Traditions on both ends.

I know, I know. I have a TON to catch up on. But instead of doing it all in one sitting, I'm sort of planning to catch up as I go - lots of fun stuff, a few funny stories, but no earth-shattering news. :)
First - more on traditions. We all have traditions when it comes to setting up for Christmas, participating in Christmas and all that but as I walk around our tree, putting ornaments away, I think that I have almost as many traditions when it comes to after Christmas. I insist that Cody and I have a whole production of putting the ornaments on the tree at the beginning of "Christmas Season" (not Wal-Mart's "Christmas Season" which starts at Labor Day, but the more realistic "Christmas Season") but I usually end up taking them off by myself. For instance, we got back from Florida late last night so he is still sleeping but I always like to have the tree down by New Year's so I'm working on getting everything packed up, ornament by ornament. Ornaments are one of my most favorite Christmas traditions - I could do without presents, cookies, Christmas dinners, Christmas carols, and certainly the shopping - but not without the ornaments. We finally have enough meaningful ornaments (ones we've collected over the years) that we didn't even put up our generic balls this years - that was neat to me. So as I take apart the tree one by one, it's cool to remember where they all came from and look at this years new ornaments one more time before they go in a box until next year. There is a sense of accomplishment I get when the tree is up and looking all nice and Christmas-y, but a similar, though distinctly different, sense of accomplishment I get from getting it all put away, the furniture back where it "belongs" and life returning to "normal." Working on that now.

SNOW!

As you may (or may not) have seen on the news - we had a WINTER WEATHER EMERGENCY this past weekend. Basically that means nothing, only the weather's attempt to make you watch longer and watch more of their retarded commercials. BUT - we did get snow. Here's a photo from Friday afternoon - nothing too bad, a few inches on the ground. Nothing completely horrible.

This is a photo from Saturday night when all hell broke lose. We, being stupid Southerner's like we are, and thinking a little snow never hurt anyone thought it was a great idea to drive 30 miles WEST (east is always better when it's snowing) to see friends. LOVE the friends - wouldn't have missed seeing them for the world - some of the best friends we've ever had -but HATE the snow! Going out wasn't too too too terrible - it took twice as long with the snow/ice on the road and the "thundersnow" blowing on my windshield, but we got out there okay. On the way back I thought I was going to die. Again, I love these friends more then anything and wouldn't have traded seeing them for the world, but next time I sure hope God can give me a better night to drive in at least. It took us forever to get home - I drove an average of 20 miles per hour on the way home, all while watching cars run off the road right and left. I made it all the way to our exit and then when I went to put on the brakes (very very very lightly) the car decided it was NOT ready to exit yet and kept going into a snow bank. Luckily it wasn't bad and we got out relatively easily. Usually when it is snowing this bad I make Cody drive, not because I'm a feable female who can't do anything but because I hate to be that stressed. But we had my car and I drive standard while he has automatic - so while he is a better snow driver, I'm still a better driver of my car - and he of his - I would never drive his rear wheel driver car in the snow and I wouldn't let him drive my front wheel drive car in the snow. It was an adventure, but totally worth it to see our friends. They rock - and she makes totally wonderful food!!

This is a picture of the house on Sunday morning. While it doesn't look much worse then on Friday we probably had four or five more inches of snow here. At this point since I park on the street (Cody and the motorcycle get the garage) I basically park on an ice rink. :) While it may be cute and pretty, snow is a pain in the ass!!! It's nice on the weekend when you can go ice skating and sledding (I'll post pictures of these fun events from yesterday later) but a pain when you HAVE to go out in it. Hopefully it will warm up past 30 and melt it soon. I'm just looking forward to Florida and temperatures above freezing. If it gets cold while we're there I'm going to scream. Here that? I put up with the cold here! I'd BETTER get warm weather for Christmas!!

More Christmas

Okay, I'm an idiot. Here is a picture of our Christmas tree (sans presents since we haven't wrapped even one - well, I wrapped one for Cody today but he opened it today too), but I can't figure out how to make it rotate so it stands up straight. So that's good enough for now. :) As you can see it totally ROCKS! This is seriously one of my favorite trees, if not my favorite ever. Don't worry - it looks much better in person. It's a very "soft" tree - not like the prickly ones we always had in Florida. Love Florida -it's prettier (in every season but fall) and warmer - but we have better Christmas trees. :)

This is another side-ways picture. It's a wreath my aunt - who also ROCKS - sent us. If you could see it the right way up, it would have "Gators" at the top and then a football in the middle - and then little orange and blue bows around it. VERY cute! You could see it better if the blinds on our front door weren't up but Cody had them up so we could let the 30 seconds worth of light we get each day into the house. :) It's quite a wonderful addition to our Christmas collection!

p.s. Thanks Mesa for telling me how to move photos around in a blog - now how do I flip them around so everyone isn't craning their neck to see them right way up? :)

Stockings, Part II

Here's what the stockings might look like should I sew the jingle bells on them. Still debating this. Anyway, this is one of our "traditions" that we've insituted this year. :) I need to take a picture of our Christmas tree sections/ornaments too. They're pretty nifty too. I'm really digging this married Christmas thing. It's "our first Christmas" or our 11th - either way it's special, right?

