Christmas eve

My family on christmas eve...My sister Mara (in the blue shirt) gave my brother Jonny (in the green shirt) a set of mustaches as a present so we all had to try one on; except for Mikey because he was the only one who had a real mustache of his own.

From thee olde Farmer's Almanac - My newest addiction

December 31 -- New Year's Eve

In Scotland, December 31 is known as Hogmanay, the word children use to ask for their traditional present of an oatmeal cake (which is why this is also called Cake Day). The first person to cross the threshold into your home, called the first footer, is an indication of the year to come. Although the tradition varies, if the first footer is tall and dark, the year will be a good one.

(So to all my tall and dark friends out there, you are more than welcome to stop by this weekend!)

This Just In! Jazz Hands are Back!

My 15-year-old sister, Kristyn, stopped by my room last night so we could all laugh at how intoxicated some of our family members were downstairs. After a few minutes of heavy chuckling and impersonations, I mentioned to Cory that Kristyn's dance team (who just won State and who is going to compete in Nationals this February) had picked a good song for their jazz number: George Michael's song, Faith. We all talked about that for a bit when Kristyn threw in, "Oh, yeah. And jazz hands are back."
Cory and I stared dumbly with a look of What you talkin' about, Willis!on our faces.
"I'm serious," she went on. "They're back."
"But they couldn't be!" I said with a feeling of slight disgust. "Really? Jazz hands?"
"Yep," she said showing us a well mastered one. "I'm not kidding. They're back."

You heard it here first, folks!

Thanks to my brother Brian for this little gem of humor

Top 30 Chuck Norris Facts.

1. Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.

2. When Chuck Norris plays Oregon Trail his family does not die from cholera or dysentery, but rather roundhouse kicks to the face. He also requires no wagon, since he carries the oxen, axels, and buffalo meat on his back. He always makes it to Oregon before you.

3. Rather than being birthed like a normal child, Chuck Norris instead decided to punch his way out of his mother's womb. Shortly thereafter he grew a beard.

4. Chuck Norris recently had the idea to sell his urine as a canned beverage. We know this beverage as Red Bull.

5. Chuck Norris built a time machine and went back in time to stop the JFK assassination. As Oswald shot, Chuck met all three bullets with his beard, deflecting them. JFK's head exploded out of sheer amazement.

6. Chuck Norris's girlfriend once asked him how much wood a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood. He then shouted, "HOW DARE YOU RHYME IN THE PRESENCE OF CHUCK NORRIS!" and ripped out her throat. Holding his girlfriend's bloody throat in his hand he bellowed, "Don't fuck with Chuck!" Two years and five months later he realized the irony of this statement and laughed so hard that anyone within a hundred mile radius of the blast went deaf.

7. Chuck Norris sold his soul to the devil for his rugged good looks and unparalleled martial arts ability. Shortly after the transaction was finalized, Chuck roundhouse kicked the devil in the face and took his soul back. The devil, who appreciates irony, couldn't stay mad and admitted he should have seen it coming. They now play poker every second Wednesday of the month.

8. To prove it isn't that big of a deal to beat cancer. Chuck Norris smoked 15 cartons of cigarettes a day for 2 years and aquired 7 different kinds of cancer only to rid them from his body by flexing for 30 minutes. Beat that, Lance Armstrong.

9. The original theme song to the Transformers was actually "Chuck Norris--more than meets the eye, Chuck Norris--robot in disguise," and starred Chuck Norris as a Texas Ranger who defended the earth from drug-dealing Decepticons and could turn into a pick-up. This was far too much awesome for a single show, however, so it was divided.

10. Chuck Norris was the fourth Wiseman. He brought baby Jesus the gift of "beard". Jesus wore it proudly to his dying day. The other Wisemen, jealous of Jesus' obvious gift favoritism, used their combined influence to have Chuck omitted from the Bible. Shortly after all three died of roundhouse kick related deaths.

11. Chuck Norris lives by only one rule: No fat Chicks.

12. When Chuck Norris's wife burned the turkey one Thanksgiving, Chuck said, "Don't worry about it honey," and went into his backyard. He came back five minutes later with a live turkey, ate it whole, and when he threw it up a few seconds later it was fully cooked and came with cranberry sauce. When his wife asked him how he had done it, he gave her a roundhouse kick to the face and said, "Never question Chuck Norris."

13. Chuck Norris once shot a German plane down with his finger, by yelling, "Bang!"

14. A man once asked Chuck Norris if his real name is "Charles". Chuck Norris did not respond, he simply stared at him until he exploded.

15. Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.

16. Chuck Norris can make a woman climax by simply pointing at her and saying "booya".

17. Chuck Norris once went to a frat party, and proceeded to roundhouse every popped collar in sight. He then drank three kegs and shit on their floor, just because he's Chuck Norris.

