I’m Beautiful Like Me.

My apologies for a long absence. The truth is that I’ve been otherwise occupied and trying to limit my online time. I will try to catch you up without dragging on.

I was offered a job with a starting date of January 5th. So after the latest incident at my job, I quit on New Year’s Eve. The family spent the day running about town on errands, just being together. After, we headed out to P’s place for another ringing in with their family. Last year was a great success and I’m rather fond of building traditions. I told P that she was forever stuck with us celebrating transformation - the end of one year and the beginning of another.

We had a great time. We paid for it dearly the next day, but it was worth it. We spent most of the night outside in the gazebo with candles, space heaters and a small firepit, drinking and being belligerent. Big Rob had to have a photo of P’s “eyebrows” made by shadow cast from candle and eyeglasses. P’s sister H joined us, as well. When P’s husband B arrived sometime after midnight still very sober, I managed to catch this picture of him in the unfortunate position of being in front of our empty bottles. It’s my favorite picture.

P and I; L and Joy; me and Buddha (still sober)

P’s “eyebrows”; Husband and I; L, Joy and C

P, P’s sister H and Big Rob; classic Big Rob; P’s husband B’s unfortunate position

Suffice it to say that New Year’s Day was spent in a haze of frequent bathroom trips and fitful sleep.

On the 5th of January, I started my new job, also waiting tables. It’s a great job: the hours are awesome as the restaurant only operates 11-3 M-F and closes on all major holidays. The pay rate is slightly higher than average ($2.85 vs. the usual $2.13 per hour), the guests are mostly regulars and I’ve made pretty decent tips every day that I’ve worked.

There are some down sides, though and they mostly center around the restaurant owners (a married couple). They are unfriendly, rigid and absolute control freaks. The man tends to follow me around in front of the patrons and nitpick every.little.thing I do that isn’t to par with his standards, as though I have never waited tables and he thinks I’m an idiot or has little faith in me or both. I’ve tried to convince myself that the trade-off is worth it. Nonetheless, I have started searching for new work. I’m happy to report that I had a job interview yesterday that went pretty well. Hopefully, I’ll hear something very soon.

In the meantime, I’ve been knitting and reading a lot. I made 3/4 of a purse for my niece for Christmas (I got to the hand-sewing part and just stopped), started and frogged a sock, and finished a leg warmer. I’ve enjoyed reading so much that it’s been over a week since I’ve even thought about knitting! I’ve finished both Odd Hours by Dean Koontz and Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. I’m eager to start another book. Last year (or was it the year before? Wow, time is flying!), I purchased the last book in the Harry Potter series and never read it. Same story with Dean Koontz’s The Darkest Evening of the Year. Of course now, I’m eager to continue to New Moon, as well.

Buddha is as obnoxious as he is cute and Joy had her first pep-rally and basketball game last week. I took video, but it wasn’t very good. I’ll try my best to get better video to share when we go tonight. The Step Team was so good, they received louder cheers than the basketball players and the cheerleaders! Naturally, Joy is very excited to be a part of all this and I’m thrilled, too.

Christmas went just the way I’d always dreamed. I’ll summarize the past week briefly and let the pictures following speak for themselves.

On Christmas eve, my dear Aunt Ruby decided to visit. Blech! I called into work and was told I may lose my job because of it, so I spent the better part of the day worrying about that. Buddha had a mild fever for most of the day, as well.

I had conspired with my mom and brother to get the Christmas decorations - originally I hadn’t intended on doing any decorating or gift exchanging, but after the wonderful kindness of my friends the knitters, things changed. I got the box of decorations from my mom on Tuesday when I helped her out at the shop. I managed to get them into the house and hidden without either of the kids being any the wiser. When we returned from some errands on Wednesday with both children, our neighbor intercepted us in the hall to give me a box that had been delivered while we were away. Joy spotted it, but we swiftly carried it to our bedroom and later I managed to convince her that it was the decorations in said box.

My brother, Big Rob had nothing much to do with his evening since his girls were both spending the day with their moms, and since we had planned to go to The Healing Place on Christmas Day, I invited him to spend the night at our place. We made pizza and beer for dinner and then packed into the car to drive around looking at Christmas lights (Buddha’s favorite). When we got home, I surprised the kids with Christmas decorations and our puny-but-lovely Peanuts-style Christmas tree. Joy helped decorate it while Husband prepared sugar cookie dough. As she patiently waited for the dough to chill, she and Big Rob whipped up a double batch of Rice Krispy Treats. Then they cut out sugar cookies and decorated them.

After the girl finally made it to bed, we snuck the gifts out of the bedroom and placed them on Buddha’s table and chairs. We prepped our morning coffee and headed to bed.

