Category: Life

New Year’s Eve. Another year gone. Another year on the horizon. Life is full of unexpected joys and tragedies. Blahblahblah …

I won’t bore you with yet another post about another year ending. I’m not trying to trivialize time or memories here, I’m simply not the type of person who dwells on the past. What’s done is done. I tend to look more toward the future – in fact, too much so. I am usually so focused on the future that I forget the past.

And that’s not necessarily a good thing. Hence, this blog. 🙂

Though I have no intentions of writing a deep, meaningful post (as if I’m capable of that anyway) about how it’s so important to savor every waking moment we have on this Earth (and it truly IS important), I would like to share what’s uppermost on my mind: my body and how it’s aging.

How narcissistic of me, I know. But really, when your body betrays you and you have pain, pain that you can never quite get rid of no matter what you do, no matter how much medication you take (which I don’t, normally), or what position you try, it’s hard to think of anything else. It’s so hard to distract yourself, or fool yourself, into thinking or doing anything else.

Like right now. I’m sitting here and I’m semi-comfortable. It hurts less if I sit. But the pain is there, just beyond my reach and occasionally, a ripple travels down my back and pools into the base of my spine and I not only see stars, I see their moons, too. And my head feels like it’s floating just above my shoulders, like a balloon bobbing above a distracted toddler who barely has a hold of the string.

But then it passes and my vision clears and I’m granted a slight physical reprieve until the next ripple rips through me.

I’m an old woman. Oh wait, that’s already been established. But I’m FEELING like an old woman today. I’m hobbling. I’m unable to walk upright. And I’m spontaneously jerking in response to my body trying to tell me to get off my feet and rest.

*snort* As if THAT was going to happen.

It’s embarrassing. And it disturbs me when I see the look of concern cross my children’s faces when they see mom acting like she just got electrified every few steps. But I’m not stopping. I don’t stop for anyone or anything and that includes a little (okay, a lot) physical discomfort. For those just joining us, my back has betrayed me.

It does this periodically though I like to fool myself into thinking I have this aging body under control, alas, it occasionally rebels against me. It’s rebelling now and I’ll be a monkey’s uncle if I let it get me down – literally.

However, I AM so very, very, thankful that I work at home and can grit my teeth and swallow my humiliation in private as opposed to working outside the home. I’m so very, very thankful that I have a husband who supports what I do and is okay with me staying home and doing it. Enduring this physical discomfort is hell out in public.

And I know this. Because I’ve endured this when I did work outside the home. Because when my back went out, I didn’t call into work sick. I didn’t take the time to feel sorry for myself. I simply ignored it and went about my business and waited until I got home to collapse into a painful coma.

Ah, memories.

I’m very stubborn, if you haven’t picked up on that by now. *grin* I’m a pretty easy-going, fair-minded individual when it comes to my family and the people around me. I even have (some) sympathy for the pain of others. But when it comes to me, to my own body, I have no patience for my own weakness. In fact, it just disgusts me. I have no idea why I’m like this, but like this I am.

I was craving Krispy Kreme donuts this morning. I was craving them so badly that my mouth actually watered thinking about them. (Like now, for instance). But I hadn’t taken a shower yet so I thought, “I’ll take a shower and then make a donut run.”

Until I stripped off all of my clothes and looked at myself in the mirror.

Now we all know when it comes to looking at ourselves naked there’s the glance and then there’s the look. Most days, I’m distracted, thinking about my day, thinking about what I need to do next, what’s for dinner, yaddayaddayadda and when I strip down I glance at my body, not really seeing it.

But then, like today, there are days when I’m forced to pay attention to my body and I really take a gander at this lump of flesh I like to call home.

I am not fat. I am not skinny. I’m … gropeable, if that’s even a word. My husband has a little something to hang onto, let’s put it that way. When I sit, I have a roll. In fact, I’m a perfect pear shape when I sit down. My torso stays intact, the bottom half of my body sort of spreads out and pools, like a teaspoon of oil on a hot skillet.

It’s not exactly nasty, but I won’t be modeling for Victoria’s Secret anytime soon.

I’ve always been a bit bottom heavy – genetics. I can get my torso in pretty good shape with minimal effort, but my hips and abdomen take A LOT more work. And even then, it’s never really “in shape.”

It took me years, and countless hours of working out and tubs full of sweat to finally figure out this is just how I’m built. I can tone, I can improve, but I can not change what I am.