Stockings

Stockings! Here's a quick picture of the stockings as they are now. I'm still debating putting little silver jingle bells on each one around the cuff. Mine is the cream one and Cody's is the black one. Cody totally designed them all himself! He even picked the fabric - all by himself! I even tried to steer him towards something easier to sew with but he liked this material - it was soft and shiny and fancy so he liked it - but I found a way to make it easier to sew with (I backed it with regular cotton and put batting in the middle) and I loved the finished product. The pictures really don't do them justice, if I do say so myself. :) Cody wants a black "pocket" on the back of his so he can "hide" things in it. It's a German tradition to hide a pickle (long story - look it up on wikipedia) on the Christmas tree and Cody figures that he wants to be able to "trick" people so if he has a pocket on the back of his stocking he can hide things, like the pickle, there. Too bad I KNOW IT'S THERE! Anyway, a quick stocking picture for the bloggers out there. :)

Pure Happy.

I seriously have about a dozen blogs that I have floating around in my head, yet to actually write - one about the Cody and my sweater story, another about my funny name changing fiasco with the library, Wicked (the most awesomestt musical EVER), another about the SNOW, another catch up on events (busy busy busy - Christmas parties galore, ice skating, snow sleding, Christmas cards, etc.) and then a few more that I have written down but can't remember off hand. Today, however, was a blog post in itself.
Today was, all in all, a pretty nifty day. This morning I had my old people scan - that's a bone density scan for everyone else. I was the youngest person in there - by a good 60 years. My doctor thinks the reason I keep getting stress fractures (last year in my shins and now my knees/fibulas) is because I have osteoporosis - no I did not turn 65 years old and menopausal overnight. He thinks I just didn't get enough calcium growing up and I don't get enough now - I'm allergic to milk and since it is liquid and has calories I don't drink the stuff (the only liquid calories I do are the wine variety). He did not think it was funny when I said I thought cherrios and macaronni and cheese was enough calcium growing up. So I went in and had my bones scanned - not a bad test overall - I find out the results on Thursday. Then today at work was pretty laid back. Of course if anyone from work is reading this, I worked my tail off today. For everyone else, I worked on some work, but also a lot of Cody's Christmas present all day. You see, buying each other stuff just doesn't work that well - if we really want something that we can afford, we buy it. If we can't afford it, then even Christmas won't make it happen. So we're left with really creative and "home made" gifts for each other. So I worked on his throughout the day today. Then I came home, slipping on the ice a total of three times between my car (parked on the street) and my house (about 10 feet from the street). Then, thinking that three times was not enough times to fall on my butt, I decided to go to the grocery store to get cookie/Christmas goodie shopping done. That was fun - until I came home, slipped AGAIN on the ice, and then crushed the eggs. I was able to salvage most of them but just putting them in separate bowls in the fridge. :) Then Cody got home and it was Susy Homemaker Time! We baked away! We made Cody's mom'swith this computer, it's Cody['s amazing pecan cookie things. One thing I thank Cody's mom for more then most other things (other then Cody, of course, and then her general wonderfulness) is her pecan cookie reciepe. It is awesome - though takes a million years to make - but it's worth it. So we made cookies together - and I even let Cody do his part "his way." You see, I'm getting better at letting others do things their way even if it's not my way/the right way. :) We had a blast. Then we made my pretzel, kisses, m&m things - super easy as long as you dont' "burn" the kisses. Bet you didn't think you could burn Hershey's kisses, did you? Well, you can. They get all flaky and gross. I always ruin, at a minimum, one batch. Anyway, we had a blast and had a great time just hanging out together, laughing, throwing burnt Hershey's kisses (chocolate is okay for cats if it's burnt, right?) and just talking. This is really what Christmas is about - if you want to bake and are going to have fun with it, knock yourself out - otherwise, like last year, just forget it and wait until when you can enjoy it. All in all this Christmas season ROCKS compared to last year. (Yes I am fully aware of my blatant overuse/abuse of the work ROCKS.) :)

p.s. If my typing sucks on this post, it's Cody's keyboard. He's on my laptop (because it's tons better then his computer -though he won't admit it) ordering his parent's Christmas present. Seriously - we didn't just leave this to the last minute - we have been racking our brains for months to think of something cool for them since they do so much for us but we've been coming up blank. I almost even made him call his sister for ideas, when, low and behold, he came up with a great idea. Now if only we can order it in time and it works. We, of course, have them a super wonderful creative gift, that unless a miracle happens, won't be done in time. But I guess that's what Mother's and Father's Days are for - unfinished Christmas presents. :)

SUN

There is SUN outside! I totally forgot what the sun looked/felt like! Seriously - since last Thursday (the 6th) it has rained/hailed/sleeted/snowed/iced/freezing rained/freezing fogged (I didn't even know there was such a thing as freezing fog) pretty much non stop. The periods where the precipitation did stop it was just gray and cloudy. It has looked like night for over a week now. Every day at work I usually see the sun - but I honestly have not even seen the sun peak out since early last week. But now I see SUN!!! I want to go run outside and play - but it's 32 degrees out. :)

Traditions.

