Nothin' Much to Say

Hmmm...let's see...what is there to share?

I could go into detail about our ongoing house purchase/loan approval drama or tell you about the icky-flu thing I'm still battling.

I probably should post about my dear husband's horrible behavior Saturday night when he went to a local bar with his brother or I could tell you about how I had to take care of his intoxicated self while I was battling the icky-flu thing.

I could post about my "do nothing Sunday" in which I...did nothing.

I really could tell you all about my struggle to get up this morning...and how, after several days off of work, I hit the snooze button 5 times and barely made it out the door.

And I suppose I could share my New Year's Resolutions or post some fabulous Not Me's...but...

there really isn't much to say today. So I won't share any of those things....I'll just save them for another day...when I have something to say.

No Time for Illness

We've had a very busy week and it seems that my body and mind can take no more. Yes, folks even though I've had the flu shot and I dutifully take my vitamins each day...I've come down with something. A stomach something. And it's not fun.

Even though I'm feeling icky and my tummy hurts something fierce, I'm going to take the time to document our Christmas week so that I'll remember it next year.

We started off the week at my parent's house, Monday night. My grandparents came, a yummy meal was eaten, gifts were exchanged and we watched the Packers lose. Again.

Mark had off the rest of the week and I worked Monday and Tuesday and just till noon on Wednesday. On Christmas Eve (Wednesday night) we tromped over to Mark's parent's house for the annual festivities. The house seemed a bit emptier with several of the older nieces and nephews off doing their own thing...but still nearly 40 adults and little ones crammed my mother and father-in-law's house. It as loads of fun as usual. (See my last post "Christmas Funnies.")

We left there around 11 p.m. and drove around town a bit to look at the Christmas lights before heading to midnight mass. It was peaceful and inspiring as always.

We slept in on Christmas morning as we really didn't have much else to do. We decided to forego presents for each other this year in lieu of our new house, so without gifts to open sleeping till 10:30 a.m. seemed like a great idea. Around 11:30 a.m. we bundled up and headed to my aunt's house to gather with my dad's side of the family for a meal and gift exchange.

I was thrilled to receive the book "Multiple Blessings" by Jon and Kate Gosselin. It's an amazing book and delves into their infertility struggles and other neat aspects of their lives that isn't touched by the film crews.

We stayed out till 9 p.m. then went home and watched a movie together. Yesterday (Friday) we headed to the big city for what we thought was an arranged meeting with our mortgage broker. He, however, had his days mixed up and instead of meeting with us and getting things going with our loan, decided a Christmas party was more up his alley. We were not impressed, to say the least and let him know our disappointment and anger. He apologized and things will be fine...meaning he is going to do all the extra work because it's his fault we didn't meet. What a putz.

It's ok though...the day wasn't completely lost. We used a gift card we'd received in one of our Christmas exchanges to try out...HuHot! It was delicious...a first time for both of us! We we're really that impressed with the crowd or the fact that we waiting approximately 15 min in line to get to the grill...but overall the experience and the food were great.

After HuHot we headed to Big Lots so I could do my yearly stock-up on wrapping paper. If you aren't in the secret Big Lots club, you wouldn't know about their amazing wrapping paper deals in the days following Christmas. Ok, ok I'll tell you. They sell all their wrapping paper for $1. Seriously. The Peanuts wrapping paper I saw in Wal-Mart priced at $4.99 was waiting for me to snatch it up for a $1 at Big Lots.

I always stock up and buy way more than I think I'll ever need, because I always end up needing it. Before yesterday's purchase, I was down to a 2 foot by 2 foot square of wrapping paper. That's all I had left!

After our mini-shopping spree (that's all we bought...yay us!) we headed to the theater to treat ourselves to a movie. We saw Marley & Me! It was just the cutest, most inspiring, most make-you-cry-at-the-end movie I've ever seen. Loved it! I was pleased as punch that hubby sprung for popcorn and a soda too!

