Wow, I forgot about this.

Here goes nothing.

Christmas 2010 was crazy! Paul had school until the Wednesday before Christmas, so we were left driving all evening. Road trip! New Orleans bound with two teens, one (over packed) young adult, lots of Santa gifts and excitement. Miss Linda was up to something. We arrived in time for dinner, laughs, a little of game playing. The following night, much to our surprise, a snowball machine showed up! No, not a snow machine to have snow fights... a New Orleans summer time tradition; a yummy icy cool, shaved iced, kinda slurpie-ish drink. They set up shop in the back yard, we lit the firepit and got busy with tasting, eating, drinking lots of snowballs! Personal fav was the half strawberry, half chocolate with condensed cream on top! YUM!

Next up was Christmas eve with the adopted family. Always interesting, always great food, and always always ends with games around the table! This year we fully adopted Charlie as our newest cousin (Miranda, we approve). Over stuffed with everything from sushi to Mr. Ronnie's famous brisket; we still managed boats of ice cream, fancy chocolates, and reindeer chow mix.

Top that with some sweet pink bubbly stuff (ewe).

Christmas morning came fast! Santa leaves the whole red sack here at Miss Linda's. Paul got some odd shirts, hat, a basketball trip and a mandolin (both fake & real). Victoria got her chosen goods of boots and sweaters, a roundtrip basketball trip, and a carnival trip. Sarah Mae got a watch, some nick nacks for Africa, the basketball trip and her carnival ball trip! Mom got a sweet massage, a gift card for Mac, new earrings, new jacket, and a trip to Sydney (yea, like Australia) more on that later.

The morning after we met up with paw-paw Lou for lunch. Uncle Lou showed up too (a little green for his night before, but hey he came!). The kids love my dad and my baby brother so needless to say; totally enjoyable! The clock went off, out went my dad and we were on the road again. No not to Atlanta, not yet.

Only in New Orleans!

I managed a trip to New Orleans this past weekend. I flew in Saturday and hit the ground running. It snowed in Atlanta and created a nightmare at the airport. Delayed, but I made it to the Crescent City in one piece. Miss Linda was waiting outside the doors. I jumped in and we headed downtown. Krewe of Tucks was coming through. We parked and made our way to the streets, alive and popping. The city is on a high from Super Bowl and the song, "stand up and get crunk" is being pumped through out the streets. We did our share of "throw me somethin' Mister" and got back to the car to head home. A quick shower before we slipped into evening gowns for the big Endyminion Extravaganza! We walked inside the SuperDome to find it rocking. Here's how to watch the parade. The table was in a fabulous spot, we dropped off the food, opened the liquor and started the night. The performers kept us all dancing. When the parade rolled through we climbed up on chairs to get the full craziness of the night. We added beads to our outfits and filled bags and bags with our endless prized possessions we caught. Lynard Skynard finally started up around 1:00 a.m. Knowing our next morning included riding in a parade, we slipped out with our new found bounty of beads. How did we manage to carry all those bags? Hmmm, Ricky found a flat bed dolly which we borrowed... yes, it was that much stuff!

With about 5 hours of sleep we started our Sunday outing. Off to the bead store. Then to the float. Set up the float with endless beads. Find the costumes. Rally the kids. Dress the kids. Feed the kids. Finally, the ride began at 5:30. Hours through the streets of Metairie. Throw, throw, throw... dance, dance, dance,... the route ended, the wheels stopped around 10:30 p.m. We quickly unloaded, got the kids off to the curb, and I sat down for the first time. My body demanded more. I layed out and felt muscles (I did not know I had) throb. Oh, sweet, fun, pain. Life is so good!

By the time Linda and I got the last patient back to the hospital, we realized we hadn't eaten and were both starving. Restaurant after restaurant had lines of hungry parade goers and out of towners. Finally, we found an Ihop and with our lovely costumes on, we went inside for that yummy late night breakfast. It was midnight, pouring rain outside, and we were loving life with some amazing BLT's.

