Christmas

I had a wonderful Christmas!Michael braved the roads and came up. He spent hours killing time at Tully’s while I finished my work shift. He spent a little time after we closed the store hanging out at the registers, chatting up a few employees. They all love him, think he’s handsome, and enjoyed conversing with him. Yeah! Then he whisked me off to Mom and Dad’s house, where we joined the rest of the family for great Swiss cold cuts and rolls, drink, cookies, caroling and mingling. Lots of laughing and joking ensued, and all was white and wonderful and as close to perfect as possible It was fun to watch Madeline open a few gifts, and it would seem she enjoyed the butterfly gift tag I made her enough to play with it the remainder of the time she was there.Then the extended family departed, and Mom, Dad, Michael and I opened up our gifts by candlelight. I certainly had a wonderful time sharing all this with Michael. Of course, I received wonderful, thoughtful gifts, and enjoyed every second of Christmas candlelight. On the 26th, Michael and I headed for his place. I was a few minutes behind him in my car, and when I turned onto his road I saw his car, stuck in the snow. Okay, not stuck, but it wasn’t going to make it any further forward. Seconds later, he arrived on the ATV to pick me up. *grin * What fun! We had no power, but he hooked up the generator and took care of me for the weekend. Such a sweetie! I had a fun time riding on the tractor and the ATV, and tromping around doing house stuff. We cleared a bookshelf off and moved it into the office. It resides across from my computer, and has a smattering of my things on it. It feels really good to see them there.Power came back on a hair before Sunday rolled in, and we enjoyed Internet connection, lights, and oven usage(yeah for tater tots!). I headed home on freshly plowed roads and am here to report that it was a truly fine and fabulous Christmas for me!

I can almost touch it!

Christmas is so close! Wow! All this snow is making the store crazy full of people. I like it. I am deviating from my normal routine of not following directions and doing things I normally wouldn't. That would be not following directions and doing work that has nothing to do with my department. My focus is to help up make sales. That's it. The more we sell, the more we make. The more we make, the more labor hours we are allotted. I want labor hours so we can slap a few more cashiers on the registers. This keeps me off one and on the floor, where I can then better do my job.

I arrived back at my apartment last night to a cat that was very happy to see me. Lots of snuggles were shared, and now he his back to ignoring me unless I go near his food dish. Sigh. I sure did miss the little guy.
I will load my car with Christmas gift this morning so that I can deliver them to mom and dads’ festive home tonight. They brought in the tree yesterday, so I will sit around with them a wee bit and admire how beautiful it is. Then I will go home and finish making and wrapping 2 gifts, and getting ready for a long awaited visit from Michael. Miss miss miss him!

Home away from home.

I am at the parental unit's house. I'll spend the night here. Hopefully I can go home tomorrow. Been watching the news. There are some high winds on the pass, but so far it is not as bad as they said it would be by my house. The night is young, so who knows what will happen.

I am off to check other internet things, like mail and LJ, then upstairs I will go so I can beat Mom and Dad at a game. Might as well take advantage of my stay here and have a little fun!

Stormy McStormerson

The storm watch has been upgraded to a Storm Alert. Hopefully I will only suffer mild amounts of additional snow. However, I have been warned about getting high winds. Le sigh.

I have a bag packed in case I need to stay at the parents house, and I will call them in the morning to chat about it. I hate the thought of leaving Milo. I always hate the thought of leaving him, but I'll load him up with 2 days of food and a boat load of water. He'll be fine.

I hope I can come home tomorrow night. I like being here, wrapping gifts and being all cozy and Christmassy. Being at my parent's house does have its benefits though. Great food, great company, and usually a rousing game of cards or Fast Track. I do love my parents so! Maybe I'll stay there tomorrow regardless....it's starting to sound fun!

I had a wonderful Birthday this year. I turned 40! Yes, I was excited to turn 40. I figured I had 2 ways to go with this. Get sad and depressed about being 40 and a loser, or forget the loser part and just be excited that I made it to 40 and had at least proved to myself that I do okay all on my own.

But back to my birthday!

I had a wonderful time! I arrived at The Homestead early Friday morning to find a little bitty prezzie on my pillow. I was a little surprised there wasn’t a cat sleeping on it, as one of them seems to like my pillow and I am sure would thumb wrestle me for using rights if he had the thumbs. The gift was nicely wrapped with a note written on the outside. The inside contained

an iPod Touch!

I believe I am being assimilated, and *pauses for a moment* I don’t think I mind all that much. *grin*

The best part of the gifty was the inscription he had put on the back. It says “Ti Amo Tanto, Bimba” which translates to “I love you a lot, baby”. I think I spend more time looking at the back of the ipod than using it. Le siiiiiiigh!

The second best thing about the gifty was it did not come with lectures about proper care and maintainence, how delicate the device is, blah blah blah. He assumed I was smart enough to figure that part out all on my own, and so cut straight to the “wanna go play with it?” part. I think he was as excited about it as I was. Maybe more. Hehehe!


We went for an overnight stay at the Grand Lodge in Forest Grove. If I remember correctly, it is an old Masons building that McMenamins Brewery bought and converted into a hotel. There is a treasure hunt set up that takes you all over the grounds and hotel, which is a great way for people to become familiar with the history as well as the layout of the place. The décor is fun, with little faces painted on the pipe corners and fun, goofy paintings everywhere. The rooms are themed, there is a Japanese spa to soak in, the beer is fabulous and the food was good. I felt the service was slow, but it looked like they were having a few corporate Christmas parties, and I think most of the restaurant help was pulled pretty thin. The atmosphere was light and relaxing, and other than the rude, annoying, drunk girls and their drama in the room next to us, I have no complaints. The company was sexy and fabulous. Michael looks fine in anything he wears, at least to me. I had the opportunity to break out my little black lace dress (which I have owned and fit in for almost 20 years), my Mary Janes, and wear the beautiful tiara Autumnbear purchased for me. We had dinner around the same time the wandering carolers were in the building, and they sang me happy birthday. Michael spied 2 other women with tiaras on our way out, so I asked them if they were having birthdays, too. They beamed, said yes, and one of them asked me if I was also turning 30.

I could have kissed her!

I proudly informed her I was turning 40, and then Michael said to them “This is what you have to look forward to”. I could have kissed him right there! He always says such wonderful things, at such perfect times. I did kiss him, but later.

The rest of the weekend went wonderfully, with my Christmas gift being found and purchased, snow making his place all pretty, kitties snuggling with us, us snuggling with each other, and and and.
It was a great birthday weekend, and I enjoyed it so much! Maybe I can turn 40 again next year.

Hi Mom!!!

Yet another journaling tool in which I can bore the masses with my brain drivel. Go me!!!!