(Prelude)

Twas three nights before Christmas, when Brittnee called Matt.
Not one road was clean of snow, not even at Matt's habitat.
Matt's car slid on the road and into Big O,
Where he bought new tires and told Brittnee he could not go.

(And now for the rest of the story with continued rhyming . . . )

The thought of snuggling next to my wife in a warm bed away from the hazardous roads and frigid winter air was what I envisioned for the start of my Christmas vacation. Instead I had the plump snowflake fairies pound on my head with visions of me sliding off a snowcapped mountain cliff while Brittnee panicked and froze stiff. But to my astonishment and glee, a plan was presented to me. Brittnee's brother phoned while I waited for my snow tires and told me how the unexpected Christmas visit would transpire.

At half-past three with his wife he would leave Roosevelt, to pick me up while I prayed the snow so fast would melt. Meanwhile my task was daunting for I had to lie to my wife and tell her I would leave first thing in the morning to not cause her strife. Up till it was time to say good night she believed my little fib, but then my phone lost reception in the mountains and I was forced to ad-lib.

"My battery had died and my phone refused to hold a charge," I said.

To which she replied, "I waited for your call but when it didn't come, I called you fifty times instead."

On and on our phone tag went as the truck weaved through the snowy Uinta mountains without a dent. The smarter thing would have been to turn off my phone, but instead I stayed true to my farce so the surprise visit was not blown. To my dismay this only angered Brittnee even more until she said, "You sure know how to ruin my evening and you just love to start a war." After that Brittnee's brother Brandt said, "Turn your phone off and then you won't have to endure her every scoff or run the risk of her hearing our constant coughs." And so I did.

You see Brandt and Mindy were sick, fatigued, but still on my side, not only did they give me a ride to Roosevelt, their disappointment for Brittnee they could not hide. So Brittnee's mother they called to scold her on their behalf, for they heard just a half of our argument and now it was no longer all a laugh. In her room Brittnee received a scolding while she pouted in bed, but little did she know her house for me was not much further ahead.

She said, "I bet you won't get here until 2 pm tomorrow since you are always late."

As she said this I stepped out onto her driveway, laughed under my breath, for her unexpected visit could not wait and surely this argument I longed to abate. She wondered why I was laughing but I quickly denied such a thing as Brandt got to her bedroom door and opened it with a swing. Her face all flushed and tears in her eyes, he asked her to get out of bed for a Christmas surprise. She refused saying, "No I can't I am in my underwear." Then in a blink of an eye I entered the room, slipped past Brandt and stood before her as if I was walking on air. Startled and yet happy she said she knew I had lied. I gave her a hug, a proper reprimand and then smiled wide. It was then that Brittnee realized her brother and sister-in-law had heard our entire argument and discovered that Brittnee at last had a flaw.

Now she was red with embarrassment not knowing what to say, but she wrapped herself in an electric blanket and skirted off to Brandt and Mindy to tell them she worries so much she's going to go gray. They quickly agreed and added, "You were being a little brat, but we hope you are happy." And happy she was, for her husband had arrived a whole day early to her surprise.

THE END

A Happy New Year to all and to all a good night!

One tradition Matt and I want to have each year is Ice Skating. This year we kicked it off earlier than we wanted. We originally wanted it to be a New Years day activity. But as long as we do it, I'm a happy camper!

We made Matt's parents come with us, which at first they were a little resentful and then thanked us afterward. They were so glad we made them get outdoors and off there butts. Which was exactly what the doctor ordered for us!

I had so much fun. I just have to rub it in that I am so much better at skating than Matt. He is lucky if he doesn't fall down, where I do spins all around him. It's not very often that I am better at something than he is.










Another tradition I had before Matt was making some sort of a Christmas craft. I made Matt join in on one so that we could have a creative tree red and white tree (which is my colors I themed for this year, red, black, and white). He helped painted wood candy canes and wired them while I hung them up. We found out it is much better to have me decorate the tree while he just does the lights and other things .....he he. Here are some of the few things I put together or decorated around the house. If I didn't mention this before love decorating. I was so excited to decorate my house for the first time. Just the way I like it!

We also try to read a Christmas story, with a song, and scripture every night. We plan to carry that on threw the years. My previous blog was an example of one of the stories in our book.




What are some of your traditions?

