I thought that Brian was a certain weight and then it turns out he was about 20 pounds over what I thought! And he’s wondering why he has arthritis in his knees! I have some issues, but during the holidays, I eat more and thus have gained about 5 pounds. I’m not proud of it, but I will now go back to my boring eating habits and nibble foods. I am overweight, but have stuck around the same weight for years. Brian got an ab-lounger for Christmas and it’s all set up, but he hasn’t used it yet. Most of his weight is in the middle. I am flabby there myself. I want to try it too, but I want him to test drive it first since it was his gift. I have gotten him to only eat one serving of dinner for two days. This has been a major hassle. He is also just ‘eating foods that grow’ as snacks. I hear him out there munching and crunching on carrots and celery. Will it last? I said he really eats too much bread. He’ll be in the kitchen and eats a piece or two of bread as a snack. I do mostly buy wheat bread, but I can’t believe the amount of bread that disappeared in less than a week. He has his drink orders too. He loves to go in the convenient stores and buy o.j. and diet sodas. I said to try water or green tea. He should be bringing along his own lunch and drinks. After he started this ad job, I noticed he blossomed more from eating out of the car everyday. I have to live by my own rules too. I just ate granola bars and one homemade chocolate chip cookie. I was having a major PMS attack. Better luck tomorrow when I will be home by myself.

Like who wouldn’t want to win this:
www.hgtv.com
a gorgeous spread on Lake Tyler in Texas. Ok, we are really northerners, but to get a
free1.5 million dollar house,
well who wouldn’t want to try and win. Brian and Sean both said they wouldn’t want to live there, talk about jinxing us! I will say I loved the houses they had in Maine and Maryland, both a bit closer to Penna. I guess I have a better chance of getting struck by lightning. I wouldn’t mind winning a home makeover either. Oh to dream!

Glad to see the above ladies over in the devastated countries doing what reporting they can. I think Brian Williams is over there doing the news. Wonder what they are staying in? I guess they have to go inland a lot. The report by Diane tonight on the news was about a man and his two kids from Salt Lake City, UT looking at photos of deceased people for his missing daughter. His other daughter only recognized her sister by the shirt she was wearing. So sad. Good for Sandra Bullock for donating $1 million. I hope other celebs follow suit. To see how happy the people are when the choppers come in with boxes of food is heartbreaking.
There are blogs popping up about the tsamani like crazy. I’ll have to check some out.

…yep and things are getting back in order. Sean heads back to school in a few hours actual. We think he should have had the day off since New Years fell on a Saturday. Oh well. Brian goes back Tuesday. The house looks like it’s been cleaned randomly. The tree and everything is still up, why rush to take it down? I remember my Italian friend waited until January 5th, ‘Little Christmas’. I’m thinking the 9th or so. : )
Sean and I played a new game ‘Scene It’ where you get a DVD with film clips, etc. It was hard! He has looked at all his stuff so far. He’s good at appreciating most of his gifts.
Please give what you can to the relief effort. I have provided a link through Amazon’s fundraising efforts (thanks to Abby for the link)————–>
Watched most of ‘Gangs of New York’ on the ‘True’ network (whatever the heck that is). It was a bit gory in parts, but great acting by Daniel Day Lewis. I can say I am glad I have hot water and soap available most of the time (we have power outages sometimes). Enough said.

The years are zooming by it seems. Sean said he can’t believe how fast even the days go by now at his young age.
Yesterday the three of us went to see Brian’s dad and Bri tried to install a new VCR for him. We had given it as a Christmas gift for him. Bri couldn’t figure out the cable wires or whatever so it’s not hooked up. We went to dinner afterwards like we did last New Years Eve. I keep thinking about how many dinners out Sean will spend with us once he ‘spreads his wings’. There were young couples with babies at the restaurant and the memories of when Sean was tiny came flooding back to me. He’ll always be my baby.
After dinner we stopped by Kmart. There aren’t too many left around here and the one in Exton was deserted too. I like the Martha Stewart stuff and have a growing Christmas ornament collection from years past-all 50% off.
When we got home we just vegged out. I got some Baklava out of the freezer and settled in to watch the different New Year’s Eve shows. I had a little Irish Creme and then ‘bubbly’ later on.
Today Sean and I ran down to mom’s to take her out a little while. She seemed really blue yesterday. We got some Chinese and went to Borders and got some half-priced calendars. I got the cross stitching daily one, but just for the patterns. My sister-in-law was taking down her tree already when we ran over to get belated Xmas gifts from my brother Don who lives in Florida. Don gave Sean an Einstein t-shirt and me a tote bag made from vintage 50s fabric. It’s cool to see the lights on the way home. There are a few places that look like Christmas palaces with all the lights they have on their houses and in the yard.
One more day for Sean and two for Brian.

The little hummingbird before it’s made into an ornament. 

Keychain I made. I used blending filament is the stars and moon.
Update 12/27/04:
I decided to send this to my cousin Ann in Oregon who compiled the family history/photo book along with some newer photos of her east coast family. I rounded up 31 photos for her last night and today.

Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm! I heard that Martha Stewart was in a Christmas decorating contest at ‘Camp Cupcake’. They decorated their different ‘units’. They had to purchase items from the prison commissary to make their visualization a reality. I mean, popcorn, boxes and other generic stuff like that. Well didn’t her group lose! I would pay to see who won over Martha! Could it be that she lost out of spitefulness? This is also saying to me that she may have help with all aspects of her ‘business’, mainly ideas too if she can’t even win a prison contest. Poor, sad Martha.
PS-Martha also lost 10 pounds in prison. Guess the food isn’t ‘gourmet’ enough for her.
http://www.kfi640.com/hosts/handel.html Check out the Martha Diary down in the right column.

I have relatives out in Oregon whom I’ve never met from my father’s side (he is out there someplace too, but he doesn’t bother with anyone). My mom and I have both corresponded with my great aunt Dessa (now deceased) and her daughter Ann. Ann’s sister Shirley and her husband Dwayne visited us when we were little kids. Ann sent me a Christmas card and said she would be sending me a special family photo book as a gift. I had no idea what it would look like. Well, didn’t Ann send my mom a book too! It’s huge! It’s a three ring binder with about 2-3″ of photocopied photos in plastic sleeves of my Oregon family dating back to the late 1880s. There is also a genealogy booklet compiled back in 1978 that shows my Knowles family roots back to the 1660s! Seems my forefather (going back 11 generations) was John Knowles from New Hampshire. This is funny to me as I never knew I had east coast connections from both sides of my family.
Ann put in about 6 photo pages of my immediate family with pictures from my mom’s wedding including one of mom and my mom-mom and grandfather Alan Stroud. Ann has them listed as Straud. Whoops. There is a huge graduation photo of my father Carl from 1949 and Sean looks like him! The only thing is there are no photos of my brother Ken. I’ll have to color copy some and send them to Ann. Of course this touched me to the core (tears) as there we were part of this huge family book of people who we really didn’t know. I’ll have to scan a few of the photos. I can see why we haven’t heard from Ann in a year, she was really busy!

The dear deer that I mentioned in my last blog entry. The deer population is getting effected by all the housing developments around here. We see them in the various yards all the time. Brian said he came close to hitting a couple last week.