This Bear Bites!

Ten lord's a-leaping
ten campers camping, at the KOA

You can tell we were there - look at the skies.

Have a Holly Jolly Christmas!
Praise God - the holidays are almost over! Somehow, praising God for ending holidays, doesn't seem right; but then they have become about a lot more than God and the birth of His Son.
Not always right, but not always wrong either.
We can love each other and show our love for each other because He first loved us. Children learn everything from their parents.

T'was the night before Christmas
And all through the house, nobody seemed to care, but Rob played with me nice. I got out my video camera and everyone protests, "Not me"! Didn't slow me down much. Ryan and Rob tagged teamed on the computer getting all the new bells and whistles going. I have been without my computer for over 24 hours. It was pretty rough!
Willie hid in his room most of the evening.
Rob and Sandra did watch a couple of Christmas movies with us. We had to throw our weight around, but we finally got everyone to the living room (close to midnight) for presents. Other than that it was a full evening of too much food and too much eggnog.
Rand surprised me with a Christmas tree cookie jar. A long time ago I was admiring it and may have made a promise about having endless fresh home-made cookies in it. It reminds me of a ceramic Christmas tree my grandma had.
An even bigger surprise - Rand got me was ~Chanel #5~! I have longed for it forever, but never have owned it. I call it catnip for women.
I got him a 4x4 diesel F350 Ford and a new Sprinter 5th wheel.

Over the river and through the woods
Okay - the trip to my folks is always over the river, and if we went through Propsect Park it would be sort of through the woods. No horses anywhere in sight though. We did see a couple of guys out with new snowboards in the neighborhood. Both were in Santa hats. One of them was in shorts.
We all overslept here. Rand and I were the first to wake up well after 10am! We got the kids up and quickly did the stocking thing. We are officially into the "next generation". Son Rob refused to open his stocking until we made coffee. In the past, it was always the kids that woke up parents and parents that used 'need coffee first' as a delayer.
We all eventually made our way to Grandpa & Grandma's. Both my brothers' Jeffs were there with their families. A much smaller crowd that are normally use to. We have topped 40 people, today only 16 were in attendance.
Digital cameras were the most received gift this year. Erin, Alyssa, and Derrick had all received them for Christmas. Sandra and Rand each managed to score one during the family grab bag gift exchange.

And time for cheer
The highlight of the day's comedy had to be when Grandma asked me to exchange her old purse's contents into her new purse. She had received a nice, small, leather one during the gift exchange (Very nice choice Mo! All the females wants to know where you were shopping!) Grandma's previous purse was a nice full size, had countless numbers of pockets, and weighed about 50 pounds. Not a great weight for somebody with rhuematoid arthritis and a bad back to being hauling around everyday.
The number of duplicate items I pulled out of her purse had us rolling with laughter. In the 'self care' category there were 3 combs, 3 identical lip moisteners, a lipstick - a color she didn't even like and never wore, and almost a dozen forms of breath freshener (actually only 4 forms but like: 7 of these, 2 of those.....) All that for somebody who never ever primps.
There was at least a pound of change.
It was also a time vault of various things. My favorite being a reminder for a doctor's appointment in 2001. There were also a pair of old eyeglasses she never wears anymore. Hasn't for over a year. Grandma said they were for emergencies - she is quite lost without corrective eyewear.
Trust me Mom, if you get knock in the head so hard your glasses break - you've got bigger problems than that!
When all was said and done I handed her the old and very worn purse and said to throw it away. She asked, "What about the umbrella?". After going through dozens of compartments, zippers, and such, I had missed a hidden compartment that contained an entire umbrella.
(and a quarter)
It was the purse that just wouldn't quit giving.

Nine ladies dancing

nine patriotic decorations dancing in the wind

plastic camping at it's finest
These were our neighbors at the KOA Fourth of July weekend. They had even more decorations than show in the picture. This was an interesting pop-up as well. The awning was home made and they used tire irons as anchors. They had cut a hole in the end to install the air conditioner. The decorations just added to it.
Even Girlfriend was awed by the sight. (lower part of picture)

All I want for Christmas is
BooBoo! Sandra is dilated to 2cm. Odds that she will make it to her Jan. 14th due date are slim. There is a full moon this weekend. That always did it for me.

If only in my dreams
Don, Mo, Dave, Sam, and Mary will not be able to join us for this Christmas. Don has to work.
Alan and Lesia will remain in Texas.
Rob, according to his update, is coming home as late as he possibly can and then leaving as soon as he possibly can. Where to start on the mommy guilt.......
By the way - Good job on your grades! Rob gets his brains from me.
Willie works, but the store does close early evening.
Rand actually got Christmas Eve off. He just found out today. That will be like two whole days in a row he will be home.

