A LadyLee Christmas - Year 2005

As old as my blog is, I have many Christmas tales of old. I thought I would do a little "retro" reposting, especially for those that haven't been reading me since the beginning. So here you go... a rundown of my Christmas - 5 years ago.


I didn't post about my Christmas, so here goes :)

I didn’t take much time off from work this year. I took about 30 hours of leave. (Most employees took 40 to 80 hours off.) But I prefer to work during the Holiday season because it’s nice and quiet and I can get a lot more work done when not surrounded by a lot of negative attitudes.

That probably won’t be the case next year, though. I need to stop putting this job first..

…But that’s another post. I won’t bore you with all that.

But Christmas was nice this year.

The Friday before Christmas, my brother, sister and I hopped in the car and drove out to Cobb county to hang out with Auntie and Uncle Sean… No special Christmas dinner there.. We had chili slaw dogs, fries, chips, sodas, and Key Lime Pie. We also looked at a movie… That was a lot of fun!

Christmas day was nice...

It was the first time a large portion of the family have gotten together in a long time. We haven’t gathered like that since my Grandfather died 4 years ago. It was nice to see my uncles and cousins!

And you would be proud of me… I even got along with my mother.

Dinner was good, most of all because it wasn’t traditional. Instead of Turkey and all the fixings, we had barbeque ribs and fried chicken (with all the fixings!)


Oh, and we also had some chitlins!!!! (Otherwise known as Chitterlings for you sophisticated types.)

As you can see, they disappeared fast. I was the last to get some. I haven’t had chitlins in 4 or 5 years (they messed me up BAD the last time I had them.) But this year, I decided to take my chances. They were oh so good.





My mother’s skittish frisky dog was there, all decked out in her pink rhinestone collar.

Those glowing eyes make her look like some evil Alien spawn from hell. She was quite annoying.

I got a lot of nice gifts. I gave some pretty good gifts. I gave my sister, the Diva of the world, a huge bag of towels, wash clothes, and nice bath products. I also gave out a few gift cards. I gave my mother and aunt bottled water from around the world. I give big batches of homemade cookies to the men in the family.

I would definitely like to tell you about my favorite gift that I received, and the best gift I gave…


My favorite gift…

My brother and I were doing a little running around a couple of days before Christmas. I decided to go into the Linen N’ Things in Fayetteville. (I am CONSTANTLY looking for window treatments or room-darkening blinds for my oversized windows). I didn’t see anything I wanted, but we continued to look around.

Now, I love expensive tripled scented candles. The current brand of high end candles is made by a company called Yankee Candle. I don’t like Yankee Candle candles (they’re not strong enough), but I do like their brand of car air fresheners (you know, the ones that hang from your rear view window).

I am especially fond of “Clean Cotton” scent, and I usually buy those car scents by the handful. I love that scent of clothes fresh out of the dryer!

Well, Yankee Candle has come out with the “Clean Cotton” dishwasher liquid, gentle laundry wash, counter-top cleaner, and fabric refresher.

“Look Lee,” my brother said, pointing at the items. “There’s that Clean Cotton stuff you like.”
My eyes got big, and my heart started beating faster. “Ooh, yeah! I’ma get that! How much they cost?”
We looked around, before we saw the price. “$8.99 a piece.”
I got loud like my name was Quita…
“What the hell? $8.99 for some wanna-be Dawn, Woolite, Windex, and Febreeze? Are ya’ll crazy?”
A few customers looked at me like I was half-crazy. A Linens N’ Things worker casually walked away.
“But you like it, Lee!” my brother countered.
“Bump that. I don’t like it that much!! Let’s bounce, man!”

Fast forward to Christmas morning. My brother gives me a big box.
“I want you to open my gift first, Lee,” he said with a smile.
I opened the box, and lo and behold…
There were all those “Clean Cotton” products that I’d been wailing about…


I was thoroughly shocked and surprised.
“Boy, I’m gonna make this last!”
“You might as well use it, Lee, because that’s what you’ll be getting from now on!”
Oh well, I will use it, but only sparingly.

Thanks, D! :)

The best gift I gave…

My sweet, quiet little grandma is old school. She had a 13” TV that blitzed out on her, and she decided to take it to a repairman. She mentioned this at Thanksgiving, and we were all sitting there looking at her like she was crazy, but we were like... whatever.


But on Christmas, I walked into her house and noticed it was pretty quiet, save for the chit-chat of my relatives. Later on, after we’d eaten and opened gifts, I watched my Mother and sister engage in an intense game of Scrabble.

Grandma walked up…

“So Grandmama, when are you getting’ the TV out the shop?” I asked.
“I went to pick it up the other day, and the man say it ain’t ready?”
I squinted at her. “How long has that TV been in the shop?”
“Oh, for ‘bout a year.”

