I’ve been feeling kind of blah lately. Perhaps it’s the intense wanting of a baby (and the subsequent lack of conceiving one) that has caused me to become a bit melancholy. Or, perhaps it’s the fact that I really don’t like all this red white and blue crap that occurs on the 4th. I’ve never had that sense of patriotism that drives a person to hang an American flag outside their house on the 4th (or on other flag displaying days). I do think that fireworks are pretty and thus I feel the 4th isn’t all that bad.

It’s getting close to 9:00pm here and if I were still living in Fresno, the whole neighborhood would be sitting on their driveways, BBQ’n, drinking, and lighting off bottle rockets or those little annoying whistling fireworks. Also along the same vein, if I were still living in Oceanside our neighbors would have our culdesac blocked off, and they would have the big massive grill out and be grilling who knows what – I think one year they had shark (but it turned out to be chicken).

Alas dear readers, I am in the peace and quite of the central coast. My neighborhood is filled with mostly 60+ year olds and I think most of them are probably in bed sleeping by now. That doesn’t mean that the beaches and piers are not going to be filled with people setting off fireworks. Pismo Beach is supposed to be the “craziest” 4th of July “party” spot. The paper even said their pier would have a clown – wow, now that’s some happening party.

Whoa, just heard a fire work go off. Damn those crazy retirees.

Where does the time go. Tonight is New Year’s Eve and silly me, I didn’t purchase a funny hat or noise maker. I frankly didn’t realize it was New Year’s until I happened to look at the little date at the lower right of my computer screen. Shit! December 31st! Good bye 2007 I hardly knew you. 2008 kind of sneaked up on me. I knew it was getting close – I should have given it a packet of tick-tacks so I could here when it was coming.

Well 2007 is certainly ending, and I have to find my new desk calendar I purchased last month. Scheduling stuff for January has been rough – I have little notes under December, hopefully I can decipher my chicken scratching and half written words (not that I really have much to schedule).

I really can’t believe 2007 is ending. A few days ago I took a little internet quiz on the happenings that occurred in 2007. A lot of the questions were based on popular culture and because I’m a fuddy-duddy I failed miserably. On that same fuddy-duddy note I will be going to bed around 10:00 and will not be staying up to be rowdy at midnight. I’m hoping people in our neighborhood don’t go crazy at the strike of 12:00. But considering most of the people that live in my neighborhood are retired I don’t think much noise will be produced.

Speaking of production, I’m hoping 2008 includes a baby for hubby & me. I’d also like the living room finished, exterior of the house to be painted, and the front yard to be re-landscaped (I’d like all of those completed in no particular order, we can throw a baby in between living room design and landscaping if need be).

So, farewell 2007. Now, where did I put that desk calendar …

What springs to mind when mentioning a Christmas movie.  ‘A Christmas Carol’?  ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’? or perhaps kid friendly flicks like ‘Frosty the Snowman’ or ‘A Peanuts Christmas’.  However, when I think of a Christmas movie I of course think of ‘Die Hard’.

It’s just not Christmas with out Bruce Willis and his bloody feet running around after German “terrorists”.  Just the line “I now have a machine gun.  Ho-Ho-Ho.”   Puts me in the holiday spirit.  Forget the egg nog.   Yet, for me this is a recent holiday movie.  I didn’t start watching ‘Die Hard’ until I got married.  Thanks hubby for making me realize there’s more out there then George Baily and Scrooge.

Last night my family sat around and watched ‘Die Hard’.  My mom had never seen the movie, and was on the edge of her seat the whole time.  After watching the movie we all commented on the fact that times have changed so much – maybe not for the better.  Back in 1988 when you said “terrorist” the police department didn’t even bat an eye.  They just reluctantly sent out that guy from ‘Family Matters’ (you know who I’m talking about).  But now, unless you live under a rock, you know what kind of reaction the word “terrorist” has.  Also, today with cell phones and all sorts of communication tools I don’t know how anyone can have a group of hostages anymore (ah, the good ‘ole days), without one of them being able to contact the police.

Anyway, my Winter Solstice was fun.  I do have some interesting family tales to tell.  However, I’ll just keep those to myself.  Hope everyone had a good holiday as well.

Who knew that Santa’s Workshop is in Paso Robles? Let alone disguised as a Target and Ross?  You see, today was Christmas present buying day & I have to thank Target & Ross for saving my sanity. I didn’t even complain that I had to drive 40 minutes to Paso down the curvy 41, because I’ve gotten all my Christmas presents for my whole family (and that family would be my husband’s family, my family doesn’t really exchange gifts – yeah, we’re weird). Not only does hubby’s immediate family exchange gifts but his whole family does a secret Santa gift exchange. The pressure was on to find great gifts for everyone and I’m thrilled to say that I did. Now, the next task is to wrap and bag them all up for giving. Crap! I just realized I didn’t buy any scotch tape. I wonder if silver duct tape would look tacky. It is silver after all, and isn’t that kind of festive?

Now, let me first state that I’m an atheist … so there isn’t going to be anything religious at all in this blog post.  That being said, it stuck me as odd that people at Christmas time go bananas when decorating.  Would Jesus approve?  Did they even have electricity back then?

