A New Year's Meme

This is a New Year's meme I picked up from... I'm so embarassed - I can't remember where. Last week, before Christmas, I found this and I thought it was cool, so I took note of it, but now I can't remember from whence it came. Aren't I terrible?

This is the first sentence of my first post of every month this year. I started my blog in April, so here it goes...

1 - April - My kids are watching Saturday morning cartoons.

2 - May - Soccer season has begun.

3 - June - Main Man has been freelancing at home for the last couple of years.

4 - July - I bought "light BUTTER" microwave popcorn the other day.

5 - August - I've always had a place in my heart that hates the month of August.

6 - September - I am a clutter queen.

7 - October - The subtitle of this book could be "Everything Your Child Didn't Realize He Didn't Know about Money and Didn't Think to Ask".

8 - November - I know it's Thursday.

9 - December - I cannot believe that it's been over a week since I posted.

Actually, when you put them all together, they look rather comical. Hope you enjoyed them...

And may 2007 be your best one yet!

And the Happiest of Holidays to All of You

School is out. Now I can do my shopping.

That isn't really true. I've done quite a bit already, but now the power shopping begins!

I was determined to take it easy this season - to take more pause to truly enjoy the holiday. And I did.

I haven't sent any Christmas cards yet (they will have to be holiday cards next week).

I bought my baking at a bake sale.

I put blogging on hold for a short while.

And I did have a chance to take pleasure in the little things: enjoying the children's smiles and antics at the Christmas concerts, making harried store clerks smile as I joked with them, smiling at strangers as I moseyed through the stores (I'm sure many of them were wondering what I was up to!).

I hope you all will have the opportunity during this busy time to marvel at the magic of the season.

I will be around to many of your sites to wish you blessings and joy, but, on the off chance that I have some readers of whom I am unaware, I wish all of you the pure joy that one feels upon seeing a child gaze in wonder at the gifts beneath the tree, or a senior beam at being surrounded by family and friends, or a couple share a tender moment under the mistletoe.

May the magic of Christmas surround you in a blanket of comfort, joy, and love.

Christmas Cards

I usually love getting Christmas cards.

Reading about people's goings-on, seeing photos of their children as they grow a year taller, knowing that our friends are thinking of us, all of that makes opening the mailbox on my way home from work at this time of year a little more exciting.

Main Man gets corporate and political cards full of generic wishes. I'm not big on those. But they do add colour and visual interest to our card display.

Yesterday, though, we got a Christmas greeting that made me shake my head. It was from a family who used to be our neighbours. Their children attended the same daycare as ours, and we occasionally visited back and forth when they lived in our neighbourhood. Four or five years ago, they moved on to greener pastures, also known as that area of the city with huge new houses dwarfing tiny trees. We've basically lost touch. I often muse that they feel that they have "outgrown" us.

The card - and I use the term loosely - consisted of a photo of their family on what appears to be a private yacht in some tropical clime. There was no letter, no greeting even, just a signature on the photo.....

The Johnson's

(real name withheld to protect the innocent)

Even a "Merry Christmas" would have been nice.