Archive for December, 2006



A Mom’s Letter to Santa
December 13th, 2006

I’m totally stealing this from Becky M who posted it at Behind the Muses yesterday. I love it!!

Dear Santa,

I’ve been a good mom all year. I’ve fed, cleaned and cuddled my children on demand, visited their doctor’s office more than my doctor, sold sixty-two cases of candy bars to raise money to plant a shade tree on the school playground. I was hoping you could spread my list out over several Christmases, since I had to write this letter with my son’s red crayon, on the back of a receipt in the laundry room between cycles, and who knows when I’ll find anymore free time in the next 18 years.

Here are my Christmas wishes:

I’d like a pair of legs that don’t ache (in any color, except purple, which I already have) and arms that don’t hurt or flap in the breeze; but are strong enough to pull my screaming child out of the candy aisle in the grocery store.

I’d also like a waist, since I lost mine somewhere in the seventh month of my last pregnancy.

If you’re hauling big ticket items this year I’d like fingerprint resistant windows and a radio that only plays adult music; a television that doesn’t broadcast any programs containing talking animals; and a refrigerator with a secret compartment behind the crisper where I can hide to talk on the phone.

On the practical side, I could use a talking doll that says, “Yes, Mommy” to boost my parental confidence, along with two kids who don’t fight and three pairs of jeans that will zip all the way up without the use of power tools.

I could also use a recording of Tibetan monks chanting “Don’t eat in the living room” and “Take your hands off your brother,” because my voice seems to be just out of my children’s hearing range and can only be heard by the dog.

If it’s too late to find any of these products, I’d settle for enough time to brush my teeth and comb my hair in the same morning, or the luxury of eating food warmer than room temperature without it being served in a Styrofoam container.

If you don’t mind, I could also use a few Christmas miracles to brighten the holiday season. Would it be too much trouble to declare ketchup a vegetable? It will clear my conscience immensely. It would be helpful if you could coerce my children to help around the house without demanding payment as if they were the bosses of an organized crime family.

Well, Santa, the buzzer on the dryer is ringing and my son saw my feet under the laundry room door. I think he wants his crayon back. Have a safe trip and remember to leave your wet boots by the door and come in and dry off so you don’t catch cold.

Help yourself to cookies on the table but don’t eat too many or leave crumbs on the carpet.

Yours Always, MOM…!

P.S. One more thing…you can cancel all my requests if you can keep my children young enough to believe in Santa.

*Santa has asked that this gets passed on to all the mommies you know.

Tag, I’m it
December 12th, 2006

My buddy Becca Goings tagged me.

Here goes!

Four jobs I’ve had:
1. Snack bar girl at a department store
2. Library assistant (uber-geek)
3. Newspaper reporter/photographer (took my own pics)
4. Secretary at a pediatric clinic

Four Places I’ve lived:
1. Vallejo, California
2. Danbury, Connecticut
3. Raleigh, North Carolina
4. New York, New York

Four favorite foods (note I can’t eat any of these anymore LOL!):
1. Macaroni and cheese (homemade)
2. Pizza
3. Cheesecake
4. Pringles sour cream & onion chips

Four movies I could watch over and over:
1. Princess Bride
2. Steel Magnolias
3. O Brother Where Art Thou
4. Clue

Four TV shows I enjoy:
1. Heroes
2. CSI: Vegas
3. House
4. Bones

Four places I’ve traveled:
1. Spain (Madrid, Seville, Torremolinos)
2. Orlando, Florida
3. Cape Cod, Massachusetts
4. Chicago, Illinois

Four places I’d like to visit:
1. Australia
2. England/Scotland/Ireland
3. Alaska
4. Las Vegas

Four websites I go to (almost) daily:
1. Yahoo
2. Google
3. my Yahoo groups
4. Sasha’s blog

Four people I’m tagging to do this too:
1. Sasha White
2. Kara Griffin
3. Sydney Somers
4. Sela Carson

A weekend from my weekend
December 11th, 2006

Whew. I mean really. Whew. I need a weekend to recover from my weekend.

Friday night my 10 YO insisted on starting to make Christmas cookies. So in between making dinner and baking cookies, I didn’t sit down until eight o’clock.

