Monday, December 31, 2007

Still recovering

We're still digging out of the Xmas avalanche, so not much is going on of any consequence.

We're still looking for DH's wedding ring, although I haven't had a chance this week to really dig around and hunt for it. I'm hoping that it shows up soon, but that may be a hopeless idea. It's off cavorting somewhere with my original Swiss Army Knife, which hasn't been seen since our wedding day. I kept hoping to find it, and swore that I'd trip over it as soon as I ordered the replacement, but no such luck yet. (I'm still expecting it to appear after we move and unbox everything.)

Need to work on the goals for 2008, and figure out what, if anything, actually got accomplished in 2007. More on that later. I've gotta go roust a Burrito from his nap so we can get ready for our holiday partying.

Friday, December 28, 2007

Still looking

I'm still looking for DH's ring, and digging out of the Xmas avalanche. Bah!

Thursday, December 27, 2007

We survived Christmas

The only serious casualty so far is that DH misplaced his wedding band somewhere and we haven't found it yet. Can't even pinpoint the last time he remembers having it on, so it could be a fun time.

We're actually not done with Christmas. Thanks to a rotten schedule, El Burrito has one more Christmas morning to get through. We spent Christmas Eve with DH's family, and Christmas Day with mine, so we decided to hold off on opening the things we (and Santa) got him until Saturday morning, so we can have some time to enjoy it. I'd wanted to open some Christmas morning, but that was spent rushing around to get to my Mom's in time for gifts, so it didn't happen. Which means DH and I haven't opened ours either.

This is one of my gripes with Christmas - I'm 35 freaking years old, and the only time I've had a nice relaxed Christmas morning as an "adult" would be the year that we had a snowstorm on Christmas morning. The weather was too bad to drive, so DH and I stayed here and had time to open our gifts without being in a rush. Of course, that was also the day I found my first grey hair (having dark hair stinks - it makes the grey stick out like a sore thumb). Other than that one year, I've spent every Christmas morning for the past ten or so hurrying to get to Mom's before everything was over.

I swear, it's going to be different next year. I just don't know how yet.

And later, after everything's unpacked and sorted out, you may get the details on how head-bangingly frustrating my Christmas has been. Or not. :)

Friday, December 21, 2007

3 Days left

Well, only three days until Christmas now.

In spite of watching A Charlie Brown Christmas almost every day, and listening to the soundtrack a lot, I still don't feel like it should be Christmas already. At least the shopping is finished, so we don't have to go anywhere near the mall this weekend. There's just the wrapping to do, and the endless driving to look forward to.

El Burrito and I did hit the mall this morning, since his photos were ready to pick up. Wouldn't you know, the one time I was hoping they'd print a few "extras" to tempt me with (one pose in particular), they didn't do any at all. The clerk was surprised that there weren't any specs. So, I guess I'll have to see if I want them bad enough to pay "full" price for them. El Burrito got lucky in Target. He's been playing all week with a little "Cars" wallet that I got in Target's Dollar Spot - it's a gag gift for BIL. I went to Target this morning planning to buy El Burrito one, since he's so enamored of the other one. He got the only one I could find, and it was hiding in a bunch of play mats. Target's already got the Valentine stuff out in the Dollar Spot, and Christmas lights are already 30% off. Jeez, can't the Christmas sales wait until, oh, maybe after Christmas?

We also came home with a certain Cookie Monster stocking, crazy as it may be. Pictures later, it's just too funny. Or maybe I'm just odd.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Wrapping Day!

After lunch today (i.e. in about 90 minutes), Wrapping Day 2007 will kick in.

Thanks to El Burrito, the usual routine has to be modified. We'll be watching A Charlie Brown Christmas with lunch (because we have no kitchen table, and eat in the living room), and then I'm putting in a Due South DVD and El Burrito can supervise from the playpen while I wrap and watch. I usually watch the "Victoria's Secret" 2-part episode (nothing to do with the underwear store!), but someone, in their infinite wisdom, put Part 1 on Side A and Part 2 on Side B. I may not want to hassle with flipping the disc, or dealing with double-sided discs at all, so I may watch different episodes.

