Tag: Holiday

Happy St Patrick’s Day

Happy St Patrick’s Day, everyone. Today is the day where the population of the United States who are not descended from Irish immigrants pretend that they are of Irish descent and celebrate like drunken stereotypes. Personally, as one whose family did come from Ireland but who does not drink at all, I am all for it. Pretend away, my friends and neighbors. For this one day each year you are more than welcome to join our club.

Sláinte!

Go raibh maith agat!

Go n-eirí an t-ádh leat!

Lá Fhéile Pádraig sona duit!

Go here to find out what those four phrases mean.

Happy Valentines Day

I am in the office today and Jen is working from home. I was able to wish her a Happy Valentines Day before I left the house though, so that makes me happy.

Yes I know that Valentines Day is a hallmark holiday and not a real thing, but I was alone for so very long before I met Jen that I never got to celebrate and I just want to make up for lost time.

We used to do anti-valentines celebrations. A bunch of friends would get together and go bowling and eat pizza and make fun of the happy couples. Now I am in one of those couples and I do so love every second of it. Make fun of me all you want, being with Jen is totally worth it.

Happy Valentines Day, Jen. I love you with all my heart. Smooch.

Merry Christmas

Santa Claus came, but we won’t be opening presents here until later tonight. The kids are at their dad’s this morning. They will come here about noon and we will all head to my sister’s for dinner and niece/nephew time. My father will be there too. I’m really looking forward to it.

After we get home we will do our family gifts. I’m also seriously looking forward to that, HoHoHo. Tomorrow we will go to Jen’s mom’s and do another dinner/gifts celebration. Yet another event I’m looking forward to.

It’s going to be a busy couple of days, but it’s going to include a ton of holiday/family stuff so it’s going to be great.

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate. Everyone else? I hope you have an extra great couple of days.

HoHoHo

Lights

We went for a drive tonight to look at houses with Xmas lights. We went back to the best neighborhood in the city. The one that actually stretches across the street.

Our city Xmas tree is in front of the library. It’s epic, but people are bitching about it this year? What the hell?

Finally, the obligatory clock picture.

Xmas Lights

We went out for a drive tonight to see some xmas lights around town. Jen and I were telling Bellana about a pair of houses we saw a few years ago that actually had their light display stretch across the street. We couldn’t remember where it was though. It made us a little sad.

Jen was directing us around based off of a screen shot of a facebook post that had some addresses on it. She took us to Sampson Street and wouldn’t you know it, that was the place where the lights stretched across the street! It wasn’t two houses, it was practically the whole street, but the lights only crossed in one spot.

It was really cool.

It made me wonder… is this a case of multiple households collaborating, or is it one household who knocks on doors asking if they can decorate other people’s houses. I wonder.

Drives around town like this are attempts at jump starting xmas spirit for me. It generally doesn’t work. I still doubt that I will have anything resembling holiday spirit before the 21st or 22nd of December. That’s just how it goes for me. It would be fun if it weren’t true and I could get into it early, but nope.

I’m Not Ready

I am not ready for xmas to take over all aspects of our daily American lives. Every year I go through this. It takes me until maybe December 21st or 22nd before I start feeling the holiday spirit. Up until then it’s bordering on loathing. We as a culture over do it so much that it’s painful to me. I just want a normal December and then a few days of holiday excitement and then New Years and then it’s over again. Why is that too much to ask? Why did I have to hear awful, awful xmas music blaring at me at the grocery store on Sunday November 26th at 8:10am? It’s just gross.

I would like to go back to Disney World though, so here’s some xmas decorations from Magic Kingdom. Granted these were taken a couple of weeks after New Years last January which is equally as gross as xmas music in November but… whatever.

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Film
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Happy Thanksgiving

Do you live in the U.S.A.? If you do then Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday but it’s been pretty screwed this year. The kids are at their father’s house for the day. He just moved into a new house so this is the first holiday, so it makes sense to spend the day there. We will do our family Thanksgiving on Saturday. We’re actually boycotting the Macy’s parade as I type this (it started 10 minutes ago) in the hopes that we’ll watch it Saturday. Jen and I were supposed to go to my sister’s house but they have a real estate issue going on and they had to cancel. Now we’re mostly staying home. I want to go visit my dad (he was supposed to go to my sister’s too) but I haven’t figured out the timing yet. Mostly because of my stomach fun from yesterday.

