I took a little trip out to Lane's for some more local Christmas shopping and spent an hour rocking in the sunshine. It was 72 degrees!
December 15th
This is the best time of year to work at a doctor's office! Everybody brings you goodies! These yummy all-natural honey oatmeal raisin cookies were brought to us by our baby formula rep. He got them at The Fresh Market and they were pretty much the best crunchy, yummy oatmeal cookies I've ever had.
December 16th
See? What'd I tell ya? These Christmas cookies (from Wilson's Bakery!) were dropped off today by the OB/GYN group at the hospital. We gon' weigh 400 pounds a piece come January.
I'm a little late welcoming in this beautiful, glorious month!
When I was a kid, I couldn't wait for December to get here. I would spend hours pouring over that Sears Wish Book, dog-earing pages, circling dolls and dreaming of this and that, things I just HAD to have.
Since I've become an adult and especially since I've been living in a bigger city, most of that excitement has been replaced with dread over traffic, crowds and big buckets of crazy. I try to do my shopping early so that I can stay OUT of that, so that I can come home to my little peaceful house, shut out the world and watch Christmas movies.
This year, I've been shopping locally when I could and buying my gifts from small businesses. That has been a challenge because most of the small, privately-owned businesses here are in the seediest part of town and because a lot of them have already gone out of business. It's really sad. I usually hang out in the newer part of town, where I live, work and go to school. I was shocked to see the old part of town is, well, OLD.
I did my best but Target has gotten a few of my dollars. :) I plan to spend this month listening to Christmas music, driving around in my pajamas looking at Christmas lights, watching Christmas movies (The Homecoming at least twice!), eating yummy food, drinking eggnog and hot chocolate with whipped cream, wrapping presents, spending time with my family and RELAXING and enjoying it.
There are only 31 days in December. And three of 'em are gone already!
I didn't want to be a part of Black and Blue Friday so I stayed home yesterday completely away from that mess and I decorated my house for Christmas. I had declared this a no-mall Christmas for me last month and pretty soon after that, I saw this commercial for Small Business Saturday that was taking place the Saturday after Thanksgiving. I was SO excited!! Right up my alley, it was!! I had already bought some things online from individuals and small businesses and I'd done a little shopping locally here in Warner Robins but to have a whole day set aside for the little man?? I was tickled pink.
I hope everybody went and bought something at a small business today. Just one thing will make such a difference.
I can't talk much about what I bought because my family reads my blog but this one place I went to (mostly for me!) was a little hippie/new age hole in the wall (that had the AC crunk and it felt so good in there!). I found so many goodies in there!! Hand poured soy candles, handmade lavender stuffed pillows, tiny little silver rings, oh, so much stuff to get into!! I got me some patchouli oil and some candles and these things right heah...
The wrapper says it's a "relaxing chocolate chip cookie". It ain't lyin'. The cookies have 5-HTP, which is hydroxytryptophan, basically the same stuff that's in turkey that makes us all mellow and lookin' for somewhere to lay down. I highly recommend them. Ha! 100% natural and 100% legal. You can't beat that.
My Small Business Saturday was a hit! I think we should do this EVERY Saturday.
I went out to Lane Southern Orchards or Lane Packing, as we call it around these parts, today to do some local early Christmas shopping and LOOK at this apple I got out there! It's a green fuji and it was enormous!! You can see how big it was next to Maw's mushroom canisters. It was as big as a grapefruit.
My favorite new blog of the moment is Freckled Nest.Leigh-Ann has beautiful photography, cute clothes and she drives an awesome 1974 Oldsmobile station wagon that she calls Bacon. Ha! She's thrifty, creative and oh so vintage. I LOVE her blog!!
Something I'm thankful for is being able to spend today with Larry. It's Veterans' Day and he's the bravest, sweetest, cutest veteran I know! Spending Veterans' Day together has become a tradition for us and while it may mean more to me than it does to him, it's very important for me to let him know how very proud I am of him for yesterday, right now and tomorrow, too.
Something that made me laugh this week (besides my silly husband!) was Tuesday night after I registered for my classes next semester, I was in the student lounge and I put a quarter in the candy vending machine to get some Mike and Ikes. The machines look like this. You know the ones. I put my quarter in and got ONE piece of candy. You 'sposed to get a handful. I got ONE MIKE. That just struck me as hilarious and I literally busted out laughing. I kept saying, "I got a Mike." like Charlie Brown and his trick-or-treating rocks. Ha!
An item that is currently on my wish list is a tambourine. :)
I'm excited about a LOT of things!! Thanksgiving, my creative Christmas shopping, meeting Brandy and Mike, Willow and Roan next month, my interview at the base no matter the outcome, our practice moving to our brand new office, just ALL kinds of things!! It's a very exciting time for me. I said "creative Christmas shopping" because that's what I'm planning to do this year. I declared this a "no-mall Christmas" last month on Facebook and got some positive feedback so I'm staging a revolution against big business this year. Sticking it to the man by helping out the little man. I LOVE that idea!! I'm not saying every single gift I buy will be from small business but yeah, the majority will be. I only have about 15 people to buy for anyway. I've already started and where there were specific things family members wanted, I was able to buy them from individuals at Etsy and eBay! I am SO excited about this. Sears and Walmart DO NOT need our business. People struggling to survive the end of the year need our business. That's why I say we will have to be creative. Put some thought into it, plan ahead. It's so easy to just run to the mall and do our Christmas shopping. That's what we always do. I'm proposing we do things differently this year. These are very different times we're living in right now. Let's help each other! Stick it to the man!!
If I were a color, I would be that beautiful blue-green color of the sea. For obvious reasons. :)
My favorite way to spend a chilly day is I ain't even gonna lie. Asleep. Under a quilt.
