We Are So Proud!

Today our Dear Son In Love graduated "With Honors" from the Sheriff Academy. He was #1 overall in the class!

It's been a long process and he has worked so hard and worried so much. Late nights of coming home dog tired to the job of washing and pressing his uniforms for the next brutal day are over. Being yelled at, working out like mad, being beat up as he practiced arrests and shooting a million rounds a week are over.

His little family has been very patient (most of the time)with his total mental and physical exhaustion and his lack of desire to go and do things in the evening. We're so glad that he was able to make it through the entire academy and come out not only alive but kicking and on top.

We are SO Proud of you Popeye!

After the graduation there was a nice quiet gathering of close friends and family at his sister's house. About 40 people enjoyed the great food and better company. Our poor Dear Grandson was so good through the long ceremony and the party even though he was sick and exhausted. Our dear daughter was beaming and giddy all day. She loves him so much and is thrilled that he's ready for the next part of his career.

Hu-Rah for our boy! May you change the lives of those you come in contact with, just as you've changed our lives since you became a part of our family. We love you!

We've Decided We Like To Date

As you may or may not know, Dear Husband has been working out of town constantly since mid November. We don't see much of each other, which has been the norm for the past 4+ years but not quite to this extent.

When Honey is gone I crawl into bed pretty early and watch tv while I surf the net, stalk blogs and play solitaire. Yes I could use my time more constructively, and do at times, but most times it me, the bed, the bubby, the computer and the tv. Anyway, early last week I saw that the new Clint Eastwood movie was coming out on Friday December 9. Personally, I think ol' Clint is hot. Yes, I know, he's an old guy, but he is SO Sexy!

Because I HAD been doing constructive things a few days prior to seeing this movie advertisement I knew that we had some gift cards to some yummy yummy resturants in the junk drawer. We're bad about going out and forgetting our gift cards or just not planning. So I went through the drawer and found a $50 card to this place. We had made one attempt in the year that we'd had the card to dine here but this is one place that you MUST have a reservation and get it several days in advance. Dear Husband had been here but I never had, so I was excited.

I then called Dear Husband and asked him if he would like to go on a date with me the following Saturday night. He was thrilled at the idea of dinner and a movie and encouraged me to set the stage for a romantic evening!

On Thursday before our date I looked up movie times, made dinner reservations for an hour or so before, pulled out some gift certificates for movies that I had from who knows when and drove to the theater and bought the tickets. I was going to be totally organized for this date.

Dear Honey was coming home on Friday night, but I didn't want him to be too tired etc for our date. Saturday morning started out rough, as it sometimes does when poor Dear Husband comes home to a lot of un-finished projects. Yes, although I had gotten the house mostly back in order, there were areas I had ignored. Dear Husband was nice about it but I could tell he was annoyed. I have to admit that it did get him to go through some "Stuff" that he needed to go through and resulted in a very full outside trash bin. Yippee!

Anyway, early in the day my BFF called and invited us to her house for a birthday bash. I told her we'd come for a while but that we had a date. Cool. Later, while I worked in the office, honey enjoyed a nap. I woke him with about 20 minutes to spare before we needed to be at my BFF house for a short visit before leaving for our date. He dozed a little longer, changed into nicer clothes and we were out the door.

Once at BFF's house we enjoyed a VERY rousing game of dice. The game calls for chips but we play with one dollar bills. We each had to buy in 3 times and the pot (center) was up to $108 to the winner. The birthday girl won the pot and we had to run out the door and drive a little quicker then we should have in order to make our reservation. It was a blast though and we almost wished we didn't already have plans.

Dinner was wonderful. We sat next to each other and talked about things other then work and kids, which was nice for a change. We enjoyed watching the people in the resturant and chuckled at the youngsters who were all dressed up for prom/winter formal. We enjoyed ourselves, got cute little chinese to go boxes for our food and wandered to our car pleasantly full without being stuffed.

As we arrived at the theater parking lot it was really full, but we had our tickets so we sat in the car (at my urging) and enjoyed the heated seats for a few more minutes. We continuted to talk until the seats cooled down a bit. We got halfway to the front doors when I remembered the tickets. In my wallet. In the glove box. Waaaaay out in the parking lot. No worries. We'll just be warmed up when we finally get in to the movie.