I woke up a little after 6:00am today and felt pretty nauseous. I moved from the bed to the couch along with a big bucket to puke in if needed and slept a couple more hours. Vomit-free. Thankfully. Now I am feeling okay. I just drank 12 ounces of water over a span of about half an hour. I had my morning vitamins too. So far so good, but I think I said that yesterday too, didn’t I? In about 10 minutes I will be clear to eat something. I’ll have a protein bar and see how it goes. Fingers crossed my stomach is done with whatever hell it tortured me with yesterday. I don’t want to be sick on Thanksgiving, you know? I don’t want to be sick when I visit my father.

So again, to all of my American friends out there, Happy Thanksgiving! And may your gastric-bypass-rewired stomach not give you any shit today! HoHoHo and all that stuff!

Impending Doom

The last post talked about trusting my instincts. A big part of me is wishing I hadn’t written that because for most of this morning my instinct has been telling me that today is going to be a really shitty day.

Why?

I don’t know.

It’s the day before Thanksgiving and I am working in the office. The office alone sort of points to a bad day, but it’s more than that. In the United States, the day before Thanksgiving is traditionally the busiest travel day of the year. Everyone in the country hits the road on this day each year. I expected my morning commute to be an absolute nightmare. Add to the expected gridlock that it was pouring rain outside and it would be safe to assume that the traffic would be a gridlocked nightmare times 10. Nope. There was no traffic at all. Everyone drove a little slower than the speed limit thanks to the rain, but I never had to hit the breaks once over the entire 40-something mile drive. You would think that would ease my sense of impending doom, but nope. Somehow it made it worse.

Today should be a quiet day at work. If the office is anything to go by, it’s dead as can be here. I only see two other people and they both work for me. Weird. I should be feeling optimistic and excited about the coming holiday weekend, but instead I am just dreading everything. Once I get home tonight and see my beloved bride again, I will start feeling really good about the weekend, but until then?

It’s going to be a long, sucky, painful day.

83/365
83/365

Plans for the Fourth

Does anyone have any plans for the 4th of July? It’s a holiday in the United States tomorrow. Jen and I are both off of work. Independence Day. How are we going to celebrate?

I have no idea.

Jen and I both had a bit of a stomach bug yesterday. She still has it, though I think I’m in the clear now. If she’s still under the weather then I expect us to just sit in the living room flaking in glorious fashion. If she’s feeling better, will we do anything? The weather is supposed to be garbage so I don’t think we’ll be doing much of anything out doors. I’d like to have a mini-cookout or something but I’m not holding my breath.

We have been talking about driving to IKEA and getting some furniture to replace what Harry took to Vermont with him. We’re thinking of turning Harry’s room into a den/bedroom that we can use when he’s not here. When he is here, it’s his room. When he’s not it’s an alternate living room space. We’re thinking of a day bed. Maybe a little desk too? Maybe a comfy chair? We’re thinking of getting another comfy chair for the living room next to the fire place. We have that area marked as a reading nook. IKEA would be ideal for all of this. I just don’t know if our health will be up to it.

Other than that, I plan on doing the next 5k training run. 30 minutes of walk-for-a-minute/run-for-a-minute. I will also hopefully start working on this year’s fake 50/90 challenge. The challenge to write 50 songs in 90 days is real. The fake part is that I am done with the fiftyninety website. No more logging in there for me. Tomorrow is the first day for this challenge. If I were smart I’d write 50 songs tomorrow and then take 90 days to tinker with them. Yes, that was sarcasm.

The 4th of July, 2023 might just turn into a day. More like a plain old Sunday than a huge holiday. We’ll have to see how everyone’s stomach feels. Fingers crossed we can do something fun together. I choose to be optimistic and expect everything to work out fine.

May Music

I’m super tired tonight but I hit all of my food and exercise goals without any stomach issues and I managed to find a little time to start working on a song idea. The May music goal is 10 songs. Think of it as a music project to honor my birthday, my surgery anniversary, my and Jen’s wedding anniversary, our first Mother’s Day without my mother, and Bellana’s graduation.

There’s a lot to celebrate this month. There is a ton to be thankful for. There’s one thing to be sad about, but I can also be thankful for that day too if I look at it as celebrating my step kids’ mother instead of focusing the loss of my mother.

It’s all worth some new music. I just wish I had talent so I could come up with something worthy of it all.

ADDENDUM: I knew I was forgetting an event. May is also my step daughter, Bellana’s birthday month! Add her turning 22 to the list of things to celebrate this month.