Day 54

So now that i'm over my selfish rantings about not having a weekend to myself...my poor mother in law is still without power in her town, and my cousins in another NH town are also still without power. Tomorrow will be a week! YIKES. Unfortunately, not much i can do to help. I can't very well bring kids up there so i can move tree limbs. THey've had to throw out food and go elsewhere to shower and sleep. Glad to know they are surviving, but wish they'd take me up on my offer to come down south. Not to mention that they are getting more snow on top of it all tonight.

I am seriously considering converting to judaism just to abolish this stinking sorry excuse for a xmas tree. I'm doing all of the preparations for my children, but even that seems like pulling teeth some times. We went to get the tree sunday and lorelei fell asleep in the car and ainslea would get out of the car to come inspect trees. I tried to find the smallest tree, but apparently that didn't help in my bargain hunting and i ended up with a tree bigger than i needed and more expensive than i wanted. I anticipated putting the tree in the bay window of the garage room for all to see, and to be out of the reach of little lorelei. But that required cutting more off the bottom. Which would be very easy if i had the cohones to start my chainsaw. However, feeling a slight attachment to all my limbs, i opted for a small handsaw. I couldn't find our axe and my biceps are not in their best shape...so that was a near impossible feat. I was halfway through, and decided to try to come up with a new plan. No one nearby was around to help, and with lorelei sleeping, i couldn't go anywhere. I had a right mind to go back down to the tree place and demand he cut more off my tree...but had visions of being "that woman" and decided against it. So after the floodgates opened and i realised i could do nothing else until finishing the cut, i rummaged around for a wedge and a hammer and knocked the shit out of it until the 6inch piece came off....if only that was the end of my story....nope! you guessed it....not enough off to fit in the bloody window. So now i have a tree that is too big for my window...and too freggin short for the floor.....so i gave up cleaned myself up and went to margo's christmas party. SOmeone else cooking was fine by me!!
We took the long way home to look at all the lights and after five minutes of Lorelei saying "coo-ul" to every house she fell asleep. But not for long, as the rest of the night would be a sleepless battle, that turned out to be the result of an ear infection.
So now its weds...I figured I probably should actually figure out what to do with the stoopid tree. I decided the only way it was going to recieve the holiday spirited attention that every tree deserves is to bring it back down the stairs and put it on the dining room table. Won't be having a feast of ginormous proportions at my house this year, as its my mother's turn. SO why not make use of a table to keep lorelei at bay? YUP, you guessed it...still too stinking big fo the table...out came the pruning shears and lobbed off the one branch at the top that was scraping against the ceiling. Lights are up...but after ainslea dropped a fragile ornament and it smashed on the floor, i paused the decorating for today.
I agreed to babysit another military mom's kids so she could go to the sandwich moms club holiday party tonight, and the kids had fun. They are asleep on my sofabed until she gets back. I really wasn't in the mood for any more ho ho holiday merriment, so i'm not feeling hard done by. Travis is safely in Iraq, and my kids are safe at home. I don't need to deal with formalities or spend money on drinks that i could have for free at home. Eight more days of holiday spirit and its over!!!!!

Day 50

Funny how things work out.....I'm not sure what i did to piss off mother nature, but the weekend that i was looking forward to, got completely thwarted due to a pisser of an east coast ice storm. BOth Pam and Barry are isolated in their respective towns with downed power lines, trees blocking roads and no power and populations to provide emergency shelters for. Soooooooo, my weekend of freedom is no more. I'm not mad at them, there is certainly nothing they could have done about the situation. Even if they weren't in charge of the town, they wouldn't have been able to leave. I did offer refuge here on sunny glorious cape cod, but as of yet, no visitors.

I was able to finish my first build-a-bear cake for Christa's graduation from nursing school.

And even though Ainslea said my nurse bear should have been white, Christa wants to be an OR nurse so I thought blue scrubs and surgical hat were appropriate. So instead of my night out, i took the girls up to Boston with me to have a brief chinese food dinner with her family and friends, and then we drove home again. It wasn't the night i had envisioned, but the girls were troopers and, at the end of the day it was nice to end up in my own bed. Its sad to say, but i am turning into more of a homebody.

And to add to that, my friend from NJ who was supposed to be returning (without child) to finish the weekend where they left early, ended up having to stay home for a family emergency...so that part of the weekend has also changed. However, the new me, has been able to take the good out of the bad here and be happy that there was no added stress in cleaning up after my bear cake debacle, making up an extra bed and doing half the things on my list before we left for Boston because there was no one coming to stay afterall.

SO in the end, despite not being able to go shopping by myself this weekend, and enjoying a good meal out and drinks, i think its going to turn into a more relaxed weekend. If i can keep the kids occupied then everything else will fall iinto place. I've learned my lesson from this week...take some time out to do "nothing" and the stress level subsides twofold. If the routine gets slightly altered, so be it. I do not have the wand to fix it, so I just have to roll with it. And i do believe that if i'm less stressed, the yelling at ainslea might decrease exponentially too. Here's to hoping!

We;re off to a cookie swap party today that i didn't think we wold go to when the girls were going ot be away, and i don't have to feel guilty about not taking them to all the "magical breakfast with santas" happening all over town because i didn't think they were going to be here! Tomorrow a yankee swap party at Margo's palace and thats about it!!!

PS...as you can see I did finally upload a picture with success, so i'm going to go back and try to add other relevant ones to the earlier posts over the course of this weekend.

WOW already day 45!!!