We need to finish wrapping today, or at least wrap the stuff that has El Burrito so distracted. The gift pile includes a Cars wallet, a car-shaped mouse, and a Tracfone, all of which the boy keeps digging out of the gift tub and toting around. He gets a little cranky when I take those away from him.

At the very least, DH's surprises and the "distracting" gifts are getting wrapped today. Tonight, we haul out the tub of El Burrito's goodies, and decide what Santa's bringing and what we're giving him. Somehow, it's worked out that almost all his toys are wood-based, and only two need batteries. I'm sure that won't be the case for the gifts from his grandparents, but it's a start. We'll find out later how the Fisher Price Computer Learning System works out. His grandma got it for him, because the boy can not leave the keyboard and mouse alone, but I'm not sure that giving him another reason to play with the keyboard is the way to go.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Christmas Countdown

So, here it is, less than a week until Christmas. We still have one person to shop for and a few gifts to pick up (gift cards).

And practically NOTHING is wrapped, because someone (who will remain nameless, but he's the only toddler in the house) flat-out refused to nap today and insists on staying up way later than he should. So I got no wrapping done today, or even a lousy shower, thank you. I don't normally bug the DH at work, but I had to call him earlier just to vent a little. And to have him talk to that little someone on the phone about naptime, but it didn't work.

Yeah, it's a great day. And it's been this way all week.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

One week until Christmas!

Eeek. And, it turns out, the big box of wrapping stuff (bows, ribbon, etc) is in storage, and has been for a year or two, DH says. So we're stuck with the wrapping paper that was stored under the couch. No ribbon this year.

I swear, next year, I'm really decorating. Not just three strings of lights and a 2-foot tree; we're going all out. And by then, I'll have some of those spiral trees that I like so much, but have no place to display.

Monday, December 17, 2007

It's unnatural

Really. The weather forecast right now is predicting a high in the 50s for Christmas day in Missouri. That's just not right. This isn't California or Florida, darn it, it's supposed to be cold (and ideally snowy) for Christmas.

I want a white Christmas! Thought I was going to get one, what with 7 inches of snow on the ground right now and a single-digit wind chill, but no. It's going to be in the 40s by Thursday, so all we'll have is acres of sloppy mud.

This stinks.

Sunday, December 16, 2007

I'm tired.

I'm tired of basically wasting money because I can't find things or I'm not paying attention.

Like coupons. We got El Burrito's photos at Sears this week, and ended up messing up two things. I forgot to get prints of one of the cutest shots, because I was distracted and hungry. Then we skipped a collage that had all of the poses in it, because it wasn't the $2.99 we thought it was. Turns out, I had a coupon that would have gotten it free. But, since I hadn't looked through the mail from two days ago, I didn't know it. And, since it's been two days, I can't add to the order at the sale price. So, if I want a print of the cute pose, it's going to cost me $15 plus shipping, instead of the $2.99 I would have paid if I'd just woke up and paid attention to what was going on.

Yes, I'm a little miffed at myself right now.

I'm also tired because once again, it's 2 freaking a.m. and we're still awake. And we have a ton of stuff to do Sunday (i.e. today), because we mucked around today (i.e. Saturday) and got nothing accomplished.

Saturday, December 15, 2007

More snow

We got a lovely snow overnight, probably four inches, and it's still snowing. No holiday shopping for us today. :(

Hopefully the church's Santa Claus dinner tomorrow won't be cancelled again. It was originally last weekend, but the ice storm postponed it. One way or another, I'd like for El Burrito to get to meet Santa this year, now that he's old enough to sort of get it.

Friday, December 14, 2007

I swear . . .

. . . that as soon as we get through Christmas and New Year's, we will be house-hunting again. The boy and this place are getting on my last nerve this week, and it wasn't a sturdy nerve to begin with.

Believe it or not, the only sizable place I can find to put things (Christmas gifts, fragile things, whatever) out of El Burrito's reach? The bathtub. Because there are really only 4 rooms here, none of which can be made a No Burrito zone, unfortunately. The bathtub hasn't been used for bathing in a few years, because the person who designed the front bathroom was obviously smoking something that day. After they squeezed in a tub, toilet, and sink, there's not enough room to turn around. There's about an inch of clearance between the door and the toilet, and when the door is open, the tub is inaccessible. (Which is why El Burrito is still getting sink baths.)

