In the Thick of It

I'm insane, I freely admit that ;) Every year, for the past 3 or 4 years I have crocheted gifts for all of our nieces and nephews. We just can't afford to buy them all gifts, there are just too many of them! And this year there are 3 new ones, so that makes the number in the higher 20s. I usually start in October. This year, October came and went. And I realized that I was just not going to have the time this year. Last year I was madly crocheting up until I had to get the stuff out in the mail! So, I was trying to think of some minor crafty thing that would be super cheap and not too lame. I was struggling with this until my husband said we just can't buy for them this year. And truth be told, I was fine with that. On his family end anyway. I'm not trying to be mean or anything, but all his brothers and sisters quit buying for our kids when we moved up here. I continued to make things for their kids, but probably only because I was still making things for my side... Anyway, my brothers and sisters have gotten gifts for my kids every year, and I know they have this year, so... this week (and probably next week too) I am speed crafting my butt off in the sly... so that's where I've been and where I will be until I'm done ;)
So far I have knitted 2 wrist purses for 2 of my nieces, knitted 1/4 of a scarf for one of my nephews... I will be crocheting a scarf for 1 niece, sewing 3 dora purses for 2 nieces and my own little dora fan ;), crocheting a hat for a nephew, and making a pair of moccasins (and putting a little beadwork on them) for my mom. And I'm thinking about crocheting hats for my brother's girlfriend's two kids? I probably should, but I guess I will if I still have time!
I will be catching up with y'all in a week or so! Until then, happy X-mas shopping!

Goodbye 2008!

I won't really miss you ;)

No, I won't be that negative. It wasn't all bad. But we did have one rough year in 2008. I'm just glad its over and looking to a fresh start in 2009!

Its quarter till midnight and I'm trying really hard to stay awake. Tweenie is reading book 2 of the Twilight series. We got her the first one for Christmas and she totally devoured it in a day and a half! I'm just thrilled to see her so interested in reading. We went out today and got her the next two books, and she's 3/4 of the way through #2. I'm totally going to have to read them when she's done.

Anyway, that's what we're doing right now. Everyone else is sleeping. It wasn't our traditional New Year's Eve around here. My husband has been sick and its not really been a fun holiday break. Without getting too specific, I just really wish he would go in to the Dr! It could be/get serious. Or it could be nothing to worry about, but I wish he would just go in and find out for sure!! Men are serious babies when it comes to going to the Dr! And I don't know how much to push. We've fought about it several times now and I'm not getting anywhere. If he starts getting worse I'm just going to totally insist that he goes.

Ten minutes left till midnight.

I'm not going to harp on all the negatives of 2008 like I thought I might. I'm just going to try to get past it all and look forward to all we have to look forward to in 2009! :) Of course the best thing being that we will be having a new baby in June! I feel so blessed. And so very fortunate. My worry is under control. Everything is looking good and I'm sooo glad and relieved. Of course I won't be totally worry free and relieved until I deliver a healthy baby. And then I'll have new worries ;) A mother's worrying is never done.

Five minutes left... I better go make some bubbly juice for me and tweenie.

Happy New Year everyone!!

PS: Sorry for being such a bad blog buddy as of late :( I won't be able to sneak any blog visiting in until next week :( I can't wait to catch up with everyone and see how all your holidays went!!

Off and Away

First off let me just say that with the Holiday coming up and all I will be sadly unable to stalk around here until next Tuesday! (gasp!) I hate not being able to post here and visit my bloggy friends from this blog on a daily basis. It sucks. But that is the price I have to pay for anonymity. The really sucky thing is that my husband will have like 2 weeks off around Christmas!! So maybe I will have to schedule some posts or something, 'cause like 2 weeks is forever!! You will all forget about me ;)

For the first time in forever, it will be just our little family for Thanksgiving! While I admit its a little sad, I am actually looking forward to a less pressured Thanksgiving. The past 2 years we have hosted Thanksgiving at our house and my husband's brother and sister's family have come. But both of them have purchased a house this year and want to spend their Thanksgiving in their own homes... The years prior we had spent Thanksgiving (and every other holiday for that matter) going from his family to mine. I really don't miss that. It sucks to have to go to two of everything - especially when you are big crumudgins like us and don't like to go anywhere anyway ;)

And the reason why I won't be around tomorrow? We are making the 4 hour drive to meet my step-daughter halfway so that she can spend Thanksgiving with us. Its been months since we've been able to see her, so I am really anxious to get to spend some time with her. She is a lovely child. On her own that is. She is beautiful and intelligent and wonderfly quirky. But she also has a mad jealous and mean streak. Her and our adopted daughter (who is really our niece) do not get along at all. I think it all boils down to jealousy issues. But regardless, it really sucks. The times when my step-daughter is visiting are really stressful. They argue over absolutely everything. The stupidest most ridiculious things will cause them the biggest problems. I've tried all sorts of things and nothing seems to work. So in that way I'm just not really looking forward to it. And I really hate to say that. Every time I think maybe this time will be different and I always give it a good chance, but it always remains the same. I feel bad for both of them. But I especially feel bad for our adopted daughter. She seems to get the brunt of it. While I do know that she can certainly goad the step daughter on, she doesn't deserve what usually comes her way. They are both about the same age, the step daughter is almost a year older. And here's the thing, she is just downright mean. She still has some infantile behaviours, when she doesn't get her way she acts out physically - she will hit, kick, push etc... And I know that really it is because of her mother and a complete and total lack of discipline at home.

Anyway, so it is bound to be a fun extra long weekend.

The other sucky thing? We can't all make the road trip together, and I really hope we don't have to go anywhere while the step-daughter is here because the car will not fit us all. I wrecked our car with the first snowfall and it is still in the shop. Luckily we have a loaner, as that was our only vehicle. And the super-duper sucky thing? We had just switched insurance companies for a cheaper one and to make the insurance even more affordable (since we totally live on next to nothing) I decided to go with the $1000.00 deductible. How lovely is that? I am just really hoping that the guy who is fixing it can do it for much less than the quote (and I'm totally worried about that because I haven't been able to get a hold of him and he's not returning my calls!). Otherwise we will be completely screwed. We were already going to be screwed for Christmas. I have a couple of gift cards that I got for my birthday last month that I saved for x-mas, but that's probably going to be it. So I've been busy today entering every contest I can find ;)

Man, I'm such a downer today. Oh well, I'm still pretty happy for the most part. We'll see how I feel on Sunday after the long holiday weekend. Actually, I just realized that I can probably do some blog stuff here on Sunday as my hubby will be taking the two older girls to meet the step-daughter's mom on Sunday.

Until then, I hope everyone has a good and happy Thanksgiving!!