I stood there, critically giving my body the once over and tried to look past society’s definition of beauty and find my own beauty; the beauty that is uniquely my own.

For example, the weird/cute/strange bump on my tailbone. A bump that probably shouldn’t be there but has been there ever since I fell off a six-foot ladder and landed squarely on my back.

Or how about the fingers of bleached out, stretched out skin that curl and embrace either hip or the sagging, wrinkled skin just under my belly button, or the dimples in my arse, just under the roundness of my buttocks – all battle scar reminders of bearing two children.

Or the curious little pouch of skin just above the area where my pubic bone meets my thigh bones and has just appeared in the past few years.

As I stood in front of the mirror this morning and analyzed every possible angle, I concluded that my body is … rather nice even with all of my flaws. It’s average. It’s been a good home to me over the years. Sure, there have been times it’s broken down (like now) or needed a tune up (like after I had children), but overall, it’s been good to me.

It’s disease free. It houses healthy organs. It cradles a strong heart. It safely gets me through each day. So what that it gives me the occasional ache and pain – when compared to so many people who are in serious physical trouble, what I’m feeling is inconsequential. The least I can do is grin and bear it.

The thought of so many people who have SERIOUS problems with their bodies, the thought of these poor people is what gets me through these uncomfortable days. So I have sinus problems, so I have back problems, so my digestive system is flawed, so what? At least I don’t have AIDS. Or cancer. At least I can see, hear and touch my loved ones. At least I have organs that function and never fail me.

And that’s the sorts of things I think about at the beginning of a new year. The fact that I have my health and that though my body is imperfect and occasionally gives me problems? I thank God for my health and I thank God for the health of my family.

The new year will begin. I will get over this back pain. And life will go on.

Right?

I am not a clean freak, but I have a limit to how much clutter and crap I’ll accept lying around before I’ve had enough.

I’ve had enough.

I’m cranky. I’m on edge. And I’m feeling very impatient largely due to my chaotic surroundings. I have stuff jammed into each corner of my house. Our Christmas decorations are still up. There are clothes and pillows and shoes all over the place. There are bags of used, crumpled gift wrapping I need to throw away. Actually, there are bags of trash I need to throw away along with boxes to tear down and throw away. Our refrigerator is overflowing with food, I have a tin (half) full of fudge that I MUST finish off today so I can stop thinking about eating it and then feeling guilty about eating it.

In short? My house is in need of some TLC but I can’t really get to it right now because my nephews are still here and cleaning up now would mean I would have to clean up again after they left and it makes me REALLY cranky when I have to do something twice.

So, I’ll grit my teeth and take it on the chin until I have a chance to clean up.

It’s no one’s fault my house looks like this – it always looks like this after the holidays. And I guess I’m just not used to it being so … well, cluttered for lack of a better term.

I feel disoriented when my house is out of control like this. Which is really confusing to admit because trust me when I say, I am not a clean freak. I leave that title to my husband.

But this time of year? I get a bit crazy about the cleaning and making sure everything is put back into place, which is hard because now we have new stuff – stuff that I’m not SURE where to put. So, it sits there until I can’t take it anymore and then I stuff it into a corner and forget about it until summer time when my husband is sick of looking at it and forces me to FIND places for the new stuff.

It’s not that we have too much stuff, it’s that I don’t know where to put the new stuff that we have. It’s like I have a brain fart or something when it comes to organization – I just sort of freeze and stare at it like it’s an alien being or something – thank God my husband does the organizing around here or I’d be one of those odd people you hear about on the news who has all sorts of crap piled up to their ceiling but their closets are empty.

And I’ve been a workout fiend since Christmas. I can’t stop moving because if I stop moving, then all the gooey, delicious sweets I’ve been shoving into my mouth will catch up to me and it’ll be that much harder to work off when I get serious about doing so.

So I eat fudge, cookies and candy and then promptly get on the treadmill and walk for 90 minutes. Perhaps I should just kill two birds with one stone and eat WHILE I’m walking on the treadmill.

I’m usually so careful about what sorts of junk food I eat, how much I eat and WHEN I eat it. For example, if I had some junk food one day, then I’ll take a break from junk food and not eat any of it for a few days before the next binge. And in that time period, I’ll work out combining Turbo Jam with the treadmill.

This sounds neurotic, I realize, but it works for me.

But then the holidays come around and all of the delicious gooey junk food stares me in the face and overpowers my senses so rapidly that before I know it, I’ve left tread marks on the backs of small children just so I can get to the crap that much faster.