Monday morning came way too quickly. I kept little man while Linda and Mark went to work. By noon the Gretna Krazy Kids were lining up for their parade. Ready... Firetruck, EMT's, police cars blocking the streets... set, floats and beads, go... ride and throw!

I found a ride out to Metairie to meet up with daddy for a late lunch. I love having this private, one on one time with him. He looks great and as sharp as ever! Loving me, my daddy.

He dropped me at the New Orleans airport for 4:00 p.m. My gosh, had I already run the clock out?

AVATAR at IMAX 3D

As I am scrambling to gather personal information on 44 of my new besties; daughter #1 calls and says she's coming in for a visit. Nice surprise! The princess ran late, I took off to round up Paul, and we gathered at home for a big breakfast together. Waffles, eggs, grits, bacon, coffee, juice... yummy stuff. And boy did we stuff it in. The loving siblings ran off to shop (now that's brotherly love at it's best), while I cleaned up and sorted through the Guatemala files.

Sarah and Paul decided it was time for me to see Avatar. We took off for a 7:00 show and after sitting in mass amounts of Atlanta traffic... it was sold out! There was the regular 3D, but it was declared 'not good enough'. I must be loosing my mind, I bought 3 tickets for the 10:30 p.m. show. Now, 3 hours to kill. We chose to eat our way down the street. We found a Sushi place and I had dinner, while they munched on a couple of rolls (they had just finished dinner with Bill). After that we went a couple doors down to Cold Stone. Sarah and Paul managed dessert happily. A store, a second store... finally back to the movie.

AMAZING! Avatar has a fabulous message! Life is about relationships, with people and with mother earth. The greedy, power minded likes of America has decided (in it's usual way) that they are right and at what ever the cost, they will take what they want. The greed for money and power, drive the heartless humans to justify anything they must do to these impossible alien beings who do not think the way they should (i.e. like humans). A few humans do eventually reach out, understand, and rally to the death to defend the aliens. The blue men not only rely on themselves, they have a connection to the animals, the wildlife, and the spirit of all those before them. It's a must see. You may want to bring a tissue, as it can find it's way inside of you.

Note

I'm not one to talk about people in a bad way. We all have our story. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. However, some of the stuff online is worthy of discussion. We all need a good laugh every once in a while. So, the names and places may be changed to protect the innocent (that may be a stretch). We all need to to laugh at ourselves when we botch things. Eyes wide open, take a breath, and a huge leap of faith. Here goes.
When creating a username. Do NOT use sexual terms or give body part sizes.
Your cute little tag line; again try to keep it within the set character limit so there's no mistaking what you're trying to say.
The profile. Take a few minutes and write what you spend your time on. If your day is full of work, say so. Kids keep you running, then talk about it, tennis, golf? Whatever your interest, included it. Don't mistake what you want to do with how you actually live. If you want to save the world, share it. If you would rather crash on the sofa and leave it all to others, then share that. Trust me on this; there is a person out there who will be attracted to the real you; the trick is keeping it real. The authentic you is dying to be exposed; let him out. Being honest is the easiest way to keep life simple.
More later.

