Holiday! Celebrate!

Before I start telling about everything that’s happened this month I’d like to take a moment to wish everyone a joyous holiday season to come. I hope that everyone is very blessed with many wonderful moments with all of their loved ones. Ok that’s enough mush for now.

Since I last blogged Halloween has come and gone. My son dressed up as a pirate and went out trick-o-treating with his mommy, who dressed as a scary monster. I had to work on Halloween, so I wasn’t able to go out with them. Our lil’ pirate did bring home lots and lots of treasure, um..er.. candy. He’s kinda young for some of the candies he got, but that’s ok. Mommy and Daddy have been taking care of those candies. He also went to the pumpkin patch again this year. My wife got some really good pictures of him that matched the one’s from last year. She put last year’s and this year’s pictures side-by-side and has posted them on our Flickr account so everyone can see them. Actually, we’ve taken lots of pictures lately and she’s really backed up on editing them. Yesterday, we went with the Howards to Bass Pro Shop to get pictures of their kids & Joshua with Santa Claus. Santa had a real beard and Mrs. Claus was even there. Joshua walked almost all the way up to Santa, but stopped cold about 2 feet away and just stared. He just didn’t know what to make of Santa. Finally, Mommy walked over and sat him in Santa’s lap. He got his picture taken and was given a candy cane. While we were there, he also got to decorate a pinecone with glitter. Actually, mommy did it, but he sat and watched.

Two weeks ago my schedule at work was changed. I used to work Wed. – Sun. Now I work Tues. – Sat. So now I’m able to be off with my family on Sunday’s and go do things with them. Another thing the schedule change did was to allow me to start going to church with my wife & son. I think my wife is really glad about that. It’s a little unusual for me. Before recently, I hadn’t gone to church on a regular basis since I was a kid. I feel a bit out of place right now, but I’m sure I’ll come around and be comfortable soon enough.

Our house has been a mess for along time. Finally, I just couldn’t take it anymore. So, 3 weeks ago we began gathering up laundry from all areas of the house and washing clothes like crazy. We sorted though mail and other papers, and threw away alot of clutter. It’s still an on going process, but the place is starting to look better. We still have the spare bedroom we haven’t even touched yet, but that’s a project that’s going to take time. There’s things in there that need to be stored, sold, or just plain gotten rid of. Once the whole house is in order, we’ll probably start working on redecorating the front bathroom and the office. The wallpaper in both rooms needs to go. I’m not sure what we will be doing to redecorate them, but I’m sure we’ll work something out.

Thanksgiving is coming up soon and we’re planning to spend it at the cabin in Arkansas with my wife’s family. Their going to be deep frying a turkey. That’ll be different. I’ve always had my turkey oven baked. The last time I went to Arkansas during the month of November it was so cold I thought we were going to freeze to death. That was back before the cabin was built and we were sleeping in tents. Now if it gets too cold we can just turn the heater on. I love electricty, don’t you? Anyway, there might be one possible snag in our plans, but I’m not sure just yet. I don’t know if my work is going to have me come back in that Friday or if I’ll be able to be off that entire weekend. I won’t know until the end of next week. Everyone keeps asking me what my schedule is going to be and I can only tell them, “I wish I knew.”

Christmas is right around the corner too. We’ve already bought a few of our people their presents, but there’s still so much to get. I want to give my son the type of Christmas’ I always had. My parents never left me or my sister wanting for anything on Christmas Day. I want to make sure my son always feels the same way on Christmas. My dad always decorated the whole house, inside and out. It’ll take along time before I have as many Christmas decorations as my dad does, but at least we still have a really nice tree and cool candy cane decorations for the outside of our house. Last year’s Christmas was cool. This year’s is going to be awesome. By the way, if you can’t tell, Christmas is my favorite time of year. Hands down.

Well, that’s about all I’ve got this go round. I’ll be back again sometime soon.