Annual Bad Christmas Card photos

ENJOY!!

"It's a Wonderful Life..."

Well, down here in Texas,  we got a cold front and finally it feels Christmas-y. It had been unseasonably warm in the 80's lately, so I just wasn't feeling it. That and I'm giving all I've got to try to be in the Christmas spirit. I've decorated the house, put up lights outside, bought a poinsettia, am listening to some Christmas music, and still watching all of the sappy Hallmark movies that I so love. It's just that Alex's baby B is sick for the third week in a row, DD is still sulking about losing her boyfriend, money is tighter than ever, the men in my family are all still looking for jobs except my son-in-law, and my boss is using me as her whipping boy at work.
I actually was going to walk today. Just walk off the job. She is the most evil person I have ever encountered, along with the most selfish and rudest. She humiliated me over absolutely nothing and it was abusive to say the least. My coworkers all felt sorry for me and were kind. The guy who heard all of it said that he would testify to a hostile work environment if I left and applied for unemployment. It was tempting... But I'm a single mom and need the health benefits. So, until I can find something, which doesn't look at all possible in this economy or especially during the holidays, I'm stuck in this torture chamber. She's letting everyone else off on Christmas eve at noon, and even though I still have 5 holidays left this year and am taking one of them for my son's wedding next week, she now says I have to work that entire day. There won't even be anyone to make a sales call to. In a small town? On Christmas eve? Wow. She's Mr. Potter on "It's a Wonderful Life," (which happens to be my all-time favorite movie.)
Was thinking tonight that my town is like Bedford Falls. It's wonderful. Not perfect as nothing is, but as close as it gets on this planet. There are so many wonderful people in my town. Kind, caring, Christian, family-oriented people. I'm totally blessed to live here. The problem is there aren't many jobs. So I have to commute to the town I work in, which has some nice people but nothing on the scale of my town.
Sigh.
I saw the Drudge headline about what was happening in Detroit today with all those thug union guys out of control, and intimidating everyone over the Right to Work legislation. Ugh. I never ever want to even VISIT Detroit, much less Michigan. The Midwest used to be filled with wonderful salt of the earth people when I was growing up, but that's quickly changing. Maybe the United States isn't so united any more, and we should divide into quadrants with like-minded people.
Anyway.
It occurred to me tonight as I drove down Main Street with all of the beautiful lights, that the majority of people in my town are like George Bailey. But Detroit has too many Mr. Potter's.
And they have become Pottersville...

"Keep Calm and Carry On??"

Well, I WOULD have posted over the weekend if I hadn't of been as sick as I've been in about 10 years.... I had the stomach bug (flu?) so bad that I couldn't even MOVE without feeling like I would "wretch" (just found out that's the way the British say puke.) Yes, I learned that from the horrible prank that went terribly wrong in calling the hospital that Ducchess Kate was in last week, but I digress. Anyway. I couldn't watch television or hear any noise at all or I would feel "wretch-ed." It lasted all weekend.
So I missed my future daughter-in-law's graduation from the University of Texas (my alma mater) in the School of Communications (also my same major) in Journalism on Saturday, and consequent celebratory party. My grown son, who now calls himself a liberal, told me that I would NOT have enjoyed the graduation ceremony, since the commencement speaker was Bill White (Democrat who ran against Rick Perry for governor of Texas in the past election.) His speech did include good advice to these future journalists by saying that they should be objective and truthful, however then he went off on a rant about Fox News and how biased they are (like the other networks AREN'T???) and how they should not even be on the air. My son said he went on so long, that everyone got fidgety and uncomfortable, knowing that he was crossing the line into an area  he should not have entered.
So. There's that...
And, yes, I have not announced yet that my oldest, my only son, is getting married. They decided a week ago, and will have a immediate family-only wedding on Friday, December 21st. (Yes, you guessed it, they chose that day since it's the end of the Mayan calendar, so either the world will end or they will get married.) Anyway, I am very happy for them, and wish them a lifetime of happiness.
Something else I'm dealing with, as the single mother of a teenager, is DD's sadness at losing her boyfriend. She was sooooooo happy when they were dating and then he abruptly ended it. As I've mentioned, he evidently had already begun another relationship with a girl, and it was fairly advanced. That girl started bragging about their inappropriate texts, and in addition, some of the things she was saying were the same lines the boyfriend had told DD 7 months ago. Ugh... He went with the new girl immediately and now she is rubbing it in DD's face on Facebook after only 2 weeks. Arrrrrrrggggggggg.... Oh how I wish Facebook had NEVER been thought of. (Kind of like the nuclear bomb...) But it has. So. As they used to say in the sixties -- Love the bomb.
We have no other choice...

Christmas parade - small town - Main Street

"The Ghost of Christmas Future..."

