MERRY CHRISTMAS! I'M BACK AT THE BLOG!

The burnt pumpkin pie is sitting smoldering atop the oven, I'm snarfing down almond bark-covered pretzels, and the cat is stoned on catnip...that can only mean one thing...

It's Christmas!  

Merry Christmas from The Home Stretch!

After a rather lengthy hiatus caused by a major virus attacking and killing my old my computer, I am, at last returning to the world of blogging thanks to my sexy new friend I Mac...yeah, we broke down and bought Daniel a new computer for Christmas. Speaking of broke, now we are...even more so than we were before.

But the look on our future film director's little face -- we call him Little Spielberg -- when he opened up this very special Christmas present was worth every last dime...which is now what we are down to. 

Hence, "Santa" left John a cheese slicer and, if John ever wakes up from his long winter's nap, he has pledged to  fulfill his Christmas promise to me to  install the dishwasher we recently inherited. The dishwasher's previous owners tell me the machine is noisy, but like I told them, hey, the darn thing can yell my old high school fight song into a microphone outside my bedroom door every morning at 3 a.m. and I won't care as long as it just does the damn dishes. 

Anyhoo, like I said, the look on Daniel's face when he discovered he really WAS  getting an I Mac for Christmas was the best present a mom and dad could receive...it's hard to surprise a 15-year-old at Christmas, but we did it! We had him convinced the old computer was coming back and maybe, sometime down the road, we might be able to swing a Mac Mini...

He took the news of the old computer's return like a trooper, and kept good holiday humor through opening box after box of  really lame Christmas presents like deodorant, shower gel, a shower puff (albeit a manly shower puff), the game Mad Gab (not a lame gift by any means, but I have a feeling Family Game Night may end up taking a back seat to his film making/editing)...you get the pic.

After John unwrapped and "oohed" and "ahhed" over his cheese slicer, and I swooned over my new blow dryer, it was time to clean up the wrapping paper and get on with our day. We sent Daniel downstairs to the basement to retrieve the box of garbage bags off the top of the washing machine (wink, wink) and voila!

There atop the washing machine Daniel discovered three more boxes wrapped in colorful Santa paper -- one very large box (the I Mac); one medium box (the printer) and one small box (the firewire for downloading his movies from his video cam to the computer).

He either exclaimed, "Great Scott! What are those?" or "What the bloody hell are those?" -- I can't clearly recall, I was so excited for him, but i do remember he used his best British accent (he's theatrical like his mother), and he was SOOOO taken aback...

The next best part was that I then got to rearrange my living room to make room for the new computer, which is ALWAYS great therapy for me...

However, I think it was sometime during my muttering "should I put the couch or the love seat against the south wall", then moving the couch to said south wall, and then staring at it in its new location for five minutes only to decide to move the love seat there instead, that John yawned and slipped away into the next room to take a "short break" before tackling the dishwasher installation...

That was four hours ago.

Ahem.

Not that I begrudge the guy a little rest on his day off..I'm just sayin'....

But I digress.

Did I mention yet how much I have missed blogging?  OMG!  And there is so much to blog about on this sexy new I Mac!  Wee dogs!  

Merry Christmas!  And stay tuned!