The fantastic, melt-in-your-mouth, delicious, fattening, I’ve died and gone to heaven crap.

You never knew the holidays messed me up so badly, did you. 😀

So *taking a deep breath* I’m feeling a bit calmer now and forcing myself to relax and shrug this impatience off. We have already made plans to take decorations down and put the house back into order tomorrow after Bible study (well, the guys don’t know we’re doing that yet, but suffice it to say, it WILL happen), so I just need to chill out and enjoy the chaos for a few more hours because in the grand scheme of things?

Holidays are messy, no matter how you look at them. *smile*

And …

And …

And I CAN NOT write any more until I eat more fudge.

I need help!

And a napkin.

Make that two napkins. *blush*

I’m trying to systematically move all of the posts worth saving from my old blogs to this blog – this could take a while, then again, maybe not. *grin* So please, bear with me as I post some old stuff.

Originally published January 25, 2006.

I randomly ran across the photo on the left (sorry, I didn’t keep the link) and it reminded me of a piece Mushroom King brought home from art class. They look similar, don’t you think? I thought MK did a pretty good job capturing the 3D look. I could never do this as a child (heck I still can’t do it) so I was dutifully impressed. (If you look at MK’s drawing long enough, your eyes cross. Cooool 🙂 )

And speaking of art; for those Oprah fans out there this is probably old news, but I stumbled onto child prodigy Akaine Kramarik’s website and was awe-struck at this 11/12 year old girl’s talent. Below is a drawing she did AT THE AGE OF 4.

Did you read that? Four people. I almost don’t believe it. It doesn’t seem like a four-year-old would have the motor skills necessary to draw something like this. But this is nothing, if you want to see some truly amazing work, visit her site and take a gander.

Before we get started, please run your mouse over the below video and hit the pause button. I’ve embedded this from Flickr and though I love Flickr, their slideshows are formatted to automatically play and I don’t know about you, but that personally drives me crazy. 🙂

Link to Flickr slideshow. (The embed code is acting squirrelly, so I’ll just link to it – problem solved).

Sorry about that.

So, here we are, the day after Christmas and all through my house, I have four teenage boys and one missing husband. My sister’s boys are spending a few days with us before they go over to their dad’s house and the husband had to work.

*sad face*

The day has been pretty quiet. The boys are busy playing with new games, I’m busy cleaning off camera cards and straightening up the house.

We had a really relaxing Christmas. I was the first one up though I suspect MK was up but just hadn’t come out of his room. GD actually crawled out of bed at 7:00 a.m., voluntarily, which is a miracle in itself. *grin*

We dived into presents about 7:30. The boys started, as you can see in the slideshow. They didn’t get as many presents this year as in year’s past, but I don’t think they cared overly much because what they received is what they wanted.

The pictures where they are peering into a box and pulling stuff out of the box is their Dreamcast system. The husband thought it would be fun for them to play around with a different system and found a used one on EBay, along with a ton of games for it. They haven’t hooked it up yet, but when the newness wears off their other toys, I’m confident they will have fun experimenting with it.

After the boys finished their Christmas, the husband and I got started on ours. We bought each other three gifts this year. And though we had given each other a wish list and we’re pretty good at sticking to our wish lists (thereby never really being surprised, which is sort of boring), we did manage to throw in a present that we weren’t expecting.

We number our gifts. We have to. Because by the time Christmas rolls around we have forgotten what we bought each other and we spend precious time Christmas morning trying to figure out which one we want the other one to open first.

So, the husband’s number one gift? Was the one he wasn’t expecting. I bought him Ace Combat (for the XBox) and Brain Age 2. The husband really enjoys flight games and he’s a puzzle guy so I thought that would be something fun for him to occupy his “down” time. (He always has to be busy doing something).

Gift #2 are the speakers. He enjoys creating, and playing, music. And these speakers are apparently specially made for this sort of thing. When he first found the speakers on Musician’s Friend, he actually salivated, he was so excited to buy them. I talked him into allowing Santa to bring him the speakers. So even though I didn’t come right out and say, “Honey, I bought those speakers for you”, he knew he would get them at some point.

Gift #3 was something on his wish list but not something he really expected to receive. My husband has always had a thing for photography. In fact, that was one of the main things we had in common when we first started dating. We would take off on the weekends and experiment taking photos of nature and each other.