I don't know if it's the time of year or the being married thing, but I'm really into traditions lately. From the time we moved in together, we've always tried to do things "our" way. We try to figure out the best we can the best way to handle ourselves, together, in our life. We've tried really hard to figure out what does and doesn't work for us and really pay attention to those things. Like the way we figure out household chores - while our "system" might not work for everyone - it took a few years, but we finally figured out what works for both of us. Same with the way we figure out when is together time, when is us with friends time, when is our guy/girl time with friends and when it's time to just be alone. And the way we argue - God knows we didn't have that one right the first time we dated - but we've figured out a way now that really works well for us now - a way to argue that doesn't leave us angry or pissed off - a way that we can really feel like we both got our points across, not meanly, awewend both find a resolution - or more often then not, find a way to be okay with the fact that for most things there is no resolution (we DID NOT have that figured out the first time - we would argue until we found a resolution - problem is a solution is rare). So the longer we are together the more we find "our way."
This "Holiday Season" though I think has been particularly specweial with traditions because it's our first "married" Christmas. Everyone used to tell me that things change when you get married and I thought they were crazy because we'd been together for so long, but it really does change the way you look at the other person. So this year, we've been experiementing with different traditions. A few:
1. The Christmas Tree. This one is a no-brainer. This is our third year with a "live" tree (the first year we lived together we had a fake tree), and our second year getting the tree from Ted Drewes (the famous custard place). Last year we went out in the "Ice Storm of the Century" and got the tree because we figured we'd be stuck inside, might as well decorate the tree -problem was the tree was literally frozen with ice and by the time we got it de-thawed our power was out - so you can't put up Christmas lights with no power (can't checkwe the strands of lights). But it ended up being a great tree - when we got our power back days later. This year we went Thanksgiving weekend (our first Thanksgiving here) and got our tree - not being biased or anything, but I think it's the prettiest tree I've ever had (in Florida there are just the prickly pine trees - here we got a really soft type tree - no clue what it's called).
2. The Christmas Tree Ornament. Some of the best traditions are "borrowed" (read: stollen). Cody's sister and her family take a cut from the bottom of each of their trees, put the year on it and hang it as an ornament - great idea, right? So we've been doing that the past few years but the ornaments have only sat in plastic bags with the years on them, so this year I got the drill out, drilled holes in each one, wrote the year and any significant events on it and then painted it (three times) with polyurithane (yes, I know that's spelled wrong). LOVELY! So I finally got around to finishing that "tradition."
3. Christmas ornaments. We always make a big deal out of decorating the tree. I even "let" Cody help with the lights this year - usually I'm so picky about lights I "have" to do them but this year we did it together so that was fun. :) Then I unwrap the ornaments and he puts them up while we go through them. One of our coolest ones is an ornament I got engraved at Wal-Mart that says "Missy and Cody 1997" - that was our second Christmas. :)
4. CHRISTMAS STOCKINGS. So, we both have Christmas stockings at our parents' houses - I even have one at Cody's and he has one at mine - but we really didn't have any stockings here. So we looked around and couldn't find any that "spoke" to us - plus the ones at both families' houses were hand made. So we designed our own. Cody actually designed them and picked the colours, then I took him to the fabric store (read: dragged him kicking and screaming). He looked through all the fabric (he really did) and picked a type he really liked - seriously, I didn't say one thing about his choice - I totally let him pick. I loved the fabric he picked - a very soft and stretchy suede type material, but I was really worried that I wouldn't be able to sew with it. While I can sew some, I'm not a master seamstress (my aunt TOTALLY is), so I was worried but he really liked it. So then I used the same pattern (from the late 70s) that my mom used when she made mine and then my brother's stockings. So it has a little bit of history there too. And I finally finished them tonight! I'm going to try to post pictures if Cody ever gets done with his final and gets off my laptop. :)

When I was thinking about this post, I swear I had a good dozen traditions we've started as our "own" but now I can't think of them. But we're really finding our way in creating our own little thing up here in Cold Corn Country - like we now get a pomegranate a week, cut it up and munch on the seeds all week (yeah, they get yucky at some point so we usually eat it fast). And hummus (there's a whole post to come about this) - Cody's decided that he loves it so we have a "tradition" of coming home and snacking on hummus and pita bread. All sorts of fun little things. :) Can't wait to see family though in a few weeks - no matter how many traditions you have, you can't forget where you came from! :)