joey’s Neighborhood

O HIGH!

Some Things Never Change...

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It's Week 12 of the NFL season. How's your team faring? 

Right now the Dallas Cowboys are sitting pretty at the moment atop of the NFC East and it appears as though we will make it to the playoffs. However now comes the dreaded month of December where for the past decade the Cowboys have complete collapsed at the end. And with New York, San Diego, Philly, and Washington upcoming.. it's not gonna be easy staying at the top of the Division.

Dallas Cheerleaders

As I sit here with my coffee, I'm thinking ahead to the upcoming Christmas season.  It brings about a certain feeling of both frustration and makes me feel just a little bit crazy.  It seems that for the past several years I've struggled a lot with finding my Christmas Spirit.

I remember clearly last year when we finally arrived home Christmas evening after all of the family gatherings and gift exchanging thinking..."Wow it's finally over." Then I was suddenly filled with a slight feeling of joy inside that I had come through yet another Christmas alive.  I actually joked with Bart all Christmas Season last year that all I wanted for Christmas was January 1st. For that year to just be over, fast forward through the holidays straight to the new year.

I wonder when it happened....

I wonder when I stopped getting excited about Christmas and instead started feeling a sense of dread and drudgery about the whole season.

Don't get me wrong, I love the whole food aspect of the holiday season,(Just take one look at my ass and you can TELL that.), but what I despise is the whole sense of consumerism in it. Black Friday, Cyber Monday, whatever you call it....people trampling each other for cheap plastic crap from china...I just don't get it!

You know when I do my Chritsmas Shopping? Generally between December 18th and Christmas Day. Payday is the 1st and the 20th for me so that's when I have money.

I always tell myself every year, "I'm going to get it all done before Thanksgiving.." and it never happens that way..EVER.

I don't use credit cards, I hate them, I think they are evil and get you into trouble. We're pretty much a cash only family, if you can't pay cash for it then you don't need it.  The exception to the rule on this is cars and really big items like our house. 

I know some people who spend literally THOUSANDS of dollars on Christmas on credit cards, and  struggle all year to pay it back. Sorry but that kind of takes all the joy out of it.  We buy what we can afford to buy and move on. It's Christmas, it's not worth going into debt or going hungry for.

I love giving gifts, but hate feeling like I didn't spend quite enough on people, and maybe they didn't like what I got them.  It's almost as if some people feel like the dollar amount you spent is equal to how much you care about them.

I generally make up HUGE batches of homemade fudge and other treats and package them up for gift giving. I'll give those to friends and family either alone as a gift or with something else as an add-on gift.

Getting gifts is great, but still makes me feel a little uncomfortable, especially if what I get from someone obviously cost more than what I spent on them. It's a vicious cycle.

A couple of years ago I said to hell with it all and just started buying Master Card Gift Cards from my bank for all of the people on my list 12 and over. It took a lot of stress out of my holiday shopping and I felt it was a great gift because then the recipient could go and pick out whatever they needed or wanted. (Our local bank offers Master Card Gift Cards with no hidden fees and no expiration dates. They make great gifts and you get them directly from the teller and they take the money directly out of your bank account when you purchase them. I think they make GREAT gifts, and it's a really great service.)

If you needed a tank of gas, or a haircut, or a lunch out, or a new sweater you could make the choice yourself what to spend the money on. I personally LOVE gift cards for anything.

As a matter of fact I have let it be known to all that might be shopping for me this year that I want gift cards for Lowes for Christmas. Why? Because for the past year I have been without a working dishwasher, and it would thrill my heart to no end to be able to put all of my Christmas Gift Cards together and purchase one.

Hand washing dishes for 5 people has become a nightmare chore for me, and my hands, and my nails. I can't even imagine how joyful it would be to be able to just load all the dirty dishes into a machine and close the door and walk away.  I think it would be downright heavenly.

Of course if I don't wind up getting a dishwasher for Christmas it won't be the end of the world. We'll just save our pennies and other change for awhile and get one ourselves.

And on that note I'm going to hit publish on this post and go and try to find something productive to do....there's plenty of dishes in the sink that need washin'!

..it snowed, which doesn't happen that often here. And it was the perfect type of snow.. nice and soft. Didn't stick or freeze up the roads..

Snowy Morning

Losing our pooper scooper.

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Goodbye Pooper Scooper

Pass it on..

No One Loves Me & Neither Do I

Them Crooked Vultures

New Fang

Them Crooked Vultures

Bandoliers

Them Crooked Vultures

This tag line should have been on the poster: "Iron Man is back.. and this time it's War!"

Iron Man 2

I think I'm getting a cold or something...this sucks.  My throat is all tickely and I just feel like crap in general.  I took some Nyquil last night and I must have taken it too late in the evening because I think its still in my system and I want to just sleep the day away. 

So I was messing around with Google Wave this morning and I think it's one of those programs that I'm going to sit on until it gets out of Beta.  It's not going to take off and be very useful until its released to everyone.  Overall though, I think it will be pretty cool.  It basically combines all of the stuff you use on the internet everyday into one program including photo sharing and chat.  The email/chat feature is really cool.  I love being a Beta tester on new stuff.  Heck I was a Vox Beta!! :)

I bought some Cordial Cherries at Walgreens yesterday and it's taking all I have to not sit here and eat every single one of them.

Brett still hasn't bought my Nook and now it's on backorder until Jan 11....the thing just came out yesterday.  I freaking told him to preorder it.  So now if he does get it for me for Christmas, I won't even get it until the end of January.  Ugh

The squardon Christmas party is next week.  I was going to try to get out of going this year but Brett has to present some awards so now we have to go.  I'm not getting a dress this year and spending all kinds of money on hair and makeup...screw all that.  I'm wearing some black dress pants I already have and I'll go to Kohls this weekend and use a $10 coupon for a shirt. 

I must work now

Google sent me an invitation today plus 8 to send out.  I've not really messed with it much so I can't give my opinion.  If any of you want an invitation give me your email address.

Anyone use it already?