Home For The Holidays- Part One

I can’t believe that it’s been 25 days since I’ve last posted!! I’ve been crazy busy and out of town and just enjoying some time off with family and friends. Hope you all had a wonderful holiday and New Year! Didya get hammered??

I left Indy on Dec 22^nd and drove overnight to Connecticut with my dear friend Lauren and her cat that I like to call STOPCLAWINGMYLEGSYOUFUCKER Kitty. I had a Colts game that night so we assumed that we’d be leaving around 10pm. My boss all along had said that she was planning on letting me out early- which to me meant that I’d leave at the beginning of halftime instead of the beginning of the third quarter. At about 11am, she asked if I finished checking the seats out in the stadium yet (because yes-I have to check all of the seats for every event here- FUN!) and I thought to myself, “Self, why the hell would I check them so early? The game’s not until 8pm.” So I told her that I was planning on doing that in the afternoon. So she’s like, “Duh- get it done so you can get the schmuck outta dodge!” Oh, wait, that’s my wording not hers. But that’s basically what she said. I was completely floored. I was like, “Huh?” And she was like,“So.” And I was like, “Wha??” And she was like,“Yeah.” Sorry. Just had a little moment there with myself. Anyway- she was like “I’ve been telling you that I was going to let you out early, silly girl.” So I got out to the seats and ran around the stadium like a mad woman counting away!  68,001 of them by the way.  Boo-ya!

SUPER nice of her, by the way! I totally didn't expect that at all. Note to all former employers of Miss Thang Here: You all sucked as bosses. Annnnnnd scene.

Anyway- so I called Miss Lauren and told her the fantastic news and told her to get her skinny little butt over to my house and let’s hit the road, Jack! We ended up leaving about 4:30pm which got us on the road about 5 and a half hours earlier than we thought we would- which was SUPER. We hit a little bit of getting-outta-work traffic but nothing too bad. Although by the cursing coming out of drivers seat you would have thought we were going to be delayed for hours! And it wasn’t even ME sitting in that chair! That Lauren has a potty mouth on her. I have no idea where she gets it from either.

We did however, get stuck in dead stopped traffic somewhere in Ohio because morons can’t drive in the rain apparently. We sat there for about 45 minutes not moving a foot. That was awesome. You should have heard the curse words coming out of her mouth at that point! She was making me blush! There was this trucker parked next to us on my side. I was going to mess with him and try out my Jersey accent so I rolled down the window to chat with him. He was SUPER nice and didn’t let me get a word out before he told us to move in front of him because the accident was in our lane. Awwww we made nicey with a trucker! Although I was kind of disappointed that I couldn't be all smokey-trashy-whiny voiced with him. But that was probably a good thing cuz Lauren really had to go to the bathroom by that point and I would have literally made her piddle her pants.

We got into CT at about 8:30ish in the morning and met up with her mom and uncle and my dad and uncle. I was exhausted as I’m sure she was too although she did seem to sleep a LOT more than I did!!. So it was nice of everyone to meet us so that she didn’t have to drive another 2 hours to her house all by herself and I could just sit in the back seat of my uncle’s car while getting chauffeured home to MA. As soon as I got to my house, I said hi to Mr. Thomas and went straight to my room and crashed for a few hours.

We had 3 Christmas dinners that week- the first being on that Friday. So I woke up when I heard my mom oh-so-patiently waiting for me to wake up screaming to Harold outside of my bedroom about something pretending to not be trying to wake me up. I got up, showered, and helped my Mamacita make some delicious lasagna for Christmas Eve Eve dinner. Good lord, I love that woman’s lasagna. I think I had about 4 pieces. Hey- I didn’t have anything besides a chicken sandwich and fries for dinner the night before and an English muffin sandwich at 9am. I was HUN-GRY. We opened our yearly ornaments- we do this thing where  we buy each other ornaments that have to have some meaning from that year. Mine was Scooby with a teal blue ball ornament and he was called  ‘Decorator Scooby.’ If you are wondering what the meaning of that ornament was- I made and shattered a gorgeous teal blue ball wreath that I loved and then cried about when I came home to hundreds of blue balls scattered all over the floor. You can read about that  here.  It was actually pretty appropriate because I talked about how gorgeous and time consuming and awesome I am that wreath was and then how disappointed and crushed and really fucking pissed off I was that it got ruined. Then I talked a bit more about it when I re-used the balls for different decorations throughout the house seen  here. Apparently my mother thought she was going to be the only funny one this year but no no no- clearly with me for a daughter, that was NOT going to happen.

