Post Christmas

We are past the time of joy and giving. We didn't give very much this year...I don't really care what Bush and his cronies tell me, we are not in an economic era of wealth and gain. The family we have created stands on the edge of an economic abyss and we are madly flailing our arms to regain some balance.

Now, I know we made some choices. We chose to have my husband give up his well paying job to become a teacher. And that in itself cost some cash. Then there's the part where he'd basically screwed up his previous educational experiences and needed to go to one of "those" colleges that cost a ton of cash and accept everybody. So there was the added business of the student loan...plus daycare costs for two young children, and here we are, a master's degree and two credentials later, trying to pay our bills each month. Seems sad, doesn't it? You give up money for the higher moral ground of serving children--our future citizens--and you find yourself in the poorhouse, barely able to make ends meet.

Truth told however, our idea of a sad Santa year is certainly another person's idea of a Christmas bonanza. Our son "finally" (in his long six years on earth, he has sadly been neglected in the video game arena) got his Gameboy. I keep waiting for the seizures to kick in and we had to have a discussion with him earlier today regarding the fact that he cannot only play Gameboy twenty-four hours a day. Our daughter is avidly writing all over her Leap Pad plus Writing thingamajig. She loves to write. There were a few moments where she threatened to huck the entire thing across the room when it wasn't responding as she expected it to (I suspect she gets that from me), but we were able to smooth things over with a fair amount of ease. And then there's the matter of heading out on a week's vacation to Orlando later this week. I'm panicked about the cash we're spending, but the reality is, we're going, we've bought the plan tickets, we've paid our maintenance fee on our timeshare, we can afford a fair amount. We feel poor, but it's all about perspective.

Family and neighborhood feuding, that's another story. Starting with a "Get the F*** out of my house" and ending with the neighbor across the street announcing that she's "done" with the neighbor next door...well, let's just say I've had some Pinot Noir, found my password to my blog account, and here I am...stories for another day. Hey, at least Christmas came early in the winter vacation of school hood this year and I still have almost two weeks of vacation left!