Now I Can Sit Back and Enjoy

No, I'm not done with shopping.

Or wrapping.

Or even decorating (which is why you see the "Christmas Tour of Homes" button in my sidebar but no pics). Hopefully that will change tomorrow if I get motivated. Hopefully.

But I am done with making jewelry and shipping it to people in time for Christmas. Which means that I heave a huge sigh of relief, listen to some Christmas carols, think about what Jesus' birth means to me, and enjoy the season a little, even though I have a bunch of things to finish up.

Merry Christmas, y'all!

Yes, I Am Raising a Math Geek

Son the Older had to write -- if you can believe this -- a carol for calculus to the tune of any existing Christmas carol. His teacher suggested "Jingle Bell Rock" for the tune, and I couldn't help but wonder how many renditions of this tune he would be hearing. This is the sort of thing that would cause me to run screaming from the classroom, hands clamped to my ears in horror. Perhaps this is why God in His infinite mercy did not call me to teach high school math.

Bradley thought he would be singing in front of the class, but it's so much worse than that... turns out the calculus class will be wandering the halls, caroling the other classes. Please understand, this is not a CHOIR class my child is in. It is CALCULUS. These kids aren't known for their singing ability. Mine can play drums, but I can assure you it's not the same thing. Rhythm he has in abundance, but pitch? Not so much.

Anyway, he and I had a fun time late last night coming up with two stanzas of Christmas, er, calculus cheer. I'll let you figure out for yourself which tune we chose. Here are our twisted lyrics. Bonus points if you have any idea what we're talking about. Yes, we were a little punchy.

O come all ye math geeks
Hopeful and intelligent
O come ye, o come ye to calculus
Come and behold them
Derivatives and integrals

O come and find the slope
O come and find the slope
O come and find the slope
Of this curve

Now try to integrate
You'll find it's much more complex
Than any other math
You've ever done before
And find it exactly
Riemann sums won't help you

O come and find the area
O come and find the area
O come and find the area
Under this curve

R.I.P. Kim

I'm crying -- again -- as I type this.

I just found out today that one of my oldest friends, Kim, who I've known since I was 12 years old, died on November 29th.

She was the person who took me back to church after I left the Catholic church when my parents divorced when I was 10. She took me to a church lock-in, and I went to church with her family for years after that. Kim and her brother Coby and mom Jackie were like a second family to me.

She moved across town in high school when her mom and stepdad divorced, but we were still close and continued to go to church together. It wasn't until I left for college at A&M that we began to really lose touch. I caught up with her a few times after that, but we were both so busy with our "real" lives that we only caught up with each other once every several years after that. But a sentence from her last email to me says how we felt about each other: "You've always been one of the most important people in my life, and I've always thought about you."

She left behind three kids I know she loved more than life itself, and I weep for them too. Please pray for Michael (19), Amanda (17), and Taylor (15), who are missing their mom more than they can say. I know a little bit about what that's like, although I didn't lose my mom at such a tender age. They made a lovely tribute page for her.

Use that beautiful voice of yours to sing with the angels, Kim.

It May Be Time For an Artificial Tree

It was a dark and rainy night. Not so much stormy really, but starting to rain a little by the time we left the tree lot.

It rained a great deal on the way home, so we had a very wet tree once we got home with it. We got it set up in its stand, moved into its place of honor, and watered, and left it there to dry before putting up the lights (tonight's family activity will be decorating after I put up the lights today).

Hubby had just decided to go to bed and went in the front room to check on the tree, so he was in the room when it decided to take its dramatic dive. That's right, seven feet of tree and two gallons of water, lying on the living room carpet. Resources were marshaled; family members were called to assist. Son the Older held the tree, I mopped up the carpet with towels as best I could, and Hubby readjusted the tree stand. Son the Younger chose this moment to interject his own brand of stress and was dismissed to be dealt with later.

We ended up changing tree stands, and thankfully, the tree is still vertical this morning. After this whole ordeal, I'm seriously rethinking the whole "real tree" thing.

If you're reading, I really want to know: is your tree real or artificial? Why do you prefer what you have?

Now That I've Recovered a Bit...

I hope your weekend was grand; mine was pretty busy.

We had friends (Brian and Angela) visiting from Colorado. They stayed with other friends, which was good considering the rest of the weekend. So Brian and Ang came in on Thursday evening. Heather came over on Friday and helped me by beading a few (OK, six) last minute things for the jewelry party on Saturday. Heather rocks.