O. Henry
The Gift of the Magi
One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.
There was clearly nothing left to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.
While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the look-out for the mendicancy squad.
In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name "Mr. James Dillingham Young."
The "Dillingham" had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income was shrunk to $20, the letters of "Dillingham" looked blurred, as though they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was called "Jim" and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is all very good.
Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a grey cat walking a grey fence in a grey backyard. To-morrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week doesn't go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling - something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honour of being owned by Jim.

There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a pier-glass in an $8 Bat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della, being slender, had mastered the art.
Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. Her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its colour within twenty seconds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length.
Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim's gold watch that had been his father's and his grandfather's. The other was Della's hair. Had the Queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out of the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.
So now Della's beautiful hair fell about her, rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her. And then she did it up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet.
On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she cluttered out of the door and down the stairs to the street.
Where she stopped the sign read: 'Mme Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds.' One Eight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the 'Sofronie.'
"Will you buy my hair?" asked Della.
"I buy hair," said Madame. "Take yer hat off and let's have a sight at the looks of it."
Down rippled the brown cascade.
"Twenty dollars," said Madame, lifting the mass with a practised hand.
"Give it to me quick" said Della.
Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Jim's present.

< 3 >

She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a platinum fob chain simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation - as all good things should do. It was even worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be Jim's. It was like him. Quietness and value - the description applied to both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 78 cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly anxious about the time in any company. Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the old leather strap that he used in place of a chain.
When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task dear friends - a mammoth task.
Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.
"If Jim doesn't kill me," she said to herself, "before he takes a second look at me, he'll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do - oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty-seven cents?"
At 7 o'clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on the back of the stove hot and ready to cook the chops.
Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit of saying little silent prayers about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: "Please, God, make him think I am still pretty."
The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two - and to be burdened with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was with out gloves.

< 4 >

Jim stepped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face.
Della wriggled off the table and went for him.
"Jim, darling," she cried, "don't look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold it because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It'll grow out again - you won't mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say 'Merry Christmas!' Jim, and let's be happy. You don't know what a nice-what a beautiful, nice gift I've got for you."
"You've cut off your hair?" asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet, even after the hardest mental labour.
"Cut it off and sold it," said Della. "Don't you like me just as well, anyhow? I'm me without my hair, ain't I?"
Jim looked about the room curiously.
"You say your hair is gone?" he said, with an air almost of idiocy.
"You needn't look for it," said Della. "It's sold, I tell you - sold and gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered," she went on with a sudden serious sweetness, "but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?"
Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year - what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.
Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.
"Don't make any mistake, Dell," he said, "about me. I don't think there's anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first."

< 5 >

White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.
For there lay The Combs - the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped for long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise-shell, with jewelled rims - just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. And now, they were hers, but the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.
But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: "My hair grows so fast, Jim!"
And then Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, "Oh, oh!"
Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to {lash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.
"Isn't it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it."
Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.
"Dell," said he, "let's put our Christmas presents away and keep 'em a while. They're too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on."
The magi, as you know, were wise men - wonderfully wise men - who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.



Merry Christmas Everyone!!

...So is there anyone who doesn't like their body or wishes they could loose more weight?? Or is that just me?

I just got back from the gym and actually loved it. I don't like working out; I think it's boring and I tend to watch the clock a lot counting down the minutes I have left. I usually start something and never stick with it (one exception was kick boxing and that was two years ago.) The only thing that kept me going to the gym often was being on the aerobic glider thing in the cinemark area.

Because I have that problem of not liking to work out, I don't do it very often. Unfortunately I have gained weight as a result of it. And I don't like that one bit! So I tried out something new today, that new work out I tried is called Zumba! ....What is Zumba you ask?

"ZuMbA combines high energy and motivating music with unique moves and combinations that allow you to dance away your worries. It's based on the principle that a workout should be "FUN AND EASY TO DO". ZUMBA is not only great for the body, but is also great for the mind."

"ZuMBa is a fusion of Latin and International music/dance themes creating a dynamic, exciting, effective fitness system! The routines feature aerobic/fitness interval training with a combination of fast and slow rhythms that tone and sculpt the body. ZUMBA utilizes the principals of fitness interval training and resistance training to maximize caloric output, fat burning and total body toning. It is a mixture of body sculpting movements with easy to follow dance steps."

View the demo to see for yourself!!!

You may think it is weird or slightly different from your taste but I love it. It's a party rather than a work out. I have loved reggae music for a while now and now I can actually dance to it. Dancing may not be for everyone but I don't think you necessarily have to be a dancer to enjoy this work out.

So what do you think of ZuMBa...would YOU ever do it?? Please I'm curious let me know??