Well, not much to report from Durham this week as we really only spent Monday in town and most of that day was spent cleaning and packing but we were also able to meet with our friends Mark & Dana for a Mexican dinner. It was yummy and being with friends is always good. The temperature on Monday reminded me more of winter and felt more like Christmas to me than any other day I’ve been here. The only thing missing was snow and Mark agreed – he’s from Michigan and is frustrated that there’s no snow here and cannot understand how his wife is always cold when it’s never less than 50 degrees here. And even though Kevin is from the mountains of Northeast Tennessee, he concurs with Dana that it’s just entirely too cold here and wishes it was warmer. Now, I’ve never been one to really care for the cold but I think psychologically I like the change in temperature; that’s how you know the seasons have really changed. Plus, in winter there’s nothing like snuggling up on the couch in a warm blanket with a cup of hot chocolate and watching a movie like Elf, or The Muppet Christmas Carol or even some old black & white movie. It just feels like winter when you can do that. Maybe that’s just me. Or maybe I’m just crazy. Well, I am the latter but I know there are people out there who agree with me.
Tuesday was putting the finishing touches on the packing and loading of the truck so that we could start heading for Tennessee. We got a later start than we wanted (as usual) but that is much less of a concern now that the trip to the in-law’s only takes four hours instead of ten. Let me tell you, that is a much easier trip to tolerate but it didn’t come without incident. Upon leaving Durham, it was decided that I would drive the length of the trip so that I could get accustomed to the roads and the route as Kevin has already made the journey several times and was quite familiar with the course. As the evening drew near, I began to have issues with street lights and car lights. As with a migraine, I had become hyper-sensitive to light but fortunately this time without the pain of the headache. I tried to continue to drive but the lights were everywhere and the pain continued. I managed to drive a little more than an hour before I was forced to stop. We pulled into a gas station, filled up and Kevin took the wheel. Just a few short moments later I was asleep. I don’t know what it is about me but even when I’m asleep, I can sense a disturbance in the force. I slept about an hour before waking to the sound of rain while driving in the mountains in Virginia. Moments later cars began to slow to a stop on the interstate all the while our concern growing about the situation as we were having flashbacks to the winter of ’04 when our ten hour trip took 24 hours due to a heavy snow storm and ice. We weren’t sure of the current situation as it appeared only to be raining and we could not see the flash of lights of any emergency vehicles. For the next 45 minutes, we inched along the interstate discovering that the reason people were stopped was because of ice on the road and a multi-car accident most likely due to the ice. The bad road conditions only stretched about 2 to 3 miles and then the roads became clear. We were cautious for a while after the ice just to be safe but we made it through Virginia unscathed. The rest of the trip was uneventful even though it rained on us all the way to Tennessee. We arrived at mom and dad’s around ten o’clock, chatted for a while then went to bed.
Wednesday was Christmas Eve which was the day I finished wrapping the gifts for the following day. The family left the house around five o’clock and headed out to Pap’s for Christmas Eve dinner with him and the aunts, uncles, and cousins. I felt like the evening was much more subdued than years previous but maybe that was just me. After dinner I was designated Santa because apparently I was good at passing out the gifts to all the kids last year. I don’t even remember doing that before and tried to argue that but I was out numbered and overruled. I clambered through gifts onto the floor and began to pass out the gifts to all the kids and Pap. It actually worked out to where we had a train of people; I would announce the name on the tag and the kids who were in line passed along the packages to the correct person. It worked out perfectly. The gift opening this year went rather quickly because there were so few packages which I’m gathering is related to everyone having financial difficulties this past year. All in all, though, I think the kids were happy with their gifts even though I don’t know who got what except for my two nephews. For the past few years the adults have done a “Chinese gift exchange” – that’s what it’s referred to down there. All the adults who want to participate buy a gift usually totaling less than $20.00. The gifts are wrapped anonymously and labeled to designate whether the gift is appropriate for a male, female or either. We then put numbers in a hat equal to the number of participants then each person draws a number out of the hat. We then take turns either choosing a gift from under the tree or taking it out of the hands of another person. This year the hot ticket items were an air hockey set you place on a table, glass bakeware set and a pocket knife. Fortunately I had one of the last numbers so that I could pick the gift I wanted which was the cookbook that I brought for the exchange. No one else picked it up from under the tree so I grabbed it, opened it and showed it to everyone then got a disappointing look from Stacey (Kevin’s aunt) who said she wished she would have known that was under the tree because she would have taken it. Luckily for me I was able to go home with it.
