room. At least the two dutch ovens and his golf clubs that he had been storing in the back of the car went to the storage unit.

I'm still working a temp job in central HR at church headquarters. Monday is the day that the new hires come in for ID badges and orientation. Today, one of the new hires was a jolly old man in a red suit and white beard. He asked to have his ID picture taken, passed out candy canes and with a 'ho, ho, ho' was gone.

I realized last night that Christmas is a week from Thursday. I haven't even started on the little Christmas shopping that I have to do or getting something together to send to my son and his family in Denver. I read in the paper today that this is the busiest day of the season at the post office. I may be sending that package to Denver by FedEx. But I've got to get the shopping done first.

Winter finally made it's appearance on Saturday. We have several inches of snow with more expected during the coming week. Until this past weekend, the temperatures were in the upper 40s and even into the 50s. My walk to work this morning was absolutely frigid! And the husband got new tires on the car last week. It's a good thing or we'd would have been sliding all over the road on Saturday.

I'm going through reality TV withdrawal. I got hooked on "The Amazing Race" a couple of seasons ago. Last Sunday was the finale for this go round. The "Survivor Gabon" finale was last night. The winner was a 57 year old physics teacher from Maine. Yay, Bob!

O Christmas Tree?

Last year, this was our Christmas tree:



A live 10' beauty with a multitude of lights and baubles.

This is our Christmas tree this year.


A 4' artificial tree with a few lights and ribbon - no baubles. It is actually one of a pair that I had in the entry of our home last few Christmas seasons. It's all we have room for in our apartment. So it will have to do.

Score!

I love it when this happens!

My husband and I went to Cafe Rio the other night to get something to eat. When paying for the meal we were going to share, the cashier combined both of our frequent dinner cards for a total of 10 meals which equaled a free meal. We didn't pay anything for our shared dinner - not even for the soft drink!

Last night, I went shopping with my daughter. There were some great deals to be had. At one store, sweaters were two for the price of one. At another, items already marked down had another 30% taken off at the cash register. At a children's clothing store, I got 25% off my total purchase and everything that I bought was already on sale!

My daughter bought a full length red, wool coat that was marked down 30%.

I think I'm going back tomorrow to take advantage of the buy one pair, get one pair half price, that was being offered at a shoe store. There's pair of red heels that's calling my name and I'm sure I could find another pair of shoes as well.

Happy Anniversary!

It was our 30th Wedding Anniversary yesterday. We celebrated by browsing Barnes & Noble, going to a movie, followed by cooking dinner at home and watching the second half of "Gone with the Wind". The husband even remembered flowers and a card

Yea - we are big time party people all right!

P.S. Dinner was a filet for me, T-bone for him with non-alcoholic sparkling cider.

Enough!

The office where I've been working for the past week is located just off the main lobby of the Church Office Building. During the Christmas season, local choirs and vocal groups perform in the lobby during the lunch hour.

I just listened to "O, Holy Night" for the third or fourth time this week. In general, I love Christmas music, but I would rather stick needles in my eyes than listen to various renditions of "O, Holy Night" every day. Once a season is enough for me.

Daily Reading

I read this blog on a daily basis. Sometimes, I laugh out loud. Sometimes, I amazed. Sometimes, I'm flabbergasted. But, I'm always amused.

Scroll through the blog and see what I mean.