Nat Your Average Story: I am Falling Behind in my Blogging because Retail at Christmas...it's Making my Head Hurt...

Well...Christmas is less than two days away and I should have posted this on Monday but I have the joy (read - misfortune) of working in retail at Christmas time and Lord knows that is probably about as close to the seventh circle of Hell as it can get. If I can only survive till tomorrow night then maybe there are better things on the horizon. I have my fingers and toes and arms and legs and maybe even my eyes crossed...I'm praying for a Christmas miracle y'all!

Anyway - pictures from the past week - the month of December feels like it has gone by in a blur!

Christmas at Rosemont on Monday night - so beautiful!

Why yes, you can lock me into this wine cellar - that will be 100% fine.

Watson is getting quite a lot of begging practice in with all the Christmas treats that are all of a sudden available...

Tuesday morning snuggles by the tree.

The mall has been opening especially early this week because it has extra festive hours - which should really be called all the extra hours that you want to run screaming. I was opening this week because I had to be able to ride with my Mom because I was without a car for a part of the week while we waited for all my insurance things to process. Let me tell you something - there is no one shopping at 7 AM on any morning. At all. It was good I was working in the morning though because each night this past week had some kind of Christmas activity - the schedule looked something like this:

Monday - work and Christmas at Rosemont after supper.

Tuesday - work and book club at Long Branch Plantation

Wednesday - work and Ladies Bible Study

Thursday - work, Kitchen of Hope and Framily Christmas/supper

Friday - work and pick up Lindsey from the airport

Saturday - work and do the Christmas through the Years tour at Sky Meadows

I feel tired just recapping all of that in a list....

A look at a couple of the Christmas trees at our house - so pretty!

As I've mentioned in previous blog posts - my Mom and I attend a book club at a nearby plantation house - Long Branch. We had our December meeting on Tuesday night and I don't know if the fog or the closeness to Christmas or the fact that the original meeting had been moved back two weeks - maybe it was all three combined - the only people there were me, my Mom and the two girls that work at Long Branch - Cassie and Lizzie.

Let me tell you that I am the first to believe that every single place that is over twenty years old is probably haunted from cellar to attic - I have no trouble believing Long Branch is haunted either - and Tuesday night was interesting to say the least. I'll leave it at that for now, but I'll write more on that subject in another post. Stay tuned!

Long Branch was decorated for a 1940's Christmas in preparation for the Open House & Reception on Sunday night.

I wandered all over the house taking pictures...

Oh baths...they are lovely...

The biggest news this week is that I got a new car - yahoo for mobility again! After a Saturday spent whirling around town looking at all kinds of cars, my Dad pointed out a Kia Optima that was for sale at the Kia place and I was pretty in love with it. I returned later in the week and took it for a test drive and I knew for sure that it was the car for me. Luckily enough, everything worked out and now it actually is the car for me - because it's parked outside the house as I type this! I absolutely love it and I cannot believe how much more room there is in this car! Since it's an Optima, my little sister christened it Optimus Prime. I can't wait to see if it transforms! ;)

The new car - with a big shiny bow on the top!

A look at the car from all angles - so shiny & white.

And a couple interior shots...

The church we attend here participates in something called Kitchen of Hope - a program where every third Thursday of the month we provide a meal for the homeless in the area at a local church. It's divided up between four area churches and this past Thursday night was our night to feed some folks some food. Once we fed the homeless some supper, we all returned to our house and had supper and Christmas with our "Framily" ...our family that is made up of our friends. Watching Emily and Jimmy and especially Amelia open their presents was so much fun; I certainly love the sweet little people in my life!

Kitchen of Hope with these three goofballs.

Opening their Christmas ornaments - gifts from me!

So excited about their pile of presents - they are a mess!

Amelia says "hey - give me this present!"

Friday night we all piled into the car and went to Dulles to get Lindsey and we were all finally reunited for Christmas! After an early Saturday at work (I had to be there at 6:30 y'all...6:30) I came home and went with the family to a nearby state park called Sky Meadows and we toured a house on the property that was decorated with Christmas through the years. We rounded out the evening by making our traditional batch of Christmas cookies.