Not only was I able to leave with my cookbook, I actually left with several other gifts as well. Kevin’s Aunt Paula came over to look at my book and asked me if I like cookbooks and naturally I replied in the affirmative. She mentioned to me that she had several of Granny’s cookbooks that she would be happy to give to me. Paula mentioned this to Pap who then came up to me and asked me if I liked to cook. I said that I did and asked him how he thought I kept my figure. He laughed his little grunt of a laugh and then decided he was going to see what he had upstairs for me. I followed him up the stairs into a room that looked like it had become Granny’s craft room. Pap walked into a closet and starting pulling out all sorts of different crafting items. He wound up giving me a box of miscellaneous things—fabric, craft magazines and a few unfinished projects among other things. He was perplexed that he did not come across any cookbooks but decided we’d check in the room across the hall to see what else we might find. And there it was. A glorious pile of books in every color of the rainbow, many were faded due to their age and many years of use, and some looked newer but still showed signs of love. Pap walked over to the pile and picked up several cookbooks and handed them to me. Then he reached down and handed me several more books. Pap asked me if they looked like good books and I said that they did but I had some reservations about taking all of the books that were just given to me as I did not want to upset anyone. He said, “The only one you’re going to upset is me and that’s if you don’t take them. Don’t worry about anybody else.” Well, I don’t want to upset Pap that’s for sure so I gratefully took them and headed back downstairs where I met Kevin and showed him my new treasure. I looked through some of the books for a while but then people started packing up to leave so I had Kevin and Sam (Kevin’s brother) help me take my books and craft items to the car. We came back inside and I worked my way toward the kitchen where I met Paula again. I told her that Pap had given me some of Granny’s cookbooks but I told her that I was concerned about it; that I didn’t want to make anyone upset because I was taking their mom’s/grandmother’s precious things. She told me not to worry about anyone else – that it was fine that I was taking the cookbooks. She also said that she was glad that I got some of them because of Kevin. (Granny of course loved all of her grandchildren but we have a hunch that Granny had an extra special place in her heart for Kevin.) Feeling somewhat at ease about the self-imposed stress, we made our rounds to give hugs and wish everyone a merry Christmas. I also made my yearly plans with Pap to come back and visit when the weather is more cooperative so he can take me for a ride in his golf cart where he will whisk me away from Kevin and we will have a night on the town and maybe not even come back. My agreement to the plan had once again satisfied Pap so we were allowed to head back to the in-law’s. As Kevin, Sam and I headed out the door, we noticed how much it was raining (pouring) and it was at this point that Sam and I became anxious—Sam because he doesn’t feel comfortable driving long distances in the rain and me because I’ve become especially paranoid about driving in the rain since I was in a car accident as a teenager (as a passenger, not a driver). [In this particular accident, the car slid off the road and tumbled down a hill almost landing in a pond. And I *just* had a self-realization—there is a good chance this incident was the catalyst for my need to have control especially while driving.] And knowing Sam wasn’t comfortable didn’t help the situation any either. I was sitting in the front seat during the trip back home all the while holding tightly onto four Little Golden Books that Sara (Xander’s mom/Kevin’s sister) left behind. I am not sure how by the end of the 45 minute drive that I was still holding four books instead of one as I was sure I had fused them together by the sheer strength with which I was holding them. We arrived safely back at the house where we all tried to de-stress from the ride. I eventually went back downstairs to finish up the few gifts I had left to wrap. I took the finished packages upstairs and placed them under the tree then took Kevin’s computer and played on it for a few hours until I was tired enough to go to bed.
