Tons going on 'round here!

Wow, I just don't know where to even start. I guess I will start where I left off last. Stitches. The best part of the entire incident was the very quick trip to the emergency room! I was out and back home in an hour. I know that has to be a record. Later that night we walked in the Christmas parade of lights on December 1st with the kids as they walked with their school. Overall the parade was pretty, shall I say, Santa-Mariaish. Just local businesses and such with lame lights on cars or whatever. Lots of schools with terrible brass band sections, but it was fun nonetheless. However, by the end of the walk, my arm was hurting pretty badly and we were all happy to get home. I took my own stitches out ten days later. I was going to have the nursing department at school do the honors, but I ended up having to miss that day of work because dad wasn't acting quite right the night before so I needed to stay home with him and I couldn't take having them in there there any longer. Contrary to apparent popular belief, I did NOT put my own stitches in. I do own a suture kit by the way. The bill for said stitches came in and it was 850.00! Thank goodness for insurance is all I can say. Although, I have actually paid that several times over in out of pocket payment for insurance above and beyond my fringe allotment. sigh.

Now, on the home front. Mark interviewed at the College on the 30th of November for the physics lab technician. He did well and was offered the position! He was very excited but very nervous about it, naturally. I implored him to call his supervisor at his current place of employment ASAP so he had time to think about Mark leaving. Good thing. At first his supervisor was pretty mad because he knows how good a worker Mark is. And he just said, "We will talk about it Monday". Well, when Monday came around Mark told him about the job, the benefits etc and his supervisor was stoked for Mark. The school job is quite a different environment than automotive mechanics. He got his fingerprinting all done and passed with flying colors. He began work on the 11th of December. He likes it so far, and is getting more used to it every day. He is in the throngs of getting the new physics labs all set up and such. He is having fun will all the new gadgets and such that physics has to play with. He walks away from work every day saying, "I can't believe they are paying me for this". I am so happy for him that he doesn't have to be working himself physically to the bone every day. On the good note, his fringe will now count toward our insurance at Cuesta which I have carried and still will, but now the out of pocket money will only be 100.00 for medical, dental, and eye insurance. Before he joined the crew, it was over 600.00 a month out of pocket! So, it will be like an extra 539.00 added to his paycheck every month! Woo Hoo!

We have not done any Christmas Cards yet. I am hoping to get them done sometime this week, but I really want to include a family picture. It will be home grown variety in front of our Christmas tree which we did manage to get up this past weekend. It is lovely I dare say. The kids are quite anxious for Christmas this year and are unbearable with restlessness excitement at times. LOL. I am sure I was the same as a youngster.

The kids had their Christmas Program at school last week. It was very good and they all did an excellent job. The finale Hallelujah Chorus was excellent with all grades K-6 singing their hearts out. The kids were so funny. Andrew was the leader for his first grade class as they took stage and you could tell he thoroughly enjoyed the part. He strutted up to the front and center like he owned the place. It was comical. Lydia was gorgeous in her ruby red satin dress and did a great job singing. We waived to her while she was up on stage and she looked right us and shook her head, basically telling us she was NOT allowed to waive back. LOL.

We had a good rain yesterday. We dearly needed it. We got 2 inches total according to our backyard rain gauge. I think we are supposed to get more and I am ready. I love the rainy weather. I would love a good storm with lots of wind and heavy rain though I suppose that could cause some real problems in light of recent burned out areas. Perhaps I should rethink what I would like.

Off to bed. So much more to say, but my eyes are getting heavy.