Ayn's Multiple World

Christmas is coming!

Good morning. This is me. We’re starting a little late today. It’s already 7:45 am. Hmm. Better get some coffee and medicine while we’re thinking about the time.

AND, we should jump Mr Sweet bunny!

Hmpf! Mr. bunny friend was already doing laundry so I could just go a little squeeze and release. Shoot! Best catch those types while they are still unsuspecting in bed! Being the good citizen we are, we took our medicine, loaded and started the dishwasher, got our coffee and barely made it back to our chair.

That was a lot of moving for us. But, it’s done and over with now. WOOHOO!! I crowded the dishwasher, but then came back and found I’d forgotten the dishes on my desk … there is one bowl here, one glass, and 3 coffee cups … go figure. Eh, later.

Yay! Bunny friend is back. He just ran a load downstairs. Good for him. Hmm, maybe not … don’t hear no sounds from that direction. Hmm, there is my 8 am alarm.

Oh THERRRRE he is … still not sure what he’s up to, but that’s ok, we can go with the mystery.

Hehehe *sigh* well maybe we needed to check that out … it’s now 9:20 am. But, we lost him again damn. Ok, good … we got him. We found him in the kitchen. He’s looking up game days on the computers. We stayed and then gave him goose bumps before we left. His stuff was kinda hmm, not interesting … because his computer was being so slow. BOO! So, we got him some fresh coffee and scaddadled out of there.

Earlier we had watched a news show together before he went down to switch loads. He came up the front way with our mail. No credit card yet though. Not that I know of. We threw out the junk stuff and opened one envelope that was handwritten from Washington. It turned out being an invitation from Christina from “THE BROWNS!!!”

Ahh that girl! She and her husband are adopting a very, very good looking family and she sent a copy of the invitation. It was for yesterday and today. She would know I couldn’t come, but I’m so honored she thought to send a copy. It’s the kind of thing that makes one want to cry. There are three kids in the family and they just look so happy together. I’m pretty sure they must have tickled each one first because they just glow in the picture. That’s so special to all be formally a “Brown.” Couldn’t be more prouder of her. This must be like a dream come true for them. I’m going to keep this picture of them for a long, long time. We found her on facebook and sent her a little congrats. Good, good Christine!

Hehehe oh yeah remember that part … we also sent a picture to Rich and umm someone we don’t name, but it was this …



This guy is serious about checking in with his buffalo hehehe. We wrote something in the note about they are probably worrying about room service, but now thinking it might be a problem with buffalo chips, hmm? Cool, cool picture. This guys on the cutting edge! We found while going through the top pictures for the week. I think he is from Utah. From the look of the hotel lady with her hand on hip, she’s not going for whatever line he’s feeding her hehehe.

Ok, stop you … shoot we’re still chuckling over this shot. Maybe its just silly thinking this guy has a pet buffalo on a leash. That’s gotta drive the neighborhood dogs crazy. It got mixed in my mind with a story we’d seen this morning on Ted Turner. It had said that he has 45,000 “wild” buffalo on his place and he uses them to make wealthy 50 restaurants called Ted’s Montana Grill that feature bison meat.

Uh huh you read it here umm second.

The guys in the news for having bought up over 2 million acres of land in 11 states, especially in New Mexico, Nebraska, Montana, and South Dakota. 2 million is a lot of land. Hmm, that be like an average of 181 hundred thousand per those 11 states and like we said some of those states are weighted. You might understand why some neighbors are worried. They are worried about the prices, land grabbing, and water rights, as well as land conservation, wildlife, and national park systems. Some of those things don’t bring in a lot of community money. Basically, they don’t know what he’s doing, so there is a lot of reason to speculate, and most often people guess and could be right that he’s thinking of himself first. I mean … jeese the guys selling buffalo burgers! HMPF! I much prefer the guy trying to bed his buffalo. Hmm, just one more thing … looked up some perspective … He owns land collectively getting close to rival the size of Connecticut



Connecticut may be small, but it’s not wussy size! Anyway … I think we’re about done with our morning Ted ravings. I just like to look into things – just under the surface. It took a few minutes to find a good map.

Hmm, wiggle-bunny is in the shower, how did that happen? I don’t like it when I miss these major events … AHA! We could try to catch him on this other end – whoops doors open and we gotta use the room … let’s hold off on our sneak-attack. Ok, that all happened and we sat with baby face back at his computer … we went through some of his scheduling with him. Just a few moments. He says we had to get ready because he’s bringing up his whites … which means super folding from me. WOOHOO!!