Christmas morning we were awakened at 9:00AM to start opening gifts. We all gathered in the living room where Sara passed out presents to everyone and we opened them. We all got some nice things—movies, clothes, scrapbooking stuff, and a cold from my nephew—but there was one gift however, was especially chosen for all the girls by my father-in-law. He gave us all a Christmas album by Faith Hill. This album was apparently very popular in Tennessee as he claims to have had to go to five different stores to find one for each of the three girls. I opened mine right away and we played it in the radio while we finished opening gifts. After the gift opening, my mother-in-law went into the kitchen and began cooking a large breakfast—bacon, eggs, biscuits and gravy—and it was as delicious as ever. After breakfast, though, we all headed back to our respective rooms for a nap. The napping was good but not long enough for me; Kevin slept something like four hours and got up just shortly before his mom started to get dinner ready. We all ate dinner together and almost everyone cleared their plates from the table then Sam and I started on the dishes. I have to say I’m thankful for the dishwasher they have because I certainly didn’t want to wash all of those dishes by hand. Shortly after the dishes were started and the table cleared, we set up the game Apples to Apples—a fun game where there is a judge who pulls a card from the deck with an adjective on it and each player has to find a card in their hand that has a noun on it that most closely matches the adjective *and* the personality of the judge. That’s a poor explanation for a very fun game. So, we’re several rounds into the game when all of the sudden there is a very loud sound of a gong. We all look at each other in confusion then moments later hear the sound of the gong again. We looked over into the living room to find Xander (who is 1 ½) standing at the entertainment center holding the door open all the while having the worried ”am I in trouble?” look on his face. Somehow he managed to open the entertainment center door and push a button to play AC/DC’s Hells Bells which was in the CD player. Once we realized what happened and the song started playing we all started to laugh but Xander still wasn’t sure about the situation. He eventually realized he wasn’t going to get into trouble so he started to dance. He’s too cute. We all laughed about the situation some more then went back to playing several more rounds of the game until we decided we wanted to do something else. Dad was getting tired but mom wanted to stay up for a while and I wanted to stay up because we hadn’t had dessert yet and it was cheesecake and I wasn’t about to pass it up. And let me tell you, if you ever visit the Burkes and you want some food, you’d better get it while there is some because if you snooze, you lose. I was fortunate to get some of the yummy cheesecake with mixed berry topping which made me happy. Kevin then decided that his parents needed to see The Dark Knight (which I also recommend if you haven’t seen it; it’s very good even if you don’t like superhero movies). Kevin’s dad was too tired to stay up for the movie so he was going to head to bed. Kevin asked his mom if she was going to stay and actually sit for the whole movie—she tends to multi-task during movies which drives everyone nuts. Her reply was priceless. She says she likes to do things while a movie is on because she has so much to do. “It’s a motion picture and I’m in motion.” This might be one of those ‘you had to be there’ moments but I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard. I never in a million years would have thought to say that. After a good laugh and a discussion about her comment, dad went to bed while Kevin, mom and I began watching the movie. It wasn’t too far into it that mom got up and did whatever it is that she does but Kevin had the remote handy and paused the movie every time she left. After the third or so trip, she came back and got a little snippy with Kevin for stopping the movie on her account. “It’s never going to be over if you keep pausing it.” He got snippy right back and commented on how she was leaving at very important times during the movie. He promised not to stop the movie again if she got up (and she did) but she was there for the ending and she got the gist of the movie which I think is her objective when watching movies anyway. After a long evening, we all went to bed in hopes of being rested for the next day.
I’ll try to be brief about Friday as it didn’t yield too much of anything and I appear to be rambling.
Around 11:00AM James, Kevin’s best friend from middle school, called. He was in the neighborhood and wanted to stop by for a while to see everyone. I told him that was fine but I had to wake up Kevin from his deep slumber. Kevin and James were able to catch up a little bit while I was baby sitting Xander. It was really a self appointed job as Sara and mom had to make a run to the store and Matt (Xander’s dad) was simply too tired to stay awake—the baby was crying all through the night and Matt took care of him. I enjoyed playing with him while the boys talked. They decided that we needed to get out of the house for a while so we were going to go to lunch and just hang out. We went to Cheddars to eat where I ordered the Monte Cristo sandwich which was basically a raspberry jelly doughnut lightly dusted with powdered sugar and on the inside was filled with ham, turkey and cheese; it may sound gross but unfortunately it was really good. Not what I expected from the description but very good nonetheless. After lunch, Kevin, James and I went to Circuit City and looked around. For what? I don’t know but we did. And then we went to Target which was surprisingly not a mad house for the after Christmas returns and discounted shopping. Our shopping trip was rather uneventful but it got us out of the house for a few hours anyway. James needed to get back to his pregnant wife (due in March) and help care for her which was fine. We were sorry we missed seeing Katie but she had to work that morning which was understandable.
