Counting my blessings............

Did you ever have that thought when you were in college (maybe high school) and you had so many really amazing friends that you couldn't imagine not always living near them and getting to hang out? And then of course life moves on and people go off to master's programs and people get married and start having kids and people get jobs and get transferred clear across the country. Now at least we have email/webcams/facebook/etc. so we can keep in better touch but sometimes when I read the things my friends are up to or on the rare occasion I get to speak to them on the phone I really wish I could live out my childhood fantasy that one day when I became a grown-up, I would live on a street where all my favorite people lived and our kids would grow up together and we'd have barbecues together in the summer and all of such fun things. But alas, such is not life so we go where we are called and we make friends along the way as best we can.

And then we get a phone call.

And find out that.............................................

One of our most FAVORITE friends in the entire world is moving. Where you ask is she moving? To a nice little town that is 15 minutes from where I live! Which is a big improvement seeing as now she lives in D.C. while I live in Dallas. I can hardly contain my excitment. Especially since she will be here so soon (February) along with her brand spankin new baby girl (4 weeks old when she gets here) for me to snuggle and snuggle. I can just see the play dates now! (My daughter is 18 months....think that will be a problem? *S*) Ah but this is an old friend, we'll never be as formal as calling them "playdates." This is a cried on my shoulder, offered her shoulder kinda friend. We used to have a secret word we could say that meant "It doesn't matter what you are doing right now or how cute that boy is that you are studying with or how early your test is in the morning, something serious is going on with me and I need you now!" She's one of those rare people you come across in your life that really "gets" you. Plus she's got a heart of gold.

Counting down the days til February...................

Ouch! There goes Christmas.

I love the library. Ever since I was a kid I've always felt a little sneaky walking out of there with 4 or 5 books in tow (that I didn't pay for). I can never believe I actually get to take home as many books as I want (I suppose they might draw the line somewhere though I've yet to see it) and it doesn't cost me a penny. It is FREE. I'm really a geeky bookworm at heart and the fact that someone has put all these adventures, mysteries, tragedies, celebrations, etc right at my fingertips with no money out of my pocket sometimes just makes me absolutely giddy. For a book lover like me, its like hitting the jackpot everytime I walk through those doors. It sometimes seems too good to be true. And I've marveled and thought surely there are strings attached.

There are.

I've recently discovered a few strings, a few very long, very expensive strings.

Let me introduce you to the world of chewed slightly manhandled torn to smithereens damaged books.

A few weeks ago Pumpkin and I went to the library and I picked out some books for her. I purposely picked out the board books so that none of her excited turning of the pages would bend or dishevel them in anyway. She was even so thrilled about one of them that I let her look at it on the drive home and she was very very quiet which is a treat. But then again it's hard to make a lot of noise when your mouth is full of cardboard.

When it was time to return the books I walked sheepishly to the counter and told them I assumed there was a fee associated with chewed up books unless of course they saw the charm associated with sweet little baby teeth marks in a book about babies (hey I tried). They didn't see the charm. They charged me $12.41 for a book I can buy in "very good" condition on Amazon for a penny (plus S&H.) Ouch! There goes Christmas.

But we got through it and I promised myself to never leave Pumpkin unsupervised again w/ library books. And I mostly kept the promise. Mostly. Pumpkin takes her daily bath in my bathtub because its just easier that way for me. I also take my nightly bath in that bathtub and typically leave my books in a pile on the side of the bathtub which has never been a problem................until now.

Tonight after the water and bubbles had drained from Pumpkins bath, I went in to clean out the toys so I could relax in my own bath and curl up and read. Here are the toys I found that needed cleaning up:
The big book you see, the hardcover (cha-ching) just happens to belong to a little place we like to call the library. Me: "But don't you see the charm in this? Now the book is wet and turned to mush and barely recognizable and the book is about viruses that make human bodies turn to mush and barely recognizable. Librarian: That will be 85 dollars and 13 cents please.

Ouch! There goes Christmas.

I Love Christmas Spirit!

Sometimes I'm lacking in Christmas spirit, in fact at times I can be a downright Scrooge. I mean, I put up my tree already but wasn't really feeling the holiday buzz yet. So I love it when others around me have so much Christmas spirit that I can't help but have it rub off on me. There is a couple here in the town I live in that puts up some pretty spectacular Christmas lights. They even have an FM transmitter in their attic so you can tune your radio to a specific station and the lights are choreographed to the music. We took Pumpkin last night to see them and I think I was more excited/impressed than she was though she thought it was pretty cool. Everytime we'd drive past a house w/ lights, she'd say "ights, ights, more more" because she just couldn't get enough. When I saw this house though, I felt my Christmas Spirit bubbling up. There was an article published in our community magazine about them that said it takes the man 100 hours to put up all the lights and some insane amount of time to sync them with the music. What a lot of work, but I'm sure glad he did it because we enjoyed it immensely and felt our Christmas spirit soar! Check it out below: (this is their display last year, this years is much the same)

And as if doing this fantastic display isn't enough, they are also official drop locations for the local food bank and Toys for Tots and even have their own Santa on the weekends. Don't you love people like this?