A dollar!

I resisted entering a store or making an online purchase for the entire Boxing week. Yay me!

New Year's Day I went to Wal-mart. My sole purpose was to pick up a frame for the picture I got of Brandi and Kore swimming with dolphins.

How I ended up in the Christmas aisle on the opposite side of the store is beyond me, but what a score! Every thing was an extra 50% off the already 75% reduced price! They had beautiful poinsettia plants for a dollar. A dollar! I could only fit 20 in my cart so that's all I got.

And I picked up these really funky hanging feather ornaments. They were like 40 cents or something. I don't have a clue what I am going to do with them, but I have 42 of the suckers. I didn't take a picture of them. But trust me, they're cool. In a shiny-red-Liana-sorta way.

Oh, and I remembered to get a picture frame.

I managed to cram them all in my trunk.

Happy New Year!

Happy: (adj) delighted, pleased, or glad, as over a particular thing that happens.
New Year: (n) the first official day in the Gregorian calendar.

While I do hope that something external occurs on this the first day of the year that pleases you, my wish for you (and equally-so for me) is that the entire year of 2008 will be joyful.

Joy: (n) an emotion evoked by well-being or success.

We've often heard that the word J-O-Y is actually an acronym for Jesus Others You. Living your life in that order, that's what brings internal feelings of well-being and success. But this year I heard an new one and I think it's better:
J-O-Y is actually J-zero-Y. And true joy comes when you have nothing between Jesus and You.

And so I wish consistent joy sprinkled with regular bouts of happiness for you for the next 365 days.

Hockey night and day and night in Canada.

Gotta love Christmas week in the hockey world. I am a Canuck fan. And I was thrilled to watch them kick Calgary's butt 5-3 tonight.

But this was not before we watched Canada beat Slovakia in the World Juniors, which had been recorded to the PVR earlier in the day. (I will admit to catching a few naps during this game.)

Immediately following the Canucks came the Spengler Cup game. Canada against Davos, or someone. Alb is currently watching this game. I couldn't take any more. I'm a Canuck fan, not necessarily a huge hockey fan. And so while Alb lays in bed watching the has-beens and not-quites play hockey, I sit here in the dark at midnight typing out my life for you.

We generally start watching hockey games a while after they actually start. With the PVR you can then fast forward through the commercials and basically catch up to live tv by the time the game ends.

It was 9:35 when the phone rang. We were watching the 3rd period. "Mom, can Dad come pick me up? I'm at 15th and Nicholson," was Jed's response when I said, "Hello."

He wanted a ride because he didn't want to wait until 9:49 when the bus was scheduled to arrive. I explained that even if Dad left now, the bus would probably get to him first, and I convinced him to just patiently wait for the bus.

About 20 minutes later, I could hear a diesel engine running in the driveway. I thought, "That little turkey, he must have convinced a passerby to give him a ride home."

A glance out the window confirmed that, yes, he had gotten a ride to our door. In a city bus. Yes, there was a city bus at our driveway! The bus stop is a few blocks away on a different street than we live on, but the driver was finished for the night and Jed was the only one on the bus so he brought him right home. Now that's service!

The Year in Review

Happy Christmas to all our friends and family, and family that is our friends! What a year 2007 has been. We started off the year as empty nesters celebrating our 25^th anniversary in January. Quite an accomplishment in today's world, I sit here and smugly think, all the while smiling at how relatively easy Albert has made it for us to achieve this. :)

We had the wind knocked out of our sails shortly thereafter when Albert's sister, Muriel, was tragically and suddenly taken from us. Equally shocking to us, about the same time, we learned that Brandi's marriage had ended.

February we celebrated Albert's Dad's 80^th birthday and his 12^th anniversary (actually, it might even have been his 13^th) as a cancer survivor.

In March, after a few years of talking about it, we started the countdown to our trip across Canada on the Goldwing.

In June, the Ziemer family had its first ever family-only reunion to celebrate Dad and Mom's 60^th anniversary. This kind of made our 25 years pale in comparison, but gives a great example to follow.