We went back to the house and really didn’t do too incredibly much the rest of the day. Mom fixed dinner and we all ate it then everyone decided they wanted to watch I Am Legend which was one of Kevin’s Christmas gifts but I went outside onto the deck and called my parents and my niece. I was on the phone with everyone for most of the movie which was fine with me. I miss my family but the pain didn’t tear at my heart too terribly only because for the last six years, Kevin and I have spent Christmas with his family so it was ‘just like every other year’ in that respect. So, the family finished the movie, mom and I sat and watched some TV—they spoil me by letting me watch whichever cable shows I want since we don’t have cable—and we commented on the shows and the designs, you know, girl stuff. That’s always fun to do but the night was drawing to a close so it wasn’t long before Kevin and I headed to bed.
After a restless sleep, I got out of bed Saturday morning with a headache and sore throat (thank you, Aden). I proceeded to go upstairs to find some medication that might help my symptoms. I wasn’t sure if it really was from being sick or if it was allergies due to being cooped up in the house for several days with cigarette smoke. Kevin’s mom came into the kitchen and saw me hunting for drugs, pointed me in the right direction then offered to make a cup of hot chocolate for me. I thought the warmth of the drink sounded good and it certainly felt good going down once I got past the pain of the sore throat. After drinking my hot chocolate, I decided I’d take a shower since Kevin was still asleep. After my shower I went into the living room and sat in the chair all the while fighting to stay awake. After about an hour I decided I’d go back downstairs to lie down until Kevin was ready to leave for home. Kevin got up just as I was going downstairs to rest. I got into the bed and almost instantly I feel asleep and that’s where I stayed for the next five hours. We were hoping to leave by around noon but we didn’t make it out until around five o’clock. Again, not such a big deal since we live SO much closer but we really didn’t want to drive in the mountains in the dark again. The weather was warm enough, though, that ice wasn’t an issue this time. It did start to rain once we got into North Carolina but it was really more of a light shower. And other than the rain, the trip home was uneventful. We got home, unloaded our things from the car, unpacked some clothes which I threw in the washer straightaway, relaxed for a little while then it was off to bed.
And that was Christmas with the Burkes for 2008. We hope your holidays were safe, happy and full of lots and lots of cookies! Uh, we mean love! :)
Tuesday was putting the finishing touches on the packing and loading of the truck so that we could start heading for Tennessee. We got a later start than we wanted (as usual) but that is much less of a concern now that the trip to the in-law’s only takes four hours instead of ten. Let me tell you, that is a much easier trip to tolerate but it didn’t come without incident. Upon leaving Durham, it was decided that I would drive the length of the trip so that I could get accustomed to the roads and the route as Kevin has already made the journey several times and was quite familiar with the course. As the evening drew near, I began to have issues with street lights and car lights. As with a migraine, I had become hyper-sensitive to light but fortunately this time without the pain of the headache. I tried to continue to drive but the lights were everywhere and the pain continued. I managed to drive a little more than an hour before I was forced to stop. We pulled into a gas station, filled up and Kevin took the wheel. Just a few short moments later I was asleep. I don’t know what it is about me but even when I’m asleep, I can sense a disturbance in the force. I slept about an hour before waking to the sound of rain while driving in the mountains in Virginia. Moments later cars began to slow to a stop on the interstate all the while our concern growing about the situation as we were having flashbacks to the winter of ’04 when our ten hour trip took 24 hours due to a heavy snow storm and ice. We weren’t sure of the current situation as it appeared only to be raining and we could not see the flash of lights of any emergency vehicles. For the next 45 minutes, we inched along the interstate discovering that the reason people were stopped was because of ice on the road and a multi-car accident most likely due to the ice. The bad road conditions only stretched about 2 to 3 miles and then the roads became clear. We were cautious for a while after the ice just to be safe but we made it through Virginia unscathed. The rest of the trip was uneventful even though it rained on us all the way to Tennessee. We arrived at mom and dad’s around ten o’clock, chatted for a while then went to bed.