18. Before each filming of Walker: Texas Ranger, Chuck Norris is injected with five times the lethal dose of elephant tranquilzer. This is, of course, to limit his strength and mobility, in an attempt to lower the fatality rate of the actors he fights.

19. Chuck Norris took my virginity, and he will sure as hell take yours. If you're thinking to yourself, "That's impossible, I already lost my virginity.", then you are dead wrong.

20. Chuck Norris found out about Conan O'Brien's lever that shows clips from "Walker: Texas Ranger" and is working on a way to make it show clips of Norris having sex with Conan's wife.

21. The chief export of Chuck Norris is pain.

22. Chuck Norris doesn't have normal white blood cells like you and I. His have a small black ring around them. This signifies that they are black belts in every form of martial arts and they roundhouse kick the shit out of viruses. That's why Chuck Norris never gets ill.

23. Chuck Norris frequently signs up for beginner karate classes, just so he can "accidentally" beat the shit out of little kids.

24. Chuck Norris once tried to sue Burger King after they refused to put razor wire in his Whopper Jr., insisting that that actually is "his" way.

25. One of the greatest cover-ups of the last century was the fact that Hitler did not commit suicide in his bunker, but was in fact tea-bagged to death by Chuck Norris.

26. Chuck Norris punched a woman in the vagina when she didn't give him exact change.

27. Chuck Norris is currently suing NBC, claiming Law and Order are trademarked names for his left and right legs.

28. After much debate, President Truman decided to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima rather than the alternative of sending Chuck Norris. His reasoning? It was more "humane".

29. If you can see Chuck Norris, he can see you. If you can't see Chuck Norris you may be only seconds away from death.

30. Chuck Norris ruins the endings of Harry Potter books for children who just bought one for the hell of it. When they start crying Chuck Norris calmly says, "I'll give you something to cry about," and roundhouse kicks them in the face.

Well,I just arrived to Tennessee a few hours ago...and funny story...my parents bought this huge 10 foot tree and it's all decorated and everything and a few days ago it just dried up and died. I mean it looks bad. So they are now buying another tree. It's all very funny to me. But mainly I'm just excited because I get to decorate a tree after all.

yea yea yeaaaaaaaaaaaa...

Story # 3

entitled: Thank you, Jesus...No really, thank you.

This story takes us to Tennessee about 5 years ago, where I had just finished opening presents with my family on a cold and snowy Christmas morning. My sister, Mara, and I were putting some of our things away in our room when we realized we still had my mom's box to open that she had mailed to us. Excitedly, we sat down on the rug and started pulling wrapped presents out of the box. Immediately we noticed that a lot of our gifts looked to be the same shape, hence, probably the same gift, so we decided to open those at the same time.

Now, before I go any further with this story, I have to mention that my mom had started a new little thing where whenever she gave us presents (for any occasion) a lot of the time instead of signing them, "Love Mom" she would sign them, "Love Jesus" meaning that if it weren't for Jesus, we wouldn't be getting the gifts to begin with. Something SO TYPICAL for my mom to do. She didn't do it all the time for every little thing, it was usually when she gave us something expensive or extremely sentimental.

Okay, back to the story. So Mara and I are opening presents and we get down to two somewhat small items that look to be identical. I look on my tag, and it's "From Jesus," so I'm thinking, oh boy! These are probably our special gifts, so we count to 3 and rip them open at the same time to reveal...(suspenseful drumroll please!)...nail clipper sets. Now, Mara, just says something like, Oh cool. I on the other hand, was sporting a rather perplexed look on my face while simply turning the clipper set over and over in my hands.

me- Mara, uh, what does your tag say?
mara- Ummm, it says to mara from mom, why?
me- (a slow nod of the head)Well...Mine is from...Jesus.
---long pause---
mara- Mom signed it from Jesus???? So..(stifling laughter) Jesus got you
nail clippers? I guess you need to take better care of your nails of Jesus himself is getting you nail clippers!


I immediatly picked up the phone and called my mom to ask why in the heck was my clipper set specifically from Jesus, while Mara's was from her. My mom thought it was terribly funny and said it hadn't been on purpose. She had just wanted to make sure at least one gift was marked from Jesus. She had meant to sign the beautiful journal, but goofed and signed the nail clippers instead...

Story # 2

I'd like to entitle this one, That's What Friends Are For.
This is actually the story Cory makes me tell people because he gets the most tickled by it. I get tickled too, although the embarrassment and awkwardness of it all is what lingers with me the most.

