NiNe

this is harder than i thought.....what was i thinking, 25 blogs in 25 days???
i just found my bestest bud SAS has started her own blog...i'm so excited. and yes sarah, i can now stalk you as well. Ha, ha.
sarah mentioned something on her blog i hadn't even thought to mention lately -- the cold weather. we both hate it but i can't believe i haven't really noticed it so far this year. i think since i'm running again it's just one of those gotta deal with it kind of things. you bundle up and go out. my absolute favorite part is that people drive by at the point where you've stripped off your long sleeves and notice you running in 30 degree weather with a t-shirt and running tights. i LOVE those crazy looks! it makes me feel superior in some weird way. maybe because i'm doing something they could be doing but won't. i can remember being very upset when i would see others out running in the cold, heat or rain and think "gosh, i want to be doing that!"
gear up girls, it's only gonna get colder. :)

OCHO - sickness

go ahead and get the medicine ready, some sort of illness is coming for you.

it's bad enough when you have to feel bad and get to stay at home, but it really stinks when you feel bad and have to get up and go somewhere. drew hasn't felt well for a week now. i think maybe i'm starting to come down with something....my whole body hurts. angie is sick, jennifer is sick, 6 kids in angie's room were sent home today (one with strep), one kid got puked on and had to go home and change clothes, more parents sent their kids in sick but didn't think it might be a better idea to keep them home. 'tis the season!

a nice warm bed sounds really good right now....i'm off to get ready for it.

day 7 -- laziness

day 7 is dedicated to laziness....we've been lazy today, mostly laying around the house trying to stay warm.

drew did not sleep much last night so i didn't get into bed until 3:30 this morning. luckily, he slept late and tim got up and cleaned up the kitchen, cooked breakfast and folded clothes. ahhhh, that was a nice thing to wake up to. after we had a late breakfast, we got ready and headed out to target. drew's clothing supply seems to keep depleting (kind of like the socks in the washer) so he had to have some new clothes. he got two new outfits and he's going to look like such a big boy in them especially since he's walking everywhere these days. i think for christmas i'll get him some big boy tennis shoes, too. we all know how i looovvvveeeee tennis shoes. :)

on a thankful note, our family is very thankful his dad wasn't hurt yesterday. he was headed to ohio and when he got to florence he heard an advisory about the weather and turned around to come back home. he came back home, stopped by their shell station, then headed back home. when he was headed home, a car on a side street couldn't stop because of the icy roads and he nailed her going about 55 mph. he has a few cuts -- a busted lip and cut/bruised nose and some cuts on his hands but otherwise okay. we expected him to get up and be very sore today but he said he felt pretty good except for his thumbs being jammed and sore. too bad he can't say the same for his truck....it is evidently beyond repair. the girl that hit him had to be taken to the hospital so we hope she's okay today as well. this was his second wreck in two days! the day before, someone ran him off the road and into a guard rail on his way to work. he definitely had someone looking out for him the last few days. :)

SiX

today was shopping day and i think i've gotten most of mine taken care of.

i don't know if the parade last night kept everyone from coming back out today or if everyone is going to lexington to shop but there wasn't the big crowd i'd expected, thank goodness.

we ate then shopped....i got all my stuff taken care of for my ripples of hope child and i think that really made my day. (i got my uncle's present taken care of as well since i drew his name for christmas.) ripples is a nonprofit organization my friend kelly's husband co-founded. they provide thanksgiving baskets, christmas gifts, backpacks and an easter delivery for kids in the community in need. we are also sponsoring a child for my class at school instead of doing gift exchanges this year. sometimes i think our kids really don't understand how much they're blessed with. drew has more than he needs and i know we all see kids everyday who don't and probably won't even get what they need to make it -- food, clothes, a coat, shoes.

i know lots of people think it may not be a good idea in this day and time to buy items and give them to kids because their parents will most likely take them and resell or trade it for money, cigarettes, drugs, etc. however, when i see that a 4 year old child does not have a coat or shoes, i know they can't help that their parents are crappy. and sometimes, these kids have parents that do try and just can't make it. either way, it makes me feel good to know that i can possibly make some kid's christmas a little happier because they get a toy or new clothes. my girl was a 13 year old and she'll be getting all the girly stuff a teenager needs...i hope she enjoys. :)

day 5 -- i'm tired, it's short

this would be christmas in my house now....

church christmas parties

it's always an odd thing to grow up in eastern kentucky and not go to either the baptist church, christian church or some sort of holiness/pentecostal establishment. being that most people are members of the former, there are not too many of us presbyterians (or episcopalians...that's for you SAS). i've heard the denomination referred to as "the frozen chosen" because we don't do all that hand clapping, hallelujah stuff. unfortunately, if they had ever been to one of the church christmas parties the old broads host for our women members, they may think differently of us.

let's just start off by saying mamaw is involved. most of you know mamaw has her golf day on tuesdays and in the winter it's card day. mam likes to take advantage of the ladies and many of them go to our church. when the party comes around every year, mam always takes the reins on the auction. (kind of like the gift exchange thing only we auction items and the money goes to the women's group to use for church related things.) mamaw can be a force to be reckoned with on occasion and these parties seem to bring out the best in her.