In the meantime we cancelled our gym appt. whoops gotta go.

Pshwoo. Back for a bit. That was a barn burner. Catching my breathe. We folded the dark load correction – think whites is on an every other week thing, but there are still 4 loads, because towels are every other too. Folding clothes is a sit down job for us. It’s really pretty cool. I pull out very quickly anything that needs to be hung up and turn it right side out and upside up and then sweetie comes by with a hanger and gets it to the closet. And, then when that all runs out, I do the folding part … like this load had his colored underwear and dark socks. As I folded them, he went out for a few minutes to do something, then he came in as I was finishing and put them in a drawer and I put a couple of my shorts away.

It is such excellent teamwork and fun, believe me I am on the pinnacle of my laundry success years. Just having the greatest time. I’ve folded a lot of laundry in my life. I used to do it for my initial family and I used to do it for my own husband/kids family, then I used to do it for myself as a family of one, but now we’re two and we are doing it as two. Just can’t think of anything cooler. And, as it turns out all these years, he’s been doing his laundry and the majority of laundry for his family, so now he is getting a reprieve too. He’s probably thinking … “And, she FOLDS my UNDERWEAR!” Hehehe or at least that’s what we’re hoping. We want him to know he deserves every stroke.

I think one day when I’m long gone, he will get a chance to read back on these notes and he will see that I think of him so much of my time and that I live the dickens out of him and each time I think of it I start to cry. Ok shhhh. We don’t want the stuffy nose? Do we? Man … he gets us every time. He’s such a dear. But, we better back into some of our other thoughts. Where were we?

Oh and on the way out of the bedroom, before we hit the next chair he suggested that someone might want to unload the clean dishes. It was like “TWO chores at one time!” But, then we turned around and did it right away, because we thought of all those leftover dirty dishes and that he’d probably want to be making lunch right away. Hmm, I think I want that counter cleaned good hold on. Ahh. We went in and talked just a little to Sweetie who was going through his email, but we finished putting dishes in the dishwasher – and since he took down the pumpkin hehehe … we put out the Christmas plate and stuff he’d found in the back. Then we made sure the counter was really good and cleaned. As we headed out of the room, we made sure he knew that any time he was ready the counter would be ready for him to make lunch AHA! We’re ahead of him a half-step! This is the good stuff.

It’s kinda funny. I think cleaning off the counter has always been one of my favorite kitchen things. I’m a much better kitchen cleaner upper – WITH dishwasher, than a cooker-messer-upper. But, let’s not let that get out please! I think I’m going to tell Sweetie at lunch that I’m ready to add kitchen counter cleaning to my set of tasks. I should say kitchen table cleaning too, but sometimes it’s his stuff and I should not be putting my stuff on there anyway. He uses it for his paperwork. Maybe I could clean off the surface of the desk in the back bedroom for his paper stuff. Then we’d get it off the table and it wouldn’t be so far for him.

If he wanted he could even use the files in that plastic thing. I’m not saving much and what I do save, I put in my file in the living room.

Hmm, what else? I think there are things I can take off his tin. A necessary thing is his mesh 3x5 cards thing. Ok, brought some cards out and took care of my blanket and dog and got the second curtain opened. I put away a few things on the way back to see Rich. I think he is planning to do floors and after he does floors, he’s planning on putting up the Christmas tree. He may have to get new lights at the drug store. I don’t know if he’s going to want anything else. Oh! I know we also need an extension cord for the lights out on the balcony. Maybe two. We’ll see if he picks up anything else. Everything costs money and I got hassled a bit yesterday on money issues. So, I’m not planning on doing anything for Christmas except putting on my 12 red bulbs hehehe.

On the way home from the bank, I stopped by to get my car wash. I think I already said something about that. He noticed it before I got my window unrolled and we got hit by things like penny wise pound foolish or something like that. He said other stuff, but we tried to plug our ears. We talked in reverse about having pride. We said remember how dirty our other car was … and the grime from the cigarette smoke?

We vowed we weren’t going to leave things in this car and that we were going to keep it clean. And, we were feeling terrible driving a dirty car. I think its something I got from my father. He was a nut about it. Rich was volunteering that I wait til summer and then I could hand wash both cars. It was terrible.

