Aloha!

On our way to Maui via Chicago! We'll be back December 1st.

I hope everyone has a fantastic Thanksgiving!

Back to Basics

The economic outlook right now....bleak. If you haven't been through it once, it's pretty scary. Things are much worse on a worldwide scale, but it reminds me a lot of how things were when DOTR graduated from college in the early 1980's (things were picking up when I got out in the mid-80's, but still not great). Then there was another slowdown in the early 1990's that had the papers writing articles like mad about "riding out the recession" (I even had my recipe for lentil soup published in the AJC Food section "Cheap Eats"--bet you didn't know I was that famous!).

About this time, like a perfect storm, came "The Tightwad Gazette". It was a newsletter about common sense ways of saving money. A less in your face Dave Ramsey, if you will. Bringing back all the things our parents and grandparents already knew about living and saving money. There were three books published that were a compilation of the newsletters that is now available in one large edition. I still use my books occasionally for some of the recipes, and sometimes I'll just sit down and read them to get my attitude adjusted.

The author was accused by her detractors of being mean and abusive to her children for not buying them the latest fashions, electronic gunk and making them help out around the house, in the garden and with various projects. I'd love to see how they're all doing today (at one point she did publish a PO Box where you could sign up for their yearly "how we're doing now" letter, but I never got around to it). She retired from her public role as "The Frugal Zealot" after they paid off their house, saved money for their six kids' educations, and no doubt moved on to other money making projects and businesses. I'm sure they're just fine and riding out this recession like any other....living smart every day, no matter what's happening on Wall Street or Main Street.

I know we learned our lesson back then--if you don't have the money, don't buy it. Save for a rainy day, because a rainy day will come. Just because the bank will lend you that much for a house, it doesn't mean you can afford it. If nothing else, I hope people learn something from this catastrophe. And remember it.

You can still order the book from Amazon. Or better yet, borrow it from the library.

That's what the Frugal Zealot would do.

Did I Mention This?

Belle has a post about bringing back the cocktail hour and I commented that our "neighbors-to-be" (that's what they call us whenever they see us) told us not to be concerned about the workload ahead of us -- should the stars align and we actually sell our house before somebody buys this one -- because there will be, and I quote, "cold drinks at 5:00 every night".

I guess I didn't mention that these are our "neighbors to be".

Somebody please buy my house. Soon.

ETA: Favorite SIL and BIL came to see us Saturday--we'd kept the whole thing quiet with the family, so they were surprised to see our house for sale. We took them to walk around the outside of the hopeful house (separately, DOTR and BIL were going to the Husker watch party and then the Hawks game and SIL and I were going shopping). BIL said, "this house has MOTR written all over it".

Getting in the Mood

Just a few suggestions to get you in the mood for Christmas (after that Thanksgiving turkey has settled next week).

Here are some of my favorites, although most are not really what you'd consider Christmas movies.

I love this movie! Crazily, it came out in May.

(I remember that DOTR saw it when we went our our Disciple Bible Study retreat when J4 was a baby....yeah, at the theatre!)

Raise your hand if you love Cary Grant.....ME!

All my favorite English actors, same movie. How'd that happen?

Of course, the rest of the family has their favorites, too. When the kids were younger, we'd pop popcorn (on the stove, what a treat!) and watch Christmas movies every Friday and Saturday night in December.

The boys and DOTR think this is the funniest movie, ever. Me, not so much.

This is DOTR's choice for Christmas Eve. He knows it word for word.

A few years ago, PBS broadcast the radio play version, with Bill Pullman as George Bailey. I wish I could find it on dvd.

And of course, everybody at my house loves this one. A classic.

So pop some popcorn, light the fire, snuggle in a blanket and get in the mood.

"This time next week....."

This is DOTR's favorite phrase. Since Sunday, anyway.

"This time next week.......we'll be in Hawaii."

Yeah, but I have a crapload to do between now and then, so shut up. I woke up at 4:00 am and couldn't go back to sleep (this is after I was still working on enrollment forms at 10:30.)

If I make it through this week, working with DOTR and not killing him, I will SO deserve that trip to Hawaii. And now I have to do something I should've done yesterday and I've put it off all day today and I just have to do it. If I don't come out of the black hole of the customer service line for a particular medical insurer before Saturday night, send help.

Aloha. Back to work.

6th of 6th

Here's my 6th picture in my 6th folder (on my office computer...I did it at home, too, and the picture was of two random people from church playing skeeball on the way home from the ski retreat, obviously not a picture I took!)

