I’m thinking about doing some Christmas shopping at the pawn shop. You can find stuff pretty cheap there. I saw a nice pocket watch at the local one a while back that I know Hubby would love. And I’m going to have to get him something, since he won’t rest until he has a gift for me.

For most of the rest of the family (except for Pumpkin, of course) I’m thinking about baking some Christmas goodies. But that all depends on whether I get the oven that a guy promised Hubby or not, and whether said oven works well. Hopefully all will work out like that. Then maybe I won’t feel so bad about not being able to buy many gifts.

I was just thinking of a funny story, and thought I would share. It has been a good ten years since it happened, but I remember it well to this day.

When I was in college, I worked in the kitchen at the local hospital. Not a glamorous job by any means, but it was one of the most fun places I’ve ever worked. I had my sister-in-law to thank for the job, because she was the public relations manager there and talked to the kitchen manager for me.

I had been working there for a while, and we had to go to inservices every so often. They were a drag, but they weren’t terribly frequent. Then one day I started seeing fliers about how we were all going to be going on cruises or something. I was a bit confused, but just kind of shrugged it off because I knew it was too good to be true.

As it turned out, the “cruises” were actually a new series of required inservices. We had to go to one every week or two, and let me tell you they were BORING. Most of them had absolutely nothing to do with my job either, so that made me hate sitting through them that much more.

I went home from work after a particularly boring one, and a while later the phone rang. I answered, and it was my sis-in-law. She asked me how my day was at work, and I said, “It was okay, except I had to sit through another one of those boring inservices.” She proceeded to inform me that she was the one who had been in charge of the whole thing. Woopsie.

She didn’t let me live that down for a long time. But at least she was able to laugh about it. I still don’t see how she could not find those things utterly dull and pointless, though.

I heard Hubby talking on the phone to his cousin today. He mentioned something about an air hockey table, and I figured that his cousin was going to get one. He talked for a few minutes, then got off of the phone and was kind of quiet for a while.

Then he started talking about getting me something for Christmas. I instantly put two and two together. I said, “If you’re thinking about getting me an air hockey table, you’d better not.” He looked shocked. I can read him like a book sometimes.

He said the price was good, and I told him I didn’t care. We need to pay bills instead of buying each other gifts. And besides that, I have nowhere to put an air hockey table, no matter how much I would love to have one.

I guess I might as well accept the fact that he’s going to get me something, no matter how hard I try to get him not to. I wonder if he would believe me if I told him that the thing I was dying for for Christmas was a pack of golf balls?

Hubby talked me out of trying to go to my niece’s birthday party on Saturday. Actually, it didn’t take much talking. The weather reports said we would be getting a bunch of freezing rain starting at noon, so I was rather reluctant to go myself.

I don’t know about between here and there, but I talked to my sister-in-law on the phone and she said they didn’t get anything. And it didn’t really start here until about 4:00 or 5:00. So we probably could have gone up there with no problem.

The main thing that worries me about traveling up there in questionable weather is the lack of cell phone reception. From a few miles from my house until a few miles from my mom’s and my brother’s, there is no reception whatsoever. You could have an unlocked phone or a phone from any cellular provider around and still not get a signal. So if anything were to happen, I would have to walk to some stranger’s house to use the phone, unless some stranger stopped to help. Not good.

I hope I can get up there sometime before Christmas. I know the girls were looking forward to seeing each other, and I want to make it happen soon.

I had planned to take Pumpkin up to my niece’s birthday party this weekend. It’s only about an hour and a half drive from here, no luggage or travel gear necessary. But the weather forecast isn’t particularly favorable, and Hubby is in the process of vetoing it.

I don’t think it would be a problem to go up there. I was only planning on staying a couple of hours anyway, and according to the forecast the rain isn’t supposed to start until several hours after we would be back home. And the ice isn’t supposed to get here until that night. But if there’s a remote possibility of a flake of snow, Hubby doesn’t want to go anywhere, nor does he want me to.

