It’s just not Christmastime until…

We all have those little things that somehow magically zap us into the spirit that surrounds Christmas and the Christmas season.

For me, that magical moment takes place the day after Thanksgiving.  Once I’ve watched the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving Special after stuffing myself like our holiday turkey – I love going to bed that night knowing that the next day I’ll be putting up my Christmas tree.

I started with the day after Thanksgiving with my own kids, mostly because of the Christmas Elf and his ability to make the kids actually mind!  I wanted to get the most mileage out of him and well, in setting my own family tradition, I discovered exactly why my mom had the same one when my brother and I were growing up.

My husband tends to grumble a little bit – whether it’s about the tangled candy cane lights or the rush of shoppers playing bumper shopping carts with him – so I’m really trying to work on his eerie resemblance to Ebenezer Scrooge and help him to enjoy this festive time of year.

Even if you aren’t into the whole Christmas thing – you have to appreciate what magic this time of year possesses.  Wars STOP on Christmas – when a time has such an amazing power as such over the ability of any human on earth, it has to be special.

I’m sharing my own tales of Christmastime as part of an ongoing Carnival via The Carnival of Red Hot Bloggers.  This carnival is being hosted by Katelyn at Holiday Ideas

There’s sure to be many more to come over the coming weeks and I’d sure love it if you would join us.  Please check the sidebar for the upcoming carnivals and who is hosting them. 

Don’t see anything you like?  Host one yourself.  It’s easy as pie!

Carnival of Red Hot Bloggers

Earlier today I discovered one of the most popular carnivals had disappeared. 

Being an act now kind of person, I immediately jumped in and tried to offer up an alternative to the people who had grown to enjoy participating in that carnival.

Once I had everything in place to kick off the Carnival of Red Hot Bloggers (seen in the right column) I did some checking to see what had actually happened.

It turns out that the carnival is going to be taken over by another writer that I’m quite familiar with, but the fact remains that the website that was associated with that carnival for so long is up in smoke.

It’s really very sad that some people are placed in positions of having to bail on their sites because of fruitcakes that are making their way around the net. 

I’m hoping to join forces with the Carnival of Family Life – however, for now, I hope that everyone who visits MomGadget and our forum will enjoy our carnivals and will find inspiration to participate.

If you do participate in our Carnival of Red Hot Bloggers – you’ll earn the right to wear one of our adorable and HOT Blogger buttons

Enjoy

Gayla

 

Happy Thanksgiving

 

May your stuffing be tasty. May your turkey be plump.

May your potatoes ‘ n gravy have nary a lump.

May your yams be delicious. May your pies take the prize.

May your Thanksgiving dinner stay off of your thighs.

MAY YOU ALL HAVE A BLESSED THANKSGIVING!

From Gayla, Rusty, Trey, Coty, Ariel, Denton and all our critters

What’s New Review – Forum News November 21, 2006

It’s been nearly three weeks since my last update – so before I got any further into this holiday week, I wanted to send an update to all of you on the new and exciting things that are taking place on our forum!

First – I want to remind everyone that this forum is about ALL of us!  I know, through so many other forums, you’ve been programmed to be more modest with your linking and promoting, but NOT here!  I want you to promote your blogs!  Promote your affiliate links!  Brag up yourself as much as you like!  If you’re too modest, pm me, I’d be happy to brag on you

I’ve just created a section called Hot Topics and Random Chit Chat – within that section you’ll find several categories – I’m quite certain you’ll be able to find a nice fit there. 

The vision some of us have for that section is for YOU to be able to network with other like bloggers and find a means of supporting one another by sharing your tips on what works and what doesn’t.

As an example:  If you have a Celebrity Blog and you’ve found a hot affiliate that pays nicely in that category, SHARE YOUR link there.  I’d LOVE to see more affiliate links being promoted. 

This forum will ONLY be as successful as all it’s members and if YOU fail, then I will feel like a failure – so if you can’t do it for yourself, won’t you do it for me?

Next, given that we’ve had some pretty obvious spammers join recently, the moderators of this forum have decided to enforce a Membership Audit Policy.  What this means to you is – If you join this forum, you need to post or run the risk of losing your membership.  You can find complete details in the New Member Section.

~*~ Upcoming Blog Carnivals: ~*~

Read more

Let the Holidays Begin

Tonight will begin the official kickoff of the holidays season for my own household.

Every year, I don’t get fully into the holiday spirit until I’ve watched A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving with my family.

