Wine lickers

As the New Year approaches and my kids being older now are getting ready to scatter to there friends and extended families to celebrate. I am not a party type so a glass a wine with a solute and I am good to go. At 60 life does not have so much excitement at every corner. Putting my feet up with a glass of wine or just picking up a book sets me on fire.  I have tried to make the holidays fun for the kids but now they have made friends and some are going to college so I now feel like I can take a break from them.  We all come from different backgrounds and different languages, I can not make them into replicas of me nor can I make them American in the sense we all think living in America is all about. I can introduce them to every aspect of our culture but they will never be a cultural American.  All the government and legal documents in the world can not do that for them. They will forever be a mix. I do not live a life of what folks may call normal. I have no idea what normal is, I just do what I need to do, try to make the best of what I have and am.  I have morals and I live what I teach. Now morals are not a set of angel wings, It just mean I practice what I teach my kids and live my life how I want to be treated; I respect and want to be respected. 
I took on the responsibility of the kids and dogs so I do not take this lightly; I know that I personally do not care if my kids have a drink of wine on special occasions but my responsibility is to not let them drink at all till they are 21. They hound me to the ends of the earth to just have a taste of my wine because it smells so good.  I always say no and on those special time I buy bubbly juices and put it in a wine glass and they are content with that. One of the girls will turn 21 this spring but in her mind that time starts on the second half of 20.
Last night I thought it would be our last night together of 2012 so we should go out to eat. The 20 year old works till 9 or 9:30 depending on how long it takes to clean up after the last customer. She is unaware of what we are doing and did not plan for her 9 PM departure. It was painfully apparent that she was not leaving then and she did not want us to wait for her. I must add she knows I have no patience to wait and so she will always say, "don't wait for me".  I told her we would be at the restaurant across the street she should walk over there and meet us. We will have a drink while we wait for you. Now the kids like all those fancy sweet syrup drinks they tell you it is some flavor of lemonade. They just want sweet anything to drink but restaurants do not serve cool aide, so I am stuck buying the 4$ a glass of syrup water for them. I ordered a glass of wine for myself and we settled in to our bought of silly chatter and waited for the other girl. She arrives just as the drinks arrive and wants to know what we are all drinking. One of the girls tells her to get a different flavor than she ordered and they could try each others drink. Now this is when thing start to run amok as the drink tasting starts, one the girls picks of my glass of wine and puts it to her mouth and says can I have a sip? My reaction is put that down before they see you with it and we are ask to leave.  She then starts to lick the glass, to my surprise, I grabbed the glass and my first words are " What the Hell are you doing"? The other girls start laughing. Then she tells me she like the wine I drink at home better. What! Have you been drinking my wine? No I just lick the top.  Now what does one say to that ..... nothing we just all laughed and got silly. 
Happy New Years to all, may you find laughter in everything, and 2013 brings health and happiness to everyone.

Fashion or Fashion faux pas

With humans we understand our faux pas or they will be brought to our attention quickly. But in the dog world they just don't seem to care,  I have been catching these little guys and their fashion faux pas over the years and they never stop making me laugh. Doggie fashions or fashion faux pas.

Nails and hair should always be kept neat and manicured

Hats should fit well allowing ear fringe to flow from the sides.

Hats should never be too big

Clean shaving is a must as to allow for maximum vision. 

Eye glasses can make us look studious or ridiculous.

Stickers are an absolute no, no !                                       

 

Wearing animal fur is never a good choice

Collars are an important accessory

Proper fitting underwear is a must

Stripes can be revealing 

Sometimes dressing like others is confusing when making a statement 

Showing too much shoulder and leg is never a good idea

 

Proper fitting clothing is important to flatter ones body

Always dress with the correct limb in the correct place

 Nudity at home is Okay but not recommended

Name tags are a good thing if placed on correct side.

 Wraps are nice but where we get them can make all the difference.

Again the correct size is important, rolling ones sleeves is not chic

Having too many cloths can be a problem

A farmers tan is never  flattering

Using empty feed bags should be altered to fit the body not hide it.

No Matter if walking the runway in kite or riding a motorcycle in leather always do it with Pride

