Tomorrow is the first day of a new year! 2003! I hope it brings us a lot of joy and peace. I've been 'surfing the net' to find cool graphics places and came upon quite a few. I will add them to OttO's Faves today. I need to replace the Christmas graphics links with some of these places. I woke up with the worst sore throat this morning. It came on fast. Last night I could feel my throat hurting and this morning when I woke up it felt mostly closed up. I downed some orange juice, an advil and a vitamin E and laid down for a while. I got up around 10:00 and felt better. So far I still feel better. Last night Linda and Dave came over and we played games. It was a good time. Alex had a friend over and we all stayed up a little too late but everyone was up and ready to go quite early. Alex and I made chex mix (after I called Mom for the recipe) and it came out pretty good! Thanks Mom! I have one more day off before it's "back to the grindstone" and I must say, I am enjoying this time. I was busier than I thought I'd be for my week and a half off, but it was a good kind of busy. I'm going to work on my other site now. I just don't feel like it's much to look at but I'll get something there that interests you I hope. Later!

Guess what we just made? Chex Mix!! Yes, for our family gathering on Saturday. It's gonna be good!!! The kitchen is not my "room of choice" of all the rooms in the house but we had fun with this. I even asked Dad to take pictures because it's not something you're going to see much. I hope everyone had a good Christmas day; remember, Christmas season is not over. Enjoy all your days off from work and even the days you do work, I guess. It's just that the ones you don't have to work on seem to be much more fun. I gotta get off this computer. Here comes Mom................................

Alex just created a new blog. It's really cute!!!! I wike it a wot!!!! Here is the link: Alex's Blog. And if you have links to our blogs on your page, please change her url. It's Christmas Eve and I'm curling ribbon. I usually stay up until 3:00 in the morning doing that but I got smart. (ha, ha) I guess tonight I"ll be sleeping at 3:00 a.m. We went to see "Santa Claus II" yesterday afternoon and it was a cute movie. Well, I have to get back to my packages! Merry Christmas!

Sometimes I go days before blogging and sometimes I don't. That's not as profound as I wanted it to sound. I just had a really good chat with three of my sisters. It was really fun!!! (I hope they read this.) It's a good way to keep in touch! I also just visited my little sister's blog and it is touching. You should go there and read it if you haven't yet. I try to visit eveyone's blogspots on a regular basis and I think it's another good way to keep in touch. We were chatting about that tonight a bit. I think we all agreed that it's a good way to get your feelings out and it's thearaputic. It's another way of journaling. I tried that a few times and never really got very far but this is a much faster, more convenient way to do basically the same thing. My entries here aren't always interesting, but it's what's on my mind. It's good to write about it. So if you haven't blogged for a while, go to your blog and start typing. Just write what's on your mind and don't worry about what others are going to think. As granni39 and Nike says, "JUST DO IT!"

The roads were so icey yesterday that most of the schools were closed in the area. That meant I didn't have to go to work, except I had so much work to do that I couldn't NOT go in. I ended up going in at 10:45 a.m. It was kind of nice to just sit around in my "jammies" for a while in the morning though. As of Monday at 3:30 p.m. I will be on "Christmas break." Yay!! Does everybody have their shopping done? I have a couple more things to get and I'm done! I've been doing extra "jobs" to earn some extra cash for Christmas and it's really helped. It's kept me quite busy but I know that's just temporary. I'm looking forward to our family gathering on the 28th. I wonder what I'm bringing.............I better find out. Maybe it's on sfc; I'll have to check. Later!

Wow! 5 days since my last blog! Sorry to anyone who checks this regularly. It's not because my days haven't been good. They've just been very busy. This past weekend I designed, printed and cut 100 business cards, took 59 pictures of two boys, edited, and printed thirty-two 5x7's, took 33 pictures of a baby and edited and printed twelve wallets and three 5x7's, made a dozen ornaments, went to the Saginaw Zoo, went to a staff Christmas party, went through five months of cancelled checks and check registers for St. John's to see if there were any more checks written that didn't show up on our accounting program, and finished addressing and mailing my Christmas cards. Believe me, I didn't spend much time on the computer. I'm trying to get all my work done at St. John's this week so I can take next Monday off. If it works, I'll have the whole week off! I'm not sure if that's possible but I'm sure going to try. I have to get some sleep right now. I'm hoping to update my SS. Simon and Jude site tomorrow and my Ottosite also. Don't give up on me!

