Holidays, a Movie and a Funny Video

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We had it at our house, as we do every year. Mom was off this year (she usually works) and cooked the turkey. She also brought corn, broccoli, apple pie, and chocolate pie. I did the stuffing, gravy, yeast rolls, rosemary red potatoes, black eyed peas, and cookies and cream pie.

My brother Del, his wife Jennifer, and their son Drake (who will be 2 next month) also came. We had a nice time.

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I was supposed to get my car inspected on Saturday and completely forgot. My brother was going to do it for me, free of charge. I'll try to get it done today.

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I've seen Breaking Dawn part two 4 times so far. The only other movie I saw that many times in theaters was Return of the King (my favorite movie). BD2 is the best of the Twilight movies and since it's the last of the Twilight movies I'll get to see in theaters, I figure I'll see it as much as I can. I don't know if I'll see it in theaters again or not. Kelly wants to (she's seen it 3 times; Sean's seen it once), but we'll see.

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How can it already be time for Christmas music and decorations? It just seems too soon this year even though it's almost December. As much as I love Christmas, I'm just not ready for it yet.

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And I leave you with this hilarious video: [Pause my music player at the bottom of the page first.]

My Car

The title for our car came in the mail a few days ago. Much sooner than we were expecting it. So it's officially ours now. I remember when we paid off our white '89 Honda Accord in the summer of '97. Things were tighter financially for us then and it was a relief not to have that $320 a month car payment. The Accord is long gone now. I think it ended up in a junkyard. 

After that, I drove a white '94 Jeep Cherokee. Charlie bought it for about $200, so there was no car payment. But man was that thing in rough shape. lol It smoked like a chimney, would cut off on me sometimes when I put it in reverse and the lining was falling down, but it was kind of fun to drive.

Then, in late 2006, Charlie told me that he wanted to get me a new car. That I needed and deserved one. :-D I narrowed down my choices to a Honda CR-V or a Toyota RAV-4 and after looking at both in person, I chose the 2007 Honda CR-V in Tango Red Pearl, which we bought in January of 2007. I was so happy to get that car and now I'm so happy to have it paid off and that it's officially ours. :-)

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A few weeks ago I bought Lidia Bastianich's cookbook Lidia's Favorite Recipes. Last week I made "My Mother's Chicken and Potatoes". It was so delicious and a big hit with my family. It has now been added to the list of meals that I will make on a regular basis.

 It's a simple recipe - not a lot of ingredients (chicken, red potatoes, bacon, onion, fresh rosemary) and easy to make. I made it again last night for me and Kelly. (Sean was at my mom's and Charlie was out of state working.) I didn't add the onion this time and I used crushed rosemary instead of fresh, but it still turned out really good. I made green beans and yeast rolls to go with it last week. Last night I made broccoli with cheese and yeast rolls.

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Technically it's Friday now (a little after 3:00 AM), but I haven't been to bed yet. (What else is new?) I need to get in the bed soon though. I want to see Breaking Dawn Part 2. Then I have to get my car inspected, mail a CD to my cousin in Virginia Beach, take Kelly to the Verizon store to get her phone unlocked (she forgot her code), bring Sean's church clothes to my mom's (our youth are going to a church service in another city and my mom will be dropping Sean off at our church so that he can ride the church van to the youth service), put gas in my car, and get groceries. I think that's it.

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Bills, Voting, and Other Stuff

A few days ago we did something that I've really been looking forward to for several months now. Something we knew would happen by this month or next month, barring anything unexpected coming up that would hinder things. We paid off our car! We bought our car (a red 2007 Honda CR-V) in January of 2007 and finally paid it off just a couple months shy of our 6th year of owning it. It feels so good not to have that payment anymore!

Of course, we still have to pay off Sean's braces (he got them in July), which will take a year and a half to two years. And we now have a bed to pay for, which should be taken care of by this time next year. So we're not as debt-free after paying off our car as we thought we'd be back in the spring or early summer. Knowing Charlie, though, he'll probably use part of our tax refund to pay off one or both of those. That'll be pretty great. Once Sean's braces and our bed are paid for, we should be debt-free, other than our house. We're hoping to sell that next year and move out to the country. I pray God works things out for us.

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I braved the cold yesterday and voted. I mean, I didn't have to wait in a line that stretched outside or anything like my cousin and her husband in Virginia Beach had to do, but I did have to go out in the cold. Haha.

I was in and out in less than 10 minutes. Then I had to stand outside so I could return a movie my husband rented to Redbox. I was wearing a coat, gloves (I had to take one off because the touchscreen wasn't aware of my touch with my gloves on) and scarf. When I turned to go back to my car, some guy in a t-shirt and shorts was waiting. He kind of smiled at me like he thought it was funny that I was bundled up. I thought he was crazy not  to be bundled up! It was barely 40°. He must've been from up north. :-/

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Since we started homeschooling this year, my kids haven't been as sick as they usually were when they were in public school. By November, when they were in public school, they usually had been sick with fevers once or twice. There haven't been any fevers yet, but Sean wasn't feeling well for a couple days last week and didn't do his work. Kelly missed church on Sunday because of sickness. (So she said. She seemed fine when I got home. :-/ ) And Charlie stayed home from work for a few days because of it. They mostly complained of sore throats and headaches.

They're all fine now. My throat's been a little sore a couple times, but nothing more than that.