We came home and just sorta hung out on the couch because by that time my tummy was already signaling that something was wrong. At first I thought it was the food from HuHot...you know that my tummy wasn't digesting something properly. But, after thinking about the situation, I remembered the icky Christmas vomiting moment my cousin's young son had at my aunt's house. Yup...he had the flu. And I'm pretty sure that's what I've got.

Today has been a pretty lazy day for me. It's 4 p.m. and I'm feeling well enough to sit in the upright position for more than 5 minutes at a time. Ugh. To top it off Mark and I got into a huge fight this morning when he -get this- accused me of pretending to be sick!

Can you actually believe he would say something so cold? Me either. Till I heard it with my own ears. As I was dry heaving in the waste basket. And running a 104 fever.

Don't worry...I set him straight. I simply reminded him of the vows we took not so very long again...you know the part about "in sickness and in health." Yeah, I told him he'd better snap out of his funk, apologize, and get me some 7Up before I really got mad.

He apologized later and told me he was just disappointed because he knew we'd have to cancel our plans for tonight. I told him that while I was also sad to cancel, I hoped he remembered the many sacrifices I've given up for him over the years...including the time I rushed him the emergency room and stayed up with him all night, holding his hand the time we thought he was having a gall bladder attack.

We talked for a long time and I shared with him my concerns about our plans for having a family when he couldn't even prove to me that he'd be there to support me during a simple bout with the flu. I asked him how he thought he'd handle my morning sickness, the aches and pains of pregnancy, and the agony of delivery not to mention the zillions of unpredictable things babies encompass. I told him I was very disappointed in him, but more-so in myself because I've obviously set low expectations of him.

Mark was really upset during our discussion and felt horrible that he'd let me down. He apologized again and again and promised to make it up to me; to prove that he could be there for me. And he has...well until a few mintues ago when he looked at me with puppy dog eyes and asked to head to a local bar to watch the Badger Game with Randy.

So now I'm home alone...with no one to bring me crackers and 7Up. But at least I've got control of the remote and a promise from my husband to remember those vows and try a little harder to be there for me. That's all a girl can ask right?

I hope all you faithful readers have had a very blessed holiday! I'll try to work on adding a few festive pictures tomorrow...in the event that I'm feeling better. Till then...g'nite!

Christmas Funnies

I can't believe how quickly this holiday season has flown by! Once again we walk away with many new memories and an even deeper appreciation for family and togetherness.

With lots of little ones running around, there was a never-ending string of funny moments. Here are just a few....


Five-year old Marcus came up to my mother-in-law (his grandma) during gift opening and, pointing to a row of decorative candles on a shelf behind her, said, "Are those GLADE candles?!"

Later I told Marcus he'd better get home and head straight to bed so Santa would be sure to visit his house. His older sister, Julia, said "Yeah, but we don't even have any milk to put out with Santa's cookies so probably he won't come." Marcus quickly responded, "We can put out SOY milk!"

Four-year-old Reed was wrestling with an older cousin when he started giggling uncontrollably..."I just tooted!" he yelled.

Earlier in the day, Reed was heard saying "This year I do not want any girl toys!"
Later, his 2 year-old sister opened a very pink, very girly Princess Castle toy. Five minutes later, Reed was found hiding behind Grandpa's big recliner, Princess Castle spread before him.

Grant, 3, made a trip to the bathroom and ran back out pulling up his pants. His mom, my cousin Lisa, asked "Did you go potty Grant?" He replied, "Nope! No pee-pee was ready to come out!"

My three-year-old godson ran up to me shortly after Mark and I arrived at my mother and father-in-law's house. "See my hair?!" he exclaimed. "Yes," I said. "It looks very nice."
"I combed it like this and like this and like this," Jade said, very breathlessly while mimicking the way he brushed his hair.

Six-year-old Trent spoke to his cousin Troy, who is stationed with the Air Force in another state, on the phone Christmas Eve. "Guess what? Daddy tipped over his snowmobile and then..." (Trent lists five other infractions Daddy committed while snowmobiling.) After Trent got off the phone his dad, Randy, said "Did you just tattle on me?" Trent goes, "Um....no?"

