Month: December 2016

WHAT’S YOUR CHRISTMAS LIKE?

/ helbergfarmstories / 12 Comments

Hi, Ho All!  And a very Merry Christmas to you.

So, what’s on your agenda for Christmas?  We are traveling to Aurora (for those of you not of this area – it is a suburb of Denver – bigger than Denver now I think?) to spend a night with our other sister and her husband.  This night of Christmas Eve will be the first time we have ALL gotten together for Christmas, on Christmas, in about ten years.  It seems there was always someone working or something messing up the plans.  Since it falls on Saturday and Sunday this year – wooo hooo!

The festivities will include:

  • Drinking beer and setting up stuff.
  • Eating food created by all the families and friends.
  • Drinking beer and sharing the funnies from 2016.
  • Laughing, LAUGHing, and then more LAUGHING (it is a MUST every Christmas!)
  • Drinking beer and yelling at the kids to settle down (ya, like that’s gonna happen?!)
  • Trying to keep the kiddos busy until it is time to open presents (yes, we do it on Christmas Eve – however, also on Christmas day …the ones that Santa brings are on Christmas day).
  • Drinking beer – always before calling relatives, it’s a must!
  • Calling out-of-state relatives and sharing fun memories of winters and Christmas past.
  • Drinking beer while eating.
  • Torture the kids by telling them we will open presents when the 15 minutes is up (note: we started the 15-minute countdown about 60 minutes ago – hee hee)
  • Drinking beer and moving to a fun present opening spot (preferably one good for pics too for me)
  • Open presents. Now this part REALLY drives the kids nuts.  We do name exchange with the adults, and they must wait until the said adult has opened the present, I have gotten a picture, and then they get to open something. (ok, more giggling here is required!)
  • Drinking beer – to steady the camera of course!
  • All presents to family and friends are opened, now it’s time for the kids to play and adults to laugh and talk more. Sometimes we do games.  Usually dice games (we love Yahtzee!!).
  • Drinking more beer while eating more food – gather strength to say bye to friends and family for the night. It maybe another year before we get to see them all again – boo hoo hoo!
  • The food starts to disappear into to-go containers as the crowd starts to dwindle. Eventually, we will all drift off to sleep on a piece of furniture (or maybe the floor since her downstairs level has a heated floor – niiice!!!).
  • The next morning consists of Coffee, a homemade special breakfast, packing up the goodies and heading home.

Once home, chores must be accomplished first (at which point the animals all make it a moment to let us know that they know we were gone!  Pecking, squawking, biting…the norm.), then into the house to see what Santa has delivered.

My grandson has not been at his best this year, especially in the last month.  I have warned him that Santa does not like this, to which he replied: “I’m not sure I believe in Santa anymore?!”  To which I responded with – “Oh, really?  So I can send him a letter that you do not need anything or maybe just some coal for the outdoor cooker this year since you don’t believe?”  He immediately reneged on his previous statement…hmmmm?!?  So, I may have to find or make some small boxes and put a chunk of coal in each one.  Then lovingly place them under the tree – hee hee, yes, this warms my heart!

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ONE AND ALL!

(My Christmas cacti are bloomin fools this year!)

DON’T LOOK AT IT – DON’T LOOK AT IT – DON’T LOOK AT IT!

/ helbergfarmstories / 6 Comments

What is the first thing you do when you get into your vehicle to go somewhere. My habit is to turn on the radio.  Two reasons for this: 1) It sets my pace for the day – good music = great day. 2) To check who is singing and the name of the song, in case I want to buy it. See, I have this fun new car with fun new features. One of them is this great “info” dash reader. Here is a pic from this morning:

12-8-16-dash-info-14-degrees

So, here’s how the fun techno works.  The bottom is the name of the song – OK.  The middle is the singer or group – OK.  Above that is the radio station (KOSI plays 24/7 Christmas music starting about Thanksgiving) – OK.  Now the top line is where I need to “not” look.

My clock (says 8:15) is off.  I hate daylight savings time changes, and I always have to drag out my instruction manual to figure out how to make the stupid 1-hour changes twice a year…so I just don’t!  The time this morning was actually 7:15 a.m.

The top middle is how many miles I can drive before I run out of gas – I really like this one!  The cute little gas tank (every newer car has this one) tells me which side of the car my cap is on.  This is a good thing because our vehicles are different, and yes, sometimes I forget what I am driving.

The helpful yellow “I” tells me to check my “engine info.”  All I have to do is click a switch, and it tells me things like “low on washer fluid” which just so happens to be what it is trying to tell me now, but I am ignoring it.

Then we come to the culprit of my “don’t look” title – TEMPERATURE!  Yep, it says negative 12 degrees.  OOOUUUCCCHHH!!!  Now I love snow, so fun to play in and we can always use the moisture.  However, cold and I are no longer friends.  I expect that beastie to show up around February, but not in December.  Not here in the northeastern Colorado plains in December.  Our norm is around 35-65 depending on Mother Nature. Today I think Jack Frost has hog-tied Mom Nature just to remind me I have several fake joints (JERK!).

So, as of this morning, I am trying to train this “old dog” to do a new trick – Don’t Look, don’t look, don’t look at the dash in the morning.  Maybe I will make that in the winter?

I enjoy cooler weather much more than hotter weather; however, I draw the line at minus numbers. A crisp fall air, a couple of feet of snow – no big deal. But the negatives are just as bad as the over 80’s in the summer to me. Can only put so much extra on, or take so much off to help my body adjust. When it gets to these types of temps, I’m screwed all day.

I even thought I just stick a small piece of electrical or duct tape over that tiny area just to fool myself into believing it is not what it is. Maybe that will work?

laugh-so-hard-sign

(then they froze – LMAO!)