Christmas Break was Blessedly Divine

Still floating after having a week and a half off from work with PAID HOLIDAY TIME home with the peeps.  If that isn't the best reason ever for taking the new job, then I really don't know what is!  Well, besides the personal office with a window and excellent pay and Starbucks coffee in the lounge area... pinch. me. now.

Being All Thankful

This week is the week of Thanksgiving, and I have so much to be thankful for this year - including actual holiday pay!  As a self-employed person, holiday pay did not exist unless I worked during that time.  But this year, I will have 2 days of lounging in the comfort of my home and getting paid while doing so.  Now if that isn't a good reason for being employed than I really don't know what is.

Meanwhile, I've been fighting an online "fire" so to speak and getting pretty annoyed by it, as a solution is not forthcoming and I feel like I'm beating my head against a wall.  The worst part is that it seems to keep growing and becoming a worse headache for me as time goes by.  What is it?  Well, our merchant account on Authorize.net disabled SSLv3 support and now when a user attempts to make an online payment, they receive the error, "The client and server cannot communicate, because they do not possess a common algorithm."  I'm googling and working with the server dude to try to come up with a fix for this problem, but it's not coming easily.

Did I mention that I love my job?

Last Sunday of Holiday Break

So what's a family to do on the last Sunday of Holiday Break? Let's see what's happening as I post:

• Hubs: Examining our leaky dishwasher in an attempt to save us from spending hundreds of dollars toward the replacement of that 10+ year old overworked piece of machinery.
• Kid Peeps: Capturing video of their own homemade version of American Idol, appropriately called Werdian Idol. (Huh? No idea.)
  
• Me: Taking care of miscellaneous bill-paying activities (such as funding Go Phones) between checking on Hubs who is getting increasingly frustrated with the state of our stupid leaky dishwasher.
• The Cat: Napping amongst a cluster of Webkinz on the comfiest fuzzy blanket in the entire house, oblivious to all of the wild craziness taking place in the lower level.

mrow.

Holiday Down Time at the Homestead

Time flies when you're having fun, right? Well, that's exactly what we're hoping to avoid as we enjoy some much needed time off from all of the hustle and bustle of busy family life. With several days home from school and work, we're all just playing around with our electronics & board games, constructing Lego sets, eating goodies out of our stockings, catching up on reading... the list goes on and on and on.

Meanwhile, here's a video capturing yet another fun family moment:

She's Lost It Completely

Hey cool! Got me a burnt-orange colored Orchestra Mom chair this week during rehearsal time as I blog, a vast improvement over last week's olive green-ness. Totally random, I know. So what happened this week? Hold on tight, because the stuff that happened upon us makes last week look like hopscotch, if that's even possible. Really it does, and what better time to get started than right now. Grab a cuppa something and get comfortable, this ramble could take awhile.

Presidents Day 2010 involved a major milestone for us called Leaving Kids Home Alone for the First Time. It had to happen eventually, so hubs and I loosened the parental reigns, juiced up the peeps' cell phones, then headed off for a sweet lil' lunch escape at our First Date Restaurant, aka Panda House. The weirdest part of our date was that even though we had "broken bread" (or rather fortune cookie) at this romantic spot for the first time over 18 years ago, nothing about the place has changed in all of those years. Not a thing, right on down to the pink and gray décor! There we ate our usual lunch entrees of sweet & sour chicken, almond chicken, steamed rice, crab rangoon and hot & spicy soup. Then soon after, because we couldn't think of anything else exciting to do other than shop at the book store or Lowe's, we returned home to find both peeps feeling a little more grown-up and ready for mom & dad to go on more dates. Alrighty then, it's a deal.