Wednesday was Christmas Eve which was the day I finished wrapping the gifts for the following day. The family left the house around five o’clock and headed out to Pap’s for Christmas Eve dinner with him and the aunts, uncles, and cousins. I felt like the evening was much more subdued than years previous but maybe that was just me. After dinner I was designated Santa because apparently I was good at passing out the gifts to all the kids last year. I don’t even remember doing that before and tried to argue that but I was out numbered and overruled. I clambered through gifts onto the floor and began to pass out the gifts to all the kids and Pap. It actually worked out to where we had a train of people; I would announce the name on the tag and the kids who were in line passed along the packages to the correct person. It worked out perfectly. The gift opening this year went rather quickly because there were so few packages which I’m gathering is related to everyone having financial difficulties this past year. All in all, though, I think the kids were happy with their gifts even though I don’t know who got what except for my two nephews. For the past few years the adults have done a “Chinese gift exchange” – that’s what it’s referred to down there. All the adults who want to participate buy a gift usually totaling less than $20.00. The gifts are wrapped anonymously and labeled to designate whether the gift is appropriate for a male, female or either. We then put numbers in a hat equal to the number of participants then each person draws a number out of the hat. We then take turns either choosing a gift from under the tree or taking it out of the hands of another person. This year the hot ticket items were an air hockey set you place on a table, glass bakeware set and a pocket knife. Fortunately I had one of the last numbers so that I could pick the gift I wanted which was the cookbook that I brought for the exchange. No one else picked it up from under the tree so I grabbed it, opened it and showed it to everyone then got a disappointing look from Stacey (Kevin’s aunt) who said she wished she would have known that was under the tree because she would have taken it. Luckily for me I was able to go home with it.
Not only was I able to leave with my cookbook, I actually left with several other gifts as well. Kevin’s Aunt Paula came over to look at my book and asked me if I like cookbooks and naturally I replied in the affirmative. She mentioned to me that she had several of Granny’s cookbooks that she would be happy to give to me. Paula mentioned this to Pap who then came up to me and asked me if I liked to cook. I said that I did and asked him how he thought I kept my figure. He laughed his little grunt of a laugh and then decided he was going to see what he had upstairs for me. I followed him up the stairs into a room that looked like it had become Granny’s craft room. Pap walked into a closet and starting pulling out all sorts of different crafting items. He wound up giving me a box of miscellaneous things—fabric, craft magazines and a few unfinished projects among other things. He was perplexed that he did not come across any cookbooks but decided we’d check in the room across the hall to see what else we might find. And there it was. A glorious pile of books in every color of the rainbow, many were faded due to their age and many years of use, and some looked newer but still showed signs of love. Pap walked over to the pile and picked up several cookbooks and handed them to me. Then he reached down and handed me several more books. Pap asked me if they looked like good books and I said that they did but I had some reservations about taking all of the books that were just given to me as I did not want to upset anyone. He said, “The only one you’re going to upset is me and that’s if you don’t take them. Don’t worry about anybody else.” Well, I don’t want to upset Pap that’s for sure so I gratefully took them and headed back downstairs where I met Kevin and showed him my new treasure. I looked through some of the books for a while but then people started packing up to leave so I had Kevin and Sam (Kevin’s brother) help me take my books and craft items to the car. We came back inside and I worked my way toward the kitchen where I met Paula again. I told her that Pap had given me some of Granny’s cookbooks but I told her that I was concerned about it; that I didn’t want to make anyone upset because I was taking their mom’s/grandmother’s precious things. She told me not to worry about anyone else – that it was fine that I was taking the cookbooks. She also said that she was glad that I got some of them because of Kevin. (Granny of course loved all of her grandchildren but we have a hunch that Granny had an extra special place in her heart for Kevin.) Feeling somewhat at ease about the self-imposed stress, we made our rounds to give hugs and wish everyone a merry Christmas. I also made my yearly plans with Pap to come back and visit when the weather is more cooperative so he can take me for a ride in his golf cart where he will whisk me away from Kevin and we will have a night on the town and maybe not even come back. My agreement to the plan had once again satisfied Pap so we were allowed to head back to the in-law’s. As Kevin, Sam and I headed out the door, we noticed how much it was raining (pouring) and it was at this point that Sam and I became anxious—Sam because he doesn’t feel comfortable driving long distances in the rain and me because I’ve become especially paranoid about driving in the rain since I was in a car accident as a teenager (as a passenger, not a driver). [In this particular accident, the car slid off the road and tumbled down a hill almost landing in a pond. And I *just* had a self-realization—there is a good chance this incident was the catalyst for my need to have control especially while driving.] And knowing Sam wasn’t comfortable didn’t help the situation any either. I was sitting in the front seat during the trip back home all the while holding tightly onto four Little Golden Books that Sara (Xander’s mom/Kevin’s sister) left behind. I am not sure how by the end of the 45 minute drive that I was still holding four books instead of one as I was sure I had fused them together by the sheer strength with which I was holding them. We arrived safely back at the house where we all tried to de-stress from the ride. I eventually went back downstairs to finish up the few gifts I had left to wrap. I took the finished packages upstairs and placed them under the tree then took Kevin’s computer and played on it for a few hours until I was tired enough to go to bed.