Some days are better than others. Today wasn't one of the "good" days. I'm going to wake up with a positive attitude tomorrow and I just know it will go better than today did. My kid told me something very valuable tonight. She said, "Mom, slow down and enjoy life. You move too fast. When you get old you're going to be sitting there wondering where the time went. It's sickening!" She's 13. Why does she know so much? It's not always easy to slow down and I think I do enjoy life, but I know she's right in what she's saying. I'm going to work on that.................seriously work on that.

14 days until Christmas! Can you believe it??? It's been a busy week so far and it doesn't look like things are going to slow down soon. I did get my Christmas cards printed and most of them put together. Now I just have to mail them. I changed my goal to Friday because I have a house to clean again on Wednesday and a Parish Council meeting on Thursday. Of course I have to watch Survivor when I get home from the meeting. They say there's only two episodes left but there's 5 people left. I don't understand unless they're going to have a double show one week. I kind of hope Brian wins but I think his wife is a bit of an "air-head." She wouldn't even try to eat a water bug for him! (he,he) I got my Christmas shopping done for ME! I bought myself a new gadget and I got it for a real good price after rebates. I love rebates. I just wish they'd all come at the same time. Then it would seem like you get more money. I know it sounds anal, but hey, that's what I think! I gotta get some sleep now. Goodnight!

Well I didn't go to bed after all. I just HAD to change my colors! I tried to get as close to "Christmas" green as I could this late at night. Maybe I'll change it to a darker green tomorrow. NOW I'm done.

P.S. It didn't take me 2 hours this time. It only took 1/2 hour! The key is to print out your html code and make notes on it! It works for me!

I started creating my Christmas cards today. I hope to have them in the mail by the middle of the week. It almost seems too early to mail them but it's not. Just two and a half weeks and it will be Christmas. I did a little bit of shopping today when I dropped the kids off to the mall. It was still early enough that there weren't a "million" people out yet. You gotta wonder what kind of spirit some of these people have. I don't think it's the Christmas spirit. I go shopping when I'm "in the mood" and in a good mood. I can't see going out there fighting crowds and having a horrible attitude while shopping for Christimas. Unfortunately many people do. These next couple of weeks are going to be busy at work. Since I don't work on Fridays, the week of Christmas and the week of New Year's Day will be a one-day week (because I get the week between Christmas and New Year's off.) But for that very reason, I get to take an extra day somewhere to make up for the Friday that falls between those two holidays because it should be a paid holiday for me and I get it off anyway. Well, I had a good day today and expect tomorrow will be a good day too. Enjoy your Sunday!

Colds.............I hate them! We're supposed to be able to breathe out of our noses, right? Well, that's definitely something I take for granted until I get a cold. The worst part is trying to sleep (which, by the way, I should probably do soon.)

There's so much to do and so little time to do it. I must say though, I feel pretty good about what I've accomplished this week. I've finished 3 pages in my "Georgia" photo album, started a new website (but need some help in order to let you see it), and at work was able to start re-entering info (that we've lost 3 times) onto my computer. We were six months behind on our contribution information because the program kept messing up. Well, I've installed the program on my new computer and it seems to be working ok (knock on wood.) Now we're only 4 and a half months behind and by this time next week we should be all caught up. Gotta go!

Thanksgiving was a wonderful day!!! I enjoyed my whole family getting together and visiting. I left feeling very happy. The next day Alex and I went to Patti's to do some scrapbooking. That was a good day too. I didn't get much done on my album, but Alex finished her Georgia album. We still had fun and it motivated me to keep working on it through the weekend. I don't know what happened to Saturday but we didn't do much; just relaxed, went to church, relaxed some more. Sunday I worked on the computer for a long time and decided it was time to take a break from what I was working on and come back to it later. Alex and I put up our Christmas tree (don't worry, it's fake) and all our Christmas decorations. Of course you know we have to listen to Christmas music to get more in the spirit. Alex was anxious to get our decorations out so we did and spent a good portion of the day doing it. I planned on working on my photo album but didn't really get to that until evening. That's ok. I'm glad we did what we did. I worked on my album some more today until just now when I decided to blog. I haven't done that since Thanksgiving!! Oh, and I updated the SS. Simon and Jude site. I found some pretty interesting sites while searching for Advent stuff. Tomorrow is back to work! Well, without work, there would be no play, right? Goodnight.

Oh, speaking of Christmas, I have to change my colors!!!!