Christmas, Christmas time is near
Well, my Christmas present has been revealed. The kids got together, upgraded my computer, and added a DVD burner. BooBoo's home movies will be in DVD form. How cool is that! Thanks kids!

Oh bring us a figgy pudding
I've been doing a little baking this week.
I made gingerbread grizzly bears. (using a mix)
I made Rand's favorite cookie - peanut blossoms. The peanut blossoms must be made with chocolate stars, not chocolate kisses.
Tonight, I just finished another batch of gingerbread bears.
I really like gingerbread. And bears.
This time I used a recipe I found in a "fundraiser" cookbook. I absolutely love cookbooks! I can sit and read a cookbook like a fine novel - beginning to end. But I do seem to have a lot problems with finding mistaken recipes in these community cookbooks. Sometimes it is a surprise. Other times, like tonight, I know going in that isn't going to work, but want to fix it.
The recipe had almost 2 cups of moist/wet ingredients. And only 5 cups of flour. Most cake recipes aren't that moist and this is a rolled cookie dough. The amount of spices used also seemed to be excessive for the amount of flour.
This recipe needed almost twice as much flour as stated.
My bears turned out very nicely.
I was thinking - if I used this same bear cookie cutter with sugar cookies - I would have polar bears!
(Rob gets his creativity from me as well)

Eight maids a milking....

and the eighth wonder of the world!
Isn't he cute!

Let's face it - he has milked animals.

So have some of the eight people here

Look on the shed - there's #8!

God rest you merry gentlemen.....
Rand could use some rest. He is working 6-7 days a week and 10 - 12 hours a day.
Plus, he has had a rather decent adventure with his truck this week.
If you remember from Monday, where I left you in his story, his diesel F350 truck was dead at work due to the cold. That day he took the Prius to work with a plan to get his truck warmed up again.
During an early break he used what he called a "trolley" to haul a LP generator out to plug his truck into. (The employee parking lot is quite a bit away from the plant.) About an hour and a half later, he went to see if his truck would start. The generator had run out of gas, from the looks of things - shortly after he had left it. So using the trolley, he took the empty LP tank back and got a new one.
This trolley has just enough room for the person driving it to stand. Rand was driving it with one hand across the bumpy lot and holding a full LP tank off the side with the other. Then he hit the pothole. The trolley stopped instantly, threw him forward, and threw the LP tank rolling across the cement. The safety devices of the trolley stopped Rand from falling off. The safety rail stopped him short when he slammed his thighs into it. The LP tank didn't even have the grace to go in the right direction so he had to chase it down. He finally gets back to his truck and restarts the whole original process.
A couple of hours later Rand goes back out. He gets in - turns the key - and his mighty Ford truck fires right up with a mighty roar! When the truck settles into a nice idle Rand decides to let it run, to finish warming it up, while he puts away the generator and trolley. This process does take a little bit of time.
When he finally gets back to his truck, he decides to go ahead and shut it off. He reaches for the door handle to discover - yes folks, you guessed it - he was locked out! And the truck is running. Mind you, there is only one truck key. Even if there were two, I would have had no way to get it to him - he had my car. (My Scrambler is in deep hibernation.) I'm guessing he said some choice words at this point. Then he called AAA. It only took them 45 minutes to get there.
I'm thinking he might have been using choice words most of the time he was waiting. This is the story as I remember it from his first telling. As soon as I started asking a few simple clarification questions - he shut up. I think he knew this story was headed for blog publishing.

Home for the Holidays
Jeff and Tina now own one! We watched Derrick and Wyatt while they did the "sign over your life" thing. Congratulation guys!
Moving advice on the order of things:
Wyatt told me he can't move because all his toys are at the house he lives in now. The new house doesn't have any toys! Dangle a toy on a stick, he will follow you anywhere.

Grandma got run over by a reindeer
That was just about my reaction when Ryan and Sandra walked out of the house this evening with my computer under Ryan's arm. They brought back it back and I wasn't allowed on all evening long into the night. I'm on. I don't know what has been done, but I'm told I will know on Christmas. There are parts boxes laying around, but I'm not savvy enough about hardware to know what the parts are or what they are for.