And we’ve always had an interest in taking portraits. Last year, my husband went over to play photographer for his sister’s family and when he came home, he told me about their professional light set up. Ever since then, we’ve wanted photography lights. So, that’s what he got for Christmas – a set of professional photography lights complete with shades and umbrellas. I’m looking forward to playing around with that.

The three gifts the husband gave me were:

Gift #1: A jacket vest and pretty pink slippers from Land’s End. I sort of have a slipper fetish and it’s becoming a tradition that I receive one new pair of slippers each Christmas. (Since I work from home and am always home, I go through slippers pretty fast). I can’t wait to break them in.

Gift #2: A Canon A590 PowerShot camera. Again, we’re back to the photography interest. I have used a PowerShot A40 for a number of years. And it’s a great camera. But I wanted a camera that had a video function – something that I could record videos on and then easily transfer to my computer and upload. This Canon A590 has that function. I haven’t had a chance to play around with the video yet, but brace yourself – it’s only a matter of time. 😀 The camera is also small enough that I will be able to easily carry it in my purse. Of course, this means I’ll have to buy a snazzy case to go with it.

Darn. 😉

Gift #3: Was a “I can’t believe he carried it off” surprise.

It was a Kindle e-reader.

Though I had put a Kindle on my wish list, come on, there was no way that was going to happen. One, the price. Two, they’re out of stock right now.

So, when I opened my last gift and saw the Kindle, I was speechless.

Which is really saying something, let me assure you. *grin*

Actually, it’s a refurbished Kindle. Someone had returned it; the Kindle people had fixed it up and then offered it for sale at a reduced cost.

The husband snatched it up. I love refurbished stuff! And I’m LOVING my Kindle! I can’t wait to fill this baby up.

After we finished with our gifts, we cleaned up and my folks and nephews came over. We ate turkey/ham sandwiches, potato salad and chips and dip for lunch (no one wanted to cook and honestly, I’d RATHER have sandwiches) and then we watched the boys open their gifts from grandma and grandpa.

We then exchanged our gag gifts. There are different ways to play the gag gift exchange, but we followed my nephew A’s rules. His version went something like this:

The person who drew the number 1 got to go first. (that was me)

I picked a package from the pile in the middle and kept it, without unwrapping it.

The person who had number 2, could either pick a gift from the stack or take my gift. If he/she took my gift, then I would pick another gift.

And so on, so on. Then, when we were done exchanging (i.e. stealing each other’s gifts), we opened them.

There was one package that was quite obviously a calendar. No one really wanted the calendar, but my mother kept telling MK, he REALLY needed that calendar. He would begin to exchange it but grandma would say, “No MK, trust me. You REALLY want to hang on to that gift.”

Finally, he decided to keep it. And when we opened them up? It was a girly calendar!! HAHAHA!! He’ll never trust grandma again!

MK tore one corner of the gift, saw what it was and threw it down like it had suddenly grown fangs and was about to bite him. His face turned beet red and he shook his head. “Nuh uh, I don’t want that!”

We had quite a laugh at poor MK’s expense, but he was a good sport about it. It’s not that MK doesn’t like girls, he does, girls his age. But half-dressed women? He wasn’t sure what to do with that staring at him in the face.

We all burst out laughing again when GD (to my UTTER ASTONISHMENT) picked it up and said, “Then I’ll take it!” HAHAHAHA!

It was all in good fun and MK actually walked away with a fun gag gift (GD and MK swapped gifts). The other really funny moment was when my husband opened up the gift that M brought to the game – dancing hula girls. You know, the kind you put on your dashboard? That was hilarious and it couldn’t have gone to a better person. *grin*

My nephew, M, was quite proud of his gag gift and indeed, it was one of the best ones. I think we’ll hang on to the hula girls and re-gift it to someone else next year.

Shh.

After we finished our games, we dived into my mom’s goodies she brought with her. There were all sorts of cookies, candies, fudge and pie (she brought a raspberry cheesecake that was to die for!!) and I ate so much that I felt guilty and worked it all off (mostly). In fact, mom left the fudge with me, so I have a feeling I’ll be working out every night this entire week to stay on top of those calories.

But oh, they are so worth it.

That brings us up to today. It’s a mild 60 degrees today and to my complete surprise, the boys stopped playing games, put on their shoes and are currently walking around the neighborhood. (We have a firehouse a block up from our house with a track, swings and a slide. I’m sure they’re having fun goofing off there).