Next Christmas

I love Christmas...from the festive music and twinkly lights to the smell of an Evergreen tree and the smiles on the faces of loved ones...it's just perfect.

This year we have a lot to be thankful for and a lot to celebrate, but something still feels a bit off. Much of it has to do with our hectic soon-to-be transition to our new house and the fact that we didn't decorate or put up a tree this year because of that move.

In any event, I'm trying to enjoy this holiday season but I can't help but think of all that next Christmas could hold.

Next Christmas...

....we'll be able to host both of our families in our new house and make many wonderful memories.

...we will get to shovel our very own driveway and put twinkly lights on the eaves of our very own house.

...we can sit in our living room and gaze at the Christmas tree we lovingly decorated.

...we will hopefully, maybe (keep praying) be sharing the joy of the holidays with a new little Breckheimer.

No matter what this Christmas holds or next Christmas promised to be...the "reason for the season" is always close to my heart.

Merry Christmas!!!!!!!!!!

His Side of the Bed

I know this to be true: every couple has a nightly bedtime routine that involves the woman snuggling in on her side of the bed, the man in his. I have never heard of a couple "switching it up." (Please let me know if you have because I personally want to meet a switching couple, should one exist, and ask them WHY?!)

My husband and I have the routine and it works out perfectly fine. Except for last night. When Mark innocently suggested we switch sides. Switch sides.

Doesn't he realize this would upset the very balance of the universe? Switch sides? As in, me sleeping on the right side of the bed? No way! I'd fall off. Simply put, I'd wake up in the middle of the night, freak out and roll right out of bed. I refused.

Now, I'll give him points because he really had a legitimate reason for wanting to switch sides. You see we have a very large, very drafty window at the head of our bed...actually it's just above his side. We usually winterize it with heavy duty plastic to prevent drafts, but we didn't see the point in doing that this year with the move to our new house quickly approaching.

So last night's 20 mile per hour winds and -10 degree temperatures made his side of the bed a frosty freezy place to be...and I refused to switch. Oh, I tried to help him. I dug out a very warm winter cap (with ear flaps) and suggested he wear it along with a hooded sweatshirt to bed to keep his head and ears warm. He did not take kindly to my suggestions but, after 15 minutes of begging, realized I wasn't going to switch sides.

He, very huffily, moved his pillows to the foot of the bed and slept there. With my feet in his face and vice versa. Before he drifted off to sleep, he begged/pleaded/whined with me to join him at the foot of the bed.

Yea. Right.

Bring Him Home, Santa

I heard the most amazing and powerful song on the radio the other day that completely stopped me in my tracks. Click here to listen.

________________________________________________

Here are the lyrics:

"Bring Him Home Santa"
Dear Santa, I need to change my Christmas list
There's one big thing I missedYou see my Daddy's working for away from here
And I know Santa, I asked for a Barbie doll
And a brand new soccer ballBut I'd trade it all, for just one gift this year...

Bring him home Santa, bring him home to mom and me
Let us wake up Christmas morning, and find him standing by our tree
You can pick him up on your way, he could ride there in your sleigh
Don't make him spend Christmas all alone....Bring him home

And Santa, here's a picture that I drew Of him in his dress blues
Mama says our country needs him over there
And you know Santa, this whole year I've been good
And I was hopin' that wouldDo all you could to answer her prayer...

Bring him home Santa, bring him home to mom and me
Let us wake up Christmas morning, and find him standing by our tree
You can pick him up on your way, he could ride there in your sleigh
Don't make him spend Christmas all alone.....Bring him home

Bring him home....Bring him home....Bring him home

________________________________________________

As an auntie to two military men, the song is near and dear to my heart. Oh, how I wish it was so easy... that Santa could bring my two nephews home for Christmas.

This time of year is especially hard...I can't stop thinking about them, wondering what they're doing. I know that Craig is braving the deserts of Afghanistan and Troy is training in North Dakota, but what are they thinking about, feeling, seeing?

