Friday Cemetery Blogging

I'm a week late, I suppose, but you'll just have to deal with it. ha! ha!

Here is this year's Christmas card:

In case you can't "bigger up" the photo, the text says 'Have a Weirdly Wonderful Christmas, Proverbs 23:33.' That verse is funny enough in the New International Version - Your eyes will see strange sights and your mind imagine confusing things.

It's even more perfect in good ol' King James English - Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things.

Perfect or perverse, here's hoping your Christmas was stangely sublime.

Friday Cemetery Blogging

Don't mess with the stone lady.

Creepy, isn't she?

Happy Friggin' Holidays

I learned something tonight. Something that I didn’t know about Jackson, even after 8 years of legally sanctioned co-habitation.

He wraps gifts just like my dad. And that drives me nuts.

I’m not much of a perfectionist when it comes to wrapping the Christmas presents, but I do have some standards.

1. The wrapping paper should not be used.
2. Items in gift bags should be concealed with tissue paper.
3. Gift bags should not be stapled or taped closed.
4. Designation of the giftee is generally not best accomplished by writing their initials
on the front of the bag in black ball point pen.

Jackson and my father do not seem to be burdened with any standards at all when it comes to gift wrapping. “Just cover it” is their motto.

Jackson claims I’m making fun of his madd skillz as a gift wrapper because I’m ticked off at myself for missing a chance to ogle my presents. We were both sitting on the bed, doing the wrapping and he claims to have wrapped several of my presents, right under my nose; even opening boxes to remove receipts right in front of me. I contend I was merely focused on the job at hand and concentrating on making the gifts that I wrapped look somewhat presentable, rather than constantly looking over his shoulder trying to see what he was doing.

He’s probably lying, anyway.



We don’t have any gifts under the tree. Zoe, the Toothy Wonder Dog, would be only too thrilled to critique our wrapping styles. Unfortunately, she has no thumbs, so she has to chew things in order to evaluate them. That presents a bit of a problem. So, we spread the tree skirt on the dining room table and piled up all the gifts in the middle. Jackson is whining about the non-traditionalism of this arrangement . I don’t really care and Evil Steve is thrilled. She’s excited about lounging on the tree skirt while remaining out of reach of Zoe, the Dog Who Wasn’t Supposed to be a Terrier.




Jackson says I should tell you that I’m just jealous because I am the only person in the immediate family who doesn’t get 2 weeks off for Christmas. I most certainly am not jealous, so I see no need to bore you with that. Can I help it that my glamour job doesn’t just stop for the 12 days of rampant consumerism and culinary over-indulgence? Bah.

My sister-in-law is an elementary school teacher and Jackson and Jonboy both work in the same mortuary of an office building at Fake Cow Ecumenical University. Somebody at the university did the math a few years ago and discovered it cost the school more money to heat and light the buildings for a skeleton crew of staff over the two week period than it would cost them if they just closed down completely. So now they get two weeks off, too. Bah.

Fortunately, Jackson promises to do lots of stuff like carpet cleaning and deck staining while he’s off work. That curbs my non-existent jealousy rather nicely.

That’s what I keep telling myself, anyway…

Friday Cemetery Blogging

This stony chick has probably had a quiet week, but it's been a busy week for me. It's generally been good busy, though. (Click on the angel to 'bigger her up'. She looks more cool that way.) My desk looks slightly less desperate, which makes it easier for me to tackle other projects. Last week we spent a couple of nights attending the Christmas program at church to watch Katie, as documented by little david. Tonight we went to Kaite's old elementary school (she's a second year alum) and watched their Christmas program because my niece, Luna Lovejoy, was in it. Here's a shot of her in 'costume' with her wretched and teeth-grindingly worthless father, Jonboy.

Random Stuffs of Madness

* It rained yesterday and we had a thunderstorm that lasted all night long! Everything is wet, wet, wet! For the first time in what feels like weeks and weeks, my head does. not. hurt. Not even a little!


* I should move to the Pacific Northwest. Or maybe Great Britian. My head would be happier there.


* Last night I dug out the ol' woodburner and scorched myself a lovely little wooden sign for Christmas. It's the first handmade Christmas decoration that I've done since grade school. It says "Peace On Earth" and depicts a gnarly dead tree, tombstones and a cemetery fence. It's hanging up on the six inch bit of wall seperating my office from Princess Mindy's.


* This year's Christmas card has been completed and is careening through space on the way to my rain-soaked mailbox. It's pretty decent. Not breath-taking or award-winning, but decent. I'll post it here once I've had a chance to mail out the originals. If you would like an original, email me (see sidebar) and I'll send 'em out first come, first serve, as long as they last.


* I've done 90% of my Christmas shoping online. Score!

* I wish I could skip out on work today and go somewhere to take cemetery pictures. Work is so freakin' inconvenient these days. Why can't they just pay me to show up a couple of times a week to provide some comic relief? Wouldn't we all be happier? They wouldn't have to put up with me when I'm in a crappy, obscenity-laced, small-object-throwing mood and I could be free to go do whatever I want, whenever the urge strikes. Which would result in fewer of the C,O-L, S-O-T moods, overall. Life would be good.

* An email pal from Denmark told me that we Americans don't know crap about tea. To prove it she sent me a whole box of various bags of loose tea she bought at a tea house. (A TEA HOUSE!!) She is so right, we don't know crap about tea. This stuff is goooood!

* I'm in a reading mood, but I don't know what I want to read. Anybody have any suggestions? I refuse to read self-help (*spits*) and most of the time non-fiction smacks too much of obligation rather than recreation. Mysteries are my favorites, especially English country house murders. What do you recommend?

Friday Cemetery Blogging

I wish it would rain...