In the morning, Joy was a bit confused about the gifts. “Whose are these?” she asked me. Buddha walked right past them! He discovered the (American) football first. That was followed by lots of unwrapping gifts. The boy was confused, I think. Usually, we yell at him for tearing things up but here we all are, encouraging him! They were both pleased with their new goods.

Joy’s family sent her some gifts and my in-laws sent some nice stuff to all of us.

After coffee and breakfast, we went out to the Healing Place for several hours to help out in the kitchen and in whatever way we might be needed. However, there were more helping hands than hands in need, so we didn’t stay as long as we’d planned. We were met with great welcome. Everyone was so kind and gracious. It was quite a lovely experience.

The whole work-worries thing was for naught - they had over-staffed and were dead. I actually did them a favor and saved them a few bucks by not coming in. But Friday and Saturday were insane - I made so much money! But by golly, I worked my ass off for it.

Some nice cards made it in the mail after Christmas, including some money and gift cards for Joy.

Tonight, we went to my mom’s for Christmas dinner. Big Rob brought both his girls and the four of us went. We ate so much turkey, ham, potatoes and stuffing with gravy, asparagus, corn, sweet potatoes and rolls. Afterwards, we exchanged gifts. Mom laughed so hard at the washcloths I made her and swore off ever using them. Both my nieces loved their gifts from us. Mom got Joy Guitar Hero for her DS - she was so excited! She gave my younger niece the board game Cranium and we had so much fun playing it. For us, she gave us gift cards to the Olive Garden which totally rocks ’cause it’s our absolute favorite restaurant.

Overall, it was an amazing week!

Christmas Eve

Christmas

Late Christmas Night… the boy’s been teething and not sleeping well. So we all curled up on the couch and cuddled together. Note the sheep (from Gramma and Grampa) - the kids love ‘em. Husband thinks it’s amusing that his folks gave his son the black sheep.

Christmas Dinner @ Mom’s, playing Cranium

The Spirit of Christmas is upon me. Mostly, it’s credit to the group of wonderful women I knit with on Tuesdays. Some other nice financial things have happened as well.

One of the ladies I knit with asked that I call her about 10 days ago and asked if she could help us out with groceries through her church. I thanked her but told her I’d prefer they help someone else who really needs it. She conspired with another of the ladies I knit with and mailed us a $50 gift card for the local grocer. The truth is, I really don’t need grocery money - the government has helped us with that the past several months. However, I can buy diapers and toilet paper with this gift card, so it is incredibly helpful.

When we moved in here, we had to pay a huge deposit to turn on our electricity. It was returned to us via our credited bill. That was incredibly helpful! Work has been slightly busier and I’ve gotten better sections and tips lately, too. Further, Husband has made a little money with his slowly-building business and I’ve helped my mom out some, too and will be helping her out again this week.

I’m still pinching every penny. Every little bit helps.

That said, I did brave shopping yesterday. We needed some buns to go with dinner and while out, I made some very small purchases for the kids. I bought the boy a small, squishy football and got the girl a shirt and some Pokémon cards.

As I’ve mentioned before, we’ve been spending some time volunteering at The Healing Place. We didn’t make it out there yesterday, though. Frankly, I’m exhausted! I’ve been working more and this week is going to be a long one: I work Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday at my job, helping mom out on Tuesday and maybe even Wednesday morning before my job, and spending the better part of the day at The Healing Place on Christmas Day. We are going out to mom’s on Sunday (the 28th) to do our family Christmas, complete with my brother and his two girls. Big Rob has been helping mom out on her farm a lot of Sundays and I conspired with him yesterday to get my Christmas box out after all. I will hook up with him at some point and surprise the kids with the decorations on Christmas eve.

The big surprise for them, especially Joy, is that when they get up on Christmas morning and find presents under it! I really hadn’t anticipated being able to have gifts, so this is just as fun for me, being able to surprise the both of them. I am really looking forward to it.

Lastly, if you remember the nasty girl from work I mentioned in this most depressing post, I have an interesting story about that. She coordinated a Secret Santa swap for work and asked me to participate. I declined for a number of reasons: I don’t know most of the people I work with well, I’m broke, I had a previous engagement for the Secret Santa swap with my fellow knitters. When I told her this, she told me she had a hand-knitted scarf that someone had made for her but lost it in a house fire last year just after Christmas.

So, I made her a scarf. I used some acrylic (read: cheap) red yarn and a free cable pattern, but I put love in each stitch. My family endured a house fire on December 23, 1989 wherein nearly everything I personally owned at the tender age of 12 burned up. I know what it’s like to lose sentimental items. I’m happy to report that she loves it. I gave it to her today and it was very well received.

Happy Holidays to you and yours!