An interesting drive.....

As usual, I'm behind on my posts! Thought I'd start to catch up a little by telling you some things about last week.

Monday, December 22nd, the girls and I got up and took off for Terre Haute to do a little Christmas shopping that we needed to finish. Mostly had to pick up some things for Roger and a couple of gift cards. We had a good day! Found some decent deals (although we had to return a pair of pants we got him at Kohl's and a shirt we got him at Aeropostale and have yet to find replacements for him). Syd decided she wanted to take a nap on the way home since she had basketball practice, so as we were leaving Kohl's, she leaned her seat back and got comfortable. Sammie got buckled in and I pulled out of our parking space and was heading towards the exit when all of a sudden a car came bolting across the parking lot and nearly smashed into the passenger side of my Santa Fe. I slammed on the brakes and the guy in the other car never even slowed down a bit. I don't think he even saw us. Of course, Syd woke up instantly! It was pretty scary, but at least a tragedy was averted! Talk about close calls!

Tuesday, December 23rd started out as an ordinary day. Roger left for work and the girls and I got the house in order. We had a plumber coming to replace the faucet in the kitchen sink. After that was done, we headed out to pick up some lunch and for a quick trip to Greencastle. We needed to make a quick run through WalMart and Kroger for a few things we needed for Christmas dinner. When the plumber left he told us to be careful because the roads were supposed to get bad due to an ice storm that was coming. We left home and made it into town without a problem. I did notice it was somewhat slick, but I just took it slow and was careful. As we got into town, there was an area where some semis and large trucks were sliding and couldn't get around this sloped curve area, but cars were passing through just fine. At this point, Sammie told me to just pick up food for lunch and GO BACK HOME! I didn't listen to her, but in hindsight, I certainly should have!!! As a matter of fact, I told her "I'm already out, I'm going to finish before I go back home." Yeah, I've had many ideas better than that! LOL We had to take a detour to Greencastle because of an accident, but it wasn't a big deal...or so we thought! Got to WalMart and got the Santa Fe in for an oil change while we shopped. I think we were out of WalMart in record time! As we were headed to Kroger, I could tell the roads had gotten worse, so we didn't spend too much time in there. When we left there I headed back the same way we came because I figured the accident wasn't cleared up and that there were probably many more. Boy was I ever right! We got to SR 243 and US 40 and discovered we couldn't go east on 40, which didn't surprise me, but we also couldn't continue on 243. Grrrrr. So, we headed west on 40. I figured I'd find a way home since it was my old bus route! We tried a couple of different back roads only to find cars in ditches. Decided it wasn't worth taking a chance of ending up in a ditch and having to walk so we turned around and headed back to 40 to go west. We drove to Brazil and turned on 59 to head back towards I-70. We stopped and filled up with gas and got sodas and headed east on 70. Traffic was crawling, but at least it was moving...or so we thought. A couple of hours later we realized the only reason it was "moving" was because people were turning around and heading back west. Sooooo.....basically, it took us almost 6 hours to get home when we were less than 15 miles away! We were able to entertain ourselves, at least! Sammie just happened to have her DVD player with her in the car so we watched The Barnyard. (Guess this time I'm glad she didn't take all of her stuff out of the car!). We had snacks with us since we had been to the store...and we got into them! LOL The girls each took a nap for about an hour. Wish I could have done the same, but I was afraid traffic would start moving and I wouldn't wake up! We also made quite a few phone calls. We talked to Roger about every 30 minutes...he was stuck in traffic, also! Mom kept calling and updating us when she heard traffic reports or information. We also talked to the Westells...Donna kept us laughing! And my nephew, Jason, and my sister, Debbie! Finally, I remembered that I had several lottery tickets in my purse that were meant for Roger's stocking. Syd and I talked about how it would be fun to tell the story of how we won big $$ while sitting in traffic when we went to the Lottery Office to claim our money! Well, we only won $3, so we won't be taking a trip to the Lottery Office! We pulled in the driveway about 10pm and Roger got home around 10:30pm. We were all exhausted!

I'll share our Christmas Eve adventures tomorrow, as I have a couple of pictures to go with it!

Hugs&Smiles!
Kim

Only 15 days???

Oh my!!!! I can't believe it's only 15 days until Christmas. That means only 14 days to shop...and really less than that since we have Christmas with my family on December 20th. And...it's at our house this year! Lots to do to get ready.

I love all the excitement of the holiday season. I promised myself that I wasn't going to get stressed out about the holidays or get grumpy or frustrated. I wish I could say that I was sticking to that, but so far I've been a huge bundle of stress. I will say, though, that it's not Christmas related, it's work related, and this will pass! I can't even begin to tell you how many hours I've worked over the past few weeks, and I honestly don't even want to think about it!

Hopefully you are enjoying a wonderful holiday season with lots of blessings!

I'll try and post every chance I get!

Hugs&Smiles!
Kim

Any questions?????

I got this in an email, and it really made me laugh! I've had a really bad day, so I guess that's what made it so funny! Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!


A Christmas Story for people having a bad day:

When four of Santa's elves got sick, the trainee elves did not produce toys as fast as the regular ones, and Santa began to feel the Pre-Christmas pressure.

Then, Mrs. Claus told Santa her Mother was coming to visit, which stressed Santa even more.

When he went to harness the reindeer, he found that three of them were about to give birth and two others had jumped the fence and were out, Heaven knows where.

Then when he began to load the sleigh, one of the floorboards cracked, the toy bag fell to the ground and all the toys were scattered.

Frustrated, Santa went in the house for a cup of apple cider and a shot of rum. When he went to the cupboard, he discovered the elves had drank all the cider and hidden the liquor. In his frustration, he accidentally dropped the cider jug, and it broke into hundreds of little glass pieces all over the kitchen floor.

He went to get the broom and found the mice had eaten all the straw off the end of the broom.

Just then the doorbell rang. Irritated, Santa marched to the door, yanked it open, and there stood a little angel with a great big Christmas tree.

The angel said very cheerfully, 'Merry Christmas, Santa. Isn't this a lovely day? I have a beautiful tree for you. Where would you like me to stick it?'

And so began the tradition of the little angel on top of the Christmas tree!