Happy New Year from the opressed and humiliated

Quentin and Shane chose to honor the great city of New Orleans this New Year's Eve by sporting masquerade masks and Mardi Gras beads.

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! And all of it!

Jocelyn with Great-Grandma Jo
Originally uploaded by Monkey loves Kitten.

Yes, I know that I have once again been remiss in posting. I know that I gave you no warning and have likely caused much frustration on your part. I know how you've come to rely on me to keep you entertained and informed and that you likely feel I've let you down. All of this I know.

Okay, for those of you I didn't lose with that paragraph, I'm sitting in the airport in San Francisco, killing time before my next flight. It leaves here the same time I was originally scheduled to get home. Due to bad weather in San Francisco, my flight from Monterey was delayed enough where I would've missed my earlier connection, the one I'm waiting for now was the next happening. I now get home tomorrow morning and have a mere five hours here at SFO. All I can say is, thank goodness for Anchor Steam.

Oh, and please enjoy this photo of Jocelyn with her Great-Grandma Jo. They sure enjoyed one another.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from Iraqistan!
Miss you all,
b

Okay, I'll tell you who they are

Santa is Chuck, husband of Sue, my primary babysitter. By which I mean the woman who watches me a couple of days a week.

More elfin adventures

Got a couple of shots off before Mrs. Claus took back the elf ensemble.

See the kind of trouble I'm getting into?

Puppy Woofmas

Car dogs

Merry Christmas from the desert

New and improved niece

Now with tons of hair!

Added to include

And then my dad said, "Unlevity bread is no laughing batter." And it just goes on. Speaking of my dad, here is a new shot of Grandpa Scott with Jocelyn.

I'm so looking forward to getting my hands (and teeth) on her! I'll be at my parents for Christmas* so I won't have to wait much longer. Baby Noah gets a reprieve for the time being. That's okay, a few months of leg plumping will make for a better chomp. :)

*Thank you, husband!

Good show

Thanks to all who commented on the previous post. It's safe to say I know some freaks.

Here's an exchange between me and my favorite freak that happened today:

I'd written an email with a bunch of smilies. He asked what that was.

Me: That was levity.
Him: I thought that was what makes bread rise.
Me: Doh!
Him: yeah. That stuff. Turns into bread when you bake it and use a levity agent.
Me: I cannot believe I just handed that to you, right on a silver platter. Yes, that thing upon which the aforementioned bread may be served. Got it.

Strange behavior

Time to get interactive, people. I tell you something weird I do, and you tell me something weird you do. Here goes:

I like to keep only and exactly 99 cents in my coin purse. Theoretically that's the most I'd need, right? I keep three quarters, one* dime, two nickels, and four pennies. I have each denomination represented and can therefore come up with any amount between one and ninety-nine.

Okay, your turn. Oh, and don't make fun of me and I won't make fun of you. Well, at least I won't write about it.

*** A correction brought to my attention by my college friend, Nicolle. I really only do keep one dime, I'd mistakenly written "two." Thank you for your acceptance.

Sleep

Those who know me well know that I have made it my life's work to not get enough sleep. With only a very few exceptions, I have been quite succesful.

As a child, I refused to nap. At a small, in-home daycare, I used naptime to break into the fridge and hand out snacks to the other captives. The next daycare, a larger place, attempted to deal with my disruptive naptime ways by partitioning my cot, and when that didn't keep me from keeping other kids awake, moving me to a room by myself to color.

I refused to go to sleep at a reasonable hour, sneaking out of bed to watch Benny Hill. No wonder I couldn't sleep with those images in my head! Then, in the morning, proved to be beyond challenging to wake. Except of course for Saturdays and Christmas. The two surefire ways to get kids up early - cartoons and Santa. That's some kind of cruel irony for the parents, isn't it?

Once a teen, I still stayed up far too late, but then didn't sleep in like so many of my friends did. Surprisingly my growth wasn't stunted by my lack of self-care. My mom thought I was anemic, but it was just the lack of sleep that caused me to look so crappy.

So, now I am an adult. Of the age when tired catches up to you. I am tired many days, but don't you think for a minute that I'm doing anything about it. In fact, I've found more reasons to stay up too late all thanks to the Internet. Instant messaging with a west-coast friend until it's her bedtime, no problem! Waiting until my husband gets to his office so we can email back and forth several times, easy. He's only eight hours ahead after all. Gets to work when a prudent me would be heading to bed. And I still don't sleep in. Blame this on the dogs. As soon as Shane senses that I'm awake, she comes over to nudge my hand. Sometimes Quentin lick, lick, licks and wakes me up. If I holler at him to stop, Shane'll know I'm up, so I pull a pillow over my head. Can't get back to sleep though, so up I get and begin another day for which I am unprepared. But if I wasn't this dedicated and focused, I wouldn't be able to reach five o'clock looking like I just. got. up.