Christmas morning we were awakened at 9:00AM to start opening gifts. We all gathered in the living room where Sara passed out presents to everyone and we opened them. We all got some nice things—movies, clothes, scrapbooking stuff, and a cold from my nephew—but there was one gift however, was especially chosen for all the girls by my father-in-law. He gave us all a Christmas album by Faith Hill. This album was apparently very popular in Tennessee as he claims to have had to go to five different stores to find one for each of the three girls. I opened mine right away and we played it in the radio while we finished opening gifts. After the gift opening, my mother-in-law went into the kitchen and began cooking a large breakfast—bacon, eggs, biscuits and gravy—and it was as delicious as ever. After breakfast, though, we all headed back to our respective rooms for a nap. The napping was good but not long enough for me; Kevin slept something like four hours and got up just shortly before his mom started to get dinner ready. We all ate dinner together and almost everyone cleared their plates from the table then Sam and I started on the dishes. I have to say I’m thankful for the dishwasher they have because I certainly didn’t want to wash all of those dishes by hand. Shortly after the dishes were started and the table cleared, we set up the game Apples to Apples—a fun game where there is a judge who pulls a card from the deck with an adjective on it and each player has to find a card in their hand that has a noun on it that most closely matches the adjective *and* the personality of the judge. That’s a poor explanation for a very fun game. So, we’re several rounds into the game when all of the sudden there is a very loud sound of a gong. We all look at each other in confusion then moments later hear the sound of the gong again. We looked over into the living room to find Xander (who is 1 ½) standing at the entertainment center holding the door open all the while having the worried ”am I in trouble?” look on his face. Somehow he managed to open the entertainment center door and push a button to play AC/DC’s Hells Bells which was in the CD player. Once we realized what happened and the song started playing we all started to laugh but Xander still wasn’t sure about the situation. He eventually realized he wasn’t going to get into trouble so he started to dance. He’s too cute. We all laughed about the situation some more then went back to playing several more rounds of the game until we decided we wanted to do something else. Dad was getting tired but mom wanted to stay up for a while and I wanted to stay up because we hadn’t had dessert yet and it was cheesecake and I wasn’t about to pass it up. And let me tell you, if you ever visit the Burkes and you want some food, you’d better get it while there is some because if you snooze, you lose. I was fortunate to get some of the yummy cheesecake with mixed berry topping which made me happy. Kevin then decided that his parents needed to see The Dark Knight (which I also recommend if you haven’t seen it; it’s very good even if you don’t like superhero movies). Kevin’s dad was too tired to stay up for the movie so he was going to head to bed. Kevin asked his mom if she was going to stay and actually sit for the whole movie—she tends to multi-task during movies which drives everyone nuts. Her reply was priceless. She says she likes to do things while a movie is on because she has so much to do. “It’s a motion picture and I’m in motion.” This might be one of those ‘you had to be there’ moments but I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard. I never in a million years would have thought to say that. After a good laugh and a discussion about her comment, dad went to bed while Kevin, mom and I began watching the movie. It wasn’t too far into it that mom got up and did whatever it is that she does but Kevin had the remote handy and paused the movie every time she left. After the third or so trip, she came back and got a little snippy with Kevin for stopping the movie on her account. “It’s never going to be over if you keep pausing it.” He got snippy right back and commented on how she was leaving at very important times during the movie. He promised not to stop the movie again if she got up (and she did) but she was there for the ending and she got the gist of the movie which I think is her objective when watching movies anyway. After a long evening, we all went to bed in hopes of being rested for the next day.
