New Year’s Eve (365/365)

Youth is when you're allowed to stay up late on New Year's Eve.  Middle age is when you're forced to. 

William E. ("Bill") Vaughan (American columnist and author, 1915–1977)

TIME:  5:59 PM
PLACE:  Mungo’s Restaurant
SUBJECT:  Me (taken by HH)

HandsomeHusband and I had a “once in a blue moon” occurrence this evening.  No kids.  Really, no kids.  My dad generously offered to keep them overnight this New Year’s Eve.  Of course, I jumped all over that!  Except for the time that my mom took DQ overnight in 1998 when we were both sick as dogs, I don’t think that HH and I have been without kids one way or another since DramaQueen was born in 1997.  We went to dinner with some friends and then went to see the movie “Up in The Air” with George Clooney.  We arrived back at home about 11:30pm, and were in bed by 12:01am.  We are the original party animals.

Twisted (364/365)

 
George Costanza: What was wrong with that? I had a different interpretation! Do you
know anything about this pretzel guy?! Maybe he's been in the bar a really long
time and he's really depressed because he has no job and no woman and he's
parking cars for a living! (out the window to honking cars) Alright! Alright!
Shut up! Shut up! I hear you! I'm coming down! These pretzels are making me
thirsty!

“The Alternate Side.” Seinfeld. (Season 3). Perf. Jason Alexander. Castle Rock Entertainment, West-Shapiro. 1991.

TIME:  9:17 PM
PLACE:  The living room
SUBJECT:  Balloon sculpture

StellaDella has been playing with a balloon twisting book and activity set.  The set has balloons, a hand pump and an instruction book to make many different balloon animals and objects.  For the last couple of days, she has been blowing up and twisting balloons.  Her specialty?  Balloon pretzels – hold the salt please.

St. Louis Skyline (363/365)

 
The first time I ever saw St. Louis, I could have bought it for six million dollars, and it was the mistake of my life that I did not do it.

Mark Twain (1835-1910). Life on the Mississippi. Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1883.

TIME:  9:12 AM
PLACE:  Sauget, IL
SUBJECT:  St. Louis skyline

MonkeyBoy had another baseball camp with the Gateway Grizzlies yesterday and today from 9am to noon.  This one was held inside and focused on batting and pitching.  After dropping him off this morning, I stopped on the frontage road leading from the stadium and took this photo of the view of the Arch and skyline with the overcast sky.  I don’t like the grey dreariness of winter – how many more days is it until spring?

In other news, DramaQueen had her hair “low-lighted” today with an “All-spice” color.  She loves how it turned out. 

These ARE Pillows (362/365)

 
[waking up after sharing the same bed in the motel]
Neal: Del... Why did you kiss my ear?
Del: Why are you holding my hand?
Neal: [frowns] Where's your other hand?
Del: Between two pillows...
Neal: Those aren't pillows!

Hughes, John. Planes, Trains & Automobiles. Perf. Steve Martin and John Candy. Hughes Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, 1987.

TIME:  8:29 PM
PLACE:  The couch
SUBJECT:  New pillows

I received some money from my dad for Christmas and this is what I purchased with part of it – pillows for the living room couch.  I know, I know, you can hardly contain yourself from the excitement of it all.  This is when you know you are an old, boring, married lady – you spend your Christmas money on decorative accessories for the house and then, to top it off, you take a picture of it for your blog.  I am so stinking pathetic.

Sedum And Snow (361/365)

 
Now the hedgerow
Is blanched for an hour with transitory blossom
Of snow, a bloom more sudden
Than that of summer

T.S. (Thomas Stearns) Eliot (1888-1965), Anglo-American critic, poet. Little Gidding (Four Quartets). . . Oxford Anthology of English Literature, The, Vols. I-II. Frank Kermode and John Hollander, general eds. (1973) Oxford University Press.

TIME:  4:27 PM
PLACE:  Front yard
SUBJECT:  Sedum in snow

We received a little dusting of snow this morning.  The kids were all excited, however we didn’t have much accumulation.  This is my “Autumn Joy” sedum, that I planted late this summer in my front flower beds.  I like this sedum, it started white, then gradually turned pink and finally a lovely red color.  I especially like the dark seed heads that remain on the plant over the winter.  I think it provides a nice contrast to the white snow. 

Thanks For The Gumball Popeye! (360/365)

 
Willy Wonka: Don't you know what this is?
Violet Beauregarde: By gum, it's gum.
Willy Wonka: [happily, but sarcastically] Wrong! It's the most amazing, fabulous, sensational gum in the whole world.
Violet Beauregarde: What's so fab about it?
Willy Wonka: This little piece of gum is a three-course dinner.
Mr. Salt: Bull.
Willy Wonka: No, roast beef. But I haven't got it quite right yet.

Stuart, Mel. Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. Perf. Gene Wilder, Denise Nickerson and Roy Kinnear. David L. Wolper Productions. 1971. 

TIME:  2:05 PM
PLACE:  The window seat
SUBJECT:  Gumball machine

We (DramaQueen and I) did wake up at the butt crack of dawn and made the trek to the mall for some after-Christmas shopping.  We didn’t do too much damage; I picked up a couple of ornaments, some T-shirts and pillows for the living room couch.  Oh, yes and a festive gold tinsel tree to hold more thrifty ornaments.  The tree I bought at Dillard's where people were stinking nuts!  They were buying the German ornaments and nutcrackers by the boxful – to resell on eBay later I  bet’cha.  While I was there, I picked up a couple of 4lb boxes of gumballs to fill our gumball machine.  It’s been empty since early September.  Now MonkeyBoy & StellaDella are scrounging the house for nickels to put in it.

Merry Christmas! (359/365)

 
“There's nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.”

Bombeck, Erma. I Lost Everything in the Post-Natal Depression. New York. Doubleday & Co. 1973.

TIME:  7:48 AM
PLACE:  The living room
SUBJECT:  Christmas tree
(photo taken by HH)

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas!  Here at the Sujomi household, we opened presents, HH made a tasty breakfast (and cleaned up!), Grandpa came by to see what Santa brought the kids and we spent the rest of the day playing with new toys and just being lazy.  A perfect Christmas day in my opinion.  Tomorrow, DQ and I are leaving the house “bright and squirrely” to meet my sister, sister-in-law and niece and hit the after Christmas sales.  DQ will be armed with her new phone in case we are separated by the masses.  She can’t wait.