Ok, so I know i promised to journal everyday during this 400 days...but clearly life is going to sometimes going to get in the way of that goal. I was hoping to blog through the holidays, butthe opposite of having freetime happened and i found myself wrapped up in my parents visit, spending a night with my sister (who gave my dad jaegermiester!!!) and then getting abck into the swing of work and school after almost a week off!
So where are we now...most of you i talk to on a fairly regular basis, so i think i've caught you up on life since thanksgiving (which by the way is a sucky day to have a birthday!!)

Plymouth Plantation was an interesting adventure, but not an annual "pilgrimage." Travis has safely arrived to Kuwait where he's essentially in a holding pattern until they make "room" for his unit to get to work...seems odd, but hey, its the us military!!

We talk on the computer as often as we can, but now Lorelei equates ALL goings on involving my laptop as talking to daddy, which makes it difficult to get anything internet related completed unless she is strapped in a chair or asleep (hence the lack of posts)

And now I find us hurling through the holiday preparations at what needs to be lightspeed in order to survive everyone else's merriment.

We attempted to welcome santa up on the base with a pancake breakfast that ainslea hardly ate, and as the time drew closer for santa's arrival via coast guard chopper my patience was thin and there was no possible way of waiting in a line that stretched halfway across the airplane hangar. So we took a quiet picture of the kids on an elf's lap instead and left after the helicopter landed delivering a very relieved looking Santa. It wasn't ideal, but with no significant other to hold a place in line while we watched the landing, there really wasn't any other way to hold back my "joy" standing in a long line of happy military families who are all together for christmas! BAH HUMBUG

Unfortunately life didn't get much easier the rest of this weekend. Ainslea flat out refused to do her chores of putting away luandry, sweeping and emptying the trash. I had planned a second holiday outing this weekend with her friend brandie but took that away when she hadn't produced results in time to go. I didn't however reneg on the sleepover with brandie, mainly because i don't like disappointing the other kids, but also so i could have the reciprocal sleepover from the other mom next month!
Sunday was our first snow so AInslea and Brandie went for a romp in the snow for a while and had a good time. Lorelei has a cold so i wasn't going to let her outside in 20 degree weather for an inch of snow! Not much to report, but really glad it happened on a sunday so we could stay inside make a fire and do nothing! AInslea was finally done with her chores around 2pm sunday so we did have a decent afternoon of playing on the red wooden slide that i had as a child.

Today was another story....after a night of waking up to every cough from lorelei, i was RUDELY awoken by the burglar alarm at 545am! I instinctively walked out to shut it off in the complete darkness....not a good sign that thats my instinct, but whatever. Unfortunately, i was too freaked out after i realised i didn't know what area of the house set it off or if it was a true alarm. The girls didn't wake up (another bad sign for real emergencies) but in this instance it was ok. SO i turned on the lights indoors and out and looked in the snow for signs of outdoor footprints. I was hoping travis was going to be online so we could chat about it, but no luck there either. SO i called ADT to find out where the trouble was from, and it was from a window in my bedroom. These windows have caused us many issues in the recent months so i was only somewhat concerned that it was an actual alarm and not a fault signal as in the past. The woman on the phone offered no sympathy at 545am for my "alarm event" and just nailed one more nail into the "i hate ADT" coffin. If only i had more time, i'd find another solution to this predicament!
That was bad thing #1
Bad thing #2 was my ordeal at the post office trying to get travis's first overseas package off. Now we don't really know when he's set to be in his workplace, but we have a general idea, and if the mail proceeds him then all the nicer for his arrival. SO the lady behind the counter immediately tells me that my package won't arrive "in time", to which i respond, thats fine. Mind you i arrived at the post office at 9:04am to a line of at least ten people and had another 10 mintues drive to get to work by 930am. SO she then walks away to grab a piece of paper which somehow indicated that my package had to be sent by Dec 4 (4 days ago) to be in time...to which i again responded, its fine. What is she expecting me to say??? Oh ok, nevermind, i don't want to send my husband his espn magazine and some dunkin donuts coffee??? DUH lady, just take the stupid package and my money so i can go to work!! As travis would say, "stop telling me my business devil woman!" One thing after the next, she got my stamp order wrong, kept giving me subtotals after i asked for each other thing i was there for (as if i was not going to be able to pay for everything so she should warn me before ringing it up) At this point its already 925 and I just want to get out of there. I hand her my $50 bill (that'll learn her) to pay and she thanks me and my family member for their service to our country. Now of course, if that had been the end of that i would have politely smiled said thank you and been on my way.....but noooooooo....she couldn't stop the trainwreck from happening now....she then proceeds to wish me a very happy holiday season! Now i get that some of you at this point are saying to yourself (where's the trainwreck) and in a day to day business transaction that would be a pleasant adieu. However, you've already told me my supposed christmas package won't be in time, you then made the connection that my loved one is in a foriegn country far far far away and if i'm sending him something, he won't be here for xmas...so why in all thats holy would you think that MY holiday is going to be a happy one?????? FOr crying out loud lady, i didnt need to drive the remaining 10 minutes to work, late and crying!!! Last time i stop there before the new year!!!
Bad thing # 3 was really a compilation of annoying salespeople at work, not understanding the sales process for Google Adwords, having a corporate guy try to throw me under the bus during a multi-level conference call for another product i manage which is riddled in flaws, and then spilling white-out on my red sweater!!!
BAD DAY.....got a teensy bit better when i spent the afternoon watching christmas specials on my bed with the girls and didnt' put the dishes away, clean the kitchen or make any type of food product. Microwaved casseroles is the way to roll somenights!! So it wasn't completely a wash, but definitely looking forward to next weekend where pam and barry are babysitting the girls in NH so i have some one on one time with me myself and I!