Telecommuting.

I telecommute from Kentucky to California and normally, I would say that is a very good thing to do. No traffic. No time wasted on the drive to work. But today has been different. Apparently I have a little glitch in a file that is not allowing me to transmit my work. I've had to call technical support and we have emailed back and forth all day. My computer is kind of a dinosaur and my internet service is very slow dial-up so that has not helped. I've been trying to resolve this tiny little glitch for 4 hours now, without pay, and when I get it resolved, then I will have to do my day's work, long into the night. Thank goodness at least school is out this week! Grrr.

Bedtime.

My regular readers may remember that we adopted a dog about 6 weeks ago. His name is Max and he's 5 years old. He's getting a good handle on our family routine. Tonight when I said "Bedtime.", all three kids ignored me, but Max got up from the couch, trotted into the bedroom and jumped on my bed!

Hits and Misses.

Old Santa had some hits and misses here with the Christmas gifts. The Leapster was a miss with my youngest son, probably because it has educational qualities. We are keeping it though and may require him to play some games on it to help with some of his school skills. My daughter loved her Littlest Pet Shop toys and has been taking them everywhere we go. Both boys have enjoyed playing Heroscapes, which is a board game, a lot. I'm still not sure what my oldest son thinks about the Lego Mindstorms set he got, but he has at least opened the package now and gotten started with it. Some things haven't even been opened yet, like my older son's woodcarving kit, but it is going to be a long winter, so I figure he'll get into that later.

I still haven't worked on the schedule for next week ...

Post-Christmas Week

Christmas is mostly over. We still have 1 party to go to. My mom's family party is always the Sunday after Christmas, which this year, happens to be New Year's Day and we'll be going to that. It has been a pretty low-key week here. The kids have been exploring their presents and my husband and I have gone back to work. I'm thinking of getting back into the schooling mode pretty soon, maybe even Monday, the 2nd. Hey, no reason to wait is there? I want things to be different starting in January so I'd better get started on the new schedules, chore lists, heh, heh. Don't worry, I'll throw some fun stuff in there too.

Why?

I love decorating shows but we don't have cable TV here in the boonies where we live, so I sometimes record a show at my parents house so I can watch it. The other day I caught a Trading Spaces marathon on TLC. Wonderful. I was loving it. I was also enjoying skipping the commercials. My youngest son complained about this. "Why do you skip the only part that is interesting?" he said. Sorry!

It's Over.

Christmas is over now. Thank goodness. I'm tired and cranky and glad it is over. It was mostly good, I guess, but every year when it is over, I wish we could not do so much, escape the excesses that the season brings. Too much food. Too much stuff. Too tired.

Santa Claus Comes Tonight.

Several people in my home are very excited. I'm a little nervous as I know for a fact that Santa didn't stick very close to their wish lists this year and kind of went another direction, buying quality items, instead of quantity and in some cases, (gulp) educational items.

I think old Santa might be a little cranky this year, trying to sneak and get all his presents wrapped and every time, little hands knock on the bedroom door ... nah, maybe that's me. This time of year, I always seem to get an identity crisis. It may have something to do with the fact that my husband and I are doing all this work and that other guy is going to get all the credit ...

Christmas Eve Eve

Well it is Christmas Eve Eve here and the excitement is building. One of our presents still hasn't been delivered. I'm praying it comes tomorrow. The kids opened their gifts to each other today. They don't have really big budgets, so they shop at Dollar Tree. I was amazed at their thoughtfulness and touched by how much they enjoyed giving to each other. Very sweet.