Up bright and early Saturday and spent most of the day at a seminar with 600 other women called “Speaking of Women’s Health“. Fantastic! I recommend it to all of you - free goodies, lots of good info and health screenings. After that I stopped to buy some things for my 14 YOs science project. Back home for a power nap, then out to a friend’s Christmas party.

Geez, louise.

Sunday morning bright and early brought me 10 loads of laundry. Then I stood there and made another three different kinds of cookies, totalling 12 dozen. One of the cookie doughs had to be refrigerated so that went away for a while.

Oh and did I mention the Christmas tree? Yep, you guessed it, we put that up too. After straightening all the branches (thank God for prelit trees) and putting on the garland, I sat there in a stupor watching my kids decorate it. All I could think was, I need a nap!

Next (yes, there is a next), my 10 YO put on his shoes and said he’d help me decorate outside. So, outside we went with the garland and bows. We made our front porch, mail box, and shepard’s hook very festive (if I do say so myself)…

Then while I was outside (you knew there was more right?), I noticed the dead plants I still have not cut down for the winter so I got a pair of scissors and cleaned them all up. I broke the scissors too! Back inside for a little nap, but the decorating was done. *raising fist in air*

But the work wasn’t…

I made steak, popcorn shrimp, baked potatoes, and broccoli for dinner. And after dinner? Why the rest of the cookies of course! Another six dozen, these were cut-out cookies, with my 10 YO.

Please God have mercy!

I was so wired that when I finally sat down at around 8:15, I sat and put return address labels on my Christmas cards (no they’re not done yet)… slept like a dead person and then up again today at 5:45 am.

I need a weekend from my weekend! (Are you tired yet too?)

Weird dreams
December 8th, 2006

I’ve always thought that dreams could mean more than just random images from your brain. Perhaps that’s the writer in me or the dreamer.

Lately I’ve been having very vivid, odd dreams. The night before last I dreamt I was shopping for a birthday gift for my grandfather. I picked out a storybook for kids about a war - it wasn’t in great shape and I figured, that’s okay it was the only one they had. On the way up to the cash register to pay for it, I remembered that he’d passed away this year. His birthday would have been January 1. I hadn’t thought about him in at least a month so it was very odd that my subconscious pulled him out of my memories. I don’t think he was much of a reader, nor would he be reading a children’s storybook.

Last night’s dream was scary.
I dreamt I was driving along in my car (and it was really my car) and I saw a big gray wolf on the side of the road. Not the kind that you see in the zoo or in a nature special, but the kind you’d see in a movie about werewolves. Hulking shoulders with thick gray fur and shining dark eyes. Scared the crap out of me. He ran towards my car, jumped on the hood, then leapt off and disappeared into the woods.

I continued driving, dream me was pretty shaken up, and arrived home (this one was not my house). When I got out of the car, it was dark and spooky. I heard something and suddenly another wolf (a smaller more normal looking one) jumped out of the gloom with his jaws wide. Its jaws closed on my hand and I screamed.

And that’s when I woke up. My body had a defense mechanism that kicks into gear if I get really, really frightened in a dream. I guess I won’t ever be one of those people that dies in her dream and dies in real life, eh?

I don’t mind telling you that I was scared to pieces about the wolf dream. It is so vivid that I can still picture that damn big wolf on the side of the road. I’m not sure what either of these dreams mean - totally random and disconnected, yet stuck in my mind.

Any ideas out there or interpretations?

P.S. Please don’t tell me I’m supposed to write a paranormal romance about a shapeshifting gray wolf whose grandfather just died. LOL!

Oh yeah, The Gift’s first review is smokin’!!
December 7th, 2006

Thanks to Natasha at Romance Junkies… The Gift’s very first review has received 5 Blue Ribbons!

Check it out!

THE GIFT, in true Beth Williamson style, swept me away for a wonderful afternoon of reading. Secretly smiling at Trevor’s dilemma, I adored him for the charmer and bad boy he is, and I applauded him for the man he becomes. Adelaide quickly gained my respect for her strong independence and her capable self-reliance. As a woman on her own, she depends on no one for her life, welfare or happiness. While both main characters tried not to fall for the other, their realization of a mutual love was truly beautiful.”

You can read the whole thing here!

Thanks Natasha!