No title, no photo

Not the way I had planned to say goodbye to 2011 but then again I didn't have a plan to begin with. Even now as I sit here attempting to be clever in bidding our year adieu nothing is falling in to place. I'll blame it on the fog that is still lingering in my head.
The past 12 months have given us laughter and tears, good times and bad and yet we moved on. Not dwelling on the bad or lingering to long with the good. And so it is that I shall say goodbye once again 

• Farewell - English (formal)
• Bye - English (casual)
• totsiens / tot siens - Afrikaans (standard)
• tot weersiens - Afrikaans (informal)
• tot wederom - Afrikaans (informal)
• wederdom - Afrikaans (informal)
• koebaai - Afrikaans (informal; derived from English "Good-Bye")
• ghoebaai - Afrikaans (informal; derived from English "Good-Bye")
• baai - Afrikaans (informal; derived from English "Bye")
• arriewarie - Afrikaans (informal; folk etymology from "Au revoir")
• tatta / tata - Afrikaans (children's language)
• vaarwel - Afrikaans (formal)
• elalleqa - Arabic
• khodaa haafez _ persian
• aabar dekha hobey - Bengali
• Donadagohvi - Cherokee
• Hagoonea' - Navajo
• Ahoj - Czech
• Ja ne / じゃね (informal) - Japanese
• Ja mata ne / じゃまたね (formal) - Japanese
• Sayonara / さよなら (if you will not see them for a long time) - Japanese
• Auf Wiedersehen - German
• Bis dann - German
• Tschüss - German
• Ade - German
• Tschau - German
• Bis Spater (Bis Schpaater)- German
• Viszlát! - Hungarian
• Arrivederci - Italian
• Addio - Italian
• Ciao - Italian
• Buona sera - Italian
• Adieu - French [add-ee-uh] (farewell) very formal
• Au Revoir - French (aw reh-VWAH)
• À bientôt - French (see you later)(ah bee-EN-toe)
• À demain - French (see you tomorrow)(ah deh-MAN)
• Hejdå - Swedish
• Aloha - Hawaiian
• Le'hitraot - Hebrew
• Shalom - Hebrew
• Aavajo - Gujarati

Punha Bhetu - Marathi

• Sampai Jumpa - Indonesian
• Adios - Spanish
• Paalam - Filipino
• Zai Jian - Chinese, Mandarin
• Zoi Geen (the "g" is pronounced like geek) - Chinese, Cantonese
• Farvel - Danish
• Namaste (same as hello) - Hindi ( this video shows you how to pronounce namaste: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXlcpjgyrOg )
• Fir Milenge (see you) - Hindi
• Alvida (Goodbye, bit formal) - Hindi
• Ayo - Papiamentu
• Rub Rakha - Punjabi
• Feri bhetaula (lit. we'll meet again) - Nepali
• Do zobaczenia (see you) - Polish
• Żegnaj - Polish
• Adeus - Portuguese
• Tchau - Portuguese
• Do svidan’ya/До Свидания (until we meet again, formal)- Russian
• Poka/Пока (pronounced pa-ka, informal) - Russian
• Do vstrechi/До Встречи (until we meet again) - Russian
• Selamat jalan - Malay
• Selamat tinggal - Malay
• Tot ziens - Dutch
• Dag - Dutch
• Doei - Dutch
• 再见 - Chinese
• Yasou (YAH-soo) - Greek
• Hwyl fawr - Welsh
• Annyeonghi Kyeseyo(if the person you're talking to isn't leaving) - Korean
• Anyeonghi Gasyeo(if the person you're talking to is leaving) - Korean
• Näkemiin (See you) - Finnish
• Hyvästi (Farewell) - Finnish
• Hasta La Vista (see you later) - Spanish
• Adios - Spanish
• Te veo despues - Spanish
• Vale- Latin (to one person)
• Valete- Latin (to more than one person)
• La revedere - Romanian
• Veloma - Malagasy
• Sige la - Pangasinan
• Khuda Hafiz - Urdu
• zai jian - Chinese
• Ha det bra - Norwegian
• Ha det - Norwegian
• Sees - Norwegian
• Snakkes - Norwegian
• Vida parayunnu - Malayalam
• Vidaiperukiren - Tamil (very formal, in fact no one uses this)
• Ok maams - Tamil (very informal, use with mates only)
• Poitu Vaarein (Taking leave but will visit again)- Tamil (standard fare)
• Vaarein (Will come again) - Tamil short for Poitu Vaarein
• Slan - Irish
• Aavajo - Gujarati
• Чао - Macedonian
• Doviđenja - Croatian (litteraly means "Until we see again")
• Bog - Croatian ( litteraly means "God", but can be pronounced Bok! so it is differencianised from the word "God")
• Ćao - Croatian ( Primarily used in Coastal Croatia, because of it location very close to Italy, where you would say "Ciao" and the prounanciation of Ciao and Ćao are similar, if not the same)
• Mattae Sigona - Kannada (Used for meet you again sometime)
• Chao - Serbian/Bulgarian
• Nawatha hamu wemu - Sinhalese (This means "Catch you later")
• Subha dawasak - Sinhalese (This means "Have a nice day")
• Nasvidenje - Slovene (Formal)
• Adijo - Slovene (Bye)
• Čav - Slovene (Also čao and is pronounced as italian ciao)

