Our Annual Christmas Letter

Greetings to one and all,

We thought about sending out Christmas cards this year, but changed our minds. Then we thought about sending out a “newsletter” such as the ones we get from friends. You know the kind, they tell all about their year, the accomplishments of their kids, and the exciting things that happened to them throughout the year. We decided against that; all the kids are grown and on their own, we don’t go anywhere, and we don’t do much, so our letter would be so boring.

Ok, so maybe there are a few little tidbits to share.

Our main source of entertainment is our cat, Missy Dawg, or as she is affectionately known by some as “Fat Cat”. She is our alarm clock, our bed time nagger, and our watch cat. She lets us know when it is time to go to bed, such as when it is 9:00, regardless of the day of the week, by head butting our arm or whining in our face wherever we are. In the morning, she lets us know it is 5 am by being a plain pest and hitting one of us on the head with her paw until we get up. Then she goes to the alarm clock and hits it the way she sees us hit it to turn the snooze on. Only she manages to turn the sleep timer on and blare the radio. So we HAVE to react! Then she takes her place in the kitchen waiting for her treats and making sure her bowls are filled for the day. She greets us in the evening by waiting by the front door and making sure we follow her to the kitchen to give her the evening treats. And we never have to worry about squirrels or rabbits getting in; she makes sure we know they are out there. What would we do without her?

Tina and Rich are doing well in Alaska, getting settled in their new home. The twins, Kelby and Colby, were a year old in October and are growing faster than weeds. The Internet and Facebook have allowed us to see them grow from day one, their mom is very good about posting pictures. This past summer they went camping and just loved the experience!

Russ and Dee and the kids are now in a bigger place so the kids can have separate rooms and more play area outside. Sounds like a nice place and the best thing about it is they didn’t have to change schools. Jennifer is a sophomore in high school and already planning her college education. Cheyenne is in 8^th grade, doing very well and anticipating high school with her older sister. Lisa is in 2^nd grade and is smart as a whip; and Russell is in Kindergarten, and is a typical little boy. You have to remember he is up against three older sisters! All the kids do very well in school, all A’s and B’s.

Brian started working with a new company this year. He travels to several states in the country, some of which are Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, New York, to name a few. His company has accounts nationwide and he covers the Midwest, but seems like he goes more than just the Midwest states, but he enjoys it.

He just moved into his own place, a condo in Yorkville. He is still furnishing it but with as much time as he is away from home, he really doesn’t need much! We gave him one of the extra Christmas trees we had, and his box of ornaments that his grandmothers have been buying for him since he was a baby, along with other ornaments and lights so he can decorate his new place. He still comes by to visit, eat, and play World of Warcraft with us. We still don’t see wedding bells in his future but that’s ok. He is enjoying his life as it is.

We both play World of Warcraft and have a lot of fun doing it. It’s cheap entertainment and at least keeps our minds active! In the summer we go camping, and just won a year’s membership to the campground we go to, along with a lot. So we don’t have to worry about where we will pitch our tent, we will have our own “place”. The campground had a few members that just abandoned their lots and trailers, and the campground took possession and will be selling them in March. We were told there are a few travel trailers that would be just perfect for the two of us that are very affordable. So we are hoping to find one and have a permanent setup as opposed to pitching a tent every time we go there. So if you are trying to find us when the weather gets warm, that’s where we will be. We can always be reached on our cell phones, if we have them “on” us. ;)

So here’s to you, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Stay warm and safe, and for goodness’ sake, leave Santa some cookies and eggnog!

Love,

Russ & Karen

And Fat Cat.

Variation On A Theme

Every Christmas for the last 10 years or so, my sister and brother and I, and our spouses, have had a grab bag in lieu of buying gifts for everyone. We started out by drawing names and buying a gift for the person whose name we picked. There weren't too many rules, just that you couldn't pick yourself or your spouse, and started with a maximum of $20 to spend on the gift. We have brought the max up to $25 now, and have made changes to the way the gifts are selected.

For the first few years we wrote our name on a piece of paper, and a list of 3 things that we would like. This made it easy, but not challenging. Then we decided to write our name on a piece of paper and a single theme for the gift, such as food, liqour, something warm, etc. The possibilities were endless. One year we made a rule that no gift cards, since that was too easy.

One year we had one rule...the gift had to be a "gag" gift. That was the last year for that one!

