It's Christmas Eve!!

Merry Christmas everyone!!!  

It's snowing a lot here in Dubuque right now.  We're up to four inches since last night.  Those four inches on top of the two feet of snow already on the ground, adds up to too much snow for me to shovel.  I attempted the other day when we got around 3 or 4 inches.  The actual pushing of the snow isn't so bad but the lifting -- that's awful.  When the snow pile is about as tall as I am, I can no longer add to it.  Like I said, I attempted, but it was a failure.  Luckily Nate was there to rescue me again.  Our two-person team consisted of me pushing the snow to one end of the driveway and him lifting it to the top of the pile.  By the time we had the driveway shoveled, another half of an inch of snow had fallen.  In fear of not being able to move the next morning, I retired to the house and let my dad and Nate resume the shoveling at a later date.  The best part of shoveling is providing Addie with ample time to lie outside in the snow.  She loves to spend time outside accumulating small piles of snow on her back and tiny icicles from her mouth.
 

Last night was our Gilligan family Christmas.  Good news!  I received an electric mixer!  (See previous blog about cupcakes).  It was a lot of fun last night.  Lots of laughter, chatting, presents, cookies and a few drinks here and there.  My mom distributed her homemade rings and mittens that everyone fell in love with.  I wore my mittens the other day while I was shoveling and I can definitely say my hands were toasty warm.  My only problem last night was that for some reason I only ate one cookie.  I must stop writing now so that I can go meet my cookie quota from yesterday and today.

I hope everyone has a great Christmas Eve!

Christmas shopping

I was taught from the time I was little, to put family and friends before material things.  "Things" are cool, but if you aren't surrounded by loved ones, the coolness factor of the item decreases rapidly.  I have been focusing on family a lot lately as I finish my Christmas shopping.  Of course, the inevitable with SHOPPING is that it is filled with "things" too.  As I wander through the store aisles (or click through the categories on Amazon.com), I have to remind myself why I am shopping in the first place.  It is easy to get lost in all the shopping fun, especially with all the great sales going on (Black Friday anyone?!?!).  I always have very bad buyer's guilt except for when I am shopping for other people.  I think that's great.  It keeps me in check when I'm buying stuff for myself but allows me to spend lots more than I should on my family members!  

Despites trying to focus on others during the holiday season, I can't keep my mind from wandering as I see items on shelves that I wish I had in my home.  I love to dream about the day when some of these things can belong to me.  I realize I have a very good life and I am not complaining at all that these things are still in the stores and not in my home.  It's just that as I click from link to link and end up on the appliance page, owning a dishwasher, for example, sounds pretty amazing.  I haven't lived in a place with a dishwasher for 8 years (Ambrose and trailer life) so I am accustomed to washing everything by hand --but I still dislike the task.  Especially the silverware.  They are the worst.  After I am "done" doing dishes, there is always a cup or bowl with 15 pieces of silverware left in the sink to be completed later.  When I was growing up, we had three dishwashers.  THREE!  They meant so much to us, they even had names --Sadie, Emily and Megan.  :-) My mom always said that doing the dishes was a good time to talk and bond.  Looking back, I realize that she was right.  We all did have lots of conversations while doing dishes by hand.  Plus, it was one of those chores that kids should do to help their parents.  Now that I do all my own dishes alone, with no one to bond with and many other tasks that also need to be completed, the benefit of washing dishes by hand is less obvious.  

I also realized that I need a mixer.  I wanted to make a cake this weekend.  I have had a box of cake mix up in the closet since the 4th of July.  I know that is has been in my closet that long because it has red, white and blue funfetti sprinkles.  I decided it was time to finally make the 4th of July cake so I got out the mixing bowl, threw in some eggs, oil, water and batter mix, and started mixing.  The directions said to mix on medium to high for 2 minutes.  Well, when you have no upper body strength, there is no "high" or even "medium" setting to mix with.  After a few minutes and many clumps still present, Nate volunteered to do the mixing.  He suggested that I get a mixer sometime in the future.  I agreed. 

So, as Christmas draws near, it is important to remember the people that help make us who we are.  If possible, a gift here and there to express our love towards each other is fun too.  And, it's also not a terrible idea to brainstorm about what future gifts may be -- dishwashers and mixers in my case.