Well, you've heard the expression, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything."
So.
I'm having trouble posting... Because I'm in a funk. A huge funk. I just can't find any positivity anywhere. And I'm trying. When you go to the websites like Drudge and you look at the headlines? Well, it's like it's a sick joke -- but it's not. It reminds me of Bill Murray's movie in 1988 called "Scrooged." When we watched that movie 24 years ago, we thought, Wow, it CAN'T  get that bad...  Well, hello 2012 -- it's even worse than that. We fast-forwarded in warp speed to a sad reality where God has been removed, and what's left is complete 'Look out for number 1' selfishness... The liberals are quickly destroying our society, and it's become dog-eat-dog mentality. You only have to remember Black Friday to see how life in America has deteriorated into survival of the fittest.
The story this week about the man in NYC who was pushed onto the tracks of an oncoming commuter train and NO ONE helped him?!? NO ONE??? Well I can tell you that would NEVER have happened in the area I live in. People would have stampeded to help that man. Now in Austin?? Maybe not. There are so many non-Texans now it doesn't even feel like Texas. And it has become dog-eat-dog there too. Last summer I went in downtown Austin's Whole Foods and there were more New York accents than Texan. And they were all completely rude. I sat in a chair in the food area, and this younger woman ripped me and embarressed me, yelling that I got her chair. I got up and said I didn't know anyone was sitting there, but she kept on yelling. That just doesn't happen in Texas. Or at least it didn't used to... it's only in the big cities though. Thankfully.
Anyway.
I'm trying to get excited about Christmas this year but my ex and my son have both been unemployed quite a while. My son, who graduated from college with honors, just got a seasonal 3 week job today in Austin for $8.50 an hour part-time...And he has to buy special shoes, so that will take his entire first week's check. We're all hurting for money, so we're all in a silent depression about it all.
It will come together. Somehow it always does but I can't help feel that something has changed.
Maybe the world really IS ending December 21st....

"Did you ever have to finally decide..."

Parenting is the hardest thing you'll ever do. (And the most gratifying but that's not what this particular blog is about.) The way I see it is that we try to do what our parents didn't do. And we put high priority on that. And then we miss some of the things they DID do.
Sigh.
And then we try to "do it all.." Hold down a full time job. Hold down a household. Keep our friends. Blah Blah Blah. And for me, as a single mother who is also much older, it's double hard. My parents did not interfere AT ALL with my life growing up, and let me make all my own mistakes. And I certainly did. They didn't help me with anything. They didn't give any advice. I asked them for advice, and they always said, "Do what you want." I would even beg my dad for what he would do in a decision, but he said he didn't want to be blamed if I was unhappy with the outcome. Once when I couldn't make a decision, he told me just to choose one and if I chose wrong, I could go back and fix it.
Sigh.
So fast forward to my last child that is 15 years old. I'm an older single mother who has lived all of these years with all of this history and experience. And I'm trying to save her from making terrible mistakes. She does ask my advice. And often I give it without being asked. For instance, on Sunday night I was trying to save her from future heartache. I saw her boyfriend's new girl posting FB photos of them. I mentioned it, thinking that everyone would be talking about it at school yesterday (which they did, since they haven't even been broken up for 2 weeks) and it tore the scab off of the wound. I recommended taking the high road but she sent a scathing message to him of which she now regrets. And of course blames me. And all I was trying to do was save her from seeing or hearing about it at school and starting to sob.
My ex says to get off of Facebook but it won't make it go away. I said that even if she deletes her account, all of her friends still have theirs and will screen shot the photo or discuss whatever it is that was on there. This past weekend, a boy at her high school was throwing water balloons at cars and some tough guys got out and chased him, and he broke his leg. Photos were all over Facebook and Instagram. It was the talk of school yesterday. It sets the template is my point. You can act or react.
It's your choice. For me, I'm a pro-active kind of person. But DD says she wants to make her own mistakes. I said okay. No more advice. You're on your own.
Buena suerte...

"Every day is Christmas..."

Just found out yet another person I know died in a car accident yesterday... I moved from the city life to  the small town life in the mid-nineties and there are lots of advantages. Dying isn't one of them evidently. I don't know if it's because you know everybody in a small town or if it really is true, but deaths seem much higher here. I know they are with young people dying. It's almost epidemic. There have been way too many young people here dying of illness and car accidents that even the Austin news has picked up on it.
But we have a stretch of highway for about 20 miles between here and Austin that loses people EVERY weekend in head-on collisions. It's ridiculous. But I guess when you have a 2 lane highway where both sides are going 70 mph, and one person _____________ (fill in the blank - texts, hiccups, sneezes, looks at the pretty scenery, is lost, looks back at their child, etc etc) then BLAMMO, you've crossed the line of milli-seconds and hello eternity...
Ugh.
It's always so sudden. Death is so sudden. My next door neighbor died on Friday. Her grown son had told me not to be alarmed if ambulances pulled up since hospice had been called in and she was in the final stages of her life. I prayed for her every time I drove in the driveway and remembered the words my mother said as she was dying of cancer, "Every day is Christmas."
 Live in the present - it's all you've got...