And, then on the way out to eat he was saying something and we were something and it wasn’t good … He was happy because he was getting a deal from a coupon book for saving $8 … I thought that’s great – good amount of money, I got used to the idea of it being so far away because I got to drive with him and I wasn’t horribly over hungry, but I had some grouch in me from just being off work and having driven through rush hour, which included being stopped by a train. I also had felt tricked, because he said that we were going out Italian, but the coupon was for a pizza, so it meant I couldn’t get anything on a Italian menu. My line of thinking was that if you were going to eat pizza why not do it from the comfort of your home, he criticized me for not being adventurous … I thought ok, you have a point there, but then I said, well … as long as we are going out I would like at least a beer, or maybe a salad. But, then he got cranky, because he was losing all his savings he’d earned on the coupon to my “extras.” So, it was a crabby, fine, fine … I can see the point of saving.

When we got to the restaurant I didn’t open my menu and when the waitress got there I just ordered water. He ordered his diet coke. But, then it was wait … you’ve gone the opposite extreme … so now he was complaining AGAIN! Well, yes we were feeling kinda goofy too, but that happens with parts changing on us. He was pretty encouraging that we should look at the menu and maybe order a soup or salad. We finally found the word scrummaged in our throat “salad.” And, he ordered and somehow it turned out to be a nice family size serving so that was cool. But before that came he had to use the washroom and he asked if he could go and the part out was kind of worrisome, but then he said something or another tricky and a “better” part for the occasion of being a a noisy restaurant came out. And, so to make a long story short … it was a little rocky, but we all got through it and the rest of the night was a charm! WOOHOOO!!

AHA! Now we’ve gotten up to 2 pm. The day is going by so quickly. First thing is first though. Maury called a bit ago and we’ve been talking over holiday plans.

We’ve got 3 dates, the 16th, 22nd, or 23rd penned in as possible days we could be working on getting together for something special. I think he is leaning toward making it himself rather than eating out. I told him I would like to try making something on my own, because we have a few recipes they don’t know about yet. I really do think we are getting closer to cooking, because we tried with Rich. Maybe he’ll be more supportive, or maybe he’ll just help me, or maybe he’ll just make something we can take with. That be nice for Maury.

We also talked about the money part. I told him about my finances and where money was coming from and why he shouldn’t feel bad for a mom giving money to her family.

We talked over a little of both our concern that Thom might not take the money, but I really hope he does. It’s not a whole lot of money, but it’s something nice to have extra for some holiday fun. I’d forgotten, but I had started saving from an old can that Thom had left her many years ago a coin can that’s about the size and shape of a Pringles can … It’s about 1/3 full. Maybe a little more. I told Maury that we are going to get each of the girls $50 and I can imagine this canister will go too, because it is decorated to look like foil Christmas wrap hehehe. Then of course you get the regular gramma who thinks it’s awfully fun to give dollars and quarters. Mostly, because it looks like a lot more than I can really give.

I have to think that through. Issa doesn’t know too much about money and might like either. Ame might be appreciating bills, but she’s probably already appreciating that some bills are bigger than others. I seem to like better the idea of combining the money, because it will seem like more and we can convince Ame to show Isa a glimpse, and then later her parents can square away the deal. I’m thinking though that with 10 rolls of quarters, I could fill that gosh darn canister. WOOHOO!!

Just they have to share 50-50. We’re guessing its going to weigh a TON!

That’s my style!

In talking about where … Maury still prefers his place, because of the conveniences with the girls and cooking. There is still the issue of cleaning, but he’s more comfortable with that than loosing the other two. We made sure he knew that in our planning, we’d reserved $100 for dinner, so if we didn’t go out, then he could make use of that money. I think he appreciated that. I felt much better about it, because I think cooking is a lot of hard work. I will really have to look over those recipes to find ones the boys might like and that I can do. I don’t think any of them are real big sweet eaters. Maybe there’s something? We’ll check later.

Otherwise it’s back to figuring out something with Rich. We might want to coordinate with Maury and find out what his serving holes might be. This is so cool. Maury is pretty sure that both Thom and Joe are going to come. And, I am feeling blessed to pieces!

He talked a good amount of time about another Garvey matter, but I won’t go into that. Maury and the boys have always had good common sense. Really not to make light of it, because it feels worrisome to me, but I have to think of something beside this. Most likely we’ll make a full jump.