Silent Night
Well, it was after Wyatt left! I had forgotten how busy being four can be!
Monday, my arthritis kicked up a bit - I was even being good. This morning I was doing better so Sandra and I went to run a few errands. We got as far as the first one, the extreme cold had set off my pain again and she was easily exhausted. Not much accomplished. I flared up pretty good tonight. Obviously, I'm still up. I was sort of stuck downstairs (couldn't get up the stairs thanks to my left knee and foot.) long into the evening; and my hands swelled so bad, my rings still won't go back on. I'd hate to admit how badly this typing is really going. I've went ahead and called in sick to work. I know I can't do it tomorrow. No sleep, (my alarm will go off in less than an hour) the pain edge just winding down, hurts to pick up my tea -, no reason to try to overdue tomorrow. I'm slowly learning. Sandra has an OB appointment later in the morning. Hopefully, she is still progressing a bit! I have a doctor appointment in the afternoon. Back to my family doc to discuss "where do I go from here" and "I think I want a different RA doctor". (See Dec 8th blog) I was hoping to get on an actual decent arthritis drug. But the current FDA headlines sound like pretty soon there won't be any arthritis drugs allowed.
I like to hear the voice of the people who take these medications on these drugs issues.
FDA: "If you take this drug you may have a heart attack or stroke."
Patient: "But if I don't take it the pain won't go away."
Living with pain is no life. Somebody should fix that.

Seven swans a-swimming,


and seven out of eight Glazebrook grandchildren
Gabe wasn't born yet.
I notice as I go through my old photos, I didn't take near as many pictures of people this year as I usually do. I do find people in general, especially family, entertaining.
I think there are several factors. When everyone is together, especially on the Stowers side, chaos reigns. Sometimes the thought of taking a picture never crosses anyone's mind until we are all packing it up to go home. (As you can tell from the photo above, the Glazebrooks are an orderly group of people.)
But as we grow older and our children are spreading out, it is harder and harder to get these group photos. Between living distances, school and work schedules, and even illness; life runs at a pretty good clip these days and in all directions. I can honestly say not feeling well this year had a lot to do with my lack of photos. Traveling very far was not my friend this year.
I think the moral of this story for me is quit waiting for the shot and take what I got. Take the picture of who I have in front of me, while I have them - don't wait. We don't have forever here on earth. I know all of us can look back - and there is someone you wish you had a better photo of - right now. And now is too late.
And most of us hate to have photos taken of ourselves. (major exceptions being Sandra and Kara of course!) But we need to learn to celebrate who we are in the moment, not who or where we wish we were. I've come to accept that I'm not going to be the world's next great supermodel. (*my brothers are giggling*) Now, I could get real surprised and the world could do a 180 on supermodel standards. (*Don just laughed himself off the couch*) But I'm done trying to please the world and anyone who has ever met me knows "conform" isn't a behavior I'm comfortable with.
I want to live and enjoy right now, right here, with the ones I love. And I am willing to bet I make an awesome Grandma. It never worried me when I was a kid how appropriate my Grandmothers looked - or didn't - in their roles. When I was with them, all that mattered was I had my Grandma's attention. Nothing existed outside that circle of love.
Now, a mom - can be a serious source of embarrassment. And she knows it and will use it. You you will claim to not know her in public. There can be an episode you and your friends discuss for years, "Remember when your Mom...". That level of embarrassment is only sent down to legend status - the first time you purposely become a public embarrassment to your children.

All is calm....
A few of my favorite shots of people from this past year are the "unawares" - not in the moment of the crowd. Catching people being themselves within themselves. Those quiet moments where the sun is streaming in just right.
I enjoy my land, water, and sky shots. With the additional amount of camping we did this year, I got some amazing wildlife photos, like the mother duck nesting in the brush.
I'm amazed I ever get any wildlife shots. Whenever I was out on a trail, I always have two dogs on leashes, a walking stick, my camera, and usually, a cup of coffee. I hear tell some photographers take accessories like lenses, filters, and stuff. I rather enjoy my dogs company. And since their cataracts are starting to hinder their sight and their noses aren't what they used to be, they are usually clueless to what I have spotted.
I have a feeling my photography will hit a renewed pace this year. We will soon have BooBoo. And babies change fast and the whole world is new to them. Sky, grass, dirt, all new amazing science lessons to be explored. And she won't be afraid to smile for the camera and she won't even have teeth to show. So people when you see our cameras in hand, play your role in preserving history and flaunt 'em if you got 'em!

Glory shown all around
For anyone who missed it yesterday be sure to check out my comments. God noticed I plugged His blog here and said thanks. I'm thinking that this is some special blog to get a visitor like God here and commenting.

Six Geese a-laying,
or in my little world of happy trees.....
six celebrating David's First Communion.

Back:proud parents Mo and Don
Front: Sam, Dave, cousin Shannon, and Mary Theresa

Joy to the World - The Lord has Come!
God is with us everywhere and always.
In fact, last night I foundHis Blog.
He just started it, but it looks like it will be worth reading. His last Book was pretty good. I figure anything else He writes is at least worth a look-see. God does have a comment page, but not a personal email link yet. Guess we'll just have to keep praying.