list copied from  http://www.wikihow.com/Say-Goodbye-in-Several-Different-Languages

Due to unforeseen circumstances, there will be no blogging today. I came home from work yesterday with a cold that has gotten the better of me. I had no energy for reading blogs or emails or writing posts. Comments have been turned off so I don't get buried alive in unanswered emails.
See you tomorrow

Mom and me

What? What do you mean you don't see mom? She's the one in the purple robe.
We had a green Christmas but it's white outside now. We got snow yesterday and it sure is cold. Just perfect weather for mom to put on her robe and me to cuddle on her lap.

working on it

It's not easy getting back into the swing of things after a holiday. All that relaxing and taking it easy sure can wear a person out. I'm lucky though because I have extra time to catch up on my sleep while mom is at work. Dad has the week off too so him and I are hanging out while mom goes to work. Me and dad are also reminding mom a lot that she has to go to work, just in case she forgets.
I know you are probably tired of Christmas pictures but I wanted to show you one of me.

Mom thinks I look like one of Santa's elves but dad says I look like Dorky Duke.

Hey and guess what? Today is our 1000th post. Can you believe my mom has had that much to write about?

Life is a deck of cards.

Life really can be summed up with a deck of cards sometimes.
You see you think all you have is a pair

But one day there you are with a full house again.

If you aren't careful you might end up getting a little flush(ed)

But if you hold your head some day maybe the castle will be back to being just one king and one queen

and maybe just a little (white) jack.

Maybe I should ask for a redeal. Care to cut the deck?

I love Monday

I do love Monday, this week. I have the day off thanks to Christmas falling on my regular day off.
All in all, it was an enjoyable weekend. Saturday morning we went to Wade's dad's house. His kids and his granddaughter were there also. Saturday evening we celebrated with my kids. We opened gifts, ate food and just had fun.
Duke must have been a very good boy and he was quite excited about opening his gifts.

Santa brought him a fleece elf ball and an unstuffed stuffie. No sense bringing the kind with stuffing in them because they don't stay stuffed for long. He also got 2 bags of treats and thanks to his pal Donna he got the jumbo economy size bag of his favorite treat. Duke sends you tons of puppy licks for that Donna.
Christmas day was very quiet. It was just me, Wade and Duke. We started it with yummy breakfast that included cheap, pillsbury cinnamon rolls (the kind that come in the tube sold in the refrigerator section) Yeah, ok so they are a bit lame but this baker thought they were good enough. Anything more would have been too much like work.
They may not have been the best I've ever had but they looked nice in the pan. Kind of.

 And last but not least, we had a green Christmas. It doesn't happen often but I'm not complaining.

Merry Christmas

 A little video Duke and I made last year and never used.
We want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and much happiness in the coming New  Year.

Happy Christmas Eve

Duke is in position ready and waiting for Santa to arrive. He says that he is not letting him out of here without leaving something good.

Hurry up Christmas

Just one more day to get through.

I think that the above photo depicts the day I had yesterday quite nicely.
How about you just sit back and enjoy the sounds of the season while I try to rush through today.

