A New Side To Christmas

Church this evening was nice, it was good to be surrounded by my church family and their warm greetings. Especially when most people were rejecting me from outside the walls. I was there for the candlelit midnight service and we were there till just before midnight and then went home to a nice warm house with a cat waiting to be loved and a pile of gifts waiting to be wrapped.

I am not the biggest fan of Christmas, right off the bat I will tell you that now. I think it is the most commercialised, over-advertised piece of crap on the planet. Christmas is about Jesus, and the gifts are just for the kids. When you get over the age of 20, Christmas no longer holds any special sparkle or happiness for you- especially if you’re alone at that time of year.

I, myself am 27 and have pretty much felt this way about the seasonal affair for the last six, seven years. A special person in my life feels the same way too. It’s only fun for you when you get older if you have kids and you get to watch the joy on their faces as they unwrap their gifts under the tree on Christmas morning…which in a few hours I will get the opportunity to do. I bought her some really awesome stuff and so I’m looking forward to seeing her in the stuff I got. I’ve still got a crap load more stuff downstairs from my friends for her, and I need to wrap it before I get picked up this morning at 9am.

I wanted to get some other people some stuff too, but money has been limited to say the least this year so I’ve been kind of bummed out about it. I’ve been up all night talking to a friend of mine and he’s gone off to bed now for a couple of hours sleep before everything kicks off…but I’m here watching the sun rise on yet another day in my life.

It’s Christmas Day, have a great day…get drunk and merry on me and Happy Christmas!

Snowblowing 101…and how to fail it!

So this afternoon, I wait until the snow stops falling until I go out to use the snowblower. Ha! Me and power tools are a bad combination, you’re thinking right? Oh well, you’d actually be right. Let me explain…

So I go outside all bundled up and I actually realise that it’s a lot warmer outside than I thought it would be, so I open the door and toss my hat and gloves back into the house- just wearing my scarf and heavy winter coat. I trudge through the snow to the garage, unlock the door and walk in there to see the monstrosity. I know that power tools can’t talk but every since woodworking shop in high school and the amounts of times I have failed that class, I honestly think these things are tormenting me.

I get behind the giant machine and do all the steps to get the thing started. It sputters into life and I push down on the clutch to get the machine to move forward. I realise that I have to put it into reverse first and so I turn the gear down into reverse and try again. I get out into the alley and things are going okay for me, I’m actually feeling pretty proud of myself because I’m here using a snowblower and I havn’t taken any injuries yet. Then I got to the sidewalk.

I stand in front of the sidewalk and gasp. The snow is probably about a foot deep and I am dreading trying to clear it. I manoever the snowblower into the depression where the sidewalk is and I try my hardest to nudge the machine through the white stuff and it gets so far and putters out. I try again. Fail. Uggh. Try again. Fail. So I give up, put the thing into reverse and it goes back into the garage. I find a snow shovel and go about the snow removal the good old fashioned way, with back breaking sweat and grime. Sure, my back is aching like hell now and I need to take some Aleve before I go to church for the evening…but at least the work got done.

We’re supposed to have another 5 inches of snow overnight. C’mon God! Have I been such a bad person this year that you have to torture me like this? You know I hate this stuff….I bet my brother was praying for a White Christmas and I got his wish instead. Dammit.

Christmas…The Furthest Thing From My Mind

I think is probably the least Christmassy I have ever felt. We have no decorations up here, I’ve watched no holiday specials and eaten no holiday food. I know that will all change today because I am finally going Christmas shopping for Abby and I will be singing at the Christmas service tonight with the rest of the choir. Of course, none of the choir plays WoW with me and so has no clue how much that cuts into my levelling schedule- but I guess for one night…

I really hate Christmas this year. I feel like my family is only sending me a gift because they HAVE to, I’m not going out for New Years Eve and I have the whole house to myself over the holiday season. I guess this is what it’s like to be single- wish my friends were nearby because then I’d get outside more. But this weather is a huge sticking point for me, I am not used to the snow having grown up in the UK and so this is driving me nuts because I feel like I can’t go outside.  Not sure who else is sending me gifts, I already recieved the best one and he knows that I truly appriciate his gratitude at Christmas time on a person like myself.

I’m also starting to wonder where I ever fit in anymore. I feel like I’m being pushed from pillar to post and I don’t even know where I’m supposed to live anymore. I hate having such a messed up future.

Ho, ho, ho. Happy bloody Christmas to everyone. Go stuff a mince pie in it.

Server Down Time Day

It’s Tuesday, and we all know by now what that means (what?! you’re a new reader? jeez….haha) so I am currently perplexed as what to do with myself. I probably should work on some more of my novel, but I am currently sitting at a desk with lots of popcorn kernels scattered under it and I have to go grocery shopping too. If there’s one thing that I’ve learned over the last couple of months, it’s that I have to learn how to break my day down into manageable chunks and take each project one step at a time.  Slow down, take a deep breathe and step back from it all.  And I’m not sure whether that is just down to my new meds or whether they actually helped my brain fog to clear so I could figure this out by myself…but I have had a few revelations over the last couple of days.

On the other hand, people at church must have heard me boasting about the fact that I’ve gone down from a 10 to an 8…cause now I have people left and right calling me inviting me to their houses for Christmas food. I got another phone call this morning from my good friend Mike and he was asking me to his mom’s house for dinner this evening with himself and Nikki. I’m already going to Shannon’s house on Christmas Day- do people WANT me to put the weight back on?! I’ve been working for about a year to get this dress size to come off, gawd people!

And we’re eating prime rib on New Year’s Day, and because there’s going to be a certain someone short at the damn table….I told him his portion was going to the dogs. He proceeded to tell me that he hated me…I know he doesn’t :p

Silly me

Okay, so I have this WP blog and I never ever use it. I also bought a notebook to use as a personal diary offline and I’ve not been using either of them recently. With how much shit I have floating around my brain on a daily basis, I should be writing stuff down so I’m not up until 2am every night thinking about shit.

Phew. Anyway, it’s almost Thanksgiving…which also means that it’s almost Christmas. Yikes. We don’t have the money for gifts right now so Nick has told me that we’ll buy them next month. I already know what I want to get for Abby and Nick’s mom…Nick’s sister will be slightly tricky but I’m sure that I’ll think of something. We also have to buy something for the Yankee gift exchange that we’re doing in the family. I hate those things, I’m no good at buying a gift that’s suitable for anyone in the family, ugh.

We lucked out recently concerning Abby’s clothes. She had a massive growth spurt this summer and we were starting to panic about the lack of clothes that would fit her around the time that the temperature started to fall. A friend of the family keeps giving us stuff that her daughter is now too small for so we got two huge rubbish bags full of clothes recently. So we’re set for stuff that she can wear to the park and mess about outside in. I’d still like to get her some nice stuff for going to parties in. She needs a new party dress, but Nick’s mum has said that she’ll buy that for us.  I mean, it’s not like we’re mega poor or anything it’s just that Abby’s been growing so quickly that we just can’t keep up. She’s going to be tall, I just know it. Abby’s already taller than a lot of the kids she sees on a daily basis.