Christmas Gifts
Well, Christmas on a budget is going pretty well so far. I found Rob a great faux fur lined coat and a matching drivers cap with ear-flaps at a thrift store yesterday ( along with a great polka dot mini-dress and a pair of gold and red pumps for me). I've titled my idea for Rob's and my parents' gifts, "Operation Family Tree"...cheesy I know but I love to name my projects, it just adds a certain air of excitement. Anyway, I had the boys paint terra cotta pots for each of the grandparents. Then I went around this morning to all of the respective childhood homes of the 'rents and clipped branches off of trees and hedges in the yards. Somehow I never got snagged by the current homeowners in the process, though at one house a truck circled around twice and gave me the evil eye before I sped off with Eli in tow. I now have the branches dipped in rooting hormone and potted so hopefully they will take root and everybody can have a plant from their childhood home. I thought it was a fairly good idea and the best I could come up with, plus it's cheap...so there.
No job in sight (ok we're waiting on a call and another place has said that hopefully in the new year they would be interested but at this point everything is so vague and people are into the holidays and less interested in hiring anyone). We will have to put the house on the market in February if things don't turn around. We just can't afford to keep a house with no steady income coming in. yesterday I was really down about it, but today I am sort of trying to role with the Christmas Spirit thing and keep hopeful and just be grateful for my amazing family which is almost so sickly sweet it makes me want to puke except that it's pretty much how I honestly feel.
We thrifted a nice bike for Ren (what he really wanted) and we've made it look good-as-new. Eli wants a big bouncy ball and I found one of those balls with the handle so you can sit on it and bounce at Schottensteins for mega-cheap. Add those things to the odds and ends I pick up whenever I see something that makes me think of the boys and we're pretty much set.
Saturday night is the un-Christmas Party with just Brian and Margaret and myself, we're ordering pizzas and drinking wine at Brian's house. No gifts, no christmas music and no decorations. Just the three of us getting a little toasty. Except that I did make them the same gift as I did my parents. I went to the apartment that we all shared seven years ago and clipped then rooted some hedges that were in front. I couldn't resist and truthfully the two of them are as much family to me as my blood family.
Rob's out shopping for me right now. I asked for a sunburst clock and some various comics...including the second half of the Transmetropolitan Series (which took me a bit to get into...but then I got into it and loved it) and Jeffery Brown.
No job in sight (ok we're waiting on a call and another place has said that hopefully in the new year they would be interested but at this point everything is so vague and people are into the holidays and less interested in hiring anyone). We will have to put the house on the market in February if things don't turn around. We just can't afford to keep a house with no steady income coming in. yesterday I was really down about it, but today I am sort of trying to role with the Christmas Spirit thing and keep hopeful and just be grateful for my amazing family which is almost so sickly sweet it makes me want to puke except that it's pretty much how I honestly feel.
We thrifted a nice bike for Ren (what he really wanted) and we've made it look good-as-new. Eli wants a big bouncy ball and I found one of those balls with the handle so you can sit on it and bounce at Schottensteins for mega-cheap. Add those things to the odds and ends I pick up whenever I see something that makes me think of the boys and we're pretty much set.
Saturday night is the un-Christmas Party with just Brian and Margaret and myself, we're ordering pizzas and drinking wine at Brian's house. No gifts, no christmas music and no decorations. Just the three of us getting a little toasty. Except that I did make them the same gift as I did my parents. I went to the apartment that we all shared seven years ago and clipped then rooted some hedges that were in front. I couldn't resist and truthfully the two of them are as much family to me as my blood family.
Rob's out shopping for me right now. I asked for a sunburst clock and some various comics...including the second half of the Transmetropolitan Series (which took me a bit to get into...but then I got into it and loved it) and Jeffery Brown.