I'm asking for prayers...for our family that we are able to find the strength to get through this holiday season, missing them. Especially for Craig's wife and young daughter who I'm sure could have written this song.

Merry (almost) Christmas, my brave nephews!

The Return of the Poodle Rug

We had an amazing time last night at the annual "Breckheimer Brother/Sister Christmas Party." It's a wonderful tradition that allows us all to be together and have loads of fun. It goes in a rotation as far as who hosts the event and this year we ended up at Mark's cousin Brian's house. (He's the only cousin involved in the tradition...don't ask me how that started. It was all decided looooooooooooooooooooooong before I came into the picture.)

We not only open presents (each person brings a $25 gift and a $10 gift and people have the chance to steal gifts from eachother) but we also have SANTA GIFTS.

These typically represent funny/crazy/ridiculous/embarassing things someone did over the last year and are given by an annonymous "Santa."


For instance, Mark received a child sized life vest from "Santa." The story?

Last summer for our annual brother/sister outing (we take turns planning a short vacation for us all to go on) we went white water rafting. My hubby cannot swim and was deathly afraid of falling out of the raft. My hubby is also a big guy...so when he donned his life vest it ended up looking more like a floating bow tie....



Get the picture? This year, among other funny "Santa" gifts, the Poodle Rug returned...and I was the receiver of "Santa's" generosity.

The story here - so I'm told - dates back nearly 20 years when two of Mark's sisters were in high school. Apparently they created a masterpiece - the pink poodle rug. Over the years it's made it's rounds among the family and this year we were graced with it as a "house warming" gift.

Think it doesn't sound too bad? See for yourself...

Don't worry, I'm already planning next year's recipient.

IsSuEs

First off...can I just say that I hate having to think of a creative blog post title? I can? Thanks. I hate having to think of a creative blog post title.

Just plain hate it. There. That's one of my issues.

We're having "issues" with our house loan that I'm not going to get into right now, but let's just say we really need things to go our way. Mark and I have excellent credit so this is the last thing we thought we'd have to deal with. Turns out there's lots of issues going on with the banks and mortgage companies in relation to changes the government recently employed. Ugh.

This is very frustrating and upsetting, but we're keeping our fingers crossed for a good outcome.

I'm also currently having issues with the dishwasher in our apartment...but that's a whole 'nother post entirely.

Because I haven't got much else to say...I'll leave you with this:

There are two ways of meeting difficulties:
you alter the difficulties, or you alter yourself to meet them.
- Phyllis Battome

Wasn't Me

Not Me! Monday time. Visit MckMama and all the other fabulous blogs linked on her site to read lots of Not Me!'s.

Last night's 35 mile-per-hour wind did not whip past our apartment building just right so as to create a loud, annoying buzzing sound as it hit the soffit and shutters. I did not toss and turn until 3 a.m. when I did not literally cry myself to sleep out of frustration.

I have never been so happy at the thought of leaving this awful apartment behind.

I did not clip my husband's toenails yesterday. Because he is perfectly capable of maintaining his own cleanliness so I never have to clean his ears (the tope part) with Q-Tips, apply the prescribed cream to the rash on his ankle, or smooth strawberry scented lotion on the dry spot on his arm. Nope that's not me...because I'm his wife, not his mother and he surely knows the difference in the duties there.

I did not spend much of the weekend packing and convincing Mark to get rid of...er...pare down his possessions. I am not frustrated that our box marked "Goodwill" has approximately four items in it.

I am not jealous of my brother and sister-in-law who are in Mexico this morning as I endure -6 degree temperatures. I am not jealous....I am not jealous....

A mess

Whew! I'd forgotten how messy packing can be. Boxes everywhere!

I decided to tackle our computer room this weekend to get a head start on our packing. We have three Christmas parties to attend next weekend and the following weekend we will (hopefully) close on the house...so I'm trying to do things little by little.

I managed to track down some boxes yesterday and began packing up a lot of little things in our computer room. A lot of it is stuff we received as wedding gifts and haven't really been using because they are things for a house, not an itty bitty apartment. That's been easy, I've got most of it packed up already in either boxes or plastic totes.

