Friday, December 26, 2008

Twas the Day After Christmas

Well, Christmas is finished for another year. I have to admit that I'm so glad it's over. Don't get me wrong; I like Christmas, I just don't love Christmas. Not like I used to anyway. I really enjoy the Christmas Season before Christmas, like the decorating and the baking and the socializing and all the anticipation. Seems like people are generally a little happier. But, when it's all said and done - I'm always relieved.

We had a nice holiday, fairly quiet and uneventful except for the mass quantities of snow that fell and continued to fall - day after day after day. It was spectacularly beautiful!! All 2 feet of it!! And that's a lot of snow for our area. People around here just don't quite know how to handle more than a few inches of snow - and then when it sticks around for...oh 10 or more days, we all tend to become a little edgy - enough already!! I never thought I'd be saying this, but I am looking forward to nice, warm rain and yes, even the mud that accompanies it.

Today is the first day that I've made it to work all this week. For my hubby too - in fact because he uses mass transportation, he even missed a few days last week. Our paychecks are just gonna bite this month. *sigh* That's not going to be fun. Oh well, we had our beautiful White Christmas and it was truly magnificent. I can't remember having this much snow and especially over Christmas in a long, long time. Probably since I was a very young child even.

We spent Christmas Eve with family and it was very low-key. Christmas Day my hubby's son and his soon-to-be wife and the three grand kiddos were with us. They spent the night and we had present opening Christmas morn. We had a wonderful baked ham and cinnamon swirl french toast with homemade strawberry jam. Yummy!! Plenty of hot coffee and hot chocolate for the kiddos completed our breakfast. And after all the cookies we had consumed the night before, I was definitely ready for a little protein. We took lots and lots of pictures, watched The Nativity Story late Christmas Eve night and welcomed Christmas morning with the true story of the birth of Jesus. I didn't even bother to get out of my pajamas until the middle of the afternoon. It was nice and relaxing. But, like I said - I'm relieved once again that Christmas is finished for yet another year. Farewell, good-bye, adios amigos. I'm ready for some normalcy again. And....I'm definitely ready for some good old-fashioned Pacific Northwest rain. Yep, I am so serious here. I am so tired of all this beautiful, picturesque, pain in the patootie snow that we've had for almost 2 weeks now. Put a fork in me - I'm sooo done!!

And the horses are so tired of being cooped up in the barn too. They want to go outside and have a good roll in the mud, breath in the warm, wet air and do whatever it is that they do all day long while they're outside. You know, just be a horse. And, I want them to poop outside!! Thank you very much!! I am also tired of having double-duty on the poop scooping machine!! It truly amazes me how much poop five horses can produce in a 24-hour period of time. Sheesh...a bale of hay is somehow, magically transformed into 2 bales worth of poop!! I'm not joking around here, if you have horses and you feed them extra hay while they're cooped up inside the barn all day long, then you know just what I'm talking about here...poop. and. lots. of. it.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Looking forward to a wonderful 2009. Wishing all your Christmas memories were full of heart-warming merriment and peace.

Blessings from Cingspots

15 comments:

Leah Fry said...

We're supposed to get rain, wind, thunderstorms and isolated tornadoes tonight. Looking forward to the rain, not the mud or extremes.

Sherry Sikstrom said...

I am also somehow glad it is over. It was a lovely day but by 5the end I was one pooped potato
Brunch at my sisters then dinner here.I cooked a ginormous turkey, fed none people a sit down dinner and had enough leftovers thet Heather ,my mom and I all have enough to not cook for a few days.All said and done I collapsed into a hot bath and that was it. Today was my do nothing day, did some vacuming and dishes and thats it! Somehow the anticipation of Christmas seems almost bigger than the event sometimes. Glad you had a nice day, stay safe and warm with all that snow.We are finally starting to see a break in the cold here but expecting more snow on the W/E

20 meter circle of life said...

I hear ya!!! And I am right there wuth ya

Gail said...

Thank goodness it is over. Only 364 days til Christmas!

Melanie said...

I too am glad that it is over. It is really hard for me to be around all of my family of origin at once, and I had to spend eight hours with them yesterday. I feel completely hurt and drained today.

So...you guys down in OR got slammed, didn't you??? We ended up with about one foot, and I cannot imagine having any more!!!

Laughing Orca Ranch said...

I'm glad you had a wonderful Christmas, but I'm right there with ya on being glad it's over. My holiday actually stunk and now that I'm bed-ridden my stepmom and Dad have decided to stay a little longer. I appreciate their help, but not their aggravation and annoying tendancies. They seem to forget that I'm over 40 and have the last word in what goes around here, including my kids. They are always tring to usurp my parental rights and it drives me crazy!

Plus now that I can't even cook for myself or walk, they have taken over my entire house and I'm trying to cope by just blocking it out.

To add to the cooped up feeling, it started blowing and snowing outside this morning and hasn't stopped yet and we already have about 5" on the ground. gah!!!

If I had anything to drink I'd be drinking it...of course, then my parents would have something to say about that, too....aghhhh!!!

I think I'll just take a percocet and go to sleep. :P

~Lisa
New Mexico

Oh and I agree with the horses and poop sentiment, too. My mare seem to think that one corner of her stall is her potty and will come back out of the paddock just to use her 'potty'. And now that I'm stuck in bed, who's going to muck her stall?
Yep, I need that percocet now....

Grey Horse Matters said...

I agree with you. Love Christmas - glad it's over. Now I just have to clean up this mess and put away the decorations for next year.
Horses sure can make a lot of poop. We turn them out even in snow (as long as it's not icy and slippery) and fill their hay racks. They would go crazy in their stalls for a long time. They are so spoiled they scream at you in the morning to be put out.

Fantastyk Voyager said...

Poor you with all that snow!! My brother lives in Portland and he says it is incredible!!

My horses usually keep their stalls fairly dry which I'm thankful for. They pee outside and they stand right under the overhang to go potty so everyday I just rake it away about 3 feet or so from their stalls into their runs.

Today is bright and sun-shiny so I think I will be turning them out for a roll in the snow after they finish their breakfast.

Anonymous said...

what lisa said.. now we have 40 mph wind here too.. arghh.. today marks the official "two weeks of a cold day in hell" :) I'm ready to exit.. stage left

blessings all
gp

Vaquerogirl said...

I'm with you sista'. Glad its done for another year and looking foreward with breathless anticipation to 2009!

BTW I've 'scrapped" you- visit my blog to see what to do!

Donna said...

I am so spoiled, I board my horse and so someone else feeds her 3 times a day and cleans her stall twice a day. But, she is very good about only pooping in one corner of her stall so her stall is pretty easy to clean. She also hates to get dirty and would never think of rolling in mud! I'm tired of our cold and rain but I am very grateful we only had one snowstorm that gave us two inches then got washed away.

Lisa said...

The mud is horrendous here as well and all the horses have turned brown...not a pretty brown either!

It sounds like your christmas was nice. Low keyed is a good thing in my opinion. I like the anticipation too and getting everything ready. I've never really been a christmas fanatic though.

Well it's over now for almost another year. ;)

Callie said...

I kind of feel the same about Christmas that you do. ANyway, A belated very Merry Christmas to you and yours!

allhorsestuff said...

HAPPY~NEW~YEAR!!
KK
Word Veri word

wingies= my wishes to you for a wonderful New Year's begining-on wings

Callie said...

Just wanted to pop in and say Happy New New to you!