Putting out Fires

You’re about to get some unexpected time to finish up all of 2005’s resolutions. 

2006 has been postponed. But not for long.

A leap second will be inserted in the world’s clocks just before midnight — Greenwich mean time — on New Year’s Eve, the U.S. Naval Observatory reported Friday.

Leap seconds are needed occasionally because modern atomic clocks measure time with great accuracy, while the rotation of the Earth can be inconsistent.

The rotation of the Earth has been slowing down, so leap seconds keep the clocks and the Earth from getting out of synch with one another.

So everyone, pursuant to a conversation I heard on NPR today:  What are you going to do with your extra second?

Well, we survived Christmas, and are we ever spoiled!  We got so many thoughtful gifts from everyone!  Ryan worked on Christmas day, but it was alright.  It honestly just felt like a day.  I stopped by for a little bit and was glad that we’d put together little gift bags for the guys at the station.  Both of the firefighters Ryan was with on Sunday hadn’t received any other presents for Christmas. 

Ryan only has Monday and Friday off this week, which is a bummer, but its giving me lots of time to do some reading and finally hit the gym again.  Monday we went to the zoo because I wanted to take some pictures with my new camera.  I loved watching the animals, but the trip showed me the limitations of the camera.  I have zero zoom capability.  Here’s some pics I took:

You can especially see in the last one my problem.  We were pretty far away from that guy, so I had to digitally zoom on him, but since I couldn’t see him well when I took the picture, its all out of focus.  It could have been a nice picture.

So I start a photography class at the local community college in about 3 weeks.  Ryan said as a grad present from the class I get a new lens. 

This weekend we planned on going skiing w/ our friends Bec and Matt, but its not exactly a white Christmas in AZ.  Its been almost 80 degress every day for the last week and there’s not a spec of snow in the mountains.  No idea what the new plan is, but we’ll come up with something.  Anyway, hope you’re all enjoying your time off. 

I’ve been feeling a bit hum bug this year.  I get the feeling that a lot of people are feeling this way.  Seriously the holiday felt like it just snuck up on us.  I can’t tell if its just because we’re focused on moving into the new house, or if its because work is nuts, or what….  But today I finally felt the spirit of the season.

So Ryan’s on the schedule to work Christmas.  I feel like finally I’ve been able to detach myself from THE DAY of the holiday.  Its more about the idea of the holiday, and I feel like I’ve gotten to the point where I’m OK if we celebrate Christmas, or Valentine’s, or Thanksgiving on a day other than the actual holiday.  Survival tactic or not, I finally feel good about the whole thing.

That’s why it was a shock today when Ryan got a call from another firefighter who volunteered to trade him shifts so Ryan could spend the holiday with his family.  Wha?  This guy looked down the list of guys working and saw that Ryan was the only non single, non divorced guy who was working on Christmas, so he called Ryan to offer to let him be with us on the actual day.  Can you believe that?  Ryan and I discussed it and we both felt bad letting that guy work on Christmas just for us.  But we thought maybe this guy needed the sense of family at the fire station that he wasn’t going to get at home alone on Christmas, so it was perfect for both of the guys.  So Ryan called him back to accept.  And I made plans to make treats to take to that guy’s station as a thank-you.

And then Scrooge came and ruined the holiday for all the Who’s in Whoville.

The Chief of Ryan’s department commanded today that not a single person was going to be allowed to trade shifts on Christmas.  The reason?  It would be too confusing for the poor Scheduling people (who get to celebrate the holiday at home with their families).  Oh those poor, poor scheduling people.

So to the people at Ryan’s work who are selfish enough to not care a bit about people and their families during the holiday season:  I hope you enjoy your time at home with your loved ones and that you SLEEP WELL AT NIGHT.

This Christmas season i am thankful for Yahoo IM.
Without it I wouldn’t have been convinced by KC to drink excessive amounts of wine tonight to celebrate the start of my vacation.  And I wouldn’t have seen Bandit the dog’s ballsack on Matt’s new computer videocam. 
Like doesn’t get any better. 

