snow hell

so we were told last weekend that we were going to get snowed on. it happens from time to time, but it's not usually too awful. every once in a while we get really dumped on, but thankfully it's not that often. so this is what it looked like on saturday night/sunday morning:

not too bad. i can deal with that. roads weren't too awful. there were parts that were worse than others, but for the most part it was all good. of course, ANY amount of snow meant that vrock was out in it as soon as possible.

then came thursday night. and 7 inches of snow. which of course, meant this:

this was the view out of our back door. snow. lots and lots of snow. (our apartment is on the greenbelt, which always makes for a nice view.)

we ventured out today because i had an interview. (it's a long story and when i find out what's going on, hopefully on monday, i'll fill you in.) i made vrock drive because i DON'T DO SNOW as far as driving. so that meant that i had my hands free to take some shots while we were driving through town. this one was my favorite.

i hope that you all are safe wherever you are and that the weather is being kinder to you than it's been to us the last few days. we're supposed to get one more system through here this weekend that is supposed to drop another 1-3" on us. and then?

HEATWAVE! it's supposed to get up to 35 on tuesday and it might just break 40 by christmas. i can only dream of RAIN! LOL

the countdown begins

so i found out yesterday that my brother & his girlfriend are coming for christmas. yay! they were here in october for his 35th birthday and we saw them in april for our wedding, so this is a good year. (we typically only see them once, maybe twice a year. 3 times in one year is a record. although, now that i think about it, we'll be seeing them AGAIN in may when we all go to hawaii for my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary. so, FOUR times within a 13 month period. that'll be a tough record to break.)

where was i? oh yeah. so they're coming on the 26th and leaving on the 1st. this is typical for them as it allows them to spend time with her family on the actual holiday. and we don't mind pushing christmas dinner & opening presents back a day or so if they're coming up. it also makes the hassle of thanksgiving (2 family deals 45 minutes of travel time apart) obsolete.

as i was reading his email yesterday i realized that holy crap, christmas is only 21 (now 20) days away! and i'm not done shopping. i have NO idea what to get my dad this year and mom's been no help in that department. i'm already done with my brother (amazing in itself) and i'm almost done with his gf's stuff. vrock is done and with one or two minor things to get for everyone else, we're pretty much done. i'll be doing some baking this weekend which will round out the gifts and then it'll be time to pack up the boxes for shipping.

this time of year is always a whirlwind for me and it always seems that christmas comes & goes much too fast. i wonder if it will always be like that? i've noticed (much more so this year than ever before) that the things i've looked forward to (predominately the wedding) have snuck up on me much sooner than i'd anticipated and then POOF, they're done. what happened to the time when you could savor something?

35 days

i don't know if i should be stunned that christmas is a mere 35 days away or amazed that vrock & i have survived this year with all of its ups and downs.

regardless, i feel somewhat accomplished today.

with everything that happened this year, christmas is going to be much smaller than it usually is. (read: done on the cheap) my family isn't huge and his isn't really until you start counting the nieces & nephew. all in all, with the select few friends i also exchange with, we're talking 18 total people including vrock. (let's face it, i buy the majority of the gifts. he buys for me and has input for everyone else.)

that's a lot of people when you're trying to keep costs down. (and i cut out 2 people last year.) i used to try to spend around $100 each on my parents & brother & vrock. that's just not possible this year. it's so hard to buy for most people these days that i'm trying to figure out what to do.

for his mom & sis, he wants to do food items, which should be easy enough and shouldn't cost too terribly much. i was able to get a bunch of gift certificates for really cheap a month or so ago, so some will be receiving those. (lifesavers i tell you!) and i think we're getting omaha steaks for my grandparents & his brother & sister-in-law.

but i did score today. i was able to get all of vrock's gifts (all 2 of them) online today. and on sale. woot! shipping was free and all told, i spent $108 and change. i know he'll love what i got and i'm just relieved to be done with at least one person.

i'm almost done with a few others that will be getting the aforementioned gift certificates. all i need to do with those is to bake the pumpkin bread that i'm going to send along with those. but i can't bake them too soon or they'll go bad. we don't have the room to freeze them, so those will be a weekend before christmas type of thing.

but at least i've started. back in the day i would have been completely done shopping by now.

i miss those days.