online dating

It's a new world. Ever thought you would log on into cyber space as a social scene? God knows I never thought it was a good idea. It's 2010, I've been divorced for almost 2 years and no time to get out and meet single men. The operative word being single. Single, without a commitment to anther woman or man. This whole metro sexual thing has blurred the lines. I want a real man, not a second best to what he thinks he should or supposed to be. My life is made up of teenagers (that I do live for), church, school work, and the neighborhood in which I live. So the kids continue to keep me busy, everyone is married within the circles of the city...I'm not much for the bar scene; okay, I jumped into cyber space. Many of my friends have told me how much fun this is; well here's a few things I think need to be shared right off the back. Men, you really shouldn't put up bare chested pictures as your profile shot; pictures of your dog licking your face, not so hot either; landscaping pictures of where you've traveled? really?; the famed picture of you with a newborn on your shoulder, yikes! I could go on, but I think everyone is already in agreement on this. Okay, so I bite the bullet and give it a go. First meeting; guy shows up and he's 50 to 70 pounds heavier than his pictures. Hello? Did you think I wouldn't notice this extra growth? We're not talking about a few extra holiday pounds. What else are you lying about? Note for future: ask if the pictures are recent. Next... decent looking guy (so much for my idea about reading the profiles before looking at pictures), sounds nice enough. A glass of wine. Good visit at a local restaurant. My new found dating coach tells me after, don't meet at regular spots where others can pop in on you. He seem to like himself, a lot. Apparently no bells for me. Oh well... next. Another meet over a drink at another local restaurant (oops). The place was packed, the guy got nervous (let's not sweat the small stuff). We chatted, had a drink, left friendly. The ongoing emails, a couple of phone calls; interesting. I will say there's some great ego boosters out there too. How about the young guns who send sweet notes. I am beginning to see how the cougar thing got started (still could never go there, but I understand it better). Good looking 29 plus, but no! Pass a decade, um eventually you do need to have a conversation. Boundaries, ethics, morals... you need guidelines to work with, especially in this new cyber world. Meeting some new friends. Having some great laughs. A couple of drinks here and there. A new piece of life. How odd is this?

Let the New Year begin!

Christmas morning was great fun! Santa was very good to me. The kids gave me the rain jacket I wanted (in a cool wine color), the REI duffle bag that I've been eyeing, a flannel shirt and a program to teach me Spanish! I hope to get busy with the Spanish...who knows, maybe I'll get a few good words in my head by June.

We started the morning with the grand moments of gift opening. Sarah got her wishes of boots, leather jacket, and a new camera along with a lovely new bling of a watch from her father. Victoria will be walking cool in her moc boots, Toms, and a few new garments to refresh her closet. She'll get a shopping spree with the $300 her father sent.

Paul is styling some new Ray-Ban's, some cool clothes, a tuner, and guitar stands (yes, two). His father sent a new electric guitar and we'll need to take good care of storing it.

After all the ooo's and awe's were done, we got dressed and took off for breakfast. We met with my dad for the full breakfast spread and a good dose of paw-paw love. He was in good form and we all totally enjoyed his time and energy he shared with us.

Back to Linda & Mark's where we cooked up way too much food. Supper was fabulous! New games, new laughs, it was a brilliant day.

We had to make it down to the French Quarter for our traditional beignet fix. Yum! We shopped a bit, did some premo people watching and at last hit Cafe Du Monde. Anyone not notice the guy having a conversation with himself? Or how about the homeless guy singing at the other end? He had a nice voice. I love the music you can hear along the city streets in New Orleans.

We had to leave on the 29th. Sarah had to get back to work and I think there were some parties dancing in the other two heads. It's just as well. We returned in time for me to get some major crud. Zonked! I've been in bed for two or three days now! Unbelievable... what day is it?

New Orleans Christmas

We managed the annual Christmas road trip to New Orleans. Arrived with the car fully loaded on the 22nd. December 23 I went with daddy and Lucien to some private little HoHoHo Christmas lunch. The kids were across the road at Acme filling up on the first round of raw oysters. I lost contact with them while they were shopping, so being the independent minds that they are, they took off for Linda's. They napped and we regrouped downtown for a Hornet's game! Great tickets, fun game! I couldn't get Victoria to get up and dance for the $100 gift card (trust me, she could have totally taken that).
We got back to the homestead and nibbled on some more food. On the 24th Linda and I had last minute running to do. Oh my gosh, how much shopping can you do in a day? Really, before noon we had hit at least a half dozen different stores. This is not what I do for fun, yet my love for Miss Linda, well... I managed.
Big party fun with the whole Lauland clan. Way too much food (including sushi, thanks to Mr. Mark) and drink. We opened presents, ate, drank, and was a merry crowd. Got everyone to bed for the big night. Linda and I played miracle moms for another couple of hours. At 2a.m. we put the turkey in the oven and called it quits for the day.