Ash Wednesday came and went with the family getting big fat ashy forehead smudges during mass, then eating at the parish Soup Supper afterward where the oldest peepster banked a few service hours by helping out at the supper with one of her CCD friends. The bad part of dinner? Our soup bowls were microscopic, almost the size of the palm of my HAND, which would've been acceptible if we'd known about the unlimited refill situation. (Who knew? At least post a sign for us clueless parishioners, people. *geez*) Practically starving by bedtime, we ditched the whole fasting idea and had ourselves a meatless snack of cheese Bagel Bites, Poppers and Chex Mix just to make it through the night. A Catholic has to do what a Catholic has to do - God is understanding that way.

Now on with the biggest surprise of the week and primary reason for me taking on a major housecleaning project Tuesday & Wednesday: Family in town for college swim meet. While we were unable to witness all of the swim events, we did manage to sneak in a few rounds on Friday night and Saturday morning and it was total chlorinated excitation, let me tell you. The peeps had never before seen their cousins swim competitively, let alone attend a swim meet, so watching was a pretty huge deal for both of them. Big into swimming themselves, who knows, maybe they will think about swim team in the future? We shall see. At any rate, we were just thrilled to see family and hope they'll consider visiting us in our hometown more often, possibly outside of swim events. I mean, it's not like we have cooties or anything. And hey, next time lunch at Spaghetti Works in the Old Market will be our treat.


Video of cousin (lane 3) taken by Girlie Peep

So what else? Oh yes, the usual cello lesson with our favorite professional cellist, another meeting with my newest client, and the weekly consulting work for the Sisters of Mercy. Next week: Volunteer time at Children's Respite Care Center, Shrine Circus field trip, and the possibility of that long lost thing called Me Day. Can't wait, especially for that last one... the anticipation is driving me bonkers.

Who Hid Mom's Chocolate?

No escape from the Heartland of America this week, but that's not to say I'm no longer considering a permanent visit to San Diego, Portland and/or Cocoa Beach. Instead, celebrating our youngest peep's birthday ensued, complete with eating out at Famous Dave's (saucey amazingness!) and partying it up at home with friends (pizza, cake, ice cream, Wii games, Nerf darts & tackle football). Even I must admit that this year's birthday was most definitely a birthday to remember, at least until we outdo ourselves next year. Or try, anyway. Let's be optimistic here.

Behind the scenes of all this celebration madness, our oldest peep, the cellist, found herself in search of a full size cello to replace the ¾ cello she has outgrown, something that seems so odd when I can vividly remember when the ½ size one was taller than HER. Anyway, to do this, she recruited Mom (yes, me) to make a litany of phone calls in search of said replacement and to schedule actual cello viewings with her private cello teacher at local music stores. Who would've thought we'd be running all over tarnation in search of a simple cello replacement? Yeah well, unfortunately our search came up short, so that particular item remains on the 'To Do' list for yet another week, month, *insert random time frame here*.

Calendar check time - hey, cool! Another school day off for the peeps so that they might take some quality time to properly celebrate Martin Luther King Day by playing video games in their pajamas and building snow creatures outside for me to photograph from the window, mostly because I don't own long underwear or snow pants and would much rather stay inside where it's not FREEZING COLD. Makes total sense to me, but there I go digressing again.

Uh oh... wait, here's the not-so-cool thing on our calendar for the week: CCD Retreats. Will be getting back to you on that one. Lordy.

And now here's a birthday blooper just for fun:

Happy Blizzard-y Holidays

Today is the day of Christmas Eve, and it feels just eerie with a nasty blizzard creeping its way toward our lovely town as we sit in wait, watching all kinds of cancellations pop up on the 'Closings, Cancellations and Delays' newscast. Work-wise, I've already updated a client's website to reflect service cancellations, and yet our own parish hasn't budged - nor do I expect they will, as we're Catholic and belong to the largest parish in the state of Nebraska and canceling any service would result in complete turmoil for everyone involved.

So in the meantime, the peeps are just hanging out at the homestead, watching/listening to the snowy wind blowing around outside, playing video games, reading books, snacking on Hickory Farms cheese & sausage on crackers, and keeping an eye on this scary image as we pray for Santa's safe visit later this evening:


Have a safe & Happy Christmas Eve!