The Countdown Is On - One Week Till Christmas!

It seems so hard to believe that we are just one week away from Christmas.  The time has flown!

I went to bed early last night; I was totally exhausted after our Awana evening.  So I was in bed by 10:30 and awake by 4:00 am.  Don't you just hate that?!  I stayed in bed, though.  If I got up I'd wake the whole house, and that certainly wouldn't be thoughtful.  I eventually dozed off (like an hour later) and woke up at 7:00 am with my stomach doing all kinds of flips.  That's what I get for eating pastries at 8:45 in the evening.  I know myself only too well, that eating at that hour of the night will give me a major stomachache and won't let me sleep.  I guess I'll know better next time.  Yeah, right.

My ancient computer has been acting up again, so I asked my son R to take a look at it.  He found a lot of junk going on in the background that needed to get deleted.  This computer was my daughter's.  She got it a year before going off to college.  She graduated in 2012.  So this computer has been with us since 2007, making it an antique.  When she gave it to me she didn't delete a bunch of school programs she'd downloaded, and they were taking up precious computer space.  Add to that the Norton Antivirus that we haven't used in like, forever, that was still running in the background, and it's no wonder my computer was slow.  He got to work on it, and I went to the grocery store.  I have to do my 2 week shopping trip this weekend, and I was trying to figure out a menu plan for the next two weeks, but it's difficult if you don't know what's on sale.  So I went to Winn-Dixie to pick up meats.  I purchased 3 packages of ground beef at $3.99/lb.  I know that last time I said I wasn't going to pay that much for ground beef when it was $3.79/lb at Costco, but the Costco ground beef was so fatty!  When I would brown the meat I'd have all this grease to get rid of.  Better to pay a bit more and get better quality beef.  I got pork chops and a pork shoulder as well, and a few staples that I knew I needed like onions, potatoes, rice, etc.  In all I spent $79 but the only meat I need to get now is the turkey for Christmas Eve.  I still have plenty of shopping to do but I'll leave that for Walmart.  Much as I hate going there, the prices on canned goods and frozen foods are cheaper for the most part.  The turkey I'll get at Publix.  Theirs is the best.

I took E to the park for his PE assignment.  He has to do several tasks to show how he has improved in his exercises since the semester started.  Well, I'm pleased to say he shaved off another 19 seconds on his mile run!  He was huffin' and puffin' but he finished in 10 min 48 sec.  This was better than the times he'd had when he had daily PE in school, so we are very happy about it.  He won't be turning in this assignment till Saturday, since he has to show 3 days of exercising, but it's okay.  The teacher says this assignment isn't due till January 18.  I'm having him do it now because he needs to finish his hours for the week, and he's done with all his other classes.  We took our time doing the science lab (translation: dragged it out as far as we could) and that got turned in today; it was the only assignment he had left to complete.  With exercising and watching documentaries on ocean life he was able to complete his hours for today, but I'm at a loss as to what we'll do tomorrow.  He has one live lesson that he has to attend, and his PE.  He'll be doing lots of reading and documentary watching I guess.

We had sandwiches for lunch and dinner today.  I kept it simple because I just didn't know what to make.  I have those days sometimes, when nothing sounds appealing.  Thankfully my kids don't make a fuss.  As long as there's food to eat they're happy.

I remembered something today:  I have some outdoor penguin decorations in the shed that hadn't been put outside!  How in the world did I forget that?!  Penguins are my favorite Christmas decoration.  I have all kinds of decor for Christmas - villages, musical and animated figurines, Santas, Nativity scenes, and enough items in storage to make the North Pole come alive in South Florida.  I could live without any of them, except for my Nativities and my penguins.  Oh, and my rabbits.  I have the Lloyd family from back when I sold House Of Lloyd, and I love them.  Anyway, after dinner and before the sun went down, I got my two penguins out of the shed.  One is made of metal and is holding a hot cup of tea, and the other is a light up cutie pie that is now on the pavers next to the front door.  Both were gifts from my dearest friend DPP.  I have to give her a call soon.  I really do miss her.  She'd moved out to Arizona at the beginning of the year, but thankfully she's back.  I don't have many friends, and she is one that I truly treasure.

Oh!  I got my Ulta order today!  The gift set I got so the kids could give to their dad...is a lot smaller than I expected.  I'm glad I got a bunch of stuff to go with it.  It was all freebies but it makes it a much nicer gift which makes my kids happy.  I also got my Bare Minerals Delight and Dazzle set that I'd ordered for myself.  The original price was $49; it was on sale for $34 and I had $8 in reward money, so I ended up paying $26 for it.  It's wonderful!  All the products are full size.  I have 2 new eyeshadows, 2 new blushes, 2 eyeliners and 2 lip glosses.  I'm debating which set I'm gonna try first!  The Delight set is for daytime, and the Dazzle set is for night.  I like that the Delight set has peachy colors.  I don't have anything in those tones so it'll be a nice change once in awhile.  

My daughter got home from work, then headed straight to the store to pick up supplies for her birthday celebration, happening tomorrow.  Her birthday is actually December 27, but since it's 2 days after Christmas and so many folks are out of town, she decided it would be best to do it 2 weeks before.  I'll have all the details to her festivities here on my blog either tomorrow or Saturday.  She did make something she calls reindeer bark, with crushed Oreos, pretzels, and more goodies, topped with melted almond bark and M&M's.  It looks pretty tasty, but it has to go into the fridge to harden.  It'll be interesting to see what everyone thinks!

I sat down to relax and watch some videos, and I kept dozing off.  I'm tired because I was awake at 4 am.  I'm gonna try to stay awake, but no guarantees.  I think I'll be snoozing before 11:00 rolls around.  Oh well.  Good night.