Blessings and Birthdays

 I had a chance to speak with my sister, Mel, last night.  She called when she got back home from work.  We were so happy to be able to chat that we ended up chatting until almost 2 or 2:30 AM!!  Yikes!  When we’re together, it’s worse.  We seem to never run out of stuff to talk about – children, marriage, religion, you name it, we probably talk about it.  

She told me they’re leaving tonight as soon as she returns from work.  They’ll be driving in separate vehicles because they’re bringing our niece, my sister Annie’s youngest daughter, up with them.  That will be nice.  That means the whole family will be together except for poor Annie who has to work Christmas Eve and the day after Christmas.  Being a single Mom, she desperately needs the money, though.  I’ll miss her.

Mom picked Liz up yesterday to stay the night with her,dad and Annie’s oldest daughter (who lives with them), so they can bake pies and cookies for Christmas Day.  I’m glad they’re helping Mom out, it’s so hard on her when she tries to do it all by herself.  

Allie stayed the night at her friend’s house last night to celebrate Christmas with her and she’ll be home around 3 or 4 today.  

TODAY IS MY LITTLE BOY’S BIRTHDAY!!!!

He turned 9 years old during the wee hours of the morning.  I can’t believe it’s been 9 years already.  I let him stay up late last night and as soon as the clock struck midnight, I wished him a Happy Birthday with a huge hug and a cup of hot cocoa.  I was ready to send him to bed, then, but his mind has been preoccupied with God and Christmas and he had a lot of questions to ask me.  I don’t think either of us got to bed before 3:30 AM.  Wowzers!  

I’ll run out to the store today and use up the last five dollars of our food stamps to buy some cake mix and icing so Cathy and I can bake him a cake.  Since he’s the birthday boy, he gets to choose what we have for dinner tonight, too.  🙂  We’ll bake another cake to take to Mom and Dad’s on Sunday that will say, "Happy Birthday Jesus and Wesley" on it.  🙂  We can’t afford to have a Birthday party for him today, but, he’ll be really happy to be able to celebrate it on Jesus’ birthday with his cousins.  

I, of course, had to get up this morning at 6:30 AM to take hubby to work, so, I’m VERY tired and in need of a nap before I do all my running around today.  I have to pick hubby up at noon and take him to his parent’s home, where the children’s gifts are, so he can wrap them while I run out to the store (provided hubby gets his Christmas bonus) and buy Wesley a Birthday gift.  It’s the only thing we haven’t been able to get, yet.  The kids won’t be getting much, but they will be getting the two things each of them wanted most, so I’m happy and VERY thankful we were able to do that.  Then, I’ll meet back up with Hubby, help him wrap whatever he wasn’t able to and then we can come home.  Hubby will be VERY happy as it will then be the beginning of his vacation.  He’s taking the week off for his one week paid vacation.  Yay!!  

One not so good thing happened last night.  I was sitting on the couch talking with my sister when I heard this awful gurgling sound coming from the basement.  Someone upstairs had just flushed the toilet.  I got up and looked down stairs and just wanted to cry.  Water was gushing up from the base of the drainage pipe leading down from the bathroom, which goes under the basement floor towards the street.  Somewhere, under our basement floor, between the front and back of the house there is either a clog or a collapsed tile.  The basement now smells like a sewer.  

We just didn’t need this at all.  I told Hubby about it this morning and he’s really miffed and bummed out about it.  We’re going to try to "rotor-rooter" it ourselves to see if it’s just a clog but I’m worried it’s much worse than that.  There’s a crack in the concrete floor about two feet away from the down pipe that spurts nasty water every time the toilet is flushed.  I’m afraid we’ll have to tear up part of the floor to find out what’s broke.  In the condition we’re both in, I don’t know how doable it will be.  And we certainly can’t afford to hire a professional.  If we did, we can just kiss his entire tax return goodbye.  

So, the two major things I have to pray hard about today is 1. Hubby gets his Christmas bonus, and 2. It’s just a clog in the basement we can fix on our own and not something major.  

Well, my friends, I’m off to take a much needed nap.  Gosh, I seem to take a lot of them, lately.  *sigh*

God Bless you all and have a wonderful day.