Silly Christmas peice..

T’was the night before Christmas and all through the house not a creature was stirring not even an over exited child.
More wrapping had to be done and my husband had slipped into sleep.
I tiptoed to get him we had work to do.
With bags of gifts in hand we crept down the stairs.

With scissors and tape and ribbon we wrapped as True Blood the Vampire TV show played in the back ground.

After an episode and a half we had finished. Took a break to step to different rooms and fill stockings for each other.

With a touch of exhaustion and a feeling of excess we surveyed out pile of gifts for the children and us then sat on the couch to watch more Vampire Drama.

One Once the cliffhanger, complete with dead body, had appeared we headed up stairs to bed.

We knew this would be only a short nap before exited children woke us.

HA! Challenge met! Or I got Cookies

I got a message from a friend. She sent me a package and wanted to make sure it had arrived. I hadn’t so anticipation started. She had sent me a necklace as a surprise this summer. What could it be.

It came next morning. It arrived early without announcement My husband saw it as he was pulling out of the Garage. I needed to head to work so I ran it in put it on the table. It was addressed to the whole family. I got the feeling that she made us something. I couldn’t guess what. The box was bigger than I expected. a brown plain box some dents from it’s journey. As I packed other boxes full of gifts for others it was all I could think of. What could it contain?

Eight hours later I am at home and gathered around the box. We get the scissors and with some difficulty we manage to cut the tape from around the top flaps of the box and open them. First brown paper then finally a tin decorated with squiggly Christmas trees and stuck on top a red paper with a handmade calligraphy label. “Cookies Handmade by Christie and Sherri”

It is the first time I have gotten cookies in the mail since I was a girl. I cannot wait even with knowing Dinner is waiting I pull the top of the tins and rustling through the tissue paper I pull out a green sesame cookie and a ginger snap. They are better than expected. My first taste of vegan cookies.

All I want for christmas......

The rules are simple. Kids have figured it out. If you want something for Christmas, want it, you need to tell Santa. The telling of Santa is the hard part. Do you go and find Santa at the mall or department store sit on his lap and let him know, Do you send him a letter with a list addressing it to the North Pole, do you email him? All of these have their draw backs. After all there is a Santa at every mall and department store. They can’t be real can they, not all of them any way. What is the zip code of the North Pole? Is there an email address for Santa and what if it is not really him but some bad person out to entice kids.

But these are my own questions as a 41 year old woman. I am sitting down a week before Christmas, knowing that My husband is not prepare for the day. I don’t blame him, he is alway running late he doesn’t come from a family of planners and I do It is just the way of things. It has been a stressful season as it is. I have a December birthday as it is makes it harder for my family. This year more than any before I have been having a hard time trying to come up with what I want for Christmas. I have an amazon list and one of the most wanted things on Amazon I got for my birthday.

But what do I want? I want that warm and fuzzy feeling I want the joy and the excitement that Christmas used to bring. I want my friends and their families to be healthy. I want everyone to have the income they need. Oh and maybe a Magellan GPS One touch. That would be nice.

And that makes three...

Ok Break time is over but lets tak some time on this one....

I have taken this from "Writing" fan page on Facebook. I have picked it because it will be a challenge for me and I am a fan of his music. Lets take out time on this I will not be getting this done too quickly definately not tonight.

"You cannot use Elvis Costello as an excuse!" She screamed at him. "Because...."

If you were an archeologist, where would you most like to dig?

A prompt from the one minute writer...I couldn't pass it up I had a life as an archaeologist once.

“Golly gee wilikers!” the phrase startles me out of my stupor for 7 weeks now I have come to this lecture and Bob promises every week that if some one does not show up by 7:15 we will leave without doing it inevitably someone does appear by 7:10 every week. The good thing is that it is someone different each week so only the four of us at the back have to hear the same stories and the same jokes every week. Bob is a great speaker. He really is but having had classes with him for a year and a half and having sat through this six previous times it makes it hard to stay awake. The air conditioning and the darkness help my sleepiness too. Lori elbow me in the ribs.

