Holiday Edition of Getting to Know Your Friends

Your Name: Laurie
1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Hot Chocolate.
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Santa wraps the presents.
3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? Usually white lights at my parent's house.
4. Do you hang mistletoe? Nope
5. When do you put your decorations up? No decorations on or in the house. Something about not being home for the holidays combined with the nasty combination pine sap and cat fur...
6. What is your favorite holiday dish? Mom's brussel sprouts with roasted chestnuts!
7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child? Waking up in the morning and running out to the living room to see what was under the tree.
8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I can't remember how old I was, but I found out from my friends.
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? We used to as kids, but we don't do that any longer
10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? I don't... We travel home every year so we enjoy the one my parents put up.
11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? Dread it!
12. Can you ice skate? Yes, still working on my pre-bronze moves for figure skating tests this year!
13. Do you remember your favorite gift? A certain someone special (my hubby) got me this Florida Gator Christmas ornament when we lived in Altamonte Springs with a very special surprise attatched!
14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you? Being with family
15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? Any pie that Dad makes!
16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Going home, hanging out with my family, watching manatees and fondue!
17. What tops your tree? Um... Nothing.... There is an angel on my parent's tree that drives their black lab nuts!
18. Which do you prefer giving or receiving? Giving!
19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? Pat-a-Pan
20. Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum? Depends, the chocolate/peppermint ones are good!

Where am I and what day is this???

Yes, another "I dropped off of the face of the earth" post... Where in heaven's name do I start???

Let's look back to my last post to see where life left off and what has happened since then...

1. House has been closed and ownership has been assumed...
2. Turkey dinner at the casino was pretty yummy.
3. The refrigerator made it to the new house...
4. The move from ABQ back to PHX was absolutely hellacious... See more below
5. The house does not look like the pictures below any longer... Add stacks of boxes to all of the rooms and you get the picture...
5. Spent another 2 weeks in Austin on a training assignment.
6. Came home to PHX during the weekend in-between to go to the Barenaked Ladies concert... Gators also won the SEC championship that weekend!
7. Spun a lot of wool in Austin along with the training class...
8. Found out Gators are going to the National Championship game in Phoenix this year. Anyone have a couple of extra tickets they would like to sell?
9. Tore a muscle in my shoulder in Austin during said training class...
10. We have internet service, DirecTV hooked up, cell phones don't work for crap out in the middle of BFE...
11. Kid informed me that we really don't live in the middle of Bum F*ck Egypt, we are actually about 15 miles outside of BFE...
12. School that we tried to enroll kid into would not let him in for the last 3 weeks of the semester. They gave him full credit for the semester so kid got a few weeks off of school...
13. Took an additional week of vacation after training class was over to start the unpacking hell. We have gone from being up to our eyeballs in boxes all over the house to being up to our butts in boxes all over the house...
14. The only furniture in the new house are 3 computer chairs, 2 computer desks, 2 barstools, 2 beds and one chair. Ordered new couch, should be here in the middle of January. Bought 2 chairs from IKEA...
15. Have we mentioned what a great place IKEA is??? I have died and gone to furniture store/ anything having to do with decorating a house heaven... and easy on the pocketbook...
16. Eau Du Vache is not pleasant when the wind blows it by the house... (aka cow farm odor...)
17. Cat house is finished on the back deck, the kitties just LOVE it! Now, they can go outside and be safe!
18. We have shades hung in the bedroom and master bath...
19. Got my butt back on the ice this week to start skating on Monday. Met some really great people! I found a new figure skating home... Not doing much on the ice except edges since the shoulder injury is healed to about 70%. Would you believe there are 6 ice rinks in the PHX area?
20. Today is my first day back at the plant in 6 1/2 weeks. Feels weird, but it's good to be back! Now, can I stay awake all night for the shift?
21. Finished the holiday shopping...
22. Still looking for the plane reservations for the trip back home to Florida on Christmas Eve so I know what time to be at the airport after work... I think I sent them to myself, but I am currently wading through over 700 emails to find it...
23. The spun yarn is looking REALLY good!
24. I quit smoking during this whole mess...
25. Cats have adjusted and are getting along quite well...
26. I am still having a problem identifying which city I am actually in every so often...
27. Kid has his AZ ID, the rest of us are still trying to get out there to get ours done.
28. Kid turned 18! We took him out for his birthday then we were going to take him to the casino to play Blackjack. We found out you have to be 21 to gamble in AZ... :P
29. We still can't find where Mike's scotch is packed... We found the rum, vodka, tequila and liquours... Also made up a new drink that is pretty yummy. (1 oz vodka, 1oz peach schnapps, pour into tall glass, fill with cranberry juice, add 2oz sour mix to top and shake! I was trying for something close to a cosmo only a little more fruity and a little weaker...) I LOVE having a wet bar!

I hate moving! The movers were a nightmare from start to finish. So many things went wrong, it would take pages to go through all of the problems. We will hit the major ones... First, the packers did not allow themselves enough time to pack so they were just tossing stuff into boxes with no regard for where it belonged or if it was breakable up until the moving van finished packing. Second, the packers were also not packing some things that we ended up finding and trying to cram into our cars because they were too lazy to pack it. Third, they got the dates mixed up and didn't deliver our goods until a day after they were contracted to. Fourth, I am finding quite a few broken items in the unpacking. Fifth, they were refusing to take the last few items saying "they couldn't take them" (even though the items were listed on the manifest as "in the truck"...) Sixth, about 40% of the boxes were mislabeled. That part is my favorite adventure of all of this. I have stuff from the garage labeled as kitchen, stuff labeled master bedroom that should be in the kitchen, stuff marked living room that should be in the bedroom, the list goes on... So far, we have found the dishes and most of the cookware and appliances, so we are in good shape as far as eating food goes. We found sheets and towels and most of the bathroom stuff was labeled right so we can keep clean. I am equating unpacking the house boxes to opening presents on Christmas morning. I have no clue what I will find in each box, unwrapping everything is fun, I have boxes of paper from unwrapping everything and it's fun to OOOH and AHHH over what I find... Have I mentioned I am really sick of the Christmas morning joy at this point in my life???

Once the movers finished packing the van, we were able to pack the kitties, puppies and other family members into various vehicles and head to PHX. Note to self - don't do an all night drive to Phoenix after spending an entire day packing and loading, bad things happen... But, the hallucinations we had on the road were kind of fun... We finally made it to Phoenix around 4am, brought all the animals into the house, unpacked the essentials (like a bed to sleep on), turned the heat on and finally got to sleep as the sun was coming up. We were up 3 hours later for the satellite installers, so sleep was not had until Saturday night (and I had to be at the airport at 6am for a business trip on the Sunday after Thanksgiving.... really fun...)

I LOVE THIS HOUSE!!! Even though it is still in total disarray (and no pictures because of this), it is nice to finally be in our home, it's nice to have my family back with me, it's nice to have lots of quiet where we are and it's nice to finally be getting settled in.