Ok, light? Hmm, did I tell you that we finished clothes with sweetie? Last load was the towels and we folded them while he laid back on the bed. He looked surprisingly weak for it being the middle of a Saturday … he said it was the weekend. So, we thought about it for a moment. And, then it came to us … You want to get out of changing your tires, don’t you?! Uhhuh that was the answer … he groaned right away about not wanting to do it … and we said, nope, nope, out you go. Cause we be a good cheereronerer. WooHOO

Before that we had a nice lunch. Rich made his rice/chicken/vegetable meal while I fussed for a few moments – and by that I mean I cleaned up the kitchen some more. I took off everything from the table that didn’t belong there leaving only the medicine in a container, Rich’s stuff in the container lid (metal decorated tins), the napkin container, and Joe’s statue award. WooHOO Joe. Rich says it will fall (it’s really, really tall) I say, no it’s fine … it hasn’t fallen yet. I like to see the little karate guy silhouetted against the back windows when the light comes in just right. He’s such a super star.

There we just took a walk in to see how nice it looked in there. Rich isn’t as aware of this part of us that is more obsessed in clean and order, because things are usually so overwhelming to us, but we CAN be very neat. We decided to move one more necessity to the car. Sr. had given us a tan fleece blanket that was rolled up. We’d thought on it for quite a while. I can’t remember when she gave it to me – it could have been last Christmas, but we decided finally to put it in the car.

That goes up against our rules that nothing be in the car, but this is in a nice neat roll, and the safety part of us thinks that in case of an emergency there should be a blanket. That’s the strongest part … Beside Maury got us the blanket on the end of the couch, we have our quilt blanket on the recliner, we had the one Rich gave us on my desk chair, their basically, was not any room for another blanket.

Hmm, think a nice warm blanket would be nice around me now on such a pretty snowy afternoon, hmm?

Ahh, we’ll try this! We came back with a different blanket … we’re going to try the large brown, tan, and white afghan my mother made instead of the purple one. We’ve had it in the closet for many years, and have never tested it out. Mostly because it was my mother. But, it is a very nice blanket, and it seems to work around me nicely, and it is a change, and we’re going with changes. I just had the notion to call her, but that is worrisome. Why would I want to do that? Everything is nice and peaceful where its at. Ok, that is halfway. I sent her an email saying she could call. I tried, but apparently I don’t have her number. I had it on the other phone before I got a cell phone, but I guess I didn’t transfer it over. Sometimes, I don’t know what’s the matter with me. How can one person be so intolerative.

The note was short, it just she could give me a call and that I would enjoy a conversation. I’m not too sure enjoy was the right word, but there is part of me looking forward to what she has to say. Maybe there could be some talk of me, but I’ll probably just say, I’m doing fine. I would rather talk about Rich, but for all these years, they’ve mostly shunned him from conversation. Like it wasn’t a part of polite talk. So, go sleep in the barn or something, I don’t know.

Ok, shhh, we’re not going to get that way. Remember this is mid-holiday … it would count toward that once or twice a year we contact her, and its between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but not as emotional as landing on the day. That be a good idea, hmm? Ok, let’s go back to some other stuff while we’re in the holiday spirit … we even put the Christmas music back on.

We talked to Rich a little about Christmas stuff.

WoooHOOO!! I figured it out! Rich had found some Christmas stuff I’d never taken out of a bag in the back bedroom … It’s stuff someone had gotten for me probably from work. Like a parent or something. It was so hard accepting Christmas alone for so many years that I think sometimes Christmas did end up being just packaged and put away, but this year it is different. Rich is finding things Christmas like in the corners. The AHA moment just now was that he had found a really nice green metal stand like for music or something, but the holders in front were shaped like two Christmas trees. I couldn’t figure out what to do with that before, but just now it came to me. It would be perfect to hold my calendar of Rich as Anger of the year. The January page has all pictures of Rich. There are 8 of them. I LOVE it!

But, sometimes it gets shuffled around on my desk for lack of space.

It’s perfect. It elevates my calendar guy up on top of the cpu, which puts him in my mind next to Godliness. Hmm, maybe we should do something about cleaning up this room too? Well, maybe in just a little bit. I wanted to say first that we’d found a basket with some foiled coffees that we’d never used, but the basket was pretty and it had the words on it, “Let it snow.” It was like wow! MORE Christmas stuff!

So, then we were pretty happy, but there is a few more things.

The first was that we we’re thinking of decorations, so we asked him if since he didn’t get the floors done if we could still put up the tree, so then if he was going to get his new tires, and put oil in his car if he could stop in Walgreen’s to get extension cords to light up the deck and Christmas lights for the tree. But, I forgot he had another deal going on in his head that isn’t resolved yet. He had seen some planted trees that were like pines that he liked and wanted to get … well you could be we would love it too, but the building has rules about having live trees - Christmas trees in the building. I’m not sure now if that means trees that were alive and are now dead – can get dry, or any kind of potted tree that still is growing.