I look up to see my short covered butt displayed across the wall. The smeared dirt on the  butt of my tan shorts as I am standing on a ladder leaning into a square hold cut deep into the dirt wall. is not the picture I wanted to see as my eyes readjusted to the dim light. A new slide. Bob has switched things up and I dozed off. “we take pride in the fact that we are able to dig in ways that most archeologist don’t even dream of doing. Here an intern dig into a new square while standing on a ladder. She is 5 feet above the current floor of the main trench and this square will give us a better look into how the rock shelter was used.”

I can feel the blood rise into my cheeks. My butt on the screen was not what I wanted anyone to see. But I love 16-10. S16W10 is designation of the one meter by one meter square that I have been digging in for the past 4 weeks. When I stared it was about 30 centimeters deep It is now a 1 meter deep. It is unprecedented to dig in 2 centimeter level but the complexity of this site is also unprecedented. I may get through 1-2 level a day with mapping and photographing and journaling each part. We are saving so much of the dirt for study that we save all our soda and beer cans in large black bags to fill the holes for the fall and winter.

Bob see this shelter as some where that was used not only as a place to live but also as a place of worship he talks of “man-made dirt” and other fantastic thing that he thinks have happened there.   The dirt is interesting and we have a soil scientist who has never seen its like in the area. But the most impressive is the petrographs or rock paintings. The tell a story that I have now heard a dozen times he tells it for the new volunteers every week and he tells it here to help keep his community funding. Never the less I like hearing about He-Who-Wears-Human-Heads-As-Earrings and the ancestors cult shrine and Redhorn. Legends of this land and those who were here before us.  That is what it is all about It is why my finger nails are black with dirt. And in the end that is why Bob does this every week.

This is the side of archaeology most under grads never see it is the side of archaeology that most who dig for a living never see the preforming for money the keeping the grant alive. It has got to be done.

Break Time

After a full month of wrting every day I felt I needed a break yesterday. And due to the nature of this week so far I may not get to write again until Friday.

November's Ultimate post...so sad.

*I have to say this has been quite the adventure this month. In the end my total word count is 10,112 my goal was 6000. I am please with my self. I am going to try and keep writing every day! 

this one picks up from where the last left off*

I slowly and gently lower my feet to the carpet it is warm and reassuring under my feet. I get up and tentatively walk toward the bathroom. Standing in the hallway outside the door to the bathroom I can feel the chill that Helen and I felt at bath time, radiating out of the dark space beyond the doorway. As I stand there looking in to the X darkness I debate with myself was there a unearthly presence something that I had seen hints to in the house since we pulled into the garage after we closed on it. Was it all in my sleep-deprived illogical brain. Although the nap and my sleep tonight have not lessened these thoughts. I laugh out loud this is ridiculous. The house is only 20 years old. I think we would have heard if someone died here after all that s where ghosts come from.

I reach into the bathroom, into the chill that is clings to the room. I flip in the light switch. With the click of the switch light brightly illuminates the room and then with a dramatic “pop, pop, pop” the three lights above the large mirror burn out. The residual light in my eyes makes me blind to my surroundings but in the back of my eyes amongst the blue and purple blobs I think I saw a small childlike figure.

Before my eyes can focus I turn and head for the stairs. I want to get away from the bathroom. I bump into the wall but somehow find my way down the stairs and into the kitchen. Flipping on all the lights on my way there.

The mugs from this afternoons coffee break are sitting by the sink clean. I grab one and riffle through the cupboards and the boxes labeled food until I find my sleepy time tea. I fill the mug with water and put the tea bag in and pop it all into the microwave. Pushing the beverage button and watch the mug turn circles as it heats.

I scold myself for being so silly. I know I really did not see anything in the bathroom. it was just the after affects of a sudden light and back to darkness. even with this I have something nagging at me from my unconscious.