Finished Shopping?

My husband and I finished our Christmas shopping on Saturday- finally.

Although there were no Ingersoll Rand air tools on his list, most of his list cost about $20 each, which meant he didn't get very many items. So although we both spent the same amount of money on each other, I got way more presents than he did.

Since we are leaving in a half an hour to head up to Virginia to visit his family, we decided to open some of the presents. I promise it had nothing to do with the fact that I am impatient and was excited about presents....

We are still bringing up some of our presents, and all of our daughters presents, the car will be crowded, luckily it's just a two hour trip.

You wont hear from me for a week or so. Have a Merry Christmas!

Colds

It's Cold season here. The weather keeps getting warm then cold, then warm then cold again. We have been passing colds around since November 10th. Lexi got sick, then I got sick, Eugene got a little sick, (I was still sick) then Lexi got sick again, now I'm coughing, sneezing and have a stuffed head. And of course, Eugene is coughing, and Lexi is coughing still.
We haven't been taking too much medication, every once and awhile we'll take something, but if this continues we might all have to check ourselves into a drug rehab program by the time we're all healthy again!
Anyone else struggling with colds?

The True meaning of Christmas

I was watching Everyone loves Raymond the other day and in it Ray gave his mom (Marie) a Christmas present. It was a membership to the Fruit of the month club. Each month for a year she was sent a basket of the fruit of the month, so each month it was a different fruit. She wasn't too happy with the present because she thought it was a lot of fruit, but really there is no pleasing that woman. Maybe if it had been a wine of the month club membership it would have made her happier.

This seems like a good gift to give to someone who likes wine, it would last all year long, each month a new bottle of wine gets delivered to their door.

Some people are hard to buy for, Do you have people like that on your Christmas list? I always get stuck wondering what to get the people who have everything. I normally lean towards gift cards, but some years I buy for people who get a trillion gift cards every year, so even a gift card isn't a good gift.

Sometimes you can make them something- which I love doing and can be a cheaper way out too. One year my husband's family decided we wanted to do a "homemade Christmas". We weren't allowed to buy ANY of the presents. Everyone made something for someone else. We thought it would be cheaper. The truth is we spent more money that year than other years, and we still had to spend a bunch of time making the gifts. :) Oh well!

If only we could accept the fact that Christmas isn't about presents, it's about Jesus' birthday, then we'd truly win. It seems like all of us have that head knowledge, but we still want to buy and get presents. I don't know anyone who doesn't get a little caught up in gift giving.

If you have gotten past the gifts of Christmas, please share your wisdom! With us Christmas is the only time we get presents, or anything so we look forward to it. Do you buy gifts for people at other times of the year? Do you just get things every once and awhile instead of just waiting until Christmas?

packratism.

In case you are wondering, packratism is the tendency to hold on to anything and everything you think you might ever, ever need again- ever.

I used to suffer from this disease. I am slowly being cured. My husband still has it, and although I am trying to cure him, he seems to be immune to the methods I used on myself.

I used to have just about every note I ever received from my friends in high school, as well as a bunch of other things that sat in boxes and were never looked at. Between the two of us we had about 5 boxes (including two footlocker trunks) full of "stuff".

While mine held things like notes and pictures drawn for me, my husbands included toy cars and bulk cable, among other things.

Each year since we have been married we have managed to pull out the boxes and go threw them, finding that some of it had lost it's value and wasn't worth the space it took up in our tiny apartments. Now (five years later) we are down to two boxes. Hopefully that number will shrink even more in the next year. Some day those things wont seem important right? After all, if they are sitting in a box never being looked at- why keep them?

Hopefully packratism will be completely cured, and not passed on to our children.

Deal or No Deal.

I don't know if you watch Deal or No Deal or not, we do on occasion.

Everytime I watch a show that gives away a million dollars to contestants who just have to pick a case or sing a song I get caught up in "what would I do?"

On Deal or no Deal it's always "would I take that deal, or go on?" I watch over and over how the contestants are offered deals of over $100,000 and turn them down for the chance of getting more money.

I have to be honest, I would have to have a pretty good board to turn down $150,000. A VERY good board.

Yes, there is the small possibility that you could get more money, and you will be VERY disappointed when they make you "finish" the game and you find out you could have had more. But think about how much $150,000 would change your life!!

Sure, it wouldn't buy you any Las Vegas Real Estate, but it would pay off your debt, make a good down payment on a house, provide money for a nice vacation, bless many other people, and start a good savings account for your children.

Could you turn down $150,000 to take a chance to get more money?

Neobits

Have you ever heard of Neobits? They provide phone and broadband services to small businesses.
They have customers in a wide range of fields, including: retail, wholesale, medical, professional, service, engineering, construction, real estate, finance, IT, software, and consulting.

They also sell everything you need to set up your phone and computer systems for your business of 2 to 250 people. They have corded and cordless phones, voicemail systems, on hold music, surge protection, head sets and more! They have a wide variety of brands available for sale on their website, from Talkswitch to Panasonic and everything in between.

They also have numerous testimonials on their site and after reading them I have decided they look like a very good company to go with if you are starting a small business and need services like these. Almost everyone has commented on their fast shipping, and the good experience they have had ordering products from them.

They offer live chat help on their website, and extended warranties on the products available. Everything seems to point to their motto “Talking Leads to Help.”

Having a great phone system is very important to a business and knowing that someone is available to help you if anything goes wrong gives you a peace of mind.

College as a personal accomplishment

I dropped out of college after my sophomore year to get married.

I don't regret it one bit.

I don't recommend it either.

I have found myself thinking about going back to college a lot lately. Although I wouldn't go back to work unless something happened or our children were out of the house I still want to finish.

Is it wrong of me to want to finish college so I can add that to my list of personal accomplishments? I don't think it is. Everyone needs something to be proud of, even Washington DC medical malpractice lawyers.

I just want to know that I personally finished something, and I could do something if anything ever happened to Tig and I had to support us. I don't know as though I will finish college, especially anytime soon, but it's a thought in the back of my head.

The Computer battle

We got a new computer about 3 years ago, what we got was good for back then. Now it's pretty slow.

I doubt we'll be getting a new computer any time soon, because we don't buy big ticketed items like that very often.

However, my sister in law is in the market for a new computer. It's amazing the battle that's going on between a desktop and a notebook computer, MAC or PC.

Many houses have several computers in it. Some as many as one per person.

I have to admit, although I like technology I don't like that aspect of it. Kids have tv's, dvd players, computers, and video game systems in their rooms.

As of right now I am saying I don't think I could ever allow that. How do you have family time, or be a family if everyone is in their rooms with their faces glued to tv or the computer. Even if you don't think about the lack of family time, if kids have computers with internet access in their rooms it is just asking for trouble. Even if the kid is a good kid, there are people all over the internet wanting to get children, and they are sneaky.

So no matter what our next computer choice is, the computer will stay in an open place.

Christmas tree

We got our Christmas tree all set up and decorated. Eugene and I took Sunday afternoon while Lexi was napping to decorate it. It looks great :) it smells even better. I love the aroma of a pine tree.

Lexi was funny when she woke up and we brought her out here. She just stared at it, you could almost see the wheels in her head turning "hmm, that wasn't like that when I went to bed..."

She's been pretty good with it, even though the cables to plug in the light go right next to her play Kitchen she doesn't mess with them. The most she does is pull the ornaments off. We made sure to keep all the breakable ones out of her reach.

I'm sure she wont even mess with it in a week. hopefully.