If only in my dreams.....
I couldn't sleep last night. I was uncomfortable. I'm thinking it probably was the result of a cold front moving in.
I'm calling it uncomfortable because what I have been through few months has been severe, all-consuming, life-changing, nasty pain. Last night I was uncomfortable - maybe I could concede to a little sore. I napped frequently today. Probably why I am awake now. Really threw my schedule out of whack.

Jack Frost nipping at your nose,
Speaking of cold, boy has it gotten cold. The temperature at 6am this morning was 1 degree. The wind chill was much worse. Jack Frost took a decent bite at Rand's truck today. He has been plugging it in every night - to keep the diesel fuel warm.
Yesterday, knowing last night was going to dip way low, Rand even prepared, ran errands around town. Rand filled his fuel tank, got an agent to keep the diesel fuel from gelling, and plugged it again as usual last night. His efforts paid off. He was able to get to work today without a problem.
But his poor F350 Ford friend, after an equally chilly day in the employee parking lot without the benefit of its heater all day, didn't do so good. I had to pick Rand up from work.
Joys of driving a Hybrid - the computer boots up the electric and gas engine- no worries of gelling fuel.
But then again - no excuses either. ; )
He either has to get permission to plug it in at work, or we will have to switch vehicles this winter. That could be a large male ego blow. I have yet to even sit in the driver's seat of his truck. At least occasionally I let him drive my Jeep from the driveway all the way into the garage. The Toyota is a shared vehicle between us, but I'm the only one who gets to clean it.
As good as I have felt, that hasn't happened in awhile.

Five Golden Rings!

Well, there's five of them.....

And Rich gave Kara a very nice ring last Christmas eve......
Or perhaps you prefer -
five flaming marshmallows?

For those concerned enough to ask - Derrick's arm wasn't broke, but was sprained, from a wild baseball pitch. And this is the only way these two will cook marshmallows.

Joy to the World.....
Our Christmas shopping is done. I have one more 'crafty thing' to prepare, but the shopping is over. I finished the shopping with Jeff and Tina this morning. Input is nice. Randy just follows me around always repeating, "We're done now!" - and keeps trying to leave. Jeff keeps his mouth shut, follows nicely, and will even comply to small requests. Nice training Tina! Tina even enjoys looking at baby things!

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,
Okay, the baby shower will now be after BooBoo's birth. Current input says she'll probably be getting Christmas gifts as it is (born or not). And everybody says they will enjoy it more if BooBoo is there to adore. Plus, we are all busy enough at the holiday time.
Reminder - her parent's are registered at Target and Baby Depot.
Both are shop-able on line or in stores.

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire
Holiday Eating Tips

1. Avoid carrot sticks. Anyone who puts carrots on a holiday buffet table knows nothing of the Christmas spirit. In fact, if you see carrots, leave immediately. Go next door, where they're serving rum balls.

2. Drink as much eggnog as you can. And quickly. Like fine single-malt scotch, it's rare. In fact, it's even rarer than single-malt scotch. You can't find it any other time of year but now. So drink up! Who cares that it has 10,000 calories in every sip? It's not as if you're going to turn into an eggnog-aholic or something. It's a treat. Enjoy it. Have one for me. Have two. It's later than you think. It's Christmas!

3. If something comes with gravy, use it. That's the whole point of gravy. Gravy does not stand alone. Pour it on. Make a volcano out of your mashed potatoes. Fill it with gravy. Eat the volcano. Repeat.

4. As for mashed potatoes, always ask if they're made with skim milk or whole milk. If it's skim, pass. Why bother? It's like buying a sports car with an automatic transmission.

5. Do not have a snack before going to a party in an effort to control your eating. The whole point of going to a Christmas party is to eat other people's food for free. Lots of it. Hello?

6. Under no circumstances should you exercise between now and New Year's. You can do that in January when you have nothing else to do. This is the time for long naps, which you'll need after circling the buffet table while carrying a 10-pound plate of food and that vat of eggnog.

7. If you come across something really good at a buffet table, like frosted Christmas cookies in the shape and size of Santa, position yourself near them and don't budge. Have as many as you can before becoming the center of attention. They're like a beautiful pair of shoes. If you leave them behind, you're never going to see them again.

8. Same for pies. Apple. Pumpkin. Mincemeat. Have a slice of each. Or, if you don't like mincemeat, have two apples and one pumpkin. Always have three. When else do you get to have more than one dessert? Labor Day?

9. Did someone mention fruitcake? Granted, it's loaded with the mandatory celebratory calories, but avoid it at all cost. I mean, have some standards.

10. One final tip: If you don't feel terrible when you leave the party or get up from the table, you haven't been paying attention. Reread tips; start over, but hurry, January is just around the corner.

Remember this motto to live by:

"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, martini in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming, "WOO HOO what a ride!"

.....and then I'm gonna be a bear.