First Christmas

Not THE first Christmas but my first Christmas

I had a crazy busy day yesterday and didn't have much time to throw together a post for today. So you get a really old picture of me and my cousin Rich. The date on the side of the picture is March 63 which I'm assuming is when the film was developed. Since I was born in March of 62 I was about 9 months old here.

All I have to do is make it through these next couple of days and the weekend should be a pretty calm one for me. Our Christmas will be a low key, hang out at home and relax kind of holiday. We'll be taking a short trip (hour and a half drive) to see Wade's dad on Saturday morning and then it's back home and chillin out time.

A Holiday tale

Our tale begins on a cold December morning. Mr. Banana Bread awoke to a new day with little hope for a bright future. It was almost Christmas and he was desperate.

 He had recently been burned by a weekend bakery girl and things didn't look good for him. He was out of work and didn't know what to do. He was, however, if nothing else determined. He vowed he would not loaf around. He had several promising leads and he was hoping one of them would pan out.

 As luck would have it, he did land a position as a deli clerk. Although the pay wasn't so good he was ecstatic. He knew that even with a little dough in his pocket he could buy a few gifts and make it a Merry Christmas for his wife and their 3 little muffins.

Had he not gotten canned the next day for doing a really crummy job it might have worked out.

Sorry but not all Christmas stories have a happy ending but I bet you did get a good laugh out of it. Don't worry I won't tell Mr Banana Bread that you laughed at his misfortune. I hear he's buried pretty deep in a dumpster right now anyway.

Countdown

Only 5 more sleeps until Christmas day. Are you ready? Well, makes no difference because ready or not it's coming.

Just a few of the ornaments that are hanging on my tree.

How to stay warm on a cold day

Yesterday we had snow. It was the perfect day to stay inside and snuggle under a blanket. Well maybe for some of us anyway. I was busy cleaning the house but not because I felt like I had to. I actually wanted to. Ok, so I admit, it started with the bathroom which I didn't want to do but after that I was on a roll and just kept going.
Duke on the other hand took full advantage of a little gift he received from his pal Oreo and his small town Mommy 
Just look at what they sent him.

He is now sporting his very own snuggie and it's pink just like Oreo's parka. Duke says him and Oreo are both manly men and it's perfectly acceptable to wear pink.

So the questions here are, 1. Did Duke like his Snuggie and 2. Was it comfortable. Well lets ask him.
Duke, would you care to answer?
Duke?
Duke?

I think I can answer for him, he says yes to both.
Thank you again Anne and Oreo. 

This and that

Yesterday several of you noticed the cat in the picture behind Duke.  His name was Pringle and he owned us before Duke did. Maybe some day I'll tell the story of Pringle. It was right after Duke's first Christmas, I believe it was either New Years eve or day, that Pringle got outside and never returned. I wasn't real concerned at first because he had disappeared for a few days at a time before. After a week passed and the temperatures had plummeted I knew we wouldn't be seeing Pringle again.

There was also a question yesterday about how old Duke is. He turned 4 in July. I hate to admit it but I totally missed his birthday blog post this year. He forgave me though because I made up for it in treats.

Well it seems that a couple of you suggested yesterday that I only do what's fun and skip the rest. For the first half of the weekend, I pretty much accomplished that. I can't say that there was one single thing I did yesterday that I didn't want to do. Today I have to bite the bullet though and clean the bathroom (YUCK) but, after that, I'm going to only do stuff I want to do.

Finally, and I saved the best for last, Duke got himself all spiffed up yesterday. He thought it best that he looked presentable when Santa comes

He even put on his happy face for the camera. He's just so handsome.

More from the past

How about a picture from Duke's first Christmas

Last night didn't go quite as planned so maybe some time today I'll get around to my visits. I just seem to be getting more and more disorganized lately.
Maybe I should ask Santa to bring me a new brain. Perhaps one that can preform multiple functions simultaneously.  Or, he could just bring me a little elf who would take care of all the little things that I seem to be getting bogged down with lately. That would free me up to do fun stuff instead.