GD took our video camera *gulp* so there’s no telling what sort of video he’ll bring back. If it’s not too silly, I might post a portion of it.

It’s 1:48 and I can’t believe this day is already half over. I’m feeling pretty sleepy now and I might go take a nap, once the boys get back. I never sleep very well when we have company stay the night … but I’ve talked about that before.

It’s also hard to believe that Christmas 2008 is over. I swear, we just put the tree up yesterday (actually, it was a month ago) and before we can blink three times, Christmas 2009 will be here.

Our family dynamic is changing. The boys are getting older and we’re getting one step closer to new faces (girlfriends) joining our little clan.

I’m ready, I think. I used to sort of freak out at the thought of the boys bringing a girl into our holidays, but … well, that’s bound to happen sooner or later, right? I suppose I need to get over myself and just deal with it.

I hope you had a great Christmas! If you wrote about it on your blog, or if you want to share your Christmas in the comments, please do! I’d love to read all about it.

If you’re still celebrating the holidays, happy holidays!

ADDED: Oops! I forgot to tell you this part … there are several pictures of GD and my nephew, A, opening several gifts. They are actually opening the same gift, it’s just that every time they opened one part, there was a smaller wrapped part inside. They did this about four times before they finally got to the tiniest gift, a folded up $50 dollar bill. This, of course, was another one of my mother’s brilliant ideas because hello?! What do you give an 18-year old and a 16-year old? Exactly. Money. Good one mom, what a great Christmas memory.

Excuse me, I feel a fudge run coming on.

*ahem*

We use two sets of stockings at my house – the stocking for show and the stocking that Santa fills.

See the pretty needlepoint stocking? I bought that, and three other pretty stockings like that, from Lands End years ago. Those are the stockings we hang on the fireplace mantle every year.

And for years, Santa tried to stuff those stockings. Only, they aren’t very big so a lot of times, the stocking stuffers didn’t fit and had to be placed next to the stockings as opposed to in the stockings.

I had it on very good authority that Santa? Was a tad irritated with our stockings and threatened not to stuff anymore of our stockings unless we did something about it.

Enter the red, felt stocking in the picture. As you can see, they are WAY bigger than the needlepoint stockings and can hold a smorgasbord of odds and ends – Santa was very happy and has been stuffing the toe of those stockings for a few years now. (They magically appear Christmas morning. I had to talk Santa into allowing me to take a picture of this stocking with the promise that I would return it as soon as possible).

He just stuffs the toe of the stocking because to stuff the whole stocking? Would end up costing more than all the other gifts Santa brings us – combined.

I actually got these huge red felt stockings from my mother (Santa just borrows them, you see). My mother is the stocking QUEEN in our family.

In fact, she’s quite famous for her stockings and even though we laugh and joke about how her stockings are the best part of Christmas, we’re actually being serious.

Her stockings ROCK.

For as long as I can remember, my mother has made our stockings special. She would stay up all night and wrap scores of little dollar store gifts to put into our stockings. And after the regular gifts had been unwrapped, we eagerly anticipated burying our heads into our stockings to see what sort of goodies were nestled inside.

As the family grew and me and my siblings got married and had children, the stockings got a bit out of control. Instead of wrapping a few little gifts for three stockings, now my mother wraps about 20 gifts for 12 stockings – each.

And the kicker? They were always different every year. One year they were burlap sacks, another year they were the red felt stockings. And I can’t think of any others off the top of my head, but they were always so cool and very impressive lined up against one wall just waiting for us to tear into.

And the funny thing is? The gifts are all something small and useful – like toothbrushes, calculators, measuring tapes, address books, tire gauges, insurance holders, a can of peanuts … just a variety of things we use everyday but never think to buy.

Yet we LOVE her stockings. There’s something so fun about tearing into all those little gifts and KNOWING we’ll use them at some point in the next year.

And there’s always one more surprise buried among the other gifts, like a gift card, or some money, or a cute coffee mug or just something we’re not expecting.

My husband especially loves the stockings. My mother doesn’t believe me when I tell her this, but honest to God, he really enjoys her stockings. After all, this stuff is right up his alley – things he can, and does, use on a daily basis. In fact, half of the things in our garage are from my mother’s stockings.

Christmas will be a little different this year. Not everyone can make it down so it’s going to be a much smaller group than we’re used to. But one thing I hope stays the same? My mom’s stockings. I can’t wait to see what she comes up with this year.

