Empty Store Shelves

Only a couple more days ’til Christmas. Thank God. I’m still struggling to get ready. After filling out Christmas cards, finally, I needed to make a late night run to Walmart. Eric came along. As we were walking in the door he announced that he needed to “buy some shower gel and one of those poufy things.” His words.

“Oh, you use shower gel now?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “And I recently discovered I’ve been using it wrong. With a washcloth.”

“And how did you discover you were using it wrong?” I asked.

“When I was at my Dad’s house, I used his poufy thing,” he explained.

“And it got all sudsy, right?” I prodded.

“Yeah. And I thought to myself, ‘wow’,” he continued. “It worked so much better. They’re supposed to be good for your skin, too.”

I laughed and joked that we should buy him a nice pink one.

We proceeded to the toiletries section of the store, where, after settling on some manly, Old Spice shower gel, we walked up and down each aisle looking for the poufs. I can never find those damned things in Walmart when I need one. They keep them in the weirdest places.

Finally, we turned the corner into the last aisle and there were four pouf boxes. All lined up nice and neatly. All empty. Save for one.

Eric stopped, groaned aloud and said, “Aw, man. You jinxed me.”

I couldn’t help but crack up laughing.

In that one box was one pouf. A bright pink one.

I have a sort of loud, obnoxious laugh. A Walmart worker, who was standing nearby looked at us to see what was up.

She looked at Eric with pity and said something like, “I know, that’s the only one left.”

I was still laughing of course.

“Oh well, just buy it. I won’t tell anyone.”

“Yeah, right,” he said, knowing I’d rush right home and tell the world via this Blog.

At least he was a good sport about it and let me take pictures to share, too.

Cookies!

The last Saturday before Christmas FLEW by at the Kirkpatrick household.

The biggest event of the day, by far, was the cookie baking. As I did miscellaneous odds and ends… shopping, putting the final touches on Christmas craft projects, pre-wrap staging, etc… Hubby baked cookies (among other things).

Now, I do realize there’s a fine line between sharing with you just how wonderful Hubby is and bragging about what a wonderful Hubby I have, so I won’t go on and on about him. I’ll just say that I REALLY appreciated all of his efforts today.

And, of course, I have to share some images. Okay, lots of images. But they’re good ones. At least I think they’re good.

Here’s Hubby happily baking away.

And Meg watching. I just love the different ways she lays. Know what Meg loves?

Cookies!

She really loves cookies.

Can you see the wheels turning? She’s wondering if she’ll get one.

She’s really hoping that she’ll get one.

I mean, seriously. Look at that face.

She’s being very attentive, isn’t she?

The dog has a serious sweet tooth.

As an aside, notice the fancy duds she’s sporting? That’s her 2008 holiday outfit.

Her little snowman bell jingles when she walks. Hubby says it jingles when she eats, too.

Here’s my new favorite Meg cookie photo. Did I mention that she LOVES cookies?

More detail on the cookies tomorrow. Hubby cranked out quite a variety. That’s before he wrapped presents. And did the laundry.

Sorry. I wasn’t going to go on and on about how wonderful he is, was I?

He rocks.

I’ll end there for today.

It’s Beginning to Look Like Christmas

We finally decorated our tree last night.

I’m one of those lucky women with a hubby that helps me do stuff like this. Ever since we got married, Hubby and I have worked rather well as a team.

He typically lugs all of the decorations up from the basement, unpacks the boxes, assembles the tree and adds the lights. I’m in charge of tree decorating and placing the other decorations around the house.

I do all of the shopping. Hubby wraps all of the gifts.

When Christmas is over, I remove the tree ornaments (sometimes he does that, too) and gather up all the decorations. Hubby disassembles the tree, boxes up the decorations, and puts the stuff away.

Of course, Hubby’s a bit of a smartass.

After telling me he’d found the lights (which were sort of lost for a day or two), he just could not resist saying, “okay, your turn” to indicate the lights had been hung, when the tree still looked like the image at right.