Vintage Christmas

Vintage may be over exaggerating just a little since this only goes back as far as 2006 but sometimes that feels like a lifetime ago.
I present to you Mr and Mrs Claus

Don't ask me to explain those expressions because I have no idea. Either we were both trying to avoid the camera or it was too much wine.
I was a little short on time last night so I didn't get to my email or all my visits. I plan on sitting back and chilling out tonight and doing a little catching up

I grew up loving all Christmas songs. Of course as a child I loved the ones about Santa and I recall my dad singing them to me. I also remember learning all of the traditional carols. We had a little song book that each year I would pull out and I would sing each and every carol over and over. I would sing them anywhere and everywhere. These days my Christmas choral concerts are usually limited to the shower but I still love a good carol.

I'm dreaming of.....

NO, it is not a white Christmas that I'm dreaming of, with every Christmas card I write.

It's the extra day off from work that I'm going to get.

my achy breaky arm

I went to work yesterday and I was whining  commenting to one of the girls about my arm hurting and I couldn't understand why. I said that I hadn't done anything strenuous, just baking all day. She asked if I had mixed all my cookie dough by hand and then I realized that must have been it. Now I know I"m getting old when I can't even handle a day of mixing cookie dough without over taxing muscles. Geesh.

So if I appear to be leaning to one side for the next couple of days like my picture here, don't mind me. Help yourself to the cookies and pass me the Ben-Gay please

I can't believe I'm going to say this...

...but I think I'm glad I'm going back to work today. The weekend flew by and although I didn't get it all done I did more than I thought I would.
Well I already told you yesterday that I got the tree decorated. Maybe I should rephrase that and say I put the ornaments on the tree in a haphazard fashion. Either way, it's adorned with ornaments.
I sat down last night to start addressing Christmas cards. I no sooner got started than a friend of ours called and asked where we were. He was having an after hunting party in his garage and we had been invited. We were planning on skipping it because it was so cold out. We figured we wouldn't be missed. We figured wrong. We bundled up and headed out.
Sunday morning I decided I was going to tackle the baking. I pulled out all my ingredients, got out a bowl and was just measuring out some sugar when my phone rang. My son wanted me to give him a ride to the shop he works at to go pick up his truck. Seems it's been sitting there since Friday when he fell at work and got a concussion. Oh really? And your just telling me now? This is when I heave a big sigh and say "OK, I'll be there in a minute".
Finally back home around 11:00am I got back to the cookies. I didn't quit until almost 6:00. Believe it or not I don't have them all done. I may be a little scarce around here this week trying to finish them up. It seems that the women Wade works with look forward to my cookie trays every year.
And now I end with a few ornaments from my tree.

See the little Westie ornament in the top right corner? Silly question, of course you do. Anyway, I bought that one Saturday when we were out running our errands. I saw it and couldn't resist it.

Only 2 weeks to go

The first half of my weekend almost ended without me getting much of anything crossed off my list. We went out in the morning and by the time we got back home I had lost all interest in doing anything.
I think Wade was getting tired of listening to heavy sighs because he suggested several times that I go do some shopping. I took his suggestion and although I did pick up some gifts and cookie ingredients, I found the whole shopping experience to be rather annoying. I don't like going out and trying to figure out what to buy for someone else. It's not much fun.
Back home, with the help of Duke we got the tree decorated. Kind of, sort of. You won't see this tree in the pages of Better Homes and Gardens but it's decorated.

Wade's bear clock wasn't fitting in with the whole Christmas theme on the mantel so I found a Santa hat for papa bear.

I have a grouping of snowmen on both sides of the clock.
Here's the left

and these are on the right

I also managed to address a few cards and believe it or not Wade and I watched Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.
Now if I can get myself into the kitchen I'll do some baking.

Oh brother

I'm not quite sure what the conversation was about but when Duke got a visit from his human brother last weekend he seemed to be enjoying it.

So many things to try and get to this weekend. We have errands to run, decorating to do, cards to address,  cookies to bake and the list goes on and on. I know without a doubt that the errands will be crossed off the list. As for the rest of the stuff, we shall see.

snow business

Brrrr. Button up your coat. Grab your hat and gloves. It's going to get cold out there. We're under a winter weather advisory from 6 AM this morning until 4 AM tomorrow. They are calling for 1-3 inches today and an additional 2-4 tonight.

Oh the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful.