All year my mother and Harold spent most of their time outdoors in their backyard. Sometimes it was to enjoy it or plant flowers or have a fire pit grilling some hot dogs. But most of the time was cleaning up the mess that the previous owners left back there. They have probably rented about 5 trailer truck sized dumpsters and filled them with junk. They also had a little building back there that they knocked down as well that caused a lot of mess. It seemed like every time I called her she was moving pieces of wood from one pile to the next then to the dumpster. When I called her before the holiday to tell her I got their ornaments she was like, “Please don’t let them be dumpsters.” HAHA. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any because that would have been so perfect. But I did find ceramic ones that looked like a slice of a tree trunk with the rings and grain on them and they were cut into different shapes like hearts, stars and Xmas trees. So that’s what they got. To remind them of all of the wood they moved all year into dumpster after dumpster.

First thing Christmas Eve morning my uncle picked me up and we went to my aunt’s house to celebrate The Armstrong Christmas. There we had turkey and all of the sides and all that yumminess. Oh and we had PIE! Scrumptious apple pie! I’ll tell you what, my uncle Greg makes a MEAN apple pie. I had two pieces. With whipped cream. OHMYGOD. We watched the Patriots game and I told them all about my cougar fantasy I have about Rob Gronkowski. I will make him mine. We ate more pie and then called it a night about 10pm.

My mom usually works on Christmas Day so Harold will head over to his family’s house and do their thing and then I’ll put dinner on the stove and when everyone gets home we will eat and open presents. This year we had a ham dinner since we already had our usual lasagna on Friday. We had some appetizers and some berry beer that I brought home from Indy. Or was it Bailey's?  I drank so much I can't remember.  We opened up our gifts (mostly gift cards) but we got creative in how we wrapped them so it looked like we had a full tree of presents. I received another year subscription to Better Homes and Gardens (SWEET!!!!), a couple of Lowe’s giftcards, one from JC Penny’s and another from Home Depot. I got my mom and Harold a bunch of Home Depot giftcards. Ummm sense a theme here people? I can’t wait to see what they buy!! By next year they could have some new windows or some siding for the house or some light fixtures!! Shoot maybe a new bathroom downstairs.  My mom will typically text me a picture of what I “bought” for her since I won't get to see it until next December!! I’m not quite sure yet what I’m going to get with mine. But you KNOW I’ll let you all in on it once I do!!

We went shopping on Monday to the good ol’ Berkshire Mall where I wanted to see if Penny’s had a Gronkowski jersey. Whomp whomp. Fail. They didn’t. Damn them.   However they had PLENTY of Randy Moss jerseys.  Jackasses.  But what they did have were all of the Christmas ornaments on clearance for 70% off. SCORE! You know me and my love of holiday shopping after the holiday!! I got some major deals. 

The top two will more than likely be used as fall decorations rather than being put on the tree.  Something like how I did with the blue balls in the vases a la below.  

But how fabulous are those peacock ones?  The ornaments ranged from $1.49 to $2.39 each.  Like I said- I scored!  Although I've already broken 2 of the acorns.  Dammit.  I also got a bunch of Xmas decor at Michael's- some of which I had to leave in MA because I couldn't fit everything into the HUGE box I shipped to Indy or in my suitcase.  Can you say TEAL POINSETTIA's??  Hell yeah!  You know I'm going to make something ridiculous with those.  While I was home I also swiped some navy blue velvet curtains for the room upstairs.  Once I have those ironed and hung I'll show you a before and after.  It was funny because when I did the post where I painted the TV stand navy I went out looking for curtains and couldn't find what I was looking for.  My mom happened to call saying that her other child gave her some......drum roll..... navy blue velvet curtains... WHAT?  So I hinted around a couple of times to her over the phone and she just wasn't getting it.  I was shopping with Wendy a few weeks before going to MA and I found some plain navy curtains at BBandB for $40 that would work but I just wasn't in love with.  So I rang up mommy dearest and was like, "OK I've tried beating around the bush about those damn blue curtains.  Are you going to use them?  Cuz if not I want them."  Needless to say she wasn't going to use them so in the box to Indy they went!!  Gotta love that.  Just don't tell that sibling of mine that I took them.  He might not talk to me for 8 years. Oh wait......

Anyways- more on the rest of the trip and hanging out with some fabulous friends in the next post.  I've probably bored you enough with this one!  How were all of your Kwanzmachristmakuh's? Did you get everything you asked Santa for?