I’ll try to be brief about Friday as it didn’t yield too much of anything and I appear to be rambling.
Around 11:00AM James, Kevin’s best friend from middle school, called. He was in the neighborhood and wanted to stop by for a while to see everyone. I told him that was fine but I had to wake up Kevin from his deep slumber. Kevin and James were able to catch up a little bit while I was baby sitting Xander. It was really a self appointed job as Sara and mom had to make a run to the store and Matt (Xander’s dad) was simply too tired to stay awake—the baby was crying all through the night and Matt took care of him. I enjoyed playing with him while the boys talked. They decided that we needed to get out of the house for a while so we were going to go to lunch and just hang out. We went to Cheddars to eat where I ordered the Monte Cristo sandwich which was basically a raspberry jelly doughnut lightly dusted with powdered sugar and on the inside was filled with ham, turkey and cheese; it may sound gross but unfortunately it was really good. Not what I expected from the description but very good nonetheless. After lunch, Kevin, James and I went to Circuit City and looked around. For what? I don’t know but we did. And then we went to Target which was surprisingly not a mad house for the after Christmas returns and discounted shopping. Our shopping trip was rather uneventful but it got us out of the house for a few hours anyway. James needed to get back to his pregnant wife (due in March) and help care for her which was fine. We were sorry we missed seeing Katie but she had to work that morning which was understandable.
We went back to the house and really didn’t do too incredibly much the rest of the day. Mom fixed dinner and we all ate it then everyone decided they wanted to watch I Am Legend which was one of Kevin’s Christmas gifts but I went outside onto the deck and called my parents and my niece. I was on the phone with everyone for most of the movie which was fine with me. I miss my family but the pain didn’t tear at my heart too terribly only because for the last six years, Kevin and I have spent Christmas with his family so it was ‘just like every other year’ in that respect. So, the family finished the movie, mom and I sat and watched some TV—they spoil me by letting me watch whichever cable shows I want since we don’t have cable—and we commented on the shows and the designs, you know, girl stuff. That’s always fun to do but the night was drawing to a close so it wasn’t long before Kevin and I headed to bed.
After a restless sleep, I got out of bed Saturday morning with a headache and sore throat (thank you, Aden). I proceeded to go upstairs to find some medication that might help my symptoms. I wasn’t sure if it really was from being sick or if it was allergies due to being cooped up in the house for several days with cigarette smoke. Kevin’s mom came into the kitchen and saw me hunting for drugs, pointed me in the right direction then offered to make a cup of hot chocolate for me. I thought the warmth of the drink sounded good and it certainly felt good going down once I got past the pain of the sore throat. After drinking my hot chocolate, I decided I’d take a shower since Kevin was still asleep. After my shower I went into the living room and sat in the chair all the while fighting to stay awake. After about an hour I decided I’d go back downstairs to lie down until Kevin was ready to leave for home. Kevin got up just as I was going downstairs to rest. I got into the bed and almost instantly I feel asleep and that’s where I stayed for the next five hours. We were hoping to leave by around noon but we didn’t make it out until around five o’clock. Again, not such a big deal since we live SO much closer but we really didn’t want to drive in the mountains in the dark again. The weather was warm enough, though, that ice wasn’t an issue this time. It did start to rain once we got into North Carolina but it was really more of a light shower. And other than the rain, the trip home was uneventful. We got home, unloaded our things from the car, unpacked some clothes which I threw in the washer straightaway, relaxed for a little while then it was off to bed.
And that was Christmas with the Burkes for 2008. We hope your holidays were safe, happy and full of lots and lots of cookies! Uh, we mean love! :)
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