it's really the night before!

i promised to share some photos from our snowfall on dec. 10th. here are 5 that really show it. it even lasted overnight and part of the next day, too.

see the snow drift forming against our pumpkin-colored fence?

hubs looking out from the storm door

one side of the front yard

and the other side of the front yard

the back yard deck - check out the back fence (it's leaning cuz it got damaged during ike)...

tomorrow will be christmas day. amazing. where does all that time go, exactly? i could have sworn thanksgiving was just a few days ago.

as far as exchanging gifts with the relatives, we are having an austere christmas this year like most other people i know. just a few good things, and no excess fluff. hubs and i gave both our parents the same one thing, and every child is getting one gift card. this means it was a very manageable buying chore for me. i went to kroger one low-traffic afternoon and got all of the gift cards at once, and then i ordered everything else online.

i don't do well in the holiday shopping crowds at all. it's stressful and exhausting, but i don't rebound well and i usually get pain flares for all my trouble. i do miss the feel and atmosphere of it occasionally, but i really fell out of love with it around the same time i quit trying to get missy the "in" "hot" toy (the last one i moved mountains to get her was a life-size barbie...quite a long time ago, maybe 15 years ago).

as for gift-giving between hubs, missy and me, hubs and i usually don't buy stuff for each other unless we know the other one really wants it. and then half the time, we just buy it for ourselves. we probably wouldn't even buy anything during the holidays except to get a sales price.

it's been hard not to buy everything in sight this year because of the great prices. we've been good. but i confess it's because we both are betting that those sales prices are going to last and last. maybe even get better. just a hunch. anyway, hubs really wanted the sham-wow rags this year. he also wanted a new recliner and got that earlier this month. he had been wanting a sleep number bed, but then decided he did not. so i got him the sham-wows and a wall calendar.

because missy's been in college, she knows not to expect lots of little things like when she was younger. we have been giving her one big thing and some money for a while now. this year the one big thing was some expensive adobe software for her new imac (that she bought for herself). it's called in design and she uses it all the time for her advertising classes.

as for moi, hubs asked what i wanted and i said that i want him to take me to ikea in west houston next week while he is off. and i want to buy an expedit bookcase...not for my scrap room, but for books in the family room. and he's putting it together for me. that's my present.

when hubs picked up the other recliner this morning, he talked to the store owner about an adjustable bed for me (the kind where you can elevate the head and the knees and feet...like a hospital bed). so that looks promising. i may eventually get a full night's sleep in one place yet! lol

tomorrow's the big day - a very merry merry and happy happy, ya'll