This one is J2 at the great prom photo extravaganza her senior year. Her date is one of her very good friends; he was a junior that year. He has since graduated, got into Yale early decision and was just elected President of the Freshman class.

Now you try it. 6th folder, 6th picture.

Argyle Forever

Thanks to Target, I'm now the proud owner of 6 (or is it 7?) argyle sweaters. Can't seem to stop myself. I've always liked argyle, but now it's getting ridiculous.

A couple nights ago, I was watching an adorable but totally mindless movie on the Hallmark channel called "Falling In Love With The Girl Next Door". I've seen it two or three times before; cute girl and cute boy grew up next door to each other on Catalina Island but their mothers have been in a feud trying to one up each other for years. Cute girl moves back to LA, where cute boy lives and they begin dating, fall in love and keep it a secret from their mothers until they get engaged.

The girl's parents are played by Patty Duke and Patrick Duffy and the boy's parents are Shelley Long and Bruce Boxleitner. DOTR says Patty Duke is too old for Patrick Duffy, but whatever. When Bobby Ewing and Scarecrow start playing the adorably tolerant spouses of two bickering neighbors, I am officially old.

The other night, I noticed for the first time that Shelley Long is wearing a different argyle sweater in almost every scene. Shelley and I go way back; my dad has always said "that Diane on Cheers reminds me of you". Umm yeah, thanks, Dad. I think. I couldn't see it, but DOTR agrees with my dad. My sister says it's "because you're such a know-it-all bitch"--so it's not so much that I look like her, I just act like her (or the person she plays in most of her roles).

Whatever. I'll just keep wearing my argyle, and my kids better hope they don't fall in love with somebody who has a mother I can't stand.

I'm pretty sure I have a mental list somewhere.

Seriously?

I was just looking at a list (I won't say where to protect the innocent....or is that the guilty?) and saw a family who saddled their two kids with these names:

ShyAnne and Dakota.

I feel a rodeo comin' on.

I did not need to know

I did NOT need to know that West Wing is on Bravo every morning from 8:00-10:00 am.

Really. Did not.

Coming Soon

Only about three more weeks until the Pilgrimage, our tour of historic homes.

It all starts with a tree lighting on the Square (thanks to Maggi) , then kicks off with a killer preview party on Friday night (last year I lost my shoes...seriously, too.much.fun for old people). Saturday I'll probably tour the houses, but there are so many options for the evening, including The Nutcracker, two different shows at Theatre in the Square (I'm partial to "Sanders Family Christmas".....it's beyond hilarious), and the first show in the newly restored Strand Theatre. If I have time, I might also do a docent shift at the new park at our church--the log cabin replica will be open the entire weekend.


On Sunday, I have acolyte duty at church (the second Sunday of Advent already!) and then I'm a house chair at a house just across the street (pretty handy). The weather is usually beautiful, people are excited and happy, and I look forward to it every year!

If you're within driving distance, y'all come!

Picking Sides

Continuing with the football theme, and since I have no experience with this (remember that border to border devotion)....how do you decide?

I've mostly figured out the rabid Dawg fans (where you wouldn't dare speak a word or have the nerve to mention your kids go to Tech), to the more middle of the roaders who went there but can still be civil. I know who all the Tech fans are since we basically tailgate together nearly every week and always get together for the student send off in August, but sometimes I'm surprised (usually it's somebody who played for Tech back in the day). Lots of doctors since most went there for pre-med, and of course with Lockheed right here we have a lot of aerospace engineers running around, too. But every once in awhile, I'll think "wow, I would've thought they were Georgia people!"

Then, being such a city of transplants, we have our Auburn, Alabama, Clemson, South Carolina, LSU, Tennessee, Florida, Wake, Duke, UNC, Florida State, Ohio State, Michigan, etc. fans in Sunday School, PTSA, Sports Booster Clubs, and so forth. We all know where we stand (and believe it or not, we are not the only Nebraska people in our Sunday School class!) The biggest group of Auburn alumni outside of Alabama live in Atlanta. You can even get an Auburn, Florida or Clemson license plate here (I'm talking through the State of Georgia...your real license plate!)

So, back to the question. How do you decide on "your team" when you have rabid fans from all corners? Geography? Family ties? Course of study? (this is why the Tech fan base is so much smaller--it used to be really limited--engineering....or engineering?) Or maybe because you actually went there? (this is obviously not a requirement at Nebraska, although DOTR and I did).

Do tell, I'd love to know.