Later on Friday, Brian and Ang and Matt and Becky (the friends they stayed with) came over and we chatted while Ang and Becky helped me tag everything for the party. I have the best friends ever. We went for gelato to a place that said it's "open late" but hello, late on Friday is at LEAST 9pm, even in suburbia. So we walked across the parking lot to Marble Slab and got actual ice cream instead, which we ate outside. In December. Sometimes it seems wrong to live in Central Texas...

So after the crowd left, I finished pricing everything and packed up the beads to take them, and thanks to everyone's help, I went to bed by midnight.

On Saturday, I was up by 8am so I could get on the road early -- I had heard a couple of people wanted to come early and look before they had to move on to other commitments. I got there well before party time, but no one arrived early, which was just as well -- it gave us time to get everything ready for the party. I had forgotten my business cards, of all things, so my wonderful niece scanned in one I had in my purse and made copies for the party.

Everything went smoothly, and I sold about 2/3 of the stuff I brought. I apparently didn't make enough matching earrings (earrings are kind of a pain to make, and I really just ran out of time), so I owe one woman a matching pair for a necklace she bought, and I only came home with four pairs, including ones that came in sets with necklaces. Lesson learned!

After the party, I went to dinner with all the girly in-laws (niece, MIL and two sisters-in-law) and then the sister-in-law who played hostess for the party and I got a couple of movies and chilled out for the rest of the evening while her son, who is quite the social butterfly, had friends over. We were both exhausted but couldn't sleep with that many teenagers in the house.

After a solid but too-short sleep, I came back to Austin, missing a turn somewhere that added about 45 minutes to my drive. I crashed again before going to dinner with the Friday night crowd (mmmm, NY style pizza!). Then Monday I took the Colorado folks to the airport, with admonitions to "move to Austin soon!"

So that was my weekend... how was yours?

Fun For Today

My Onion horoscope for this week, which my husband took great delight in reading to me, as I groaned over my umpteenth pair of earrings last night:

"Your meticulous attention to detail will once again ruin an otherwise fun and pleasureable pasttime."

Thanks, hon.

A Good Day

Today, I had lunch with hubby and a couple of fun former co-workers (who thankfully are going to print out some stuff I need since I am currently printer-less).

I got some new sunglasses, since -- par for the course -- I lost mine. $10 for polarized at Academy, sweet!

Also at Academy, I got some long johns so the rare chilly times in central Texas won't be quite so bad out in the garage bonding with my torch.

Then I headed to my favorite bead place, where I stocked up on clasps. I was running REALLY low. It's no good to have a necklace if you can't fasten it!

Everyone seems to like my hair. I unexpectedly got about 6" whacked off last night. My stylist and I agreed it was too long and some needed to go. In my mind, that meant 3" or so. When she made the first cut, I'm pretty sure I gasped audibly. Oh well, it's hair. It'll grow back. Of course, Katina is a hair wizard, so it looks fantastic in the opinion of everyone but my husband, who only loves it if it's looooooooong.

Sorry, no pics yet... no time for much of anything except beading right now. Hope to post one soon!

Early Morning Thought

If you have a night during which your husband tosses and turns with great abandon, much like a freshly caught fish, you should not on this same night be burdened with bug dreams.

I'm just sayin'.

A Little Linky Love

Awesome holiday post. I got the link from Antique Mommy but loved it enough to link it myself. It's a little long but well worth the read in this season of escalating materialism.

Amazing How Things Can Turn Around in 24 Hours

I've mentally written a dozen posts in the last few days -- mostly about how frustrated I am. Let me count the ways!

Austin supposedly has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation; yet I've been looking for a job diligently for a month and a half with barely a nibble.

I have a jewelry party (my first) coming up on Saturday with my hubby's two sisters in a Houston suburb. I'm about to hit full panic mode on this one. I feel like I'm on a treadmill, running as fast as I can and getting nowhere at all. I still have so much to do and so little time left in which to do it. I'm sure it will be fine; my perfectionistic tendencies say otherwise.

The weather here can't make up its mind whether it's early fall or (for us) deep winter, which is playing havoc with my sinuses. And making it difficult to work on the torch, which is in the garage, at least on the cold days. Today is a "bundle up!" day.

But yesterday, my hubby found me a new job listing that fits me amazingly well in a place I've always wanted to work. I don't want to say a lot more about it now, but I talked to the hiring manager, and I'm hoping for it. In a lot of ways, it's not possible for anyone else with my history and experience to apply, not that that's any guarantee of getting the job, but I have to cling to something.

Funny how one little thing can turn your perspective around, isn't it?