Slacker

I've been putting off blogging for a few days now. I was busy volunteering at Eriks school on Thursday. Yesterday was early out for him and I don't know what my excuse is for the days since my last post. Wait, I forgot, I've been busy booking hotel and a rental car for our trip to GA next week to look for a rental house. We're driving but we would rather not put 1000 miles on our cars (500 miles there and 500 miles back). I so can't wait to meet a few GA bloggers including this lady and her family, especially her beautiful daughter. I'm also hoping to spend some time with this friend who moved to Atlant@ back in early May. Actually I told her I expected to get together with her even if it was for coffee. BTW, PugMama & Lisa that is my friend Liz who I included in that email I sent to you all.

OK, well I promised that I would answer at least one more question soon. Hang onto your hats - I'm going to answer TWO!!!

The 1st one was asked by Janet and the question is: What are your favorite family traditions and why?

With the fall season in full swing, including some people getting an early dose of winter, like the 3 ft of snow that fell in certain parts of the Dakotas., this was a great time to answer this question. My 2 favorite holidays are Thanks.giving and Christm@s. They're my favorite not because of the food but because of the getting together with my family.


Growing up my mom's family (her siblings, parents, aunt & uncle) made a huge deal of the holidays. It was pretty much mandatory that about 25 people gather under one roof to celebrate Thanks.giving and Christ.mas. It would be hosted by household on a rotating basis. And no one would host Thanks.giving or Christ.mas the same year. Dinners would always be potlucks with the host providing the turkey and often other stuff because you could never have enough food. And I mean lots, and lots of food. It went on for forever and when we were done it often looked as though very little had been touched. Christ.mas was probably my very favorite holiday well, because of the presents. I was a kid what do you expect? Growing up we didn't draw names however the adults did to couples gifts rather than individual gifts. My mom had 3 biological siblings and 1 adopted brother who was actually her cousin but never, ever thought of him that way. Long story - fleeing Comm.unism. It wasn't until I was probably 11 or 12 that my mom told me that he was not my grandmother & grandfather's son but rather their nephew (grandfather's sister's son) that had changed his last name and "adopted" so that he could flee the Comm.unism his parents couldn't. Anyhow, I'm getting off the subject. But there were 13 grandkids between the 5 siblings. Everyone bought for each child and we all walked out of the house with 5 gifts - 3 from the uncles & aunts, 1 from my grandmother and 1 from my great-aunt & great-uncle. This continued until about 12 yrs ago when my grandmother passed away and most of the kids were grown adults and certain families wanted to start their own traditions. All of us kids agree that we wished that had never, ever happened.

My mom still celebrates Thanks.giving and Christ.mas with her younger sister. They decided they weren't going to let that go by the wayside and still to this day get together for both. That's one of the reasons I am so looking forward to going home for Christ.mas this year. I have not celebrated it with my family for 4 yrs. One of the best parts of the massive holidays together is that we laugh so much. Tears streaming down your face laughing. This is one of the reasons I can't wait to move home either. I don't mind traveling to one family for the holidays but having to travel to my family and Lane's family is too much and often we have spent holidays by ourselves for that reason.

2nd question and it comes from Lisa -

What are you studying in school?

When I started college way back in 1993 (I know some of you are thinking "Oh please!") I had planned on going to nursing school. But decided after hearing it was nearly impossible to get into Ind.iana U's nursing school changed my mind. What helped was that while taking my core classes for nursing school I had to take quite a few Socio.logy classes. I had always been fascinated by people and what they did and why they did it. I also had one of the best professors for several of those classes that made me change my mind. I had done quite well in this field of study in my courses (think high grades). So I changed it to Socio.logy. Then I met you-know-who and love was more important than school. I went back to school briefly while we were stationed in MS and got about 20 more credit hrs out of the way. With me doing distance learning and not really even knowing what I want to be when I grow up yet, I settled on getting a BA in General Studies with my emphasis in the Social Sciences. The 2 classes I am still struggling to finish are Modern American Woman's History and Religion in America: 1850 - present. I starting to think about the courses I will take next.

Well, it's almost noon and I'm still sitting here in my PJ's (typical for me on a Sat - my mother would be ashamed) and I have mountains of laundry and cleaning to do. Eriks is still running around in PJ's too. Better get him dressed.

Have a good weekend!!!