Thanks for making our Christmases so special, mom!

This is the article I referred to yesterday. It was originally published on my self-hosted blog, November 30, 2006.

We’re either incredibly smart, or incredibly stupid. I haven’t decided yet.

If you haven’t been keeping up with this blog, let me fill you in: this year’s HOTHOTHOT toy is the Nintendo Wii. At least, it is for our boys and judging by the fact that NO ONE in town seems to have any stock and HAS NO IDEA when they might be getting more, the rest of Springfield thinks so too.

Before I tell you what we’ve gone and done (and I’m betting those out there that know me or have been reading my blog for any length of time can guess), let me explain something. I’m a strict mother. I am a controlling person and when it comes to my boys, I’m rather a dictator, if you want the bald honest truth.

As a result, the boys always look to me before answering someone else’s question or they come to me to ask for simple things, like snacks. On one hand, this is a good thing, I can keep track of them. On the other, it’s not because I’m stifling them as people and I need to loosen up and let them grow up (which I’m getting better at).

I have those kids under my thumb. Or, at least I thought so until recently. I think in reality, they have me wrapped around their little fingers.

My husband and I take GREAT pride in trying to make every Christmas memorable for our boys. And every year, without fail, they hug us and tell us that this year “was the best Christmas ever.” It warms a parent’s heart to hear those words, see their glowing, happy faces and know in our hearts that we are providing them with happy memories.

We have great kids, not perfect, but great. They care what we think about them and they strive to do their best because they want to please us. They rarely give us problems, they have compassion and are kind to others, which seems to be an essential ingredient lacking in our youth today. We rarely buy them anything unless it’s a birthday or Christmas. They don’t receive an allowance because we feel if they want something, they can do some extra chores, or work extra hard to bring a grade up and we’ll “pay” them with the item they want.

Considering they don’t receive material items very often, birthdays and Christmases are a HUGE deal to them. The only thing both of them want this year, is a Nintendo Wii. That’s it. And maybe the Zelda game so they will have something other than the sports games that come with the system to play. The Wii’s are not cheap. In fact, if Santa brings them a Wii for Christmas, it will easily be the most expensive gift Santa has ever brought. (Until Christmas 2007 when Santa brought an XBox).

We sat and down and talked to the boys. Santa is not made of money. IF (and we’re talking a big IF because every other gamer child wants one too and no one has them in stock) Santa brings them a Wii, they can’t expect many more presents on top of that.

They don’t care. All they want is the Wii. Oh sure, they’ve put more things on their wish lists, but the bottom line? Screw everything else, they want a Wii.

What’s a parent to do? Every parent out there knows it’s part of our parental makeup to want to please our children. What parent wants to experience that look of disappointment Christmas morning when they didn’t receive the ONE gift they wanted more than anything else? My husband STILL talks about the Christmas he wanted something, more than anything, and didn’t get it. I wouldn’t say it warped him, but it certainly left an impression.

So what did we do, you ask. We bought a Wii on EBay. Yep, we paid a little more than retail for it. Yep, we caved in to our children’s wishes. Yep, they will have another one of the “best Christmases ever.”

We debated back and forth, back and forth, about the logic behind buying on EBay. First, there’s the trust issue. We examined each dealer carefully making sure they had good feedback (we won’t accept anything under 98% positive). We kept on eye on the price. We bid and held our breaths. We had an absolute ball doing it together. We lost one bid by one penny. That’s an experience we’ll talk about for the rest of our lives. We won our bid by one dollar and one penny. We can rest easy (and breathe easy when we actually receive it).

Here’s our rationale for going this route. Is it worth our time to call every retail store in town, every day, sometimes twice a day, to see if anyone has a system? Are we willing to gamble on the fact that IF we find some we’ll be able to drive over there in time to get one? Is it worth our time to stand in line for 12 hours? Is it worth the stress of going through all of this?

No, we decided. It was not worth it to us. We would rather spend the extra money than go through all of that. I realize some of you may feel differently, and that’s fine, but to us, it was worth it. We’re also looking at it as, we’re paying this person for the time he had to spend to get the system (because he claims he DID stand in line 12 hours. His time is worth something, right?)

So, there you have it. We caved. We surrendered. But we can now breathe easier because this means the kids’ Christmas has been taken care of.

We also learned something else by this experience: the couple who EBay together, stay together. 😀

Christmas song #23 It’s Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas by Harry Connick Jr.