I wanted to get a few more Christmas pictures in here before January.

These boots are made for walkin' (sort of)

The picture really speaks for itself.*

My son has been climbing on things for quite some time, but this week I found him face-climbing the front of his high-chair. I spotted him for awhile and then had to remove him when he ended up with his belly flat on the tray of the chair looking like a beached whale. His arms and legs were flailing around and I figured he had learned his lesson about trying to climb into the chair by himself.

Or maybe not, we'll see.

I walked into the house today after a nice evening of shopping and dining with one of my friends. The first thing Tony said was,

"You bought another pair of boots?"

I was so excited about my acquisition I put the boots on in the bathroom of the store and wore them for the rest of the evening. So he noticed them when I walked in the door.

I didn't mention to him how much better retail therapy** is than swimming in the bottom of a bottle of red wine, I just used Christmas, my birthday, and my stressful life as my excuse.

Merry Christmas to me!

(They weren't that expensive anyway.)

(Can you tell I'm trying to rationalize this purchase?)

* Please note the orange-y stain on the ice/water dispenser is not because I'm too lazy to clean it (which I may be) but that our water is so hard it looks like that when it dries. I have a two year old dishwasher with a broken motor because the water is so hard. Did I mention both my cars broke down and so did my dishwasher the same week my dad died?

**I know the lottery is just a tax on the poor and those who can't do math but would it hurt to buy a lottery ticket just for fun? $92 million and I could buy all of you some impractical boots just like mine!

Price Match

There are three types of people I'm guessing are reading my blog (because on the visitor counter all I see is your location and if you're a returning visitor. Yes, I've been watching you. I know, what ever happened to anonymity, right? Damn cookies.)

1) You like me! You are my friend/family/neighbor/acquaintance and you think I'm interesting...

2) You don't really like me but as most humans do you have a genuine curiosity about human nature and want to hear about the good, the bad, and the ugly in my life. But just so you know, if you're waiting for me to post pictures of myself looking ugly or fat--it's not gonna happen. I even untag myself from facebook pictures if they don't meet my criteria.

I'm not saying it's impossible that one might slide by, but it's unlikely.
And:

3) You stumbled across my blog completely by accident and decided I wasn't too boring, so what the hell, you may as well read it. Because who are we kidding, otherwise you'd just be channel surfing. Or pressing the button on the top of the webpage that says "next blog" and sends you to some blog written entirely in Portuguese.

I'm feeling especially festive this week, and today I *almost* got the ladder out and started clipping Christmas lights to my gutters. But then I laid on the couch instead.
I did go to Target thinking I might find some good decorations. I decided I would find something new rather than sift through the 8 large plastic Christmas storage bins currently sitting in my garage. I do not exaggerate, there are at least eight. And two fake Christmas trees. But then I got to Target and was too cheap to buy anything there ($5 for one ornament? Are they on crack?).

I better wait until Friday to break out the decorations anyway. I've decided I'm going to pore over the ads on Thanksgiving day, find everything I want from each ad, and then go to Wal-Mart and make them price match everything. Yes, on the second* busiest shopping day of the year I am going to be that person standing in line and pointing at the target ad saying,

"This is the one, here is the price."

For every single thing I can find. It's a new form of laziness. Less driving and more strategizing. Wish me luck.


*I'm pretty sure I read last year that Christmas Eve was the busiest shopping day of the year. But I could be wrong.