And even though after work I have no place to go, I don't want snow, don't want snow, don't want snow.

I hope you are heading into your weekend with a song in your heart and a smile on your face.

Blame it on the rain

We've had rain. It's been wet, cold and dark. I have been achy and tired so I'm blaming it on the rain. Tuesday I came home from work, answered most of my emails and then headed for bed. I thought that maybe I could pull off a wordless Wednesday post but it just didn't happen. That bed was calling my name and I answered.
So here it is Thursday and we're darn close to the weekend which is making me mighty happy.

I've got my wreath hanging on my front door so everyone passing by will at least think that I'm ready for Christmas.

Special note to Marg. I've tried to email you at the address you left in the comment section and it said it wasn't a valid email address. If you could email me at iannieam@windstream.net with your mailing address so I can get your t-shirt in the mail to you

It's a start

Years ago I used to take a week's vacation the week following Thanksgiving. That was when I would get my decorating, baking, shopping, wrapping and everything Christmas related done.
Well now that the kids are grown, and I'm getting old and lazy it takes me a little bit longer to get going on things.
Sunday I did it though. I went and cut my tree down (from it's perch in the basement) and dragged it up a big hill (the basement steps) to it's place of honor in the living room.

There are no ornaments on it yet but at least it's up.

Who won?

Are you ready to hear who won the drawing for the Duke shirt? I'm ready to tell you but you will have to excuse the blurry pictures of Duke because he was just so excited about drawing.
I wrote everyone's name on a piece of paper and put them on a plate.

With the help of his lovely assistant Duke got right to the task of picking 

His assistant held up the entry and verified with Duke that it was the correct one.

His assistant reveals the lucky winner.

I know, a little blurry. We did this at night so the light wasn't so good. Here's a better look at the lucky winner.

Congratulations Marg. Send me your email address so I can get this in the mail to you.

To snoop or not to snoop

When I was a kid I was always so curious about what I was getting for Christmas. I could never wait. I had to snoop. I was, more often than not, disappointed.
I did eventually outgrow my curiosity and gave up on snooping. However, when you live in a house that is big on shopping online and you are the first one home to get the mail, you sometimes find things out without even trying. Especially if the box is clearly marked with what's inside.
The bad part about that is that the next 21 days are going to be pure torture.

In case you are wondering, a certain little white Westie has no problem with snooping. I don't dare leave any bags containing his gifts anywhere within his reach.

If you missed yesterdays post be sure to go check it out and get in on my giveaway. Winner will be posted tomorrow.

OOShirts

About a month ago I received an email from Sam Hunt asking if I would be interested in doing a review for their site Ooshirts. After checking out the website I gladly accepted the offer. In exchange for a review I would receive 2 free t-shirts with the design of my choice.
After coming up with my own design for the shirt I went back to the website to get started. Navigating through the site is quite easy. I uploaded my picture and in no time I was ready to finalize my order. Using their design lab could not possibly have been any easier. The hardest part of the whole thing was trying to decide which font to use for the text I added. When I was going through the design process, I noticed you could have one of their graphic design artists check your work so I went ahead and checked that box. I got a quick response letting me know that the design looked great and didn't need to change a thing.
Now even though I was getting the shirts free I was still curious about the prices. I was sure that for this frugal gal they would be way too high. I was pleasantly surprised that their prices are really quite reasonable.
I went ahead and finalized the order and the confirmation email stated that my order was due to arrive on December 2nd and that is exactly what day I got them on.
I couldn't wait to open the package to check them out and let me tell you I was thrilled.
Duke says that I've rambled on enough and I need to show you or should I say he wants to show you his shirt.

I don't know what he's talking about there with the "his" shirt. Just because it's got his picture on it. It's MY shirt Duke.

 To sum it all up, I was very satisfied with the service at ooshirts as well as with the quality of the shirts I got. Not only do I recommend them but I wouldn't hesitate to purchase from them in the future.

Oh no, Duke just reminded me that I forgot the best part. Because I got 2 shirts we decided to do a giveaway. One lucky winner will receive their very own Duke shirt.
All you need to do to enter is leave me a comment. The shirt I have is a ladies size large. Now guys if you think you might be too manly to wear a ladies shirt you could always give this to a lady you know (preferably your wife if you are married)
I'll announce the winner on Monday since I want to get this in the mail as soon as possible so that you can get it before Christmas.

finally, just as a formality let me say that yes I did receive 2 free shirts in exchange for this review but all opinions are 100% my own.