Anyway. The fact that I can't keep things out of the boy's reach is getting to be a problem, and it'll only get worse the taller he gets. Luckily he hasn't broken anything yet, or managed to hurt himself, although he's got a habit of "relocating" things (his comb has been missing for a month). He likes to play with the PC mouse and keyboard, and short of unplugging them, the desk isn't wide enough to put them out of reach. He's rebooted the PC once, and somehow has found a key combo that will log me out, log his father in, and make the PC attempt to install Paint Shop Pro (even though it's already installed).

So, we've got to move soon. Really. (Yes, I've been saying this for, oh, 3 years now. This time, I may actually mean it.)

*****

In other news, we got El Burrito's photo taken at Sears last night, and a family portrait. It took 2 hours, most of that deciding what to order afterwards (and I managed to not get a print of one of the best ones). Oh, and Jan? We made it out with $70 worth of prints. I was tempted to get the photo CD again, but they wanted $69.99 for it. Now, if they have a $19.99 "special" when I pick up the prints, I may consider it, but $70 is insane.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

I'm not ready for Christmas

In case anyone was wondering.

Note to the wise - chocolate-covered marshmallow bunnies are not at their peak taste when eaten 8 months after Easter. Especially when they were in the car traveling to Tennessee and back. (The marshmallow is a little stiff. It's odd.)

We've got an appointment this evening to get Xmas pictures taken of El Burrito, and probably the three of us. Which means I need to get offline and try to intimidate my hair into looking halfway presentable, and figure out what I can wear that makes me look less like, oh, someone who still weighs approximately what I did when I was 8 months pregnant. Fun!

DH's doctor gave him a month's trial of Byetta and a follow-up appointment in January. Loads of fun. The info pack says repeatedly to eat within an hour of taking the medicine, but they don't mention anywhere just what will happen if you don't eat (say because of car trouble or something). Yeah, there are ways, like keeping snacks around, but I'd still like to know what happens, just to be prepared and all.

And there's some lovely stuff brewing with my family, which is enough to make me want to throw fish at people. My brother's girlfriend works at the same company one of my aunts does, and apparently there's some conflict going on. And this aunt, one of Mom's sisters, has worked there for a while (girlfriend is new) and is very good at stirring up crap without getting any of it on her.

Also, my slightly tacky side is showing. At Target last night, I found the craziest Christmas stocking with a Cookie Monster head attached. It sings carols and makes Cooking Monster comments. I am so tempted to go get one, even for $14.99; I only saw one on the rack, and it's not showing up online. I draw the line at fake-mounted singing fish, though.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Lots of Pictures

Lots of pictures:



Sunset, December 4th.

*****


El Burrito's new hat. The yarn did a nice diagonal-stripe thing toward the end. He's gotten compliments on it a few times already.

*******


The Big Fluffy snowflakes from last weekend.

****


The ice that we got on top of the snow.


*****


Our pathetic holiday decorations: a string of lights suction-cupped to the window, a short string of LED lights on the stair rail, and the tiny fiber-optic tree. Oh, and a few of Breyer's Christmas horses. Three and a half so far - I have the accessories for one set, and can not find the horse anywhere. I know it's here; I have the box for it. Just can't remember where I put the horse. And it's bigger than a breadbox, so it's kind of hard to misplace.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Not my best day

This feels like a wasted day. My main accomplishments are: reading many, many, many books to El Burrito, cleaning up the meat that leaked in the fridge, and taking a shower.

In other words, the dishwasher is full of dirty dishes and I don't have a clue on dinner, which means sandwiches. Again. And we have to eat early, since DH has a checkup tomorrow, which means bloodwork, which means no food after 8 or so (we eat late). Plus, I haven't ordered the 2 gifts that I meant to. Crap.

Speaking of which, his doctor brought up the idea of prescribing Byetta last time (DH has Type 2 diabetes), and he'll probably going to want DH to start it now. I'm really not crazy about the idea, but I'm not sure why. Maybe it's the needles, maybe it's just the not-so-logical thought that I (and DH) should/could have done something to "fix" it - being more strict on the diet, more exercise, cooking better, whatever. It just makes me feel like I've failed at something, illogical as that may be.