ETA: C'mon, now, not everybody all at once! ;-}

Forever Red

I'm tired of all this talk about politics. Let's talk about something really important. Like football.

Blue Devils last game is tonight. We had a crappy season. Enough said. At least it's over.

Actually, the election did have something to do with why I started thinking about football. DOTR works the polls, as I may have mentioned, and he came home Tuesday night and said, "you'll never believe who just moved around the corner from us....Trev Alberts". His wife came in to vote and he noticed that the name above hers on the list was his, so he told her that if he was coming to vote, to tell him to get in the Cornhusker's line. (In case you never paid attention to college football, Trev Alberts played for Nebraska in the early 1990's and was a college football analyst on ESPN for a few years and is now with CBS College Sports network). He was the speaker at our Founder's Day banquet last April, and we talked to him for quite awhile because the crowd was smallish, and like most midwesterners (he's from Iowa) he's friendly and doesn't "put on airs"! The funny thing was, she called him and he came right over to vote and talk to DOTR.

Almost five years ago, my brother wrote a book about growing up as a fan of Nebraska football, and I'd thought that I remembered that Trev Alberts wrote one of the blurbs about it. It's not on the book jacket, but maybe it was in some of the promo stuff. Or maybe I was just imagining it. Anyway, that of course led me to reading my brother's book again while we watched Buffalo (coached by our favorite Husker quarterback, Turner Gill) beat Miami of Ohio for the first time ever (instead of watching election returns...told you I was uninterested).

I really forgot how good his book is, how funny and touching, and how it's a universal story about a kid growing up in the middle of nowhere and his love of his team, and how it follows him through his life. I make just a small appearance right at the beginning of the book, when the family loads up to see what is my brother's first Husker game a few weeks after I went to college. (I have no memory of them coming to this game--can you say "self centered"?!) My brother is eight years younger than me and nine years behind me in school, so when I left home he was an annoying, hyper little pain in the rear. When I went away to school, I was more than happy to let that small town eat my dust and I rarely went back, so he grew up while I wasn't looking. We were both in the J-school at Nebraska--in different decades, of course--and we both worked at the Daily Nebraskan, although he was a news guy and I was in advertising. So for all our distance, it amazes me to read his book because it sounds like it's written with my "voice".

Of course, as anybody who keeps up with college football knows, our fortunes at Nebraska haven't been so great since his book was published. The title is "Forever Red: Confessions of a Cornhusker Fan", but last year he was joking that he had another one in the pipe called "Did I Say Forever? Just Kidding" because it was just so painful! But maybe we're on our way back. Only time will tell. Living away does give you a better perspective, although we still say that DOTR's dad is drinking the Big Red koolaid. He has perfect faith in the Huskers, no matter what.

Until I moved to the South, I lived in my little Big 8 bubble so I didn't know that people hated Nebraska so much. Or maybe it's not just Nebraska, maybe there's just general hatred for anybody that's not your team. I don't know. Just last year I was at the post office and I was wearing my Yell Squad Reunion t-shirt and the guy who waited on me felt compelled to tell me that he thought it was so funny how Nebraska would wupp up on all those bad teams and then have to come down South and play some real SEC teams. "Ummm, you mean like Tennessee and Florida in those two National Championship games?" ('scuse me, I'm from Nebraska, I know my football). He at least looked a little sheepish after that. Yeah, we may have gotten beat, but we were there. Where was your team on New Year's Night every year? Then there was the person we met for the first time when we went out to dinner with some mutual friends who told us there was no way that the Big 12 schools would ever be any good again because they'd never get anybody to come up there and play because it's too cold and isolated. This was last spring, by the way. And he was over the moon on what was in store for his team this season (I'm sure you can guess who he was barkin' for). I could go on, but I won't. Let's just say it happens often enough that I've noticed it.

Maybe I'm wrong, and Overeducated and Underpaid Mom can correct me since she lives in an old Big 8 town, but it would never occur to me (or anybody I know from home) to say something like that to a perfect stranger. I think it's a cultural difference, or maybe it's because we don't live on top of each other in the Midwest so we don't get in people's faces and say whatever comes into our head. And lord help us, we don't brag, at least not overtly. It's more of a low key smugness, in that we can afford to be generous in our applause, because well....we are Nebraska.