(Deep breath)

So let's go on back, if you will, to the fabulous year of 1982. That would put me as a darling little 1st grader in sunny Florida getting ready to go see Santa. This year as I was making my list, my neighbor friend, Ann-Marie, came over to work on hers too. (Important sidenote: Anne-Marie was about 3 or 4 years older than I and was...slow. Not retarded, but learning disabled, rode the short bus, you know what I mean.) Okay. So, she suggests instead of writing out our lists, we just cut the pictures out of the newspaper of what we want, that way Santa can see exactly what we want. So we spend the next hour cutting out pictures and later that afternoon, my mom FINALLY takes us to see Santa.

Anne-Marie and I get in line and I am just getting so excited and nervous because there's only about 7 kids in front of us. When it finally gets down to just the girl in front of Anne-Marie, I reach into my pocket to pull out my freshly cut pictures and...my pictures are not there. I reach in the other pocket. GONE! NOT THERE. I DON'T KNOW IF THEY FELL OUT OR IF I LEFT THEM AT HOME. ALL I KNOW IS THAT I HAVE NOTHING TO SHOW SANTA AND I AM FREAKING OUT. I look for my mom but she's out of ear shot talking to another mom. I start getting teary eyed (or spassing out, one of the two) because Anne-Marie asks me what's wrong. I tell her that I lost my pictures and she says, Don't worry, you can have some of mine. The very next moment...Santa is ready for Anne-marie, so in a quick haste, she looks through her pictures and hands me just one. Then off into Santa's lap she goes.

(From this point on, everything happens in slow motion.) I look down to see what toy she gave me a picture of and to my horror, I see that she has given me...deep breath...a picture of...deep breath...deodorant...deodorant!!...Soft & Dry deodorant. I immediately can't breath. I can't figure out what to do because my first grade mind can't come up with the great idea of just TELLING Santa what I want, or even just saying I forgot my pictures and pocketing the Soft & Dry.

And then Anne-Marie's turn is over and it's all me. Aaalllllll me. The horror has doubled and I'm half whimpering when I finally crawl up on Santa's lap. He asks me what I would like for Christmas and I replied the only way I knew how, with tears pooled in my eyes and a shaky hand, I gave him the picture and said, "De-o-dor-rant."

God only knows what Santa thought of my request. I mean it would be one thing if I had been a cheerful kid asking for deodorant or one of those crying kids just afraid of Santa asking for something normal like a doll. But instead he got me, a 1st grade girl about to cry because this was her only to chance to ask Santa for anything and by golly she'd rather ask for deodorant than nothing at all.

I didn't end up getting any deodorant for Christmas, to my happy surprise. My mom told me that she found my lost pictures and mailed them to the North Pole immediately and so I got the toys I had wanted after all. And after that, I never cut out pictures again.

Only 6 shopping days left!

With Christmas just around the corner, I thought I'd dedicate this week to humorous Christmas stories from my past. So without further ado...

I was one of the many many children who grew up when the cabbage patch craze was in full gear. No one wanted anything from Santa unless it was that much coveted doll, but unfortunately, as some of you might remember, they were IMPOSSIBLE to find. I'd watch footage on the morning news of hundreds of moms mobbing stores, in a full frenzy, just ecstatic that they had their hands on what everyone in America wanted. But these stores would secretly get the dolls in and it was just a matter of luck if your mom would be one of the moms to get tipped off.

We had tried several for months to get a doll, but nothing ever panned out. I actually thought I might never get the doll. But then, the winds changed and my lucky day arrived. My mom got a tip about a store that was going to release about 200 cabbage patch kids on a certain morning at a certain time. So she got off work, called my school to say I would be late, and off we went. I might as well have been high with the perma-smile I had going.

We finally got there and as we walked in I could hardly breath. Finally. Finally! I would have my very own Cabbage Patch Kid. My mom spoke to someone who then lead us to a somewhat hidden part of the store and then...before my very eyes, 200 dolls appeared. But there was just one little problem...They were all black. Every. Last. One of them...I couldn't speak. I couldn't move. I had no idea how to handle the situation. The idea of nor getting the doll was horrible enough, but I sure as heck didn't want one of these. I knew exactly what I wanted my doll to look like and this was not it. I looked over at my mom and luckily didn't have to say a thing. She immediately apologized to the man saying I had my heart set on a blond, thanked him profusely, and off we went to the car. Day ruined.

Two months later I finally did get my very own cabbage patch, a little blond girl named Gabbie Elora. And now the whole thing is very funny to me. But at the time, it was just the worst day of my life.

I was just curious as to what exactly the definition was...

Main Entry: Christ·mas
Pronunciation: 'kris-m&s
Function: noun
Usage: often attributive
Etymology: Middle English Christemasse, from Old English Cristes mæsse, literally, Christ's mass
1 : a Christian feast on December 25 or among some Eastern Orthodox on January 7 that commemorates the birth of Christ and is usually observed as a legal holiday

Saw Syriana yesterday and...It was...Hmmmmmm...I don't know, the acting was good, but it felt like a 6 hour movie! And throughout it I kept wondering what the real plot of the movie was, because there were so many subplots and I just wanted to stand up and yell, What is really going on here??!!! Seriously!! Can somebody please help me out!!!