(Like there aren't enough things I already feel like I've failed at - my weight, socializing El Burrito, the whole "job" thing. Just to name a few.)

Oh, and my hair and I? Not getting along well these days. No matter what I do, it seems to look scruffy, and the bangs are always in my eyes. Which means, of course, that it's time for Xmas pictures. As in family pictures. Humph.

Like the normal holiday stress wasn't enough, now I've got all this. And, the topper, the chance of a lovely ice/freezing rain/snow storm tonight. Joy.

Monday, December 10, 2007

Ice and more ice

Wow.

You know, I like winter in general. I can live without bitter cold weather, but some cold is just fine (and keeps the bugs in control). Snow? Not so bad, and fun to play in. But ice? Unless it's in a cube and keeping my drink cold, or in a glacier somewhere, I can do just fine without it, thanks. You can drive in snow, but ice makes traveling pretty hazardous (especially for people who seem to think that an SUV can get them anywhere).

If you haven't heard, the midwest got some nasty weather over the weekend, and more is on the way. We got about 1/4-inch of ice/sleet/freezing rain over the weekend, and our area got of easy compared to the southern part of the state where my parents live. I haven't tried to call yet, but I'm betting that they're sitting in the dark, based on the Ameren maps. (They don't have Ameren electric, but I doubt the downed lines are just an Ameren problem.)

It's bad enough that our governor declared a state of emergency over the weekend. Joy. It hasn't even been a year since our last nasty ice storm, and some rural areas are still cleaning up the tree debris.

Anyway, we've still got power, and enough groceries to tide us over until the city could get the streets clean. (Living near the main city streets and less than a mile from the grocery store can be an advantage at times.) There's an Ice Storm Warning until Wednesday night; they're predicting up to another 1/4 inch of ice. The weatherman is predicting ice and/or freezing rain tonight, then rain tomorrow, and so on until Wednesday. And our local weather channel, which used to show the weather radar all the time, has now gone to crap. It's about 50% commercials now, and in the middle of this weather mess over the weekend, their forecast was 3 hours old. Totally worthless.

And now, on to the good news:
  • My email to Ziploc last week about their lid issues got some results. I didn't get anything specific as a reply (lazy eejits), but I did get an envelope today with coupons for 2 free packs of Ziploc containers, along with some other coupons. Makes me think I should send them another comment about the bowl that melted in the microwave this summer - in spite of saying "microwave-safe" on the label, and being heated for less than a minute.
  • The Christmas Tree is up. Of course, that took all of half an hour, and most of that was finding the power strip and getting it set up. It's a 32-inch fiber optic tree from the post-Christmas clearance at Dollar General 2 years ago, decorated with an 18-foot strand of copper-colored beads (20-cent clearance find). Yeah, we really splurged on the decorations. :) Now I just need to hang the lights in the windows and on the railing.
  • Check out the Christmas Cards from the Hubble Space Telescope. I may print a few of those off, if I don't have enough photo-cards to go around (since I can only find one of the two boxes of cards).
El Burrito's vocabulary made some leaps last week. We've started a list of the words he knows, although most of them probably aren't clear enough yet for a stranger to understand. I'm still not sure where he learned "pie" since it's not a common thing in our house. :) "Read!!" is still the big one, complete with exclamation points. And we had to call Grandpa over the weekend, so El Burrito could tell him what a sheep and a chicken say. The boy does a pretty good chicken, a hilarious sheep, and a good pig impression, too. I'm just sorry that we never got his original duck sound on tape - he sounded a lot like Daffy Duck. I managed to get the rest of them on video last week, though.

The boy's also got some muscles. He was "supervising" yesterday while we put the groceries away, and he managed to lift a 5-pound bag of potatoes off the floor and carry it over to me. All of 2 feet away, but I was still impressed.

Ah well. Back to the laundry.

Friday, December 7, 2007

Stumped

I've got less than 3 weeks until Christmas, and no clue on what to get DH for Christmas, other than the traditional Dilbert page-a-day calendar. I've got a couple of ideas, but actually finding the items is the sticky part, not to mention getting them delivered in time. And a toddler in the house is not good for the concentration needed to bargain-hunt online. Gah. Where did November go??