Oh dear.

I figured it’s only 3 pm, maybe the building people are still around. So, I called and got Scott … he’s like a second in command. I asked him the question. I said I know the building has always had a policy on trees, but does that mean just Christmas trees that were once live and are now dead, like can we have a potted 4’fir tree that’s more like a plant? He worked it over in his head … he said the policy is to prevent trees from drying out and being flammable. I said, right, dead trees. I understand that, but I’m asking about a live plant. He said, “Oh boy, no one has ever asked that.” Then he told me to call Mike back during the week. So, then I thought I better call Rich and give him an update. But, he said, that I shouldn’t worry about it any more, because it was already done, and it like oh no, you didn’t? People get kicked out of apartments for owning things like trees! I said … well its’ like this, I am still going to call Mike … and then he cut me off and said it’s already done just forget about it, but I’m not. It might wait until I get to work, but as long as it is MY name on the lease, I’m going to call Mike rather than be handed an eviction notice. It’s a BIG deal around here they are very strict with their rules. The worse case scenario is that they say no and we just turn over the tree to one of the kids and all is well. We’ve brought a tree in to a loving family. Right?

Ok, the last part … and I have to be quick cause Rich is going to be here in a minute. We asked him if we can make a new gift rule that we can spend $20 on each other and no more. I told him I was serious about $20 only. Because if he spent more money it wouldn’t be fair, because I couldn’t do it, but $20 would allow me to go to the dollar store and look for presents I could put under the tree. He could spend his $20 any way he wants. BUT, it has to be NO MORE!!!! That’s the way I want our first Christmas together to be. I want nothing placed on cards or other.

I don’t want to be a part of something that’s going wrong. I want to be part of the saving group. That’s what I love about giving the girls change. I figure they keep saving it. And, even if they decide to spend it, they have to go to a bank to cash out … that’s half the battle getting them comfortable to walk in a bank. Good lessons.

Shoot, where are we going to put a tree. Hmm, maybe Mr. Wonderfulbranches is going to have an answer for that too? I think we get him for another 1 ½ hours before he has to go to his game tonight. The game is not til 7 pm and he might not be back until 10-11 pm. Then tomorrow he will leave by 8 am, and do 4 games, taking 1 hour 10 minutes each and come home about 2-3 pm. Then we get him again! WOOHOO!!!

I haven’t thought too much now about this evening. It could get lonely if I weren’t careful. I’ve got in mind that I would like to be in the room some … I haven’t had a strong notion to be there today. It’s been just keeping up with Rich. I think very much this blog has become definitely “OUR” blog between us and him. I hope that’s the way our readers will one day want it to go. The chat room seems to be something that we are saving. But, I don’t think we can stay there for a VERY long time. But, I would like to try it somewhat longer. My memory of Saturday night chat rooms were that people stopped by on their way out to dinner and evening events and such. There were then always a few of us that would hang out and keep the porch light lit. I’d like to be one of those. I think too that I could be building a reputation to be one that is like paying attention, but comes out only when the room is quiet and someone’s fearful of being by themselves, or there is a small group and more easily talking than the banter between the men and women crowd. I still want to be able to do that too, but I don’t want to rush it.

Oh man that’s terrific! I just heard the most beautiful rendition of Joy to the World. I looked into it and found it was played by Doc Severinson and the Tonight Show Orchestra … I loved to love those guys back in Johnny’s day. There was a choir in it too and the two horns and people blended really good. And then I found if you are quick enough you can click on the album and it will bring you to its page … so then there were all the songs listed out and I thought samples of each … this things big on 30 seconds, but I guess that’s only if you don’t have premium, cuz I realized it was going to not only play a full song, but I could start at the top and play an entire album!!! For FREE! This is just the most worthwhile service. It’s true, I’m not keeping anything, but I can listen to anything and both my home and work computers have really good sound systems, plus they both have headphones. I really think work is an extension of home. It has to be or I’d never get out of here.

Hmm, Sweetie is staying out longer than expected he said he just had to make one more stop and he HAD the tree, I wonder if he was making that last stop at Walgreen’s then a long stop there would be to our advantage, because we’re pretty sure he’s just buying decorations. Last year we had the tinsel on the bookshelves … hmm, did we talk about that already. Well, I seem to remember something … we’d only go as far as he went first. It’s our first Christmas together and its important to do it right.

posted by Ann Marie @ 12/02/2007 05:27:00 AM Comments: 1