Look a bit odd to you?

It should!

Technically, the lights were on the tree, but…

Here’s a closer look…

He’s such a kidder.

In years past, Amy has helped with tree decorating. She’s our “traditional” child. She’s the only one who really gets “into” family traditions like tree decorating. She inherited Mike’s sentimental genes.

Of course, she’s married now with her own family. So I’m pretty much on my own. Eric did help last night. But only because I sort of guilted him into it. How? As he was just about walking out the door to go to his father’s house for the weekend I said, “I saved all of your ornaments for you.”

“What?” he asked. Now, I know he was thinking something along the lines of, “Yeah? So?” And I know he was tempted to hang all of them in one big clump. (He did, after all, grow up with Hubby and me as parents. Not that I am ever a smartass or anything…)

But he was a sport. He stopped long enough to hang his ornaments. And he even let me take pictures.

In all fairness, Eric’s sort of sentimental, too. But he’s 19. So after hanging his favorite ornaments, the one’s I’d lined up specifically for him, he left. The tree was still only half-decorated. But that’s okay. I finished it up.

And I think it looks rather pretty. At least now the house looks a little bit like Christmas.

Snow Geese and Making Connections

This post has nothing to do with Christmas. But the video, embedded below, which I saw earlier today inspired me.

One of the things I like about Flickr (a photo sharing Web site) is the community feel of things. A while back, when planning our Alaska trip, and searching for Alaska images on Flickr, I sort of befriended a guy named Alaska Dave. He’s from Soldotna. He had to make his images private (long story) so I can’t share. But trust me when I say they’re awesome. Especially his eagle and other wildlife images.

One day I asked Dave to tell me about some folks on Flickr he shares with regularly. One of those folks was Jon, aka Nikographer. He also takes amazing eagle and other wildlife pics. The video below was taken by Jon and posted on his Flickr site.

The funny thing about this whole connection? Dave lives in Alaska. So, while I can admire Dave’s photos and wish I were closer and could check out some of the spots where he shoots, chances are I won’t get there for a long time.

Jon, on the other hand, lives in the Northern Virginia area. He has posted lots of truly inspirational images from places like Great Falls National Park (straddles the MD/VA border near Washington, DC), Conowingo Dam (northeastern MD, just south of the PA border), the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge (on MD’s eastern shore) and the Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Delaware. I’ve been to all of those places except Bombay Hook. But that’ll change soon. And all of these places are within driving distance for me.

Not that I’ll ever get the same quality wildlife shots Jon has captured, but at least I’ll get to see the places for myself. I’m going to try really hard to get to Bombay Hook before late February, early March, which is when I think the snow geese leave. Until then, I’ll just watch this cool video. And look at Jon’s Flickr pics. And be thankful I’ve become pen pals of sorts with a core group of folks on Flickr — AK Dave and Jon are just two of them — that regularly create magic with their cameras.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that Jon has a Blog, too.

Happy Birthday, Grandmammy

Today is my grandmother’s birthday. Had we not lost her earlier this year, she would have turned 95 today.

If she were still with us, I’d be saying, “Well, Grandma. Do you feel 95?”

She’d laugh, say “Well… hmmm… yes.” Then she’d laugh some more.

For the record, she was always “Grandma” to me. When Eric came along, being the first great-grandchild, I asked her what she’d like to be called. “Grandmammy” was her answer.

I thought it sounded a bit Gone With the Wind-ish. But I did ask. So Grandmammy she became.

She was a wonderful grandmother. I miss her.

It’s Christmas, Hon!

I’m a week behind posting this slideshow because I’ve been busy. But better late than never, right?

Last weekend — December 5 — Shannon and I took the grandkids to Baltimore’s Hampden neighborhood to see the annual crazy, over-the-top Christmas display on 34th Street.

The slide show speaks for itself. Enjoy!