Speaking of Christmas

  • USA is showing new Christmas episodes of Psych and Monk tonight (yay!) Also tonight, the last episode of Stargate: Atlantis for the year, but I doubt the holidays are mentioned.
  • The BBC website has a Doctor Who Advent(ure) calendar online. Apparently there's a Christmas Who, at least if you're overseas. (Note: the calendar is not so spiffy on a dialup connection. Maybe I'll have to try it out at the library or somewhere.) There's also a non-Flash version.

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Bugging me today

Companies that are bugging me these days:

  • Ziploc - Because the lids of the new "Snap n Seal" containers don't fit the almost-identical "Snap n Seal" containers that I bought two years ago. (The bottoms sides of which suffer a high mortality rate when they do kamikaze leaps out of the freezer. Hence the new bottom/old lid issue).
  • Playtex - I love their sippy cups, but would it kill them to put some measurement indicators on the side? I'm ready to take a Sharpie to all of them.
  • Playtex again - Because they have this website, but don't accept emailed questions or comments. It's phone or mail. Twits.
  • Evenflo - Maker of our 2nd car seat. They list "optional" shoulder-harness cushions in the manual, but when I called, I was told that the cushions are out of stock and won't be made any more. But they would gladly sell me the $60 set of all the pads and cushions. Hah!
  • Olympus - I love their cameras, but they used to have this online trouble-shooting program (called Uncle Otto). It was very helpful when I had a weird problem with my old C-3020. Now the SP-510 is having issues with focusing and, you know, actually taking a picture when I press the shutter. Not constantly, and nothing I can replicate on demand, but often enough to bug me severely. The only help now is phone support. Now, I've still got a wicked cough, and I'm hoping that I'll actually get someone who speaks intelligible English when I call. Because the outsourced Tracfone CS this summer was a pain. The person spoke English, but the accent was bad enough that I had to make them repeat almost everything they said. (*)
  • MediaCom - They won't stop calling us to pimp some combined plan that we don't need.
  • CenturyTel - Ditto. Half the time these days, if the phone rings it's either M or C. I hate to tell them, but as soon as we move, MediaCom is on the chopping block. CenturyTel may be as well, depending on where we end up.
There are probably more, but those are the biggies today.


* - And I don't think I'm that bad with accents. I did okay in Ireland. I can understand most of Red Dwarf without the captioning (although some of the jokes are beyond me). But I was amazed at an episode of Passport to Europe on the Travel Channel a while back. The episode was set in Scotland, hostess was talking to someone at Edinburgh Castle or somewhere. The man was speaking plain clear English, enunciating well, but you could tell he was Scottish. They subtitled everything the man said. Boggled my mind.

Snow!

It's snowing here. Started between 11:30 (when UPS dropped off DH's gift from the company) and 12:30 (when I went for the mail). It was just little snowflakes, but in the past hour it's shifted over to the Gigantic Fluffy Snowflakes. I caught one on my hand, and it was about the size of a quarter (although fluffier).

The weather this morning was predicting 2-3 inches by commute time tonight, and a swath of one-inch-per-hour accumulation that is supposedly going to move through in a couple of hours. DH may be wishing for his gloves by the time he leaves work. Good thing we got our groceries last night.

I'm just waiting for the storm of bitching to start online, in the local listserv I joined. Last winter, we got hit with a bad storm that dropped 15 inches of snow overnight. It was snowing so hard that the road crews had to wait until morning, visibility was that bad. I swear, I never heard such moaning and griping in all my life from people, just because the roads hadn't been cleared by 8:00 a.m. Sorry, our city doesn't have a fleet of snowplows as big as Detroit's, because we don't get as much snow as Detroit does. If we get 3 inches by 5:00 today and the roads are even a little iffy, people are going to start complaining. There are some people in this city who are just never satisfied.

