Away To Me

Boy and his dog, watching TV

Sometimes you just can't get mad at the dog for jumping up on the chair. I mean at least she shares the spot with Jake. Large Marge is just a gem of a dog, what can I say.

Christmas Photos

These are photos from both Christmas Eve and Christmas day.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas my blog family. Today I have 10 guests coming. I'm not cooking which is very odd. We purchased a bunch of yummy home made Pork and Beef Tamales. I did cook a big batch of spanish rice and I'll heat up some refried beans, but that's it! Such a simple, easy way to entertain and everyone (in my family) will enjoy it.

Tomorrow we are headed to my Grandma's new home in Burbank. My entire mom's side of the family will be there. This will be the first time in a long time we will all be together. I'm actually looking forward to it!

For your viewing pleasure, I present the photos we used for our Christmas card.

Have a fantastic holiday!

Schmuck!

I feel like such a schmuck. My "other" brother who I was really hoping wouldn't come to Christmas Eve at our place this year. Well, he called yesterday to tell me he didn't know if had to work, but if he doesn't he wants to come, asked if he could bring anything and asked what Jake needed. Gosh I'm a shmuck feeling terrible that I even had the thoughts I had! In my undeserving defense, I've had a hard time with this brother for years. He's my oldest half brother, he is mentally a little slow and he's done some things to my dad that are tough for me to swallow. But all that aside, he showed some class yesterday when he called. More class than I did when I hoped he would make other plans and not come to Christmas Eve. Ugh, good lesson learned. I need to have more festive thoughts.

Fun viewing.

The lady with the light blonde hair, not the reddish hair is my mom's boyfriend's mom. She truly was a grandma when shooting this and she was in her 70's at the time. Kind of funny! This lady and my grandma go back about 60 years.

More shopping

Ho, Ho, oh frickin Ho! Get this little bit of news. Yesterday I call my brother's girlfriend back to answer a question she text messaged me. So annoying, why do people I don't really know text message? Call me for goodness sake. I mean seriously I didn't know who the text was from since I don't even have her cell number! Anyway, I ask her if they are still coming for Christmas Eve. She says, "Yes and both my girls are coming and so is "Jenny"". Okay, firstly I don't know her older daughter. She's a college student in Michigan. But I hear she is nice. But that means I need to pick her up a gift. "Jenny" is my half-brother's other half-sister. (We share the same dad, him and "Jenny" share the same mom. Now, "Jenny" is not anyone I've really known but my brother and her used to be very close until she basically went nutso on drugs, lost her child to another family member and has been in and out of jail and rehabs. But I hear through my brother that she is doing really well. And he loves her very much so I'm thankful that she is coming, but alas it means I need to find another trinket gift for her.

Then my dad calls and says he invited my other brother to come to Christmas eve. Well, firstly this is my house and I'm the host so he should have checked with me first. But he is right, I can't invite one brother without inviting another brother, but my other brother and I are not close and frankly he bugs the crap out of me. Then dad says, "I don't know if THEY will be coming". They? They as in plural. Who be "they"? Answer, his girlfriend and her severely disabled 16-year-old daughter who I've only met once at 4th of July and never said more than, "Hi nice to meet you both". So that's 2 more gifts.

Then I have my mom still, she's getting XM Satellite radio. And I believe I got a little skimpy with dad's gift so I'm going to go to Wal Mart today and buy him (and myself) one of those bullet blenders. So my project for this morning, shopping. I'm not a happy shopper. Thank goodness Jake is!

I'm not feeling it.

I'm not really feeling the holiday spirit this year. It's not that I'm a bah hum bug or anything but I'm really not into decorating or shopping or anything. Part of it is Jake, I mean he is tough on decorations and shopping with him can be tedious, but it's more than that. I think I'm just so sick of the commercialization of the season. I'm so over that. I wish Christmas can be more like Thanksgiving. You know, food, family, fun. No pressure of gifts, no expectations. I'm wanting the holiday spirit to be more sincere. KWIM?

Too stinkin cute for his own good!

I just can't tell you all enough, how much I love my son. He is just the most amazing little person ever. He gets me laughing so hard every day. I'm going to have to be away from him for 2 days and it is just going to kill me! Here's a recent pic.

I don't know about you, but I can totally see his personality oozing from that look.

Training Clinic

I attended a training clinic yesterday and I go back today too, for my sheep herding. I learned a lot, although I am pleasantly surprised at learning that I do a lot of things correctly already. My pup, Large Marge was by far the best puppy there and there were 3 others that were her age (1 month older). She was actually better than about half the older dogs too. The clinician, a Scotsman who now resides in the US, was quiet impressed by her and when he asked me about her breeding he did one of those "ah ha" type looks. After I left the pen on my second go he told everyone a story about judging my pup's sire (daddy) this past September at a big trial. Needless to say he was very impressed with Large Marge's sire.

Grace was pretty good but made good mistakes that we were able to work on. I differ on opinion about some things with this guy, but over all we had the same ideas. I think he is a far better judge than most when it comes to looking at the whole picture. Luckily for me he'll be judging a really, really difficult trial in February that I'll be attending. Now that I know what he looks for while judging, it will certainly help me conform better. since I will be gone for a few days I thought I would leave you with a picture.

Here is one of the Christmas card photos that I didn't use. Grace and Jake!

New Journey - New Blog

I'm going to share some big news, but not with the entire world. I've created a second blog that will be password protected. My Away2me blog will continue and remain the same in content. The new blog is about a different journey that I'm about to take. I'm excited and nervous and decided the feelings in a way were so similar to adoption that it deserved a special blog.

So if you wish to join the new blog where I will share with you all the details of this journey. Please leave your name and email in the comments section. I'll share with you the user name and password. I have to have your email or I can't send you a password. (last time I got quite a few people who left no email or only a web site. so please if you want the password, don't forget to leave me your email address.)