Even the longest weekend was NOT long enough!

Happy belated Thanksgiving to all! Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Even a 4 day weekend was not enough to make a dent in my Holiday Stamping.... SIGH.... I have to do 36 cards and 18 ornaments with mini gift bags. All I got done toward that goal this weekend was 12 of the cards. I have a feeling that the next 2 designs will be a little less complex! This one has 3 layers, 2 masked images (the stamp, by DeNami has the sentiment RIGHT UNDER the snowflakes), 2 punched circles, folded then decorated with 2 silver eyelets, silver organdy ribbon and silver cord. Then, since it JUST WASN'T ENOUGH (LOL!), I added the 2 little rhinestones.

And here I thought I'd get either all the cards done or half the cards and half the gift bags. Ugh. I foresee a lot of LATE nights in the next 30 days..... I won't be able to stamp this weekend as we are going up to Portland to get Russ' car and drive it home. Looks like he may not get back up on the mountain until after Christmas now. I'm figuring the weekend of the 9th will be dedicated to cards if they aren't done by then. The weekend of the 16th is Russ' company party in the Bay Area and then the 23rd is getting a little late to do much! I'm hoping to squeak in a couple weekdays sometime between now and the 9th. I haven't started shopping or decorating yet either..... I guess I'm just not into it this year. The Holiday Spirit hits me later and later every year, it seems..... Oh well!

I'm Baaaaaack!!!!

Russ is home. He arrived around noon on the 8th. Right now he is working at the Novato office (2 hour commute each way) and will be for the foreseeable future. The power and sewer are still out at Mt Rainier above Longmire so it may be a few weeks before anyone gets back up to the jobsite for more than a few hours at a time. They DO have the local crews going up and doing necessary stuff like maintaining the roof coverings and such on a daily basis, but the work on the project is at a stand still.

SUCH FUN!

I still can't believe that Thanksgiving is next week. It was warm and sunny here today. I went to the mall and the tree is up and there were kids getting Santa pictures done, and carols were playing and it just felt TOO SOON, but Thanksgiving *IS* next week.... sigh.... guess I need to get working on cards and ornaments! EEK!

We will be celebrating Turkey Day with Russ' family in Palo Alto and then we will be headed up to the cabin at Sea Ranch with Patty (the older of his two younger sisters) Thursday night and will spend the rest of the weekend there. Unless the weather is drop-dead-gorgeous (which it has been know to be that weekend), I will spend most of the weekend in the back bedroom with my stamps doing Christmas cards. It's tradition! If the weather is really nice, I will take a few hours to go to my favorite beach and see if I can get starfish pictures at the tidepools. Love those starfish! Especially the purple ones!

So that is the update in the life of this domestic Goddess.... more fun than should be allowed by law! LOL!

Yeah, I know. I don't keep up with this thing....

But, seriously, my life REALLY IS THAT BORING! However, there has been some DRAMA in the past 36 hours....... Small re-cap: Russ is living and working on a construction project on Mt Rainier in the National Park (if you are interested, google "Paradise Inn, WA"). He comes home every other weekend. It's works nicely for us. I have adjusted to my independent stamp when I want till 2 AM lifestyle and FULL CONTROL OF THE REMOTE! OK... so 7AM Monday, he calls me and says that if I call the job site and there is no answer, not to worry because they got 7" of rain overnight (I read today that is was more like TEN INCHES) and the power is going off and on and he'll keep me posted. Forward to Monday at noon.... He calls to say that the Park Service has asked that all non-essential employees please leave the mountain due to flooding roadways and they strongly urge that EVERYONE evacuate. So everyone but Russ and four other guys leave. The 5 SuperMen decide to "ride it out" because they have plenty of food and they are safe where they are. Does he listen to me when I say, "But what about WATER?" or "And how will you get out or get supplies in if the road washes out?" ? OF COURSE NOT, for they are *MEN* (insert testosterone induced chest beating) and they can handle it. He promises to keep in touch with any changes. At 9:40PM Monday night, he calls to say the power has gone out again and they are all turning in. This morning I get up and turn on the computer and check the park website and "Live Mountain Cam" is still black meaning their power is still out. Well, I get a call at 9AM saying that the Park Service is sending a "lead vehicle" (read all-terrain-snow-plow sort of thing) up for them and they WILL all follow it out of the park as they have CLOSED the Park (which I already knew because they had posted it on the Park website last night!). He says he called his boss who told him to change his flight for this weekend and just come home today. JUST DUCKY. So now all the cleaning and laundry I had until 9PM (OK, 4 PM cuz I was hoping to play in VSN on SCS) Friday to finish has to be done TODAY. Grrrrrr.... He says not to make any flight changes yet, he'll call me when they are off the mountain (note that this normally takes about 15 to 25 minutes to drive down). I start the flight of the bumblebee cleaning... I finished painting his bathroom last week and haven't put his stuff back or cleaned up everything in there, so that was my first chore while laundry load #1 was going. I didn't hear from him again until 12:30. It took almost THREE HOURS to drive out of the park. They were not able to use the regular roads off the mountain and had to use service roads, driving thru up to a foot of standing water in places (man, we're glad he got that SUV) and they came out on the south side of the park rather than the west side and due to flooding he can't get back around to go to SEATAC so he is going to follow one of the other guys and drive down to Portland and stay at my mom's tonight. So I log into his airline reservations and get him all set up with flights. He'll be home tomorrow around noon (yay! a whole day to finish cleaning!). After that, I finished the yardwork before the rain comes tonight and all I have left is to change the bed in the morning and clear off the guest bed for her Highness the cat, since Daddy will be RUDELY sleeping on the half of the bed SHE now claims. He calls back when he is close to Mom's (mostly for directions to her house) and tells me that he may be home ALL NEXT WEEK and working out of the Bay Area office. JUST SHOOT ME NOW! Now add MASSIVE grocery shopping to my list of things to do tomorrow since all we have in the house is "my food" which brings such happy comments like: "Do you actually EAT this crap?! Don't we have any tater tots? Chips? Dip? EEEEEEEEW! IS THIS LIGHT ICE CREAM????? Where's the good stuff????" BAH! MEN! All I can say is they had better either have a company truck he can use or they better get his happy arse a rental car because if he thinks I'm going to sit around here with no car for a whole week, he's LOST HIS MIND! Don't get me wrong.... I was very worried last night and even called his parents to make them aware of what was going on. But, WHEN IS THAT MAN GONNA LEARN TO LISTEN TO ME, because after these things happen, I *NEVER* have to say I TOLD YOU SO, because he *IS* actually man enough to admit that I was right without me having to say so. I'm sorry, but the person STANDING OUTSIDE THE SITUATION usually has the most logical view of it, no? OK. I feel better now. Now, where is that corkscrew????? now that I'm done with one WHINE it's time for another WINE! LOL!