There's No Place Like Home

How true is that statement? I so enjoyed my four days away, but I am so glad to be home. My family missed me, the cats missed me (Baby refuses to leave my lap, and typing around feline is no small feat), even the dog missed me. Here I am, back in my hovel. My hovel is fairly quiet, even with A home for Martin Luther King day.

I realized just how much of a hermit I have become. I was sitting in a room with roughly 80 other people, and at times it was just overwhelming. I was not only assaulted by the noise, but there was all the movement, good natured jostling, accidental bumping -- all things that are unknown to me here in the quiet of my solitude. And four days is not enough time to acclimate to such a change. And with three of us sharing a room, it was totally correct when GG commented that it had become a dorm room (something about all three hair dryers running at the same time!). But the best part was getting to spend four days with the other three High Priestesses of the Goddess of the Temple of Beading.

Anyway, I'm back. I'm catching up with my fellow bloggers, I've read through 200 emails, and now I've got to unpack and get cracking on four or five different projects! I've had very little sleep over the past few days (go figure), but last night I got a FULL 12 hours. T-man spiked my hot cocoa with a bit of rum and I slept fairly well. So, I'm energized and ready to push forward through my maze of projects. I came home with a bucket full of ideas. Hopefully tomorrow or the next day I will have the pictures that Juls took so you can see what fun we had. I have missed you all, I hope you missed me just a little bit, but now it's time to bid you farewell until tomorrow morning! Have a beadiful day!

So This is Christmas

Okay, I've finally got a bit of Christmas spirit. Pam wanted to know if I had gotten it from a bottle. *snicker* Not yet, but I am spending Christmas Eve where I am not very wanted and don't really want to be, so it may well come from a bottle that afternoon and into that night. I'll try to be good, but I'm not promising anything. Oh, the things we do for love. Pass the spiked nog, please. My recipe for egg nog calls for egg nog (duh), cinnamon, Cool Whip (or comparable whipped topping) and Bicardi black or gold label rum. Put everything in the glass/punch bowl to taste. Yum!!! But not yet -- we'll have the first cups Sunday night, then Monday night, then Tuesday night. And then we'll have it again New Year's morning, but probably without the rum.

Hey, guess what? I slept last night. I realize it was from sheer exhaustion, but I did sleep. T-man had to leave at 2:30 this morning to be in Plano by 7:00. For you non-Texans, that's driving from just south of Austin up to just north of Dallas. And he got there just before 7:00 as planned. I vaguely remember him leaving. He should be home about the same time as A. I would have gone with him, but I had already promised to eat lunch with A at school. She was honored for her scholastic performance this past six weeks. She was very happy that I was there. She's going to be in junior high next year. Hard to believe, isn't it? (That was directed to all the adopted aunties in her life!)

We're putting the tree up tonight, but no one knows that yet. Tomorrow night, we want to take A to look at lights she hasn't seen since she was just a year old --- 37^th Street in Austin and the Trail of Lights at Zilker Park. We used to walk to the Trail of Lights from our old house in Austin when N was in grade school and A was just a sprout. It should be fun.

I have my first big beady income to-do for 2008 already planned. See? Making plans for changes is already working. So, first there was getting up earlier. The next change on the list is to become more active and work with my army of doctors to get all this excess weight off me one way or another. I'm stopping short of liposuction, but if I thought it would work without being in horrendous pain and the insurance company would pay for it, I'd do it. My third 2008 lifestyle change will be listed tomorrow morning (and maybe a couple more). Remember -- changes, not resolutions! There's a rumor that if you do something for 90 days it becomes part of your lifestyle. Three months doesn't seem that long in the great scheme of things, and that's how I have to look at it -- it's not that long in the great scheme of things and I'll be a better, healthier, happier person for it.

Have I mentioned that I have some of the best friends a person could ask for? The other High Priestesses of the Temple of the Goddess of Beading have arranged for me to attend the 2008 Texas Bead Retreat. This will be the very first time I've been able to go. This is a picture of us taken this past April. By the way, those tumblers are full of Cosmos. Never again, never again, never again. My Bead Angels are flexing their fingers, ready for more work regarding that first beady income to-do. I'll get a picture of them next time we are all together. I'm already planning our first pot-luck bead class for 2008, which T-man will be teaching. And Pam and I have some things we'll be working on very soon.

Go check out Art Bead Scene's 12 Days of Beading. It's great, with quite a few links for wonderfully beady things. Don't forget Suzanne Cooper's Countdown to Christmas. And tomorrow will be Margot Potter's last installment of Ornament Thursday, with lots of eye candy.

Tomorrow is cookie baking day. Just imagine my children when they get home, greeted by the smell of freshly baked cookies (mmmmmm) and the sight of mom covered in flour and drinking wine straight from the bottle (Oh MOM!). Did you know that Costco sells this giant box of Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix? It makes 18 dozen cookies, I kid you not. Sorry, no homemade cookies here, except for the Tollhouse cookies. I leave all that to my youngest sister who proudly shows off her baking skills every Christmas. I will take my homemade lemon curd pie to Mom's, though. So tune in tomorrow beadlings (and others) for more items for change, maybe a picture of the tree, and other various and sundry STUFF that makes my world go round!