as the auctioneer, mamaw is usually busy with the talking and items while mom, gig, hayley, kate and sometimes aunt cheryl and i all sit in a corner (or mam puts us to work showing off the items like bob barker's girls) and make fun of the old ladies. two major happenings stand out in my mind from many years of these parties. the first one comes from a year when us girls were all making fun of a very elderly lady. i know, we probably earned a coupon to hell for doing that at a church function....in our defense, she really did look like george washington. her hair was perfect. anyway, we all got the giggles -- you know, the kind you just can't stop and the harder you try, the harder you laugh? so we're sitting there laughing at her beauty when all the sudden, she gets choked on her third plate of ham. really, seriously, hold your hands around your throat choked. since we were all making fun of her, we happened to be paying attention to what she was doing and not to the auction. maybe that was a blessing in disguise because we all jumped up and tried to help her. it really put a hold on the auction festivities....for maybe two minutes. money making must go on you know. she finally recovered on her own, (thank you jesus!) and i was so very happy....i thought for sure i was going to have to actually put my heimlech skills to use or worse, that cpr certification i'd just gotten. all i could think was "i wonder if her teeth are wooden like george washington?" as i stood there stunned. wouldn't it really stink if you made it all the way to ninety something years old and then die from choking on honey-baked ham? at least she would've gone out happy....everyone knows honey-baked ham can make any time a happy time.

now for memory number two. to some of you that don't know mrs. eversole, this will not make sense....you just have to know the relationship she and mamaw have had all these years. they love each other but sometimes they really get on each other's nerves. again, this story begins with mamaw being the auctioneer at the party, trying her best to sell a pillow (who brings a flippin' monogrammed pillow to an auction???) and was having no luck. only one person's name began with the letter on the pillow and that was the person that brought the gift...uh, can you say recycled? anyway, mrs. eversole wanted to see the pillow better and mamaw, beginning to get ticked that no one would bid, threw it across the church dining room at her, knocking over her cup of coffee on its way. the coffee went all over mrs. eversole and though it had cooled quite a bit, seemed to still be warm. overreaction was in high gear as mrs. eversole promptly stripped her pants off and gave mamaw a scowl that could have sent lucifer back to hell. again, us girls were sitting to the side, making rude, impolite and totally inappropriate comments and were shocked when we saw the lacy, embroidered pillow go flying across the room. (mam is a little like me, it was not a toss, it was definitely a throw.) our eyes went wide then quickly shut as the pants dropped. luckily, forgiveness had to be given (we were in church after all) and things ended up settling back down. the auction went on but it was not one of the better fundraisers.

i believe this year's church party is tomorrow night.....i'm not sure if i'm happy or sad i'll be missing it.

"Quit griping about your church; if it were perfect, you couldn't belong."

~Joseph P. Dooley

# 3 -- socks, cologne and an easy bake oven

day 3 of ye ol' advent blog is dedicated to those christmas gifts you just didn't understand....
as you can tell from the title and pictures, some of the gifts josh and i received (but didn't really understand) were socks, cologne and an easy bake oven. now, we had many, many christmas mornings when we were surprised and excited. many good gifts were given in the neiderman household. sometimes i don't know how mom and dad did it....4 kids, mom staying home most of the time we were growing up and living off of one income. things were cheaper then but still, they really had to stretch. so, not to sound ungrateful in this entry, i had to get that out of the way.
back to the pictures...i guess when a boy is growing up and hits a certain age, it becomes very difficult to find appropriate gifts. i remember one christmas when it seemed like josh got nothing but tube socks and stetson cologne. bottles and bottles of cologne. did my family think he smelled bad? did they think the 80's scented cologne was a chick magnet? either way, it was way too much of a bad thing. josh is never one to complain so he really took it in stride. he just loaded up his bundle of goods and made his way to his room. we always enjoyed taking all our new goodies to our rooms to arrange and display them so we could look at them for the next few days and continue the enjoyment....i bet if i looked really hard in his room right now, i would be able to find a bottle of cologne left over from over a decade ago.
now for the easy bake oven....i'm sure most little girls would love to have something like this however, i was more of a ball glove, cleats, swishy wind suit kind of girl. i liked tonka trucks and slingshots, army men and tennis shoes. when i opened my big gift from mom, dad and santa one year it was an easy bake oven. honestly, i didn't even know what it was. i had never heard of one of those contraptions. what the heck was i supposed to do with it? mom and dad saw the crestfallen look on my 9 year old face and knew something was wrong. for some reason they thought they overheard me saying sometime before christmas that i wanted one. i have no idea where they got that because i had never heard/seen one in my life. for about a month i don't think i even opened the box....maybe i was a little afraid of it, i'm not sure. anytime you cook a cake with a light bulb things are bound to turn out bad.
one snowy day later when i had exhausted all other options for entertainment (and had probably been banned from all board games at home) i ended up using that easy bake oven. one sixty watt light bulb and tin pan later we had a delicious, rock hard "chocolate" cake. (of which i made everyone sample.) let's just say the oven was shelved after that attempt and i never heard a word about it from the folks. to this day the easy bake oven is my christmas "poke" from family just as josh's cologne and socks are his poke....no one forgets, most of our family have memories like elephants.
i am thankful for all the gifts i received as a kid. i was always a little embarrassed to open my presents because i felt bad people had spent money on me. we were always very blessed with the giving spirit our family possesses. here's what made the good list:

• karaoke machine
• our dog, nelson
• our dog, kris
• trampoline (guess they got tired of us doing back flips on the bed!)
• rollerskates!
• all the tennis shoes i've received over the years
• my gorgeous lamp from mom
• cameras
• cd player
• the t.v. josh and i got to share (this caused many fights as we each got to keep it in our room for one week at a time....it was horrible when you would really get into a show and the other person would show up to "repo" the t.v. for their week)
• a stereo
• bicycles
• castle greyskull (or was that josh's birthday?)
• my little ponies
• my pearls

mom, dad, mam and pap (both hollon and neiderman) always did good....always thinking of others and teaching us to do the same. there are so many less fortunate and i'm sure they would have been ecstatic to open up socks, cologne and an easy bake oven. :)

"Remember, if Christmas isn't found in your heart, you won't find it under a tree."

~ Charlotte Carpenter