Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

...and that about sums it up.

I wish you all joy, and peace, and a holiday surrounded by those you love. Or at least can tolerate fairly well for one day a year.

And as Donkey from "Shrek the Halls" Christmas special so succinctly put it, "Christmas ain't Christmas til somebody cries!"

Merry Christmas, my dear friends.

In Case You Were Wondering....

Moving stinks.

Packing stinks worse.

Discovering items you thought you couldn't live without and have kept for years only to realize you have not thought about them, looked for them, or needed them in the same number of years stinks worser.

Having a husband who is a packing pro smells nice. The packing pro part, not the actual husband. Well, sometimes he does too. Wait, that sounded wrong. Never mind.

No Title

Very original, isn't it? I just couldn't think of what I wanted to call this post, so after about three valuable minutes spent staring at the screen, I thought, "Forget it! I never stick to my topic anyway!" That is some very fine journalism going on over here at moreofawoman. All for you, baby, all for you.

My trip to California went very well. I worked in our main office (I am considered an independent contractor and work at home, but basically am still an employee--I reside in the netherworld between the two) and exhibited at a conference on health care fraud. Well, I didn't personally exhibit anything, my company did. (because I am just not that kind of girl). Anyway...this conference was very interesting in that I got to meet and spend time talking to alot of real, live FBI agents. Can I just tell you that out of the hundreds of agents that I saw, not any of them look like the heroes or heroines you see in the movies or read about in novels? None of the men, with the exception of about three or four, were drop dead gorgeous, with chiseled features and rock hard abs and eyes that bore holes through you. Nor were the women willowy visions of loveliness who looked as at home on a catwalk as they did on the firing range. And know what? It made me feel good. FBI agents gain weight, age, and fall into frumpiness just like we normal folks do.

The agents I spoke with were very kind and respectful, and it made me happy to know that our nation is being protected by people like them. I spoke with a few female agents and asked them how they liked the Academy. One said that she loved all of it except for the running portion, because she hates to run. I agreed that running because you have to would seriously stink, and I would probably fail out of the Academy my first day there. She was so kind because she said, "If I can make it through the Academy, you totally could too." I realize she was probably lying, but that did make my day. So all of you better watch it around me, because I could maybe possibly kick your keister if I ever were to go back in time and enroll in the FBI Academy after I completed the college degree I never got. That's right. You better be scared.

I was gone from Monday morning before the chickens got up until Thursday night at midnight. Then on Friday, we had a sleepover party for my son's birthday. His actual bday is in January and will happen about three weeks after we move to a different state, so we decided to let him have a party early before we leave here. Picture this: four boys between 9-12, cake, soda, pizza, Nerf guns, and a toddler. Welcome to my weekend. The boys had a great time and were just too funny to watch. But it does make me glad that this birthday thing only comes once a year for each kid.

My kid is the one in bright blue. I call this portrait Goofballs On Parade.

Speaking of birthdays, mine was on Saturday. I am now officially 37 years old. (Pardon me while I weep uncontrollably for my lost youth. Okay, done now.) I am having a hard time believing that I truly am only three years away from forty. Forty is so old! Or at least I used to think it was. Now I am beginning to revise my opinion on that one...

My good friend CC took me out to a nice brunch at a little Victorian tea room, and it was marvelous. Such a nice time of laughing and eating and talking and eating and visiting and eating. My husband bought me some wonderful smelling perfume from Mary Kay called Bella Belara. Yummyful! Very very nice and fresh. My son picked out a smores snowman ornament for me, and my daughter helped my husband pick out a pink Mossy Oak tshirt from Cabela's. I believe Hub said her contribution was pointing and saying, "Mommy shote! Mommy shote!" translation meaning, "I really think Mom would look great in that shirt, Dad. Why don't you buy it?" All in all, I had a great day. Now if I only wouldn't have stepped on the scale that day, then I could be in perfect denial....

On the moving front, we are getting our trailer delivered this Friday. We will have all weekend to load it, and they will pick it back up on Monday the 17th. This means that for at least a week, we will only have what we can pack in the back of our pickup. Sleeping on the floor, using plastic dishes, cooking out of one pot...it will be like camping, only with no woods, wild animals or beauty of nature. Good times. Depending on when the movers can deliver our stuff, and when we can actually get to Missouri, then we will either get our stuff on Friday the 21st...or not until Wednesday the 26th. Which means we could end up having Christmas with no stuff--well, except for the plastic dishes and one pot. In addition to all that, there are severe storm and ice storm warnings for part of the area we will be driving through next week. Yay. And here I thought the only thing we'd have to deal with while driving fortyfrillion miles across the country was a grumpy toddler.

I like to move it, move it. I like to move it, move it. And to ride hoe-seee.

Remember the old saying, "That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger"? By the time we move into our new house, I am going to be freaking Xena the Warrior Princess, baby.

Pray, y'all. Pray hard.