We waltzed past the long lines that went on forever. WOW, we ususally come on Sunday afternoons to movies. We're not used to crowds like this. We were so smart for getting our tickets ahead of time! Once inside we bypassed the snack bar, hit the restrooms and entered theater 7. We stood at the bottom of the top seats and our jaws dropped. We were in plenty of time for the movie and yet there were no seats. What!? We looked again hoping that we wouldn't have to sit in one of the two front rows at the base of the screen that were remaining. Oh pooh. WHY did we sit and linger over dinner and over the nice heated seats in the car? Wait! There are 2 seats. We climb to the top of the stadium and sure enough the seats are NOT saved. Sure they're the only two seats next to the wall but they're together and not at the base of the screen. Woo Hoo! Wait. There is a BAR across the front of them right at eye level? What the heck!?! Oh well. No worries.

This movie was awesome. Seriously. Even if we had to look "through" a bar, it was worth it. Yes there was cussing in it so I wouldn't recommend it for children, but OMG it was a wonderful movie. We laughed, we teared up, we were nervous and in the end, as the lights came up, we along with a good majority of the audience applauded. There were no high speed chase scenes, really no crazy fight scenes, no sex scenes, only a well written touch your heart amazing piece of art.

My Dear Husband and I left the theater holding hands and discussing how much we enjoyed the movie, how we wish more movies left you feeling this way. We drove home having a wonderful conversation about anything, everything and nothing. We visited while we got ready for bed, crawled under the covers, curled up and both fell asleep. Yes we had other expectations, but admittedly it was a perfect ending to a wonderful day.

Mission Accomplished....Kinda

The living room is put back together. The carpet is as clean as its going to get and the big rug is on the back porch. I DON'T think it will be coming back in unless I can shampoo the lovely Bubby gift out of it. I feel like we have too much furniture in there, but I'm not willing to give up the recliners and where would I really put a sofa or love seat anywhere else in the house?

The office has been shampooed and so has the Master Bedroom. I need to move a few things back in to place and tidy up but the carpets are shampooed and vacuumed and look clean.

The floors are still uncleaned and the grout is unsealed. I have high hopes of Dear Husband helping me this weekend by operating the machine while I scrub the grout but I'm not going to push the issue. If it doesn't happen there is always next week or the next week. Babysteps.

I had really been wanting to take my table and buffet from the kitchen and put it into the dining room. I tried it and the room looked really good. Dear Daughter came up with some great decorating ideas to add to the room. I was SO EXCITED!!! Of course in order to keep it this way I had to put the dining room stuff into the kitchen. No problem right?! I mean it was in the kitchen when we first moved in here so we'll just move it back in.

I dragged the dining room furniture, which was really the "Old" kitchen furniture into the kitchen. Hmmm, the table doesn't look right horizonally against the wall. I moved it vertically against the wall. Hmmmm, maybe it was here at an angle? Hmmm. How in the heck did we EVER have this HUGE table in the kitchen nook let alone all 4 chairs?! There is NO WAY it's going to fit. Phooey!

I'm so sad. I really wanted to switch everything around. I call Honey. He actually laughed at me! He tells me he knew it wouldn't work. The table was always too big which is WHY we got a new one in the first place. Oh. I guess I forgot. Well I was hoping my memories were wrong anyway. Pooh.

So, tomorrow I'll put the house back together with all the furniture where it fits, even if I don't think it belongs there, so Dear Husband and Dear Son can relax when they come home for the weekend. Pooh!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all! I've spent the day doing something I rarely do. Yep, I slept in, yammered on the phone with my step mom and now I'm laying in bed watching the replay of the parade on the Travel Channel.

I'll get up soon enough but for now, I'm enjoying the quietness of the "staying in bed til noon". There's plenty of time to do the things I need/want to do, which still includes shampooing the rest of the carpet, scrubbing the floors and packing for my weekend away to see Dear Husband. I figure I have until Friday night to make the house peaceful and I'm going to take advantage of the time instead of pushing myself so hard that I can't enjoy the process.

May your News Year Day be peaceful and calm. And may your New Year be wonderful and give you plenty to be thankful for.