……you slip in puke in the meds isle of the grocery store.

You know I adore Ryan’s family.  I do!  His parents are the greatest (and I’m not just saying that because his dad reads here and gift giving time is this weekend hehehe).  But seriously, they’re the best!  But our families are so different.  My extended family is very small, so we all know each other very well.  Ryan’s family is big enough that I can’t really keep them all straight in my head.  And sometimes neither can Ryan.  But this Sunday I was giving the opportunity to imagine what it would be like if my sweet little grandma pulled out all her change, plunked it down on the table, and started throwing dice w/ her grandson while he threatened, “Know your place old woman!”  Yeah, see, just wouldn’t happen in my family. 

OK, so I wrote about the girl gift giving a few months ago.  Well, my mother-in-law helped me with the idea this year.  And I think it was successful!  I needlepointed bread napkins to say “Bread Shared with Friends Makes Every Meal a Feast”, then got some cute baskets, made minature pumpkin chocolate breads, threw in a few magnets made out of used wine corks, filled the extra space with candy, and there you have it!

 

Doh!  Is that a beer bottle in the background?  Well how else do you expect me to get through all that crafting w/out losing my mind??  Anyway, all the gifts I got were GORGEOUS.  I got a handmade bag (which would probably sell for hundreds at an upscale boutique), a handmade ski hat, a handmade apron, a recipe for a night with a good book, handmade drink coasters, a tiffany ring (from a ’street store’ in NY!), a great ornament, and other great stuff.  My girls are so crafty and thoughtful!

This weekend we finally got a tree.  Its definitely a Charlie Brown tree, but we love it. On Saturday we went to Bec’s house for her husband Matt’s grad party.  Seriously, the FOOD…  ohhh  And you could barely move in that house!  The gift givingpalooza happened here, and the boys kept themselves busy while we were doing girly stuff.

 

And there was ample opportunity to hold other people’s babies (and to answer your question:  NO it didn’t make us ready for our own)

We made friends with our neighbors!  Evidently a big ole loaf of pumpkin chocolate bread is better than a casserole for meeting the neighbors.  Our sweet neighbors across the street were so thrilled at the thought that they sorta adopted us!  If it weren’t for the cow smell that drifts in every day around 4pm, this neighborhood would be the perfect place. Later.

That is all.

The devil dog disappeared today.  She’d gotten in trouble for digging in the yard.  And for waking her Mom up at 4am puking just to get me to jump out of bed so she could go outside to play.  She growled at dinner.  And when I got near her bone.  She made her mom break out in an allergic rash (happens every time I play with her).  For all this, she got cursed at.  Loudly.

So she ran away from home.

OK, so not AWAY, but we really thought she had, and I don’t blame her for all the yelling that was going on.  I’d have run away too.  Afterall, she is just a baby…  So we yelled for her.  MIKA!  And finally we found her…

I have exactly one Christmas decoration up.  One.  I’m not sure where the rest are, but I’m relatively sure they’re in a box somewhere.  Story of my life lately.

This weekend Ryan got stuck working all weekend again.  That’s him being gone from Friday morning until Monday morning.  But I’ve made the most of it!  Friday africankelli and I went to see Evita (which stunk, but the company was good!  And our Isreali dinner was AWESOME).  Last night I went to my work party (dateless) and had a great time.  The problem with having an appetizer potluck is everyone ends up bringing spinach dip, thinking they’re the only ones who count that as their patented recipe.  I made jalepeno cilantro hummus, which was delicious.  Oh, and the party?  Yeah, imagine a bunch of drunk engineers stumbling around a good Mormon family’s house, and a white elephant exchange (at said Mormon family house) where the gifts are things like KY, and massage oil…  But this house was gorgeous and there were actual horses in the back yard to play with.