The most difficult part of it all is motivating Mark to go through his papers and files. He takes care of our finances and records - something I love, love, love because I'm not good with numbers - but his organization is something to be desired. His idea of filing/putting things away is to make a stack of papers and envelopes on the desk. Hmm...not good for moving.

Right now he's vegging in front of the tv watching the Packer game but he's promised to resume working when its over...if he knows what's good for him, he'll follow through.

He gets so annoyed with me when I get in these "let's just get it done" moods. He's my procrastinating-I'll-do-it-later guy and doesn't like to be pushed. But pushing is necessary if we hope to move all this stuff in a timely fashion.

Though packing is the priority right now, we're also busy trying to decide on paint/carpet colors and styles. When we narrow the choices, I'll probably put some up here and take a poll. Always helps to have other opinions, right?

Well I guess I'd better get back to it...stay motivated. Hope you have a relaxing, non-stressful packing up stuff kind of day!

Guess what?

We bought a house! I know, I know you're all too excited to even think straight!

Everything happened very quickly. Our offer was verbally accepted last Friday and Mark signed the paperwork on Monday to offically lock in the offer. Tuesday Mark met with our realtor and the inspector at the house and everything went well.

Today we met with the bank and signed all the application for loan papers and approved an appraisal on the house. We're hoping to close on the house before the first of the year, thought technically our offer to purchase lists January 16 as the closing date.

Anyway, my head is now filled with numbers and colors as we're rifling through paint samples and carpet swatches and working out loan and mortgage payment details. Oh yea, there's also the issue of packing up nearly three years of stuff!

Thought I'd finally share the good news...and now I'm off to review the zillions of papers we signed...yay!

Not Me...Shopping Style

It's that time again... Not Me! Monday, hosted by the fabulous MckMama.

Here are my shopping related Not Me's:


Mark and I did not do a five hour power shop on Saturday and pick up gifts for everyone on our list. We are just not that good.

While perusing the toy aisles at Fleet Farm I did not linger in the obviously girly sections and contemplate buying adorable pink things even though I was supposed to be shopping for my three-year-old Godson.

I did not get claustrophobic when I found myself surrounding by three screaming babies, and a gaggle of cranky old men.

I certainly didn't insist that we "swing by" several more stores than Mark wanted to. And...I did not beg to go inside Babies R Us.

I also wasn't extremely disappointed when my hubby showed no interest what-so-ever in checking out Babies R Us and I didn't point out the FOUR pregnant women we saw sauntering into the store as we drove past it...because I'm not obsessed, that's why.

We did not spend too much money and buy too many gifts for our Godchildren, because we don't spoil them. As we were not spoiling them, we didn't say "We will never buy this much stuff for our kids."

We did not finally agree that we won't buy gifts for eachother this year. And we're sticking to it...or not.

Ha ha. Hope you have a great Not Me! Monday sort of day.

A Break

Have you noticed my little break from blogger? Sad, huh? I bet you're wondering "Why, oh why isn't she posting? Why?"

The answer is... because I have something really fabulous to blog about and I can't. Not yet. Pretty soon though. So hang in there ok? Cuz it's going to be worth it. Totally.

No News...

The realtor called today to say that the sellers are planning to counter-offer. No biggie, we sort of expected that. The kicker is though, that they have until Friday, FRIDAY to get back to us.

Seriously. Do you realize how far away that is? I do. And I don't like it.

I don't know why, but this time I'm feeling pretty confident that things will go our way. For one, this house sort of fell into our laps just when we had temporarily given up looking, proving the old adage "Good things come to those who wait."

For another, we submitted a "low ball" offer because we knew they would counter anyway. So we really have lots of wiggle room to hopefully get to a price we all agree on.

It's also nice that this counter offer and our counter offer to the counter offer (did you catch that?) can be made via phone. No unecessary and difficult-to-plan meetings needed for each subsequent offer.

See? Do you see how optimistic I'm being? That has to be good karma, right? RIGHT?