I almost fell off the sofa. A 13” TV. In the shop. For a year.

“Grandmama, do you want a new TV?” I asked.
“Hunh?”
“I said do you want a new TV?”
“Yeah, I do, but the man say it’s gonna be ready soon.”
"I’ll pick you up tomorrow, and we’ll go get you a new TV."
"Oh well, okay," she muttered, while wringing her hands.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
“I don’t have the money for a new TV, Sugar..”
*Crickets*.

To make a long story short, it took me a few minutes to convince her to get a new TV.

We didn’t go the next day to get a TV (It’s was a bit rainy for a couple of days after Christmas).
But today (Friday), my brother and I went to HhGreg and bought her a nice 20” Toshiba with the built in VCR. (On Christmas, we tried to talk to her about DVDs, but this confused her. We thought it best to just get her a TV-VCR combo).

We took the TV over to her house and set it up. My brother rigged a 1972 antenna he found on an old TV in the bedroom to the new TV and programmed the channels.

All Grandmama could say was…
“Look ah here, look ah here!” over and over again.

It was nice to see a smile on my Grandma’s face! I wish I could have bought her a nice 60” flat screen!

So that’s the gist of my Christmas.

I hope your holidays have been all you wanted them to be!

Happy Monday Morning

Alas!

Hark!

I said HARK!!

'Tis it snowing on my blog??

LOL

Another Monday!

And a cold one at that. The temperature in the ATL right now is 30 degrees.

It didn't feel that way. Maybe because I had my ear muffs on.

(I still gotta go buy a coat and some gloves, though. Sigh).

It is terribly quiet at work today. Lots of people are off. I usually take off around the holidays, but since I have a long cruise coming up in February, I'm considering taking that whole month off. (Oh the horror! Will this darn place survive without me? lol).

I'll think about that. Not sure how that would go over with our moronic management.

My Weekend. I had a decent weekend. Didn't do much of anything (should've been doing a little shopping. Sigh). But I did stop by Grandma's house for a spell.

And that's always a little adventure.

We sat in the living room and as usual, I did my crochet thing. (You know I'm staying for a minute when I bring out my yarn.) We sat and talked and watched a movie. Some BIZARRE apocalyptic Escape from New York craziness (It was actually called The Soldier, starring Kurt Russell. (I was deeply disturbed. Grandma wasn't paying much attention. I think she was just happy to see me.)

Then there was my Uncle Tweet. He's special. He lives outside in his truck, but comes in the house to cook. He's been known to do his drug thing, but I hear that he's been clean for a minute. I'm not sure.

But dude was in the kitchen cooking oxtails, chicken wings and hamburgers.

"You want some dinner, Lisa? We got plenty."

"Uh, I'm straight," was my lone reply.

After awhile this disturbed Grandma. "You sure you dont' want something to eat?"

"I'm cool," I said.

"Do you eat?" Grandma asked, a hard edge to her voice.

I looked down at myself. Yeah, I've lost 40 pounds this year, but I am not a skinny girl. By far.

"Uh, yes I do."

That was my cue to take my azz in the kitchen and find something to eat.

I'd eaten a couple of hours before I showed up at her house. I had some stir fried veggies with brown rice. It was so good that I had a second serving. So I was NOT hungry.

But I went in the kitchen and looked around. Uncle Tweet had the gospel music going HARD on the cheap radio sitting atop the deep freezer. Almost made me wanna whip my hair back and forth, lol.

Lo and behold, there was some cabbage and rice on the stove. I had a small bowl of that. (They still had isshas with that. Oh well).

But I had a good time. Gotta see that Oldgirl more often, especially since she only lives 10 minutes away.

Quote of the week: from Twitter...

"Motivation comes from many different sources, but it's best if it springs from within you."

Man, I could write a whole post on that one. Everybody can do what they can to motivate you, but until something from deep within motivates you, nothing is really going to happen.

Well, that's just my experience. I struggle with that even now.

Video of the week. "Olivia (Lost and Turned Out)" by The Whispers.


This is one of my FAVORITE songs. Has much story to it. My favorite lines of the song:

She's spending most of the time
Walking the streets
She has a certain quota to fill...
He wants to buy a new Seville.

I LOVE that song. Crooning about a hooker on the stroll. CLASSIC.

Whelp! That's it for today. I expect to have a decent workweek. Management isn't here. We'll all be a little kinder this week.

Well, at least I know I will.

This is our Christmas week! Make it a good one.

And

Remember the reason for the season!

TGIF!!

It's Friday!

*backflips, cartwheels and splits*

The only thing that would make this day better was if it was PAYDAY!!!

But it's not. Sigh.

Anyway, the weekend is upon us! It is shouting our names!

And this is the last weekend before Christmas!