I had hoped to take Pumpkin up there to have a good time with her favorite cousin, but I’ll bet it doesn’t happen. Why couldn’t her birthday have been in the summer?

I’m still severely dreading Christmas. If things work out as planned we should have some money to buy gifts, but that’s a big if. And I’ve been busting my hump trying to get lots of work done so things won’t be quite so lean next month, so I really wouldn’t have had time to get into the spirit much anyway.

But Christmas is only two weeks away, and I really need to get some cards sent out. Against my better judgment, I bought some of Pumpkin’s Christmas pictures because they were just so darn cute. Now I need to get some cards made (if my computer will cooperate) and send them out to some people.

We don’t have any decorations up yet either. I have a set of spiral trees for outside, and the tree is probably all I’ll put up in here. But I haven’t even had time to fool with that, and Hubby hasn’t felt well enough to do it himself.

I can see it now: I’ll probably get the decorations up less than a week before Christmas. Christmas Eve will be here, and I won’t have a single present wrapped, if I actually have any to wrap. This happens pretty much every year, but I was hoping it would be different this time around. It’s looking kind of inevitable, though.

I was in my office working earlier tonight (technically last night seeing how it’s after midnight now), and I heard Hubby tell Pumpkin to go brush her teeth. She went down the hall, but I didn’t hear any water running or anything. A minute or so later, I heard her growling and saying, “Boogie boogie boogie.”

Perplexed, I asked her what she was doing. Her response? “I’m trying to scare my hiccups away.”:lol:

I laughed until I nearly cried. She and Hubby both thought I had flipped out and gone crazy. I explained to her that when I try to scare her hiccups away, I’m really just trying to scare her so she’ll gasp and that will cause them to stop. I think that further convinced her that I had flipped my lid.

I didn’t get as much work done as I would have liked to yesterday, so now I’m going to be spending my Sunday in front of the computer. What’s left of it, anyway. I didn’t drag myself out of bed until almost 10:00.

And now I’m having a really hard time getting started. I’m halfway done with one project, but I’m getting to the articles that require some research and I keep getting sidetracked. I end up doing things like blogging when I should be working instead…

I also signed up for another post every day thing. This one is called Holidailies, and it runs through the month of December. I think I have officially lost my mind.

Hubby was talking about how he felt bad about not being able to get Pumpkin and I the things we wanted for Christmas. I told him that there wasn’t really much that I wanted. But there are some things I could use. Such as:

• A laptop- You had to see that one coming. But I do desperately need a new computer, and if I had a laptop I could at least work in the living room sometimes instead of always being chained to my desk, allowing me to spend more time with the fam.
• Exercise equipment- I really need to lose some weight, and the fact that I spend my workdays at a computer desk is adding to the problem. An elliptical or stair machine would be really great.
• New tires- The tires on my truck have seen their better days. I say a little prayer every time I take it out that one won’t blow or go flat.

That’s good enough for starters. The point is, all I really want for Christmas is to spend time with my family, and for Pumpkin to enjoy herself. I’m going to try to scrape up the money to get her the few things she asked Santa for, but if nothing else at least she will be getting the awesome toys I got in exchange for a review, and the inexpensive MP3 player I picked up for her last weekend. And that’s not too shabby.

We got some early Christmas gifts today, and I’m thinking about regifting them. I’m not particularly fond of the person who got them for us, although I do appreciate the thought. And she got Hubby and I both a few small items, most of which we just don’t need or won’t use. So maybe I can add them to a couple of other small things and give them to someone who will use them.

I’ve thought about going through some of the stuff I need to get rid of and seeing if there is anything that is unused and would make a good gift. So far I’ve run across some phone wire and HDMI cables and such that we don’t need, but those aren’t exactly what I had in mind. Maybe if I keep digging I will find some stuff. And if not, it looks like we might have a little Christmas money in our future. We shall see.