christmas has come and gone without much fanfare. while i did enjoy spending time with my families i did not enjoy the chardonnay hangover i endured most of sunday morning. though a few ibuprofen and two antihistamines helped me get over that slump fairly quick. my two most favorite moments of christmas this year was seeing my dad, a burly southern man, cry while his daughters and son-in-laws seranaded him with Danny Boy and having my mother-in-law let me “shop” in her garage. she has the most wonderful things that she hasn’t even touched. i managed to make out like a bandit with a pretty mirror for the mantle and a smith & hawken garden tool set. so yes, christmas was wonderful and we got to enjoy it in the comfort of our very own home.

and now there are only a few days left in 2006 and we will be ringing in the new year with a very festive party. because our very dear friends, kelly and jeremy will be busy packing up their house to move, we have decided to have a new years eve party here at our house. i emailed most of you with the invitation but if by some unforseen reason you didn’t get yours please let me know. except for rush, because he wouldn’t come anyway.

i hope you all are as fat and bloated on christmas trimmings as i am. lord knows i need to lose about twelve pounds of mash potatos just hovering around my midriff.

first, let me say that we are moved in. thank the baby jesus! second, i want to send a shout out to several people who assisted in the easiest move on the planet:

• A Wise Move - thanks to Dave Chapman and his merry band of wheezing movers. if it wasn’t for them i would be lying in my living room floor begging for an ax to chop off my arms and legs. so, if you plan on moving anything at all, please give them a call. if not for the comedic experience of watching a semi-tubby white guy get winded walking down two flights of stairs.
• batonga, kelly, dmoney, and jennybean - you made this move 1,000 times easier and i love each of you so very much.
• ashley, john, and mary - for bringing us the yummiest chicken casserole on the planet and just stopping by to give us “morale” support.
• MIL and FIL - without you two i wouldn’t have the wonderfulest husband ever nor would i have a kick ass drill set!

i will post pictures of our new abode as soon as i can can find my camera. it’s in a box somewhere around here.

for the past week kev and i have moved boxes of our stuff to the new house and i am happy to report that we are nearly done. however, this is a call to all the people who love us and want to be in our good graces. we need help moving the last few boxes on saturday! if you can spare an hour or two we would get you drunk before noon and feed you something very yummy (to be determined by our bank account and/or the nearest soul food eatery). please drop me a comment or an email and let me know. the furniture movers will arrive somewhere around 8 a.m. so if you could be at our house by 10 a.m. i will love you forever and ever, amen.

on monday at 8:00 a.m. we will be homeowners or as i like to say “homo owners”, because wouldn’t owning a gay person be totally cool?! i would name him hortense and he would decorate my house with track lighting and plantation blinds and make a very tasty artichoke spinach dip in a hollowed out bread roll. right now i am exhausted and frustrated and just want this process to be over. i want to be doing all the fun things that are associated with owning a house like hanging pictures and fixing things and telling those kids to get off my damn lawn. as of right now we are currently living out of approximately four million boxes which probably sounds like palm springs to a homeless person, but to me it is no fun. i can’t find anything, the dogs are freaking out, and there is still way more to pack. the only satisfaction anyone is getting out of this is the cats for they are like homeless people. let us not forget that it is almost two weeks into december and because our current home looks like a FedEx drop-off station i cannot assemble our christmas decorations. i appreciate every single person who has kept me sane these past couple of weeks, especially rush, without whom i probably would have doused myself in nail polish remover and driven to a match factory.

to lighten your spirits after reading the above “rant from a crazee ladee” here are two photos i took from this past week’s chilling temperatures. enjoy and pass the xanax.

fountain of ice: taken in front of my neighborhood.

between kev and i we have probably slept a total of ten hours in the past week. we are so anxious and excited to close on our house and it is keeping us up at night. i’ll just lie awake and stare at the ceiling making a mental checklist of all our stuff that we need to move and when. at work i’m not any better. during my lunch hour i’ll sit on the computer and play on the city of birmingham’s GIS system. you can check it out here. this is a neat tool to use when you’re an obsessive asshat like me!

yesterday a friend sent me a link to the FBI’s sex offender registry to show me how many sex offenders were in a 5 mile radius of our new house. um, gee thanks. in our zip code there are 29 registered sex offenders. immediately i called dmoney (because she lives a block away from our new house and well, she just rocks!) and began grilling her about the information i received. she assured me that all is well and that she never sees any strange and lurking men in her bushes. well that is a good thing because they would have to deal with my fists of fury and my crying like a girl if i met one on the street. though just for good measure i’m going to print out the list of these offenders with their pictures and tack it to the fridge. so when people come over and ask what the list is for i can say with confidence “oh those are just my bridge club members”.

i will be immersed in puppies and boxes this weekend. my goddoggies, joyful and splendor will be spending a glorious 24 hours with us as mel and britt go to hotlanta. during those 24 hours i will be be sucking on a bottle of jack daniels, packing up the house, and yelling at cooper and splendor to knock it off because it is totally annoying when they run around the house like wild heathens.

we are closing on the new house in less than 10 days. i cannot explain to you how absolutely ecstatic and how miserably stressed i am. during a normal 12 hour waking period i run through no less than three million emotions. “yay! a house!” “holy shit, we have a yard to mow!” “now where am i going to fit all my furniture?” “i hope to christ on a stick that our neighbors aren’t klansmen, or GASP! scientologists!” “holy shit, we don’t have a lawn mower!” just to name a few. if anyone wants to help prevent the inevitable exploding of my head please come by and help us move on the 15th and 16th. your assistance and/or xanax will be greatly appreciated.