Exceedingly Mundane

I’m so excited – I came in first in our family fantasy football league! I have been playing every year (this is the sixth season of our family league), and I have never even come close! 😀 I normally do just good enough to make the playoffs (and have missed them before), but this year, I was number 6 of 8 going into the playoffs, but won all my games, so I won the championship. I’m so excited!

Here’s what I saw at ESPN this morning when I went to check:

CONGRATULATIONS

2010 League Champion!
Pigskin Posse
Owner(s): Stacy Hammons
Regular Season Record: 7-6

See, my regular season record was awful, I was in 6th place, so five people had better records than me, but STILL. I’m so excited!!!

Christmas has come and gone for another year. We had a really good Christmas, as always, but a busy one this year. We saw our first living nativity this year, the weekend before Christmas. It was very cold, but a great production by a church near our house (not our church though). I had been to a drive-by live nativity years ago, but never a big production like this. We both really enjoyed it 🙂

We went and got our teenaged niece and nephew (Brittany and Zack) a few days before Christmas, and they stayed a couple of days with us. We ate out (a LOT!). We watched The Karate Kid on DVD. We played the Wii. We went to see Tron: Legacy at the movie theater in 3-D. We went to Lifeway to get new devotionals for the new year. We had a great time with them, and hope they come back next summer!

Friday, Christmas Eve, went all loaded up and headed to Tim’s parents. We played games, for the first time, as a way to pick our gifts. We gave gifts to the parents and kids, but amongst the siblings and spouses, we played games for points and then did a form of dirty Santa (although with 3 guys and 3 girls, it wasn’t all that dirty!). I got a nice lighted snowman for my gift (I love snowmen!). Saturday, Christmas Day, we drove to my sister Gail’s house and spent the day with that side of the family. My nephew Trent, his wife Shanna and their 3 kids were here (first time we had seen them in over 2 years). We missed seeing Jeremy, Kathryn and their kids (and new puppy!), but saw everyone else. Gail treated us all to a non-traditional Christmas dinner (chicken spaghetti, bread and layered salad), which was wonderful and so nice to have for a change. Don’t get me wrong, I love turkey, but this was great for something different 🙂

Sunday, the day after Christmas, Tim and I finally had our little Christmas at home. He got the new Taylormade golf driver he had been wanting (and helped me order, and has been playing with for a couple of weeks, LOL), some clothes and things. I got new Snow Village pieces (fun, my first ones in like 10 years!), a hoodie, a Yankee candle and some truffles. Wonderful Christmas! While we were opening presents, it snowed some, nice flurries that didn’t stick, but still awesome. It never snows here around Christmas!

I also ran to Target the day after, for my annual run for paper, cards and bows. I never buy them before Christmas for full price, I always wait until afterwards and stock up for next year. I also bought some garland (half price) for our mantle, something we’ve been wanting for a while. We bought lights earlier for it, but never got the garland. So next year, it will be fun to pull all of that out and decorate with it 🙂

Oh, and the day after Christmas, in Target, they already had Valentines items in the dollar spot! LOL!

Hope you all had a joyful and blessed Christmas! We did, and I’m sure we’ll have a quiet New Years Eve and weekend. I’ll plan to take the tree and decorations down before New Years. My mom always thought it was “bad luck” to have it up on the new year. Personally, I think she just didn’t like to have it around any longer, and wanted the clutter and mess gone – and I’m sort of the same way, LOL!

Today’s been a good and bad day.

Good in that we went over to my in-laws to pick up our niece Brittany (17) and nephew Zack (15) to come stay with us for a couple of days.

Bad in that I lost my prescription eyeglasses today. Gone. Lost. And I’m rather lost without them.

Hope everyone has a safe, joyous and blessed Christmas!

I don’t know why I’ve always walked by these in the grocery store every year, and never picked any up to try. This year, I rectified that and bought a bag of Cuties Clementines a week or so ago. And… I really like them!

I think it’s a nostalgia thing for me. I am pretty sure that Santa put an orange in my stocking every year, growing up. I remember thinking the oranges were O.K., but I wasn’t fond of the peel and all the seeds. Maybe later, Santa switched to tangerines. And those were better, but these little Clementines are good! They’re small, so a good size for portion control, and easy to get into.

So, how about you… is there a food that is really nostalgic for you this time of year? Something your mom or grandma always made, or put in your stocking, or you always got to have this time of year? Leave me a comment and let me know!

P.S. ALL of my presents are wrapped, I’m dancing a happy jig over here! 🙂

Well, here we are on the second weekend in December. Wow, this year has alternately drug by and flown by. Some days during the summer, it seemed like summer would never end. Some days when
my tinnitus was so bad, I wasn’t sure I’d make it through a day. Then, at night I couldn’t sleep and wasn’t sure I was going to ever sleep again. But summer finally ended, with our hot temps, and I’m glad to say that my tinnitus is a bit better, too. It’s not gone — I’ve given up hope that it will just go away, and although I pray daily for that mercy, I’ve resigned myself that I will hear it every second, for the remainder of my life. But I have made many changes with diet, food and medicines, and either a combination of those or something *has* helped. I’m thinking the gingko biloba has made the biggest difference, but it might not be that. Either way, it is better and I’m learning to co-exist with the noises in my head.

Summer finally ended, and my favorite time of the year began – football season! The Saints are currently 9-3 today (game in an hour or so, so hopefully 10-3 soon, LOL!), and we are cautiously hopeful about the remainder of the season and their playoff chances. We’d obviously love to see them do well again, after so many years of being perennial losers.

OK, for an update of this weekend:

We’re a day shy of two weeks (yikes, typo, thanks Michelle!) days from Christmas. Wow, where has this year gone?

This is the second weekend that Tim is having to work a ton, for his big project at work. Last weekend was so bad. He worked three nights in a row, including one night where he didn’t go to bed until 7:40 AM. I cannot pull all-nighters any more. Just can’t. I feel so bad for him, but am so grateful that he has a job and works so hard to take care of us and provide for us.

I’ve gotten most of the Christmas presents wrapped. I have 3 or 4 left to go. I got the Christmas cards finished and mailed a few days ago. I’m seriously contemplating NOT doing any baking at all this year. My mother-in-law does a ton, and we just don’t need it around our house. I won’t have anything to take the neighbors and that’s my only drawback. I’ll have to think a bit more on that.

Yesterday was semi-warm (60’s) and today a front has blown through and it’s COLD. Current temp, 39, wind chill 29. Cold for us.

Yesterday, I planted pansies. In years gone by, I always had pansies planted by Halloween. I didn’t even want to plant them this year, I’m OVER planting annuals, but Tim talked me into it. And he helped 🙂 I hope they survive our overnight temps of 20’s for the next couple of days.

And yesterday, I ordered, for the first time ever, Amazon’s Deal of the Day! LOL! They had a stainless steel Breadmachine bread machine on special and I used some of my Swagbucks money to order me one 🙂 I hope it is a good one. My last bread machine (Sunbeam/Oster) has been going strong for 11 years, and while it still works, it doesn’t mix the ingredients as well, and it’s gotten really LOUD. Distracts everyone in the house while it’s running. So, Santa Stacy ordered herself a new one 🙂

Oh, and I’m still LOVING, absolutely loving, my Kindle! Tim got me the Wi-Fi one for my birthday and I just love it. I’ve gotten so many great free books from Amazon and I’ve downloaded a couple of Christmas books to read. I really love reading on it, it’s so light and easy to hold 😀