I can see needing to go to work when your employer doesn't want to close down for the day - I drove to work on at least two days that I shouldn't have (*) - but sometimes, that's life and you've just gotta deal with it. Either take a sick day (if you can) or take a chance on the roads. On the other hand, lots of people seemed to be whining that they needed medicine or groceries or whatever, and couldn't get out to go shopping. Seriously, that storm didn't come out of nowhere. Sure, no one expected 15 inches, but there was snow in the forecast. If the fridge looks a little bare and the prescription jars are getting empty, maybe that means it's time to make a supply run before the storm hits, not after. This time of year, especially in a state like Missouri, where the weather's always a little temperamental, it behooves you to keep up on the weather forecast.

* - It's not a good day when you can drive 60 miles to work and only see a dozen cars, three of which were not actually on the road anymore. One of those was upside down in the median. I definitely should not have been on the road that day, but I was working for the Dragon Lady at the time. She already scheduled a "meeting" every Friday where she would tell me what I'd done wrong that week; I took notes and gave her a copy of them every week. Anyway, one of those days I drove in, the driveway was a sheet of ice. I fishtailed when I turned off the highway. It was a bit freaky.

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

A "garden" update

Or maybe calling it a jungle would be more appropriate. There are two trees, you know (one avocado, one redwood seedling).

Anyway, the jungle is having some problems. Namely, my watering routine got lost, the plants were dry for a few weeks, and that seems to have been the last straw for the poor catnip (lasted almost 3 years!) and the mint (survived two summers and almost 1.5 winters). The jade plant that I bought last fall also died at some point. It was looking sad for a while, so I can't tell exactly when it died.

And then there's the pot of cacti that my mom got me when I had my wisdom teeth out. Started out with three plants, now it's down to two, and I honestly have no clue if either of them are still alive. Cacti are inscrutable, you know. Very good at hiding their emotions, as well as their health status. :)

On the other hand, the Christmas cacti are doing great. A few of them bloomed back in the summer for some bizarre reason (they were outside, so the day/night cycle should have been all-natural). Both pots started blooming pretty profusely last month, so they're about to wind down, but I did have one sprig that bloomed a nice orange blossom. I was so happy, because until then, I was convinced that they were all either white or that fuschia/pink color. I even told my sister to get me a non-white, non-pink one for Xmas if she wanted to.

Pictures coming soon.

Christmas-y pictures

As mentioned (I thought, but I can't find where I talked about it), we went out Friday night to see the tree lighting ceremony at Shelter Insurance. El Burrito got to wear his new coat.


Yeah, it's a little big. Comes down to his knees, and there's a good 2 inches of extra sleeve, so we can get by for a while without mittens.


Slightly out-of-focus panorama shot of the tree. They set it up in the fountain every year; apparently they haven't drained all the water out yet. Go figure. I need to go back for better pictures; my camera was running out of batteries, so I didn't get many pictures.




The three of us in the cold. Someone asked me to take their picture, and took one of us in return. It was in the 20s that night, and we didn't stay more than half an hour. There was music from the middle school choir on the next block, and rumors of Santa, elves, and cookies, but we left before Santa appeared.

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Time flies

It's already December, and I don't know whether to be a tiny bit freaked that the year has flown by and I've got 3 weeks until I have to write "2008" on the checks, or just bummed about it because I've accomplished almost nothing this year. The amount of stuff that needs to be done by Christmas is no something I want to think about right now. Especially since I've still got this rotten cough hanging on.

Then there's that list of "long term goals" on the kitchen whiteboard. "Long term" meaning by the end of this year, actually. It's an old list. The top two things are buying a house and getting our wills done. The whole house thing gives me a headache, especially when my sister says things like "Give me 3 days, I'll find you a house." Sure you will, but will it be something we want to live in for 10 years? Because unlike her, I don't plan on moving every 3 years or so. It may be unrealistic, but we're looking for a place that will get us through the next 5 years minimum, hopefully longer.

Then there's the whole issue of wills. We got the Nolo Press Simple Will Book, and some recommendations for lawyers. The book says you can write your own will, but we feel more comfortable having a lawyer at least look at it. But, with the forms and information from the book, we can at least get a good start at things, and not have to spend $50 an hour hemming and hawing with the lawyer about things.