Christmas is coming so soon. I have to get gifts together, make cookies... Fun, fun, fun!

So I'll be doing a little running around this weekend.

So here's a little randomness for you, to start off your weekend.

1. WINNERS!! I pulled winners this morning from the bevy of spiritual week comments and 1000th post comments. Our lucky winners are:

Shai

Remnants of U

Ali

Alright ladies, you have your choices of lovely prizes... Cookies, the book Write it Down, Make it Happen, or the workbook Lord Teach Me How to Pray. Take your pick.

2. Shai asked a question on a recent post about Vitamin D, in which I'm deficient. I said that there is no such thing as a fruit or vegetable that contains it naturally. She found, like I, that mushrooms contain it. Shai, that's only if they are exposed to ultraviolent light, or sunshine. I'm not sitting my mushrooms out in the sun, lol.

Vitamin D is available in dairy and it's fortified into some foods. I don't care for milk, but I eat some ice cream (about to cut it out). We make vitamin D when we are exposed to sunlight.

My problem: I haven't been walking outside much like I was doing this summer and fall, so I haven't been getting much sunlight. Couple that with me not really fooling around with much dairy, and voila: low Vitamin D. So right now, I'm taking a supplement.

And finally... I saw this on twitter this morning:

Quote of the Day:

LIVE INTENTIONALLY. Let Purpose guide you,center you, lead you forward. Be ON, FOR, WITH, and ABOUT Purpose.

Yeah, really though.
Purpose, man.... Purpose, purpose, purpose.

Ya'll have a GREAT weekend. On purpose.

**Shoe Porn**

I don't fancy myself to be a shoe woman. You won't catch an Oldgirl in a pair of heels. Ever.

I only own 4 or 5 pair of shoes. And if you disregard the flip flops, well, I really own only a couple pair.

I am more of a sneaker chick. I shall be buying a pair pretty soon.

But I love looking at shoes. Does that make any sense?

I just love a really cute shoe. Really.

So i've been seeing some lately, and I thought I'd give you a little taste of it.

My secretary Lady O always wears hot shoes. But to get her to model shoes... Man, it's like pulling teeth sometimes.

"I'ma go get my camera," I say when I look down at her shoes and it's a pair I haven't seen before. I need to take a picture.
"No," she says.
"Come on, girl, stop tripping and let me take a picture."
"No."

I have to catch her in the right mood, I suppose. And Cowgirl Cre and I were playing around with one of her purple metallic pumps one day, and she knocked it out of our hands.

I think she has the job mission statement stuck in her head. She's there to work, not to model shoes for us. LOL

But every once in awhile, she'll let me take pictures. Escpecially when she's at the copy machine located outside my cubicle area.

I like this particular shoe here.

I like the quilt-like pattern of it. And the stitching. This shoe will go well with your basic black or grey outfit. Very versatile. And it's suede. Not sure how that will hold up in the rain, but that's what she keeps a pair of sneakers in her bag. Good for you, Lady O.

Let's stroll to the other side of the LadyLee showroom.

Another cute shoe, modeled by my lovely secretary, Lady O.



She's rocking a nice animal print. I like this one because it's not the usual zebra or leopard animal pattern you see all over the place. It's a nice giraffe pattern. And the strapping there, it's a throwback to the 50's or 60's.

Just lovely! Lovely indeed!

Kindly step with me over here to peruse another nice shoe, one modeled by my fellow chemist Crystal...

That shoe is hot! That's like, a snakeskin get-up. And knowing Crystal, she bought those from a joker who actually went out and killed the snake, lol...

Let's zoom in a little closer...

I learned from super shoe queen Serenity, that is a peep-toe shoe. And it nicely shows off her french pedicure.

We stepped out in the hallway, took another picture.

That Crystal, unlike our secretary Lady O, don't mind posing for pics. Not one bit. I thought some runway music was gonna cue up or something. LOL

Now, sometimes on twitter, the ladies go a little crazy posting shoe porn twitpics of their shoes. Here's one I found particularly interesting, modeled by my blog sister, Mzinspiredmind.


You can't tell, but there's a buckle on the other side.

Now, if she would've initially twitpiced the picture above, I may have been alright. She sent this one last night over Twitter for me to use in today's post.

But seeing the buckle in the initial picture, I thought... Is that an orthopedic contraption?

Had me sitting here thinking, "Bless her heart, she has orthopedic problems, but she's going to wear her heels."

I thought she was doing some Forrest Gump type thing: attaching some braces to that strap, and working it out.

Funny. They explained to me that it was part of the shoe. I can see that clearly here. I like it. It is a simple pump, but it is elevated by that plaid thing going on... and that strap around the ankle.

That's a HOT shoe.

So that's our shoe porn for the week.

I do hope it was a little entertainment for your eyes!

