post-holiday recap

Well, I suppose it’s time that I just write something and put it out here. I’ve been having this mental block lately that has made me feel like I couldn’t write a blog post to save my own life. It started back in early December when, while reading one of my favorite daily blogs, I inadvertently followed a link to a post on another site (caution—read at your own risk) that for some reason had the most profoundly discouraging effect on me. Which is a little strange because: a) I am generally not a person who is easily discouraged, and b) I do not agree with many points that were written in the article. Anyway, I guess it just caught me on a bad day, and combined with the year-end stress of shopping for my youngest daughter’s birthday (which forces me into the stores just after Thanksgiving and thus officially starts my Christmas shopping as well) and work-related problems, it was just…well…a sucky month. The holidays themselves were nice though, better than I had anticipated. Everyone seemed even happier and more appreciative than usual. Score! One of the nice things about the company that I work for (which helps make up for the bazillion hours of mandatory training classes we must endure each year) is that we have an extended holiday from Christmas through New Years, so I had a nice bit of time off (which didn’t turn out to be all that restful, but it felt good to be off anyway). I did manage to see quite a few movies though: King Kong, Munich, Narnia and Hostel. I loved them all (for different reasons, obviously)...and Eric Bana--roooooowwwwrr! New Years Eve was spent back-and-forth between a neighbor-party and chaperoning a teenager-party (which would have been a lot more fun if I were the teenager and not the chaperone... being the chaperone has a way of making you feel like you've aged 100 years all in one night, I've never felt so old!) The last bit of excitement came this past weekend where I spent a good part of the day Sunday in the ER with my son. He had suffered a pretty serious head trauma (I have photos, but they aren't for the squeamish so I shant post them here) so I wanted him to get checked out by a doctor to be sure he was okay. Thankfully he is going to be fine (though they said he did need stitches and would have received them had he followed his mother's advice and gone to the hospital right away--proving yet again that mother is ALWAYS right *smirk*). He was such an entertaining patient, he literally had the poor woman in the next bed giggling in between her cries of pain...from the other side of the curtain we would hear "heheheheh...ooooww....I'm sorry" (for eavesdropping) repeatedly. It was really pretty funny.