We had some really solid plans about how we were going to spend Troy’s end-of-year bonus, like Troy had planned to buy computer memory for his desktop, I had planned to get a couple of games for my Nintendo DS & maybe a new pair of shoes. That pretty much went out the window when we decided we needed a new game console & Rockband 2.

We did a few other things with it, like buy all of the books from the Dresden series that are out in paperback & 3 from the Southern Vampire series & new sheets, a new French press & some other stuff, but the bulk went to our future entertainment. I’m more than okay with that choice, since honestly, it was my idea. I think Troy may have a few regrets, but he would’ve no matter what we spent it on, you know?

We’re supposed to be getting a check from Troy’s mom as a Christmas gift, so hopefully that’ll come pretty soon & we’ll be able to do a couple of the things we had planned to with the bonus, not as many, but it’ll do a couple of things, at any rate.

Things around here have changed so much in the space of one year. It often seems like a lot more time has passed. Last December, Rhi was engaged & still in high school, we were still trying to rebuild our relationship with Erin after a pretty trying year, we were trying to change car insurance & spent a long time trying to find a car insurance quote that we could live with & not have to go hungry every six months. We were also trying to figure out how to pay for a wedding that we didn’t agree should even be happening.

On the other hand, my grandmother was still alive & the Alzheimers was really starting to get bad for her, my dad hadn’t been diagnosed with prostate cancer & we didn’t know that Rhi was bi-polar. Now my grandmother isn’t in constant pain anymore, dad’s latest tests came back with reasonable numbers & we hope that Rhi is stable on her medication now. Troy had a gall bladder last December, I don’t know if there were problems with it then, but he still had it & had never come all that close to dying then. So.. yeah, a lot of things are different, some things are the same, but it certainly wasn’t a boring year.

I know that anymore, I rarely stick to the topic of this blog, which is crafts. That’s because I’d never post in here if I did, you know? I don’t do enough crafty things part of the year to keep this going if that’s all I ever talk about. Anyway, I seem to get some really crazy, and unrelated search referrals from this blog. I like to look at them about once a month because they really do make me laugh. I get stuff like:

Lye Flavor Oil (WTF? Ewwwwwww!!)
Raising a Coyote (no, I have cats & a dog, honest)
Hemp Solid Perfume (I’m not sure hemp has a fragrance, do you mean hemp oil?)
conversion rate optimization (I don’t even know what that means?!)
Dyane Giant Women (did you just call me fat?)
Bubbles Witch (I think that may be the name of an ummm.. adult film)
Dyane Downs (She spells it Diane, and she’s evil)

See what I mean, though? A couple of them could be considered crafty, but for the most part, they really aren’t. And Diane Downs? Creepy, I promise, if you don’t know who she is google her. I promise, all of my kids survived to adulthood.

I think I’ve finally figured it out! The key to steady & healthy weight loss, at least for me, is watching my fat & calories & trying very hard to be as active as I possibly can every day. I honestly believe that a healthy diet & moderate exercise is the very best weight loss pills I could possibly hope for. I’ve been having a lot of good results from our new diet & really, it’s not a big hassle and we’re still able to have foods that we enjoy.

I was starting to feel very hopeless and that my only option was an expensive surgery that my insurance wasn’t going to pay for & that we would never be able to afford on our own. In a way, Troy’s surgery saved both f our lives, because his surgeon stepped in & demanded that Troy change the way he was eating & I’m fairly stubborn, I refuse to cook different types of food for different people, so everyone in this house eats the way Troy has to eat now.

I finally finished my Christmas shopping yesterday. I’ve been done with Troy & the kids for awhile, but I needed to get a gift for my sister-in-law (we draw names) and one for my friend Vicki (we also draw names). I had looked a ll over Walmart & hadn’t found anything that I really wanted to get for either one of them. I wanted whatever they got to be special & at least remindthem of me when they looked at it. Mass produced just wasn’t going to do it for me this time. I took Dawn & Rhi with me & we headed downtown yesterday, braving the freezing wind & impending snowstorm.

I found several things that were nice right away, but nothing that was perfect, so we kept looking. In the second store we were in, I found an pretty awesome gift for my sister-in-law, and I really hope she likes it. After a few stores, Rhi found the perfect gift for Vicki, so I grabbed that, but I wanted something else to go with it & was having a really hard time finding something. I thought about a magnetic bracelet, but I wasn’t sure she’d wear it. I found some lovely stained glass, but none of it seemed perfect for her. I did finally settle on something, and I hope she really likes her gifts, at the very least, I put a lot of thought into them!

When I was still having babies, I used to lust after all of the cool things I saw people getting at baby showers. Cute clothes, swings, high chairs, blankets, toys.. you know, all of that stuff that gets pricey to buy as a new parent. Well, I never had a baby shower, not even after 3 kids. I never really got much in the way of swings or high chairs for my kids, although a former friend made an afghan & a wall hanging when I had Rhi. Other than that, I was pretty much on my own.

I’ve always enjoyed shopping for baby gifts, and always try to include something for the new mommy in the gift, as well, because most of the time, new parents get forgotten in the excitement of the new arrival. I love to make cute personalized baby gifts, too. Sometimes I make taggy blankets in colors to match the nursery & then I put the baby’s name on it, or a cute set of booties & matching blanket with a name. Plaques with the baby’s name are really cute & fun to make, too. I think I enjoy doing it so much because I never got anything like that back in the day, you know?

I swear, some times, there aren’t enough hours in the day, and on others, there are way too many. I think when I’m trying to avoid doing the menial things like cleaning the faucet, or sweeping the floor and all of that stuff, the day just drags. When I’m having fun & not wanting it to end, the day seems to fly, like today. We went to a friend’s house at 10 this morning, and the next time I looked at my phone it was almost 5 & we really didn’t want to leave. We did, because we had other plans for the evening, but man, none of us really wanted to go.

We had a fun time tonight, but it wasn’t as relaxed & laid back as this afternoon was. I think there was just a different feeling in the two different situations, one of them had no stress or anything & the other one kind of did. There are kind of awkward things going on in the group, so there are people who won’t be around other people, which makes those of us who don’t take most things too seriously feel kind of trapped & caught in the middle at times, you know?