What Struck Me

Another local kid died in a car accident over the weekend. He was involved in a lot of the same activities as my kids over the years, scouts, hockey- but he was older (20) so I didn’t know him personally, although his sister is in Andy’s class. I know his mom just in passing, enough to nod hello when we’d see each other. But it’s all close enough. I can’t stop crying. It’s the fear. This happens much too often, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

We promise them we’ll take care of them, make sure nothing happens, but in the end, we can’t keep those promises. As much as we want to, we simply can’t.

Buzz posted about his favorite Christmas music today, so I figured I’d jump on that bandwagon. Last night I ripped my Christmas CDs to iTunes, and added them into a playlist with my newest addition, Barenaked for the Holidays.

A few of my favorites:

• 2000 Miles - The Pretenders (memories of the days of long distance love)
• Bizarre Christmas Incident - Ben Folds (funny, silly, bad words…)
• Father Christmas - The Kinks (“Father Christmas, give us some money…”)
• Feliz Navidad - Jose Feliciano (“Feliz Naviblablah” - PeeWee Herman)
• Gabriel’s Message - Sting (just a really pretty song)
• Grandma Got Runover by a Reindeer - Elmo & Patsy (because it used to crack up my Gram and it reminds me of her.)
• I Believe in Father Christmas - Greg Lake (“They said there’d be peace on earth…” *sigh*)
• Jingle Bells - Barenaked Ladies (includes Batman smells verse!)
• Merry Christmas Baby - Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band (on The Conan O’Brian Show)
• Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy - Bing Crosby with David Bowie (I remember watching this on the BC Christmas Special when it first aired!)
• Santa Claus And His Old Lady - Cheech & Chong (“he had some magic dust, man!”)
• Santa Claus Is Coming to Town - Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band (“Everybody out there been good or what?”)
• Thank God It’s Christmas - Queen (Freddy Mercury over the top!)
• The Christmas Song - Nat King Cole (I agree with Buzz on this one- no one else can do this song justice.)
• The Chipmonk Song - The Chipmonks “ALVIN!”
• Welcome Christmas - from How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Who else can recite the entire show?)
• Winter Wonderland - Eurythmics (Annie Lennox, perfect.)
• Wonderful Christmastime - Barenaked Ladies (with a Happy Birthday Jesus verse!)
• December - George Winston (the entire album)

So, any recommendations? What are your favorites, what should I check out?

New skin. Hope you like :santasmile: !

I was cleaning up the family website, and decided to delete a forum I’d set up last winter that I no longer need. Cleaned out the files, zapped the database… oops :doh2:.

Same database had the tables for my photo album. The pictures are safe, thankfully! I emailed support at my host, hopefully they can restore the database for me. Otherwise I need to reinstall the album, and try to remember all the settings, etc. Not fun, and very time-consuming!

Bathroom pics are up!

or you can click here to start at the beginning of our year-long odyssey.

Been giving myself a day off today. I feel a little bad about that since Pat’s been out in the cold filling the ditch (done) and gathering leaves (getting there.) He also has a bunch of other projects he wants to tackle.

But today is my day off. No housework, no laundry, no cooking (yay, we brought home leftovers!) and no work-work (feels good to have some to avoid, though!)

Instead I’ve been making a new Christmas skin for my blog (which is pretty much done now but I’ll hold off a few days to debut it.) I was thinking of putting up a style-sheet changer (I used it to work on the skins) but I’m leaning against it, at least for now.

Next up I’m finally going to load up those bathroom photos. At least one room in my house is tastefully decorated and relatively clean!

Yes, I’m up ridiculously early. But no, I’m not heading to Target and Best Buy this morning. I’m just- up. Saw the full moon setting behind the trees to the northwest, watching the sunrise to the northeast.

It was the most relaxed Thanksgivings I’ve had in years. SIL’s new house is beautiful. They totally gutted and redid a split level, and now it has vaulted ceilings and huge bathrooms and closets, a home office for her fiance, etc etc. You can do that when there aren’t kids underfoot, I guess. I’m only a little jealous (actually I’m just motivated to get going on some of the projects around my house!)

Today Pat will refill his ditch (sewer line repaired and intact- for now.) I might take the kids to see Sponge Bob (wheeee.) I may even head to Best Buy or Target- I have a soon to be 12 year old to shop for!