July 16^th we embarked on our journey with great excitement and even disbelief that it was actually happening. The trip was fantastic and we wouldn't hesitate to do it again on the bike. We are little disappointed that we didn't get over to Newfoundland, but 6 and a half weeks just wasn't long enough. Ten weeks would have been better, I think. As most of you know, I blogged along the way and if you are sitting on a winter's day with nothing to do, you can check it out at elzee.blogspot.com

September was turbulent as we settled back into real life. There were lots of changes taking place at my work and there were issues arising in Jed's home.

In October we moved Jed back to our house. We are in the midst of making plans to set up a basement suite for him to live in. This will allow him to have some independence, yet still receive the support and supervision he needs. While the home he had been in for 15 months didn't meet his needs, we are thankful that it allowed us to be gone for the summer without too much worry. We learned and grew through the experience and we thank God for the good things that did come of it.

This fall, I took a watercolour art class and will continue with another one in January. Albert is exercising his brain with guitar lessons this year.

Zedd (Ken) and Jade are doing well. Jade went to art school with me. It was fun doing girl-stuff together.

Brandi came home from Vancouver for a short visit for Christmas. It was so good to see her. It was the first time we've spent time with her since last Christmas, with the exception of seeing her at Bernie and Stacey's wedding in May. That weekend we got to meet Kore. He seems like a really nice guy, but as parents it's taking some time for us to accept the situation. But God is good and life carries on.

Well, this is starting to sound like a therapy session so it's probably a good thing the year is coming to an end. We look forward to 2008 and anticipate good things in store. It is our hope that God will bless each of you in a very personal and meaningful way in the coming year.

And just like that, it's over.

Ahh! I sink into my computer chair, glass of wine in hand, and contemplate putting some music on as I set out to catch up on some facebooking, email and blogging. No music, I decide. I'll just sit here in the glorious silence of my semi dark house all alone.

I love my family. I love Christmas. I love all the food. And drinking. And gifts, and wrapping and decorating and parties and food and drinking and.....

After a day of hub-bub and turkey and creative ways of dragging the gift opening out so it takes hours and tests the patience of my children, 5 o'clock was suddenly upon us. Zedd and Jade headed home with their stash of goodies, Alb headed off to work to earn more money in 12 hours than I make in a month, Jed wandered off to Christmas Eve Service at the church and I drove Brandi to the airport after a very short, but better-than-nothing visit.

I climb into my new flannel pj's and light a few candles around me and count my blessings.

2007 has been a wild ride and I thank God for the gift of His Son which has allowed me to hang on for the ride and emerge triumphant to face 2008 with anticipation and vigor. (For now.)

Mom, I'm going to die on this plane.

Those are not exactly the words a mother wants to hear in the middle of the night while on the way to the airport.

Brandi's Jazz Air flight was delayed in Vancouver for over an hour because the plane wouldn't start and it needed to be hooked to a "thing-a-ma-jig" or something for an hour before they could leave.

The little old 24 seater was a step up from a propeller plane and the two girls her age sitting near her helped the flight to pass quickly once they got off the ground. But I'm betting she'll splurge the extra hundred bucks next time and fly West Jet, get her free peanuts and arrive at a decent hour.

How many trips to Costco does it take?

I will not enter another store, with the exception of ONE more trip to Superstore, until after the 28th of December. I won't, I won't, I won't.

I've repeated this numerous times in the last 4 days. It's not working. Every day I think of just one more thing, and end up cha-chinging my debit card till it nearly melts from the friction of over-use.

The other day, I deposited my pay cheque and my Christmas bonus on the way to "my last trip to Costco," which Alb accompanied me on. He wanted to get a snow shovel. On the way to the shovel aisle we got interrupted by the Dewalt tool aisle. Uh, yeah. So long, goodbye, Christmas Bonus. And a mere $600 later, we exited the store with a piled high cart. It wasn't until after the Dewalt drill, saw and reciprocating saw, and whatever else was in the case, were unpacked and charging their batteries we realized we forgot the shovel.

After work today, I thought I'd just whip into Costco one last time and grab a shovel and a few other items I'd thought of. I managed to keep it just over $150 this time. As I drove into my bumpy snow-packed driveway, I realized ... yup, I forgot the shovel.

I am not going back there! Where are the kids who came around last week offering to shovel it for me for 5 bucks? I had no cash so I had to turn them away. Yoohooo boys! I have cash now. Come Back!