The will train lost its momentum when we started thinking about guardians for El Burrito. As strange as it sounds, with DH's large family and my not-small family, we can't come up with anyone that we think would be really suitable as a guardian. We've got a good option for a financial guardian, but no really good choice to raise the boy (if needed, God forbid and knock on wood). It's got me stumped.

The choices:
  • BiL #1 - Not married, but dating a nice woman. However, he's been written out of the in-laws' will thanks to a bit of mess over him being executor of Grandma's will, and his own two kids have some issues. Choosing him would set off another lovely little firestorm in the family.
  • BiL #2 - Wouldn't trust this one to feed my fish, thanks.
  • BiL #3 - Seems good at first. Has 4 kids already, decent house, but is financially strapped because of it (private/religious school tuition x4). This pair has never, that I can think of, held or said more than 4 words to El Burrito. Even #2, who's not a "kid person" other than teasing the nephews, will talk to Burrito and sit him on one knee. They're the most religous of the bunch, and I worry that El Burrito would end up being sort of a second-class citizen, since they've got their 4 kids already. (I've been that route thanks; both sets of grandparents played obvious favorites, and we were at the bottom of the list on both sides.)
  • BiL #4 - The choice for financial guardian, because he's pretty tight with a dollar and fairly sensible (although he's a bit conservative politically for my taste). But he's a bachelor and I don't see that changing any time soon, so him raising El Burrito wouldn't be the first choice. He works an office job and raises cattle on the side, so he's not home a lot.
  • SiL #5 - Would do in a pinch, but I'd rather have a better Plan A. Has 2 kids already, as well as 6 step-kids and a step-grandkid back in New York. However, her husband has a habit of squandering money - trading cars every other year (although this has stopped in the past couple of years), boats, motorcycles, travel trailers, hot tubs, and so on. Also, their kids are little hooligans, because they really don't get enough discipline at home. You can tell a difference at the in-laws' house when the parents aren't there.
  • My sister - married, but not having kids (by choice). Also, likes to travel a lot, and is currently spending 3 weeks every few months in Florida for her degree. I think she'd do it if we asked, but it wouldn't be a good fit.
  • My brother - not married, still living with our parents. Dating a nice girl, though, who intends to have kids from the way she talks. (And also says that my little brother, if that's who she marries, will not get away without changing a few diapers.)
I have an aunt and uncle who I thought might work; they've got a daughter in grade school (*), but now they're planning to adopt an orphan from Russia, so things will be a bit shook up for a while.

* - My mother's family has a weird generational thing going on, because my grandmother and great-grandmother had about 6 kids each and stretched them out over a few years. Grandma and Great-Grandma were having kids at the same time for a while, because Mom has an aunt who's about her age, and they were having kids about the same time too. One of Aunt's kids is younger than me. The aunt above is Mom's youngest sister, who waited a few years to have her daughter, so she's not that much older than El Burrito. It makes figuring out generations a little tricky. It's like they all got mashed together or something.

Anyway, like I said, our choices for legal guardian aren't that great, given the number of choices. And we don't even have any close friends we could ask. DH has two friends who are married with kids, but one pair is also raising three hooligans. Not sure about the other pair. I've got two friends, but one is not a kid person. The other would be great, I think, but she already has two of her own and I only see her once a year, if that often.

* * * *

So. That's all something that needs to be dealt with, although it might have to wait until after the Holiday Crazies. (Did I mention that a local radio station started playing Christmas music 24/7 on Thanksgiving Night? Jeez.) And then there's the whole house thing. And we've procrastinated on the door problem until it's probably too cold to deal with it until spring.

Monday, December 3, 2007

So

So I had some ideas about what to blather on about here today.

But then someone decided that he wasn't in the mood for a nap today. After he sat in his crib for almost 90 minutes, I gave up hoping and went in to get him. No shower for me until later, and no possibly-interesting blog post, either. I'll be lucky now if the laundry gets done, and the living room looks like a toddler-tornado went through town.

I did manage to accomplish one thing over the weekend. About 90% of that never-ending basket of "miscellaneous" laundry got put away. Of course, in the past few weeks it had grown into about 3 baskets, mostly of El Burrito's stuff, but it's more under control now. And I found my winter hat and gloves.

And we went to a Christmas-tree lighting on Friday, but more on that later.