Wednesday, December 23, 2009

quietly making popcorn balls

I'm enjoying a rare moment of quiet in the house. All of my kids are out and about - Sarah's at work. Becka, Josh, and Ben are at the mall, and my friend, Paula, took Noah along with her kids to the nearby science musuem. Not a creature is stirring, not even the dogs, but I soon will be! I just came home from work and put my feet up. I'm waiting for them to feel a little better so that I can make some popcorn balls! My mom always stuffed our stockings with popcorn balls, but when I had kids I couldn't find them anywhere. It only occured to me this year, when most of my kids are 17+, that I could make my own popcorn balls. I searched the net and found a recipe that calls for microwaved popcorn. I can't wait to try it out. I think I'm going to add 1/2 tsp of vanilla, as other recipes read.

Well, that's all the writing energy I have...

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Christmas and the wedding are just around the corner!

Well, it's less than three weeks away. My baby girl will be a married woman.

We picked out flowers on Monday. The DJ, photographer (my sister, Gayle), and the videographer are in position. The guests have all RSVP'd. We'll have about 80 folks coming, which will make for much fun, but not an overwhelming amount of people for the couple to really visit with.

My job at Old Navy is not so bad. The women's clearance area can be overwhelming, especially when I am "running." This means running to things back to the floor from the fitting room, but NOT tidying up stuff laying around, tangled together, half hanging off hangers. The messy stuff is maddening to me because I'm not to clean it up when I'm a "runner." Running also entails bringing items back to fitting for customers, such as jeans in a different size. The fitting room attendent and the runner communicate via walkie-talkies.

Another task at Old Navy is RAD-ing - tidying up. RAD stands for Ready All Day. I like doing this more than running, as I feel we're getting things in order. All over the store are tables of sale items in disarray, loosely tangled, often two feet high, and spilling out onto the floor. My co-workers call such a table a "hot mess." It reminds me of a tossed salad. I don't often work the "cash-wrap" (cash register) as I haven't had a chance to learn the many different ways to ring/do returns. I do well in the fitting room, and working with customers on the floor, while radding or running. It's not difficult. And I get a lot of exercise. I'm working about 17-23 hours a week.

Becka comes home next weekend. We're holding off putting up our tree til then. We'd wait for Praveen too, but he doesn't come in til the 24th.

We're putting up Nanny's and Papaw's spinning fake tree today. Nanny loves it. It's flashy and electric. This reminds me of the time I picked out the perfect gift for Nanny, years ago. It was an electric miniature ice-skating pond, with little people whose skates were magnetized. A track under the "ice" moved them along. I brought it home from Ames and showed it to David. The low-budget motor was noisy, and David dismissed it as cheesy. "But I know your mom will love it!" Nope, back it went. As soon as the after-Christmas sales began, Nanny was out in the thick of it, competing for the best deals. I remember her excitedly meeting us at the door one day not long after, "Come and look what I got on sale at Ames!" And there it was, show-cased right in the middle of her little lit village, fake snow carefully placed around - the fake ice-pond. What a feeling of satisfaction I felt when I gave David that, "I told you so!" look.