Almost makes me want to go out and buy a nice pair of high heels!

Not!

Tuesday Blues and Crazy Convos

I woke up this morning at 4 a.m. and felt like CRAP!

It has to be due to the 14 degree ATL temperatures. And that howling wind.

And me needing to caulk my bedrooms windows, because I was catching a draft or something.

Not to mention the ceiling fan was swirling at full speed.

So an Oldgirl woke up at 4 in the morning, and it felt like someone had taken a torch to my right sinus passage, my throat and my right ear. (Anytime I'm sick, it's always the right side. Not sure what that's about.)

And it just don't help that Aunt Flo is here. I'm like those women of the bible. I need to be in a tent on the edge of the city. Enough said.


So I called in sick today. I hesitated as usual. But I heard my doctor's voice, high and shrill, her chastising me...

"If you don't feel well, don't go to work! Please!"

This is good advice. I have over 700 hours of sick leave. So I need to use it, if I need it.

So I've been in bed all day long... sleeping on and off. I've been drinking cold water and orange juice. I feel a lot better. Not sure how I'll be tomorrow.

Maybe I need to go buy a coat, scarf and gloves.

And maybe I need to turn off the ceiling fan.

While I was laying here, my cell phone rings. It's my doctor's office.

My heart leaps for a moment when this happens. It's always about some test result. I must say, over the past 2 years it's been nothing bad. Last time it was some silliness.

"If you're taking supplements, please stop. Too much Vitamin B in your blood. And you have a slight Vitamin D deficiency."

I don't know what to do about that. I'm not taking supplements right now. And I'm not going to stop eating my vegetables and fruits. BITE ME.

And I'm not drinking milk. Any dairy I drink goes STRAIGHT to my mucus membranes. And I'm blowing snot the rest of the day. NO.

This time they called and were upset about my bill payments.

I have a balance of -$225.00. This means I have a $225 credit at my Doctor's office.

I am cool with that. Apparently the chick that does the billing isn't. She's new. She whined about it.

This happened a couple of years ago. I like to have a huge credit just in case I need a test. Trust, that $225 will get dented hard if I need a ecocardiogram, a 24 hour urine test, ultrasounds, Xrays, or a bone density test. So my remedy for that is a simple $25 dollars out of my check every 2 weeks to my Doc. I go every 6 weeks, and I don't have to worry about nothing. I can just walk in and out.

Some chick called me back then and told me stop doing my $25 dollar ritual. Result: I ended up with a $400 dollar bill somehow. I was HOT over this. And I didn't go back until I paid that amount off. (Some 10 weeks later).

But when I went back, Dr. B. and I had an interesting conversation.

"Lee, I haven't seen you in awhile."

"No you haven't," I said. I was sitting in a chair in the room (I REFUSE to get up on the exam table). "I'm here now."

We discussed some test results. My lupus was still active (as usual). We discussed a few more things.

She checked my joints for tenderness. "So, why haven't I seen you."

"Because I owe you money, Dr. B!"

She looked up at me. She's a slight indian woman, only 4'8" tall, but she has a mean stare, and will go off on me, making me all weepy. She could tell I was getting a bit excited. I could tell she was wondering what she had said to have my voice all pitchy.

"You know you can just come in and out. You get a bill, pay when you can. I just need to make sure you are alright. With this lupus, things can be okay one minute, and you fall off a cliff the next."

"But Dr. B.," I said. "I can't come in here and owing you money!"

I ran down what happen. And I was very DRAMATIC about it. I told her my method of dealing with my medical bills.

I had the shaky voice and lip quiver. Tried to produce a tear drop, but it didn't happen.

She picked up her stethascope and checked my heart. (I was having pleurisy isshas).

"You know, you can make your biweekly payments if you like. I don't have a problem with that."
"But that nurse who called me, she said I couldn't. Dr. B.! I just wanna make sure you get YOUR money!"

She put her stethascope in her pocket. "Hold on, Lee. I'll be back."

She left my room and went OFF on somebody. Man I hate to get people in trouble, but doggonit, if I got a system that works, go sit down and let me work it.

She came back, red in the face. "Lee, you be sure to do your biweekly payments. You won't have any more problems."

*lee cheesing hard like Celie*

I like my Doctor. She's a vegetarian, so I can pick her brain. There's no such thing as veggies with Vitamin D (we've been arguing about that), but overall, she's a good Doc, and has done well with keeping track of my progress and catching problems before they get too bad.

Now, there's a new chick in charge of billing... and she called me today, and we had a long convo, with the insane question of "Ma'am, I just got a check from your bank. Do you want me to destroy it?"

*lee kicking Oscar-Tyrone out of frustration*

"No. Cash that. Add it to my credit."

Looks like I'll be having another weepy talk with Dr. B. about this. Humph!

Really.