I don't know...I'm just really curious as to what others think who have seen this movie. REAL curious.

Christmas time

Anyone else watch The Charlie Brown Christmas Special 2 nights ago? I had been looking forward to it all day, knowing I had to be home by 7 sharp, so I wouldn't miss it. Could I have Tivo'd it? Yes. Could I have rented it any day of the year to watch it whenever I want? Yes. But I wanted to watch it like I've always watched it, my whole life...the actual night and time it comes on TV.

Kids are so screwed now with the Cartoon Network and all those channels because cartoons are on 24 hours a day 7 days a week. The magic is gone. G-O-N-E. I mean, remember when we were kids and our cartoon viewing was just Saturday morning. And it was the best! Cartoons ALL...MORNING...LONG. All morning! What more could we ask for?? And the only topper to that was the "Specials" that came on at night. NIGHT! When we were supposed to be getting ready for bed, we instead got to watch cartoons! And every year it was the same...Bugs Bunny, Charlie Brown Christmas and Halloween, Frosty, The Grinch, maybe some Mary Poppins...Did we care? No! It became tradition and we loved it. And all day at school we'd be thinking, Yes! There's a He-Man special on tonight! Yes! Yes! I have the power!Yes! And if you missed it or GOD FORBID fell asleep during it, then that was just too bad. No Tivo or any of that crap, you just had to wait a WHOLE 'NOTHER YEAR.

And every year I do wait, and the excitement and the magic all come back, and even if it's just for half an hour...it sure is nice.

Can I just get break, please?

This has been the worst week ever. Well...not ever, but it's been bad. Real bad. A myriad of horribleness. Just thing after thing happening all interconnecting to form this huge web of misery. Here's the breakdown:

1. I'm sick. So I've got no energy, I feel awful, disgusting, nauseated, feverish, unable to go anywhere without at least 6 tissues in my pockets, just sick. Which wouldn't be so bad because Monday morning I would have just called in sick to work(probably Tuesday too) but I couldn't because

2. My co-teacher is on vacation right now. Which means I HAVE to be at school because I'm the only one left to teach. And since I don't have a high fever and I'm not throwing up 8 times a day like 3 other teachers and a 1/3 of the kids in my school are, I really do have to show up. Which wouldn't be so terrible except that Monday morning

3. My car died. So I have been without a car. And I've had to take the train which usually makes me car sick (I refuse to say train sick) which is normally not that big a deal, but it is now because I feel like crap which is a great wasy to start my 20 minute walk I have to take from the train to work which, again, wouldn't be so terrible except for the fact that

4. IT'S ZERO F'IN DEGREES OUTSIDE!!!! ZERO! Why did THIS week of ALL weeks have to be the coldest week in Chicago to date?? By the time I get to work, I am so cold and so numb, yet so fevery hot with my nose running, and I keep forgetting my tissues when I leave for the train and it's just awful. And this walk don't get any easier when I have to take it back to the train in the dark.

This was my day Monday.
This was my day Tuesday.
And Tuesday night I got a treat! My friend came over to charge my battery, but my battery decided it didn't want to charge, so now I have to ride the train all week long and endure the Winter Walks of Doom and somehow deal with 15 obnoxious children which has been impossible because I'm sick and when I'm sick and forced to be around children, all I want to do is punch them. Which is not allowed.

Maybe today I can slip in a little punch.

Still sick...Maybe I should get one of these.

Saturday

I got to work on Thursday and some sort of a throwing up epidemic had just slammed our school over night. I'd say a good 1/4 of the kids were out sick, PLUS 2 teachers,(one of which had to go to the ER), and I thought, Oh, no no no no no noooooooooooo! NO! I DON'T WANT TO GET SICK!!!!!!!!!!!!

But of course, yesterday morning, I woke up with that little tingle in the back of my throat, and I knew I was in trouble.

And now I'm sitting on my couch, quite miserable, (NOT throwing up, thank God), but miserable all the same.

I hate kids.

They are always getting me sick, and always over my coveted weekends. By Monday I'm sure I'll be fine, or fine enough to where I'll have to go back to work and back to the kids who sneeze in my face, couch up their internal organs without covering their mouths and who don't understand the importance of hand washing after they've wiped their noses on their arm/wrist/hand/finger/me.

They're just gross.

And on that note I will bid you adieu. Adieu.

The snow outside sure is beautiful. It makes me want to indulge in the ever popular activity of "Curling up on the couch with a good book and a cup of *fill in the blank.*" For me it would be hot cocoa...or hot chocolate...Are they the same thing or what? Why the different names?? Life is confusing enough as it is!! Well, regardless, I think I may need to partake in some before work.