We live in a unique situation in that we have nothing else to love. Our border to border devotion (I stole that line from my brother, BTW) probably doesn't exist anywhere else. I've lived here long enough that it all exists on the periphery of my life, but when I go back I feel it again. I surely know a lot more about Tech's players than I do Nebraska's. Most days I don't even know who the Huskers are playing. DOTR loves college football and he has a great time going anytime he can. He adopted Georgia Tech as his team to root for long before either of the girls thought about going there. We've had season tickets, we go to tailgates, he hits the big kick off dinner every year but he says that it's just not the same. There's not that passion and love for your team that you feel down in the pit of your stomach.

I guess even though we've lived away for so long, it shouldn't be surprising that my cell phone plays "There is No Place Like Nebraska" and DOTR's plays "Hail Varsity".

The funny thing is nobody here even recognizes the tune.

Time is Running Out!

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It's my Birthday

I'm tired from staying up too late watching election returns in which I had little interest. I do so enjoy flipping from channel to channel, assessing the tone of each presentation. It's really quite interesting when you look at it objectively and you can see huge differences in how the same information is presented and analyzed.

But sleeping was probably a better option for me, considering I was up at the crack of dawn yesterday morning serving Chik fil a biscuits to the IB seniors on their day off school (they had to come in for their Science Group 4 presentations--the culmination of a huge group project of the chemistry and biology classes and a large part of their internal assessment scores for their IB diploma).

This morning DOTR was off at 6:00 am again, headed for a benefits meeting with the employees of a new client near Macon. Which means getting cranky boys off to school (yes, I am spoiled, DOTR is a morning person so he handles it--I'm not a morning person, so I don't unless I absolutely must).

The girls came home yesterday to vote and brought me an adorable A.Tierney tote bag in my signature navy blue. This morning I scored a pair of noise cancelling headphones for our trip to Hawaii from DOTR and the boys. My BFF called me while she was driving to work to wish me happy birthday and told me she is getting married again! Very happy for her--she deserves it after being married to the biggest a-hole on planet earth.

But you know what I really want for my birthday? No, not world peace. Not diamonds or pearls. Not even a new car.

I want a new toilet for my bathroom. Our bathroom was remodeled, poorly I might add, in the 1980's and a very low profile one piece toilet with an odd rectangular shape was installed behind a half wall on the side and the garden tub on the back. The plastic on the lid and seat broke, as 25 year old plastic tends to do, and a toilet seat that fits the odd long rectangular shape does not appear to have been manufactured or available for sale in this century. DOTR rigged something that held together for about a year, but it just broke and I am over it. I want a new toilet. The problem is that you can't just go buy any old toilet and the low profile one piece numbers start at about $400.

DOTR will pay $10,000 for a trip to Hawaii, but he won't buy a new toilet. (In his defense...this one does have a good flush, if you catch my drift....he really likes it because it's old and uses a lot of water). Along with the seat, it also has other issues which I'm sure you'd love for me to describe but I don't know all the names of the doohickeys inside. Just take my word for it, this toilet sucks.

So how sad is it that for my birthday that puts me on the downside towards 50, all I really want is a new toilet?

Go figure....

People were waiting hours in line to vote early here for weeks (since sometime in Sept.).

Today, I was in and out in 10 minutes at 9:30. The girls left Tech at 12:30, drove home, voted and we were on our way to lunch at 1:10.

Glad I didn't buy in to the "panic". I thought I'd run in and vote early one day in September, but I couldn't find a parking place so I said "forget it". So either my entire precinct (and every one I've driven by today) voted early, or it was all media hype.

(BTW, my precinct always has one of the highest turnout percentages in our county--DOTR works the elections, so I know this to be a fact.)

Good Things

In my never ending quest to find some way to escape the incessant blathering about the "e-word", I discovered that one of my favorite actress/comediennes has a new talk show. In ATL, it's on at 8:00 am so I don't have to even have the nasty newsies on in the background beating that same dead horse. Check it out. She's hilarious.

I bought this book a few years ago--it was written in the 1980's and is supposedly the first book published in what is now a very common genre (Dan Brown, Steve Berry, etc.) When it was written...by a WOMAN, no less....there was no real catagory for it, since it was action and adventure, intrigue, romance, ancient secrets, "grail chasers", etc. Now there is a sequel, so I had to refresh my memory by rereading "The Eight" this weekend so I could get up to speed for "The Fire". In the first, you think the book has reached it's final "reveal", and then boom, there's another surprise in the ending.



In between football games, I found one of my favorite movies on cable. I never get tired of watching this movie, Kevin Kline is just so amazingly talented. France, wine, a train trip across France, a wandering tour of Paris, a mindless plot...what's not to love?

Toast and popcorn for Thanksgiving dinner. Does it get any better?

Anybody else have some Good Things to share?