Today I made pumpkin chocolate chip bread for the firefighters. Seriously, it is heavenly.  I love going to the stations because the guys treat everyone as their family.  And sometimes it really does feel like a family at the station

After visiting the station I took a little picture taking trip to Fountain Hills.  Fountain Hills is where the rich people, who don’t want to flaunt it Scottsdale-style, live.  GOREGOUS houses, and there’s a park in the middle with a fountain that shoots up so high that it can be seen for about 30 miles.  There’s also a frisbee golf course around the lake.  Evidently if a frisbee nearly takes off your head while you’re taking pictures, its not a good idea to pick it up and offer to return it to its owner.  I’m still struggling to get ahold of my new camers’s functions, but here’s some:

Well, that’s all for today.  Tomorrow I have a hand-holding, campfire song singing, come-to-Jesus meeting at work between two groups who act like high schoolers.  Grown adults who need to be put into a room and told to get along.  Hey, at least there’s free food!

I think I’ve blogged about twice in the last three weeks.  BWAH!  Half the time I can’t even find my stinking computer, and the other half the time I’m feeling guilty because my superhuman husband is working like a madman on painting, or unpacking, or organizing, or just randomly moving around the house at a dizzying speed.  I was done with all this and wanted to hire someone, anyone, to finish it for us like last Thursday.  He’s still going full throttle.  But just to give you a taste of what we’re living in:

That’s right, we’re living in total, utter chaos.  And as new homeowners, we’ve been shopping quite a bit.  Target, Home Depot, Safeway for beer, Taco Bell, World Market, Home Depot, Bashas for beer, Costo, and Home Depot.  When you’re aleady stressed out, you ever notice how hyper sensitive you are to people doing stupid things?  I’ve had ample opportunity in the last week to enjoy one of my most favorite pet peeves:  Lack of checkout ettiquette.

Have you ever noticed that about 80% of the people you end up in line behind are never prepared to check out?  I’m constantly amazed by people who stand there like idiots, watching each item pass over the price scanner, and THEN after its all scanned, they start digging in their pocket or purse to find their credit card.  Or how about the people who can’t bother to put down their cell for long enough to even figure out that they’re at the front of the line?  Or people at the self-checkout places who simply cannot figure out how to work the machine.  Dude.  I’ve never been a cashier, but I manage to get through it just fine.  Its not rocket science.  Or how about people WHO STILL USE CHECKS?!  And then we have to sit there waiting for them to painstakingly fill out every line on that thing, then the casier needs to write on it, then compare your ID, then it has to be scanned through the register.  People.  This is why we have technology! 

 So OK, rant over.  The house is flipping AWESOME.  Still having minor snags with the process of getting money to the right place (Mortgage place, if you don’t get your heads out, I’m writing you up here!).  But other than that we’ve taken the black and blue room and made it a liveable color, and our bedroom is now gorgeously painted in browns.  Think yummy chocolate behind the headboard.  Have I mentioned that my new neighbors all chat out in front of their houses and they always give us a huge smile and a wave when we drive by?  Ahhhh, a NICE neighborhood…

Besides the house, I’m a bit humbug about the holidays.  We don’t have a tree (yet), we have no decorations up, and if you believe it I haven’t even bought ONE SINGLE PRESENT.  But, I did take up a collection from my coworkers and we were able to buy for SEVEN Christmas Angels.  Ryan and I know nothing about shopping for kids, so at Target we had to stop every 6-9 year-old to ask their advice.  (Did you know that little girls still want Barbies??  And what’s with these Bratz dolls with their slutty outfits?!  Corsets and non-existent skirts I tell you!)  Being able to do that was probably the best part of the holiday for us.  It was so fun!

I’ve missed reading all of you.  (Although I see I’ve been TAGGED, thanks M, I’ll get to it tomorrow  :-)  )  Glad to be back among the blogging.  And now I leave you with Karma’s look o’ death regarding the move, and some pooped out puppies….