And you will never go wrong wearing a smile

Decaf

One of the girl got a job at a coffee hut in the mall and servers assorted cookies, coffees, ice cream.  She has been there since this last summer.  Now I don't give these places a second look or thought. But realize many folks like to stop for a little treat while shopping.  Now we have all grown up around coffee and learned from our yuppies and city dwellers the wonders of Lattes and espresso. I never drank coffee till I was 50. I traveled to Europe many time to visit friends and they all got me into drinking coffee.  I was weened on Turkish coffee with the grounds in the bottom of the cup. I know there are different kinds to appeal to all tastes, but my kids do not.  That being said coffee is coffee and the only difference is what you put in them.
A few nights ago my daughter gets home from work its 9:30 at  night and she is just full of the gab and hyped up.  Just asking a ton of questions and of course I am tired and not in the mood to try and fallow this conversation in broken, smashed, trashed and totally incoherent English. So I sipped away on my coffee staring into space using my usual reply, unha honey unha, with a couple of "I don't knows" throwed in for good measure.  She then asked "do you know what Lattes are"? Ya, why? I just learned how to make them and some times people don't like the way I make them, so I just throw it in the sink and give them coffee and tell them the machine is broke. Now I am real sure the owner does not have a clue to this and would have something to say about the waist.  Did any one show you how to make them. No they told me to put this in them and put them in the machine. They showed me how to make espresso but lots of people complain the cup is too small but that is what they showed me to do. What is  d e c a f  coffee?  I said "it is decaffeinated coffee". What is decaffeinated coffee? I now see that we need to have coffee lesson.  What do you give the people who ask for decaf? Coffee, Ya what kind? coffee. Lets start over what color is the coffee pot. Black. What do you do with the coffee in the orange pot? Nothing I throw it out when I clean up. Holly cow batman that is the decaf. Some people can not tolerate caffeine and will not be able to sleep or it speeds up there heart. Caffeine is the thing in coke I will not let your sister have because she won't shut up or go to sleep if she drinks it. Now I am left with the visual of Holiday shoppers running around the mall with an extra kick. Back to coffee 101.

I need to find my groove again...



I can't say that I have been enjoying Christmas over the last few year. I do not think of myself as a bah hum-bugger but I have lost the joy.  It is now so much more work, and I never get to enjoy it. I
spend the entire time pleasing others. By the time the last kid goes to bed on Christmas night I am totally void of good will, happiness and when I lose my humor I feel like I can close the book. My humor keeps me going and helps me through a lot. But it does me no good at Christmas, the Christmas season that now last for two months is exhausting. I lose my humor and then I just want to go to the bed and cover my head till the new year.
This year I had it figured out we would skip Christmas and go on a vacation to Disney. The relatives can spend their holidays were ever they want, I won't be here. The kids do not need any thing and they have become so materialistic that I want to scream.  No more stuff........   Lets go make some memories that will last a life. The CA vacation got cancelled because of my job. The summer camping trip one of the girl could not go because her college started early. So Christmas we are all together and have time.  Then last week my daughter tells me she can not go because her boss at the coffee hut in the mall will not let her off during the holidays. Seem she sells more coffee then, than any other time of the year. Who new people drank more coffee then. Now I am disappointed but still thinking, how not fun it will be with out her. When I gained my presents of mind and thought, what am I thinking I can not leave a kid home with out a tree and family while we're hanging with Micky.  I wanted to tell her to quit because minimum wage jobs can't be that hard to find. but on the other hand what kind of message am I sending her that she can just quit because she want to have fun. So I slowly let the other kids know that we may not be going to Disney. Now I am back to, how the hell am I going to pull a Christmas out of my ass. So I do nothing hoping that I will get a sign from some where telling me what to do.
Last week we were going to get our annual holiday photo done, the high light of my holidays. I thought why are the vet techs doing this so late how will I get Christmas card done and mailed in time.  I stayed up all night making new holiday jammies for the dogs 8 pair and we get up early and get to the College and drag all the kids and dogs in to do the photo and I am told to get a handout and pick the package I like. What do you mean? Don't we get a CD with the photo shoot on it so we can pick the pictures we like.  NO. We went with a professional photographer this year and you can just pick the package you want. I said "where are the Christmas cards?"  We are not offering them this year. What, no Christmas cards. I really had to bite my lip so I would not start my mouth running and say things I would regret, Okay then what is the biggest picture I can buy, because this will be the center wall picture of the house and it needs to be over 20 inches.  I was told they had 8x10s. Now I am so mad I want to cry this is a big family event that all my friends from around the world look forward to. Damn Dog house Christmas cards. The photographer comes down and tells me he can work with me on this and just pick a package for now and call him in a day or two and he will work out some kind of Christmas card for me.  OK lets do it I don't have much choice. They took about 7 shots and tell us to pick one, and turned the little black box around so we could see the shots. In my mind I am livid as the screen to pick from is the size of a cell phone. The best I could do with that was pick the one that looked like we were all facing front. I have no idea if the eyes are closed and the mouths open but we are looking at the camera. And you can come back and pick up the pics on the twelveth.  I left with such disapointment I just went home and went to bed. When I got up later that night I talked to a friend or should I say cried to a friend.  She told me to get my oldest daught to come home on the next weekend and we would take pictures and get them going on our own and not wait to find out that the ones we had are bad. 
We got things going the next weekend. I went out and got a Norfolk pine in a pot and hung some bulbs on it put a sheet on the wall and hung stuff on it.  Now I have no idea how we did it but we did manage to get pics.  The dogs were not cooperating the kids were fussing and fighting and I was having power surges from hell.  I finally yelled everyone smile I will not look at this pic for the next 20 years with grouchy faces.
We did get some pics and I sent in my order and the Christmas Cards came before the photos I took with the Professional. Now all I have to do is figure out what I am doing for Christmas. I hate to shop and have not given it one thought of what to buy. We still have a little tree and some lights on the front of the house but I sure do not feel the spirit of Chrismas and wish I could get some kind of sprit going for the sake of the kids.  I will send out the cards and hopefully find my happy place before Christmas gets here.