Anyway, it seems just after Halloween people start putting up those annoying (and just plain stupid) fake icicle lights.  Hey neighbors, we’re in California and you are not fooling anyone.  Who in their right minds thinks they actually look like icicles?  I’m actually kind of fond of those big bulbed green, red and orange lights they had on houses when I was a kid.  I miss those … but I digress.  Along with icicle lights people seem to enjoy those big inflatable creatures that pass for decorating.  The constant hum of the generator would drive anyone insane.  I feel bad for the ones that don’t get inflated and just lay there on the lawns looking all sad and melted like the wicked witch in The Wizard of Oz.

Also popular are those moving lighted reindeer and snowman, and whatever creatures companies have discovered how to light up and animate.  I like when people have a bunch of them all around each other in a haphazard manner.  For example I’ve seen it where they will have a medium sized reindeer and a giant polar bear and maybe a snowman in for good measure.

In our old neighborhood (a typical southern California subdivision of Mediterranean tract homes) our neighbors went all out decorating.  Every inch that could be covered in lights was most certainly illuminated.  You could read a newspaper in our driveway at midnight.  Our neighbor directly across the street from us was the biggest offender.  First he started with the icicle lights covered with traditional red and green twinkle lights.  Next, blow up creatures appeared and hummed their lovely tune on his lawn.  Then came the animated reindeer, snowman, polar bears and whatever other creature he could buy.  Color changing trees lined his front walk and above his garage door were over-sized ball ornaments next to the big red velvet bows.  Our house by contrast was like this black hole surrounded by tacky Christmas glitz.

In our new neighborhood the decorations are a bit more muted, however they still appear the day after Halloween … if not sooner.  We might actually have to break down and buy some sort of lighted twinkling Christmas glitz ourselves.  I don’t think Jesus would approve … a nativity scene perhaps?  Perhaps not.

I’m glad we were not his neighbor.  Enjoy.

I have one word for you “Skittles”. Those little red bags of fruit candies were like “kid-crack” last night. Kids immediately saw the little Skittle bags and went bezerk. I actually had kids yelling at the top of their lungs “Skittles! They’ve got Skittles!” While all their little friends came running. Those obviously were the first to go, followed by Recesses Peanut Butter Cups. It was a tie between the Tootsie Pops, miniature Butterfingers, Snickers, Milky Way & Baby Ruth bars, after that. Unfortunately, I opted to give out the plain Tootsie Rolls just as the night was winding down. So, here I sit with a big tub of stupid Tootsie Rolls left over. And have you ever tasted the “flavored” Tootsie Rolls? If you haven’t I seriously do not recommend it. I tried the “vanilla” flavor last night and nearly spit it out. What intrigued me was the blue wrapping. Who came up with blue=vanilla? I thought for sure it was going to be blue berry – as Mr. Smelly marker taught me. Another candy worth passing up, are ‘Whoppers’ – those sad, malted milk balls are just nasty (plus you only get 3 malted balls in a “fun size” package). I mean who wants weird malted milk balls when you can have peanut butter wrapped in chocolate? Yeah, that isn’t even a fair fight. On the plus side, I found that I like Charleston Chews – they are kind of marshmellow-y with chocolate on the outside – what’s not to love? Yum, I might have to go snag one now from my set aside stash of candy.

Also, I’ve noticed over the years that the “fun size” has become a little less “fun”. Slowly they have shrunk from a 2.5 bite worthy candy to a 2 bite candy. I miss that extra .5 – and you know you do too.

It was such a blast handing out candy to at least 300 kids, it was a non stop onslaught which began at 6:30 and didn’t let up until 9:00 . All the kids where very polite and almost always said “thank you” as they quickly sprinted off to another house. There were a lot of young toddlers with their parents (we all know who’s eating the candy in this situation. If you want all that candy so badly, why not just leave the little tyke at home with the grandparents. The poor little guy is already freaking out and crying).

I also found a lot of teenagers at my door last night. Most were dressed pretty well. One was dressed as Gumby & everyone young and old loved it. A cacophony of “GUMBY! It’s GUMBY!” I’m sure could be heard for miles. Hubby did his best Eddie Murphy impression of “I’m Gumby dammit!”. There was one kid dressed as Link from the Legend of Zelda, and hubby & I were the only ones that knew he was actually Link. His mom was so proud & thanked us profusely. Hey, when you see a kid in green with a pointy hat, triangular shield and a sword your mind immediately thinks of Link (well, if you grew up in the 80’s anyway). He also had a silver sword so he must have had at least 6 “life hearts” & visited the Old Man above the water fall (you know what I’m talking about, the water fall just west of the Lost Hills). There was also a little blind toddler that had a little cane and everything (he was dressed as a tiger). It was his first Halloween and his parents were trying to get him to walk to our front door. He kept going around in circles and freaking out, it was just kind of sad & made hubby cry. He actually compared it to watching the end of ‘Bambi’.

Another thing that made last night fun was all the great compliments on our decorations. We had a giant spider & web on our front overhang along with a circle of ghosts on our front lawn. Parents were taking pictures in front of our spider and it made me happy. These kids are going to have a funky Halloween picture with our front door in it for years to come. The whole neighborhood got into the Halloween spirit & it was really fun seeing all the kids last night.

So, all and all Halloween was a blast & I didn’t even have to dress up.