Playing

Playing hooky today. Too tired to write a blog post. Catch you all Saturday.

When it rains it snows

That's right, we had it all yesterday. It started off by raining and then it turned to snow. At least it didn't stick around but it sure was cold out there.

 (not today's snow, picture just inserted for effect)

Started my day off yesterday getting to work and finding an order on my table with a note. The customer ordered a rye bread. The girl who wrote the note said "We didn't know which one was rye so I got out two different one". Well what they got me out was one wheat bread and one natural grain bread. If this all sounds odd, all the breads and rolls that I bake are from frozen dough. If a customer calls at night to order for the next day they have to pull it from the freezer for me. Well since they didn't get out the right bread I had to pull out my mammoth cart and begin searching for the rye. I couldn't believe my luck when it was in the first box I looked in.

The next bit of fun I had was with one of my ovens. I have two ovens and one of them has been having issues. It works when it wants. Parts had been ordered and the guy who does the work had finally installed them and put everything back together. So I turn the oven on in the morning to preheat it. About an hour and a half later my bread is ready to go in. I open the door, load the oven, close the door and....nothing. The oven won't work and the other one is already full.

I can hardly wait to see what fun awaits me today.

The plan

In my travels through blog land I've noticed that some of you are way ahead in the Christmas decorating while some, like me, are way behind. I'm having a little trouble getting around to pulling those boxes of  20 some years worth of decorations out of their comfy little storage spot. It's not that I'm suffering from that bah humbug feeling, I'm just not looking forward to the mess that will result from all those boxes.
Then it hit me. The plan is perfect I tell you.
Instead of getting out all my decorations I'll just post all the wonderful pictures of decorations I've collected from one place or another and adopt them as my own.
No mess, no fuss, no clean up.
So just look at what I've accomplished.

I've got the tree up and it gave my living room a whole log cabin kind of feel. Isn't it amazing?

No? You're not buying it? (pause for big sigh here)
Oh well, I don't think my kids will let me get away with it either. It's just not right, they are adults you know, I shouldn't have to keep doing this every year. I suppose they would probably have a problem with their gifts being wrapped in grocery bags too huh?

More thoughts

I know I may be getting carried away with the "think happy" thing but I'm pretty sure that all of us can use the little extra reminders this time of year.

I'm really only thinking of your well being here.
If the holidays start to get you down and you're feeling a little squirly

I want you to stop what you are doing and  repeat the following as many times as necessary.

There, don't you feel better already?

Indulge yourself

That's what I've been doing and that is why today's post has no pictures. I spent the whole weekend indulging myself.
I slept in late.
I enjoyed a good book.
I enjoyed a few good Christmas movies on television.
I bought myself a new mug just because I could.
I ate potato chips and chocolate without guilt.
I read blog without commenting.
I enjoyed the company of a little white dog who just so happened to be indulging himself in a few of my snacks.

So go ahead. Indulge yourself. What nice thing are you going to do for yourself today?

After some serious consideration and a little coaxing from Duke I'm indulging you with an old picture.

Thought for the day

Now that the holiday season has begun I think this is a good time to share a little thought with you.

I found this little gem in a shop in Volant. I didn't bring the actual ornament home with me but I loved the thought and I knew I would need reminded of this at least once or twice.

I wish we could put up some of the Christmas spirit in jars and open a jar of it every month.  ~Harlan Miller

fallen angel

I have a cheap dollar store angel that I put on my bathroom shelf at Christmas time a couple  years ago and it never got put away. It didn't look real Christmassy and when I packed everything up I kept forgetting it was there. She was guardian angel of the bathroom, protecting all that shower from slips and falls.
That is until I came home from work the other day and found ...

 Amanda is temporarily staying with us and she left me this note on my desk. Now I obviously went wrong somewhere with her. Why the heck didn't she glue her back together and put her on the shelf like nothing ever happened. I'm having visions of falling and breaking a hip in the shower now that my bathroom guardian angel is gone.