This year, my sister, not I, came up with an idea for gifts..."Make it or bake it". Since not everyone in the grab bag is the creative or cooking type, I added that it could be something that was handmade as opposed to being mass produced. This could be something from a kiosk in the mall, which there are no shortage of but many of the items are handmade. There are also a lot of Christmas craft fairs at the different schools, churches, and park districts in the area. I added that there were numerous kits to be had at Michaels, Joann Fabrics, etc., that even the guys could create from!

The funny part of the suggestion when it was announced after Thanksgiving dinner as we always do, was they all that it was my idea! I plan on making everyone a little something, such as a key chain or phone charm, but I am still contemplating what I will make my intended recipient.
Sorry, I can't reveal who it is, that has to remain a secret until Christmas Day. But my sister usually figures out who has who by process of elimination, and she only needs to know who she has to do this, although now that my son and nieces and nephews are getting older and have jobs and will be involved with the grab bag, I have a feeling it won't be so easy to figure out who has who!

It will be interesting to see what everyone comes up with for their gift. Almost makes me feel like a little kid anticipating what Santa might leave under the tree!

Time For A Breather

Whew! It's now 3:26 pm here in cool and cloudy Plainfield IL, at the office. Love that little Weatherbug icon in my systray, I can look at it and know what the temperature is without walking outside. Right now it's 43 but the forecast says it is going to drop, then by Friday be in the 60's! This is goofy, no wonder so many people are sick. Nobody knows how to dress so either you're overdressed and sweat your butt off, then get chilled; or you are underdressed and get chilled right off the bat! All I can say is.....LAYERS LAYERS LAYERS. It's easier to take something off if you're too warm (within reason of course), but you can hardly put something on to warm up if you don't have it with you to begin with!

Anyway, I finished what I hope is the work I had for the day and needed some time to regroup before I hit the rush hour traffic on my way home.

I put in another order for some odds & ends with Fire Mountain, among which are jewelry boxes. Have to get ready for the holidays. I can feel those sales ringing up for holiday gift giving.

While I was eating my lunch today, I decided to do some rearranging in my shop. Moved everything that was $10 or less to a special category, obviously named "Ten Dollars and Under". Then did some changing of gallery pictures so different ones were shown on the first view. Trying to see if a change of scenery will spark more interest, altho I have to say I was suprised at the amount of views I have received. I see a lot of new views when I post in Twitter about new listings. Every little bit helps!

Today I submitted my shop url to google search and msn search. Let's see if this brings in any new interest. It all depends if their search engines decide to crawl my url or not. I'm keeping my toes crossed...can't cross my fingers or I wouldn't be able to type...or bead!

Tonight I am going to see if my son will go with me to Michael's so I can find some silk thread. I have some Crystazzi pearls and I want to try my hand at stringing and knotting pearls. Wish me luck!!

Monday Technology Quirks - Very Frustrating!

So it's Monday. Not a holiday for me, I have to be at work. Not sure what I will accomplish. Banks are closed, no mail, half of our job sites are closed down for the holiday, yet here I sit.

I had a brainstorm to create and upload a page to the sub-domain I created last week on our home site. Not being much with raw html code, I thought I did pretty good for a simple and basic page. Even did the background color, text color, etc. Ok, next step is to ftp it to the server. No problem. I even remembered my ftp username and password!! Wow, that's an accomplishment for me, since I have so many different logins and passwords for the many sites, programs, and other access points that I use. I've been meaning to create a wallet of all my logins so that I have them. Never fails, I try to login to one of my suppliers and I can't remember my login, then have to remember which email address I used to register so they can send me my login. Ok, I digress.

I was happy to see that the page I had just coded loaded and displayed as best as I can expect, considering I didn't do anything fancy, with the exception of adding my etsy mini. Now, when I signed up with the hosting server, I was given $75 in free google adwords. I figured I might as well use them, so I proceeded to login to my account (yep, remembered the login, this time!). Lo and behold, the server is DOWN! I managed to access the support page, of course THAT isn't down. It appears that their main server had a nervous breakdown and they are "working" on getting things up and running, but no word on how long it will take. Great! I get my site online, have it referring to my etsy site, and nobody will find it because I can't setup the adwords.

I am seriously considering moving my web to another host, but not sure which one is good. I like yahoo but it can be quite costly. But I guess you get what you pay for, huh?

If anyone has any suggestion for a web host, please, let me know! I am currently on powweb. I like it, there are a lot of features that make it easy for someone who hasn't kept up with her html coding that was learned many years ago, (Can't even do CSS, XHTML, or any of the other ones, just basic HTML), but what good is it if it's always down?

Oh, and if you want to check out the new page, it's at http://rukar.karuss.com/

Happy Monday!

NOT!!!!!