Now, with the kiddos being “real” teenagers now, it’s probably going to be like pulling eye-teeth to get them to sit down and watch this holiday classic with my husband and I – but they’ll have to and like it or get grounded *tee-hee*  That’s the wonderful beauty of being THE MOM!

How many of you will be joining in on this holiday classic tonight?

Who is your favorite Charlie Brown character?

Mine is a real toss between Snoopy and Woodstock.

In just 5 short hours, I can officially say, Happy Holidays!

Is there something special that just HAS to happen for you to make the holiday season official?

Sharing Our Thanksgiving Memories

This is my first time of participating in The Carnival of Family Life and set out to do so by offering up my super top secret Apple Butter recipe – but then I snapped out of that fog and realized I would be revealing the “how to” of some of the gifts I am preparing for the holidays.  So, umm, perhaps another day…

Instead of talking about recipes – I decided to talk about family and share one of my very favorite Thanksgiving photos of all time. 

When I take a look at my calendar for next week and see how full it’s become – I have to reflect back on the first Thanksgiving I spent as a single mother and realize just how blessed I am to have a full schedule.  That first holiday as a single mother, left me at home alone on Thanksgiving day, having let the little ones go with their dad’s family.

This photo is of my little Indians (my twins, Trey and Dakota) from their first pre-school Thanksgiving program that very year.  Aren’t they adorable? (Trey isn’t hurt, he’s just saying CHEEEZ)  It’s hard to believe they are as tall as mom now at the ripe age of 13.

There are so many in the world that don’t have anyplace to go or family to spend it with – and here I have family dinners each and every day over the four day holiday weekend.

The fact that my husband and I were both married before and have our own branched families along with our children having multiple directions to be pulled off in, I never realized just how busy life could become when blending families.

This year as I find myself beginning to grumble about the hectic schedule, I’m going to force myself to take a step back and realize just how easily it could all be swept away and the lonely alternative is far more dreadful.

Having lost my grandmother in September, I’m sure to miss sharing the memories of her wonderful holiday treats and hearing the tales of her childhood holidays from deep in the hills of Kentucky.

Enjoy your family this holiday season!  There are so many out there that would gladly trade places with you in an instant.

Check out other Thanksgiving Carnival contributions via ThriftyMommy

Confessions of a Work at Home Mom/Housewife

This week I am participating in a Blog Carnival hosted by Eve at Dilly Designs.  This carnival focuses on How do you balance taking care of the house and working from home, what are your tips for time management or your stories of not being good at it.

Having been a Work at Home Mom for several years now, I can say with authority that it is much easier to become a work-a-holic when you work from home than when you work out of the home and from an office.  While at the same time, it’s much more easy to become distracted. 

It’s difficult for family and friends to realize that just because I am at home, doesn’t mean that I’m always available to go shopping, run errands or babysit their kids when they need one.

I’ve been through the mill on each of those and have gotten to the point where I sometimes have to just not answer the phone or door, just to be able to get things accomplished.

My work is seen as one that can be done anytime, day or night and sometimes I feel as though others expect me to stay up till the wee hours of the morning, or wake up several hours before the rest of the family, just to get my work done so I can cater to their needs and demands the rest of the time.

Just because I work from home, doesn’t mean I require any less sleep than someone who works out of the home.  It doesn’t mean my job is easier, in fact, it’s far more difficult than when I did work out of the home.

I find myself being pulled in several directions throughout the day, whether it’s laundry, cooking, sick kids, “important” family phone calls, etc.

I suppose my confession would be that many times I really resent others who neglect to see my work as being important and somehow I wish I had a voice that demanded more respect for what I do.

This Weeks MomGadget Blog Carnivals

I’m really excited at the increase in Blog Carnivals that so many are coming up with and offering to host.  You can find a complete list on our FORUM if you’d like to consider participating.

The great thing about blog carnivals is that it provides you with a topic to write about – which is awesome for those suffering writers block.  It provides you with a nice little means of networking – and it’s fun!

We have two carnivals coming up this week -

Topic: How do you balance taking care of the house and working from home, what are your tips for time management or your stories of not being good at it (your ‘confessions’ LOL, what dont you get done that you should, etc)

Topic: Kids and Technology – sound off on your kids online habits – too much, too little, rules you have, favorite games, you name it!

More on these carnivals and how to participate here…

One for Weary Parent

Weary Parent has sent out a call for stories about pets from hell.  To answer her call, here is mine…

When my boys were very small, I got them a hamster. I thought it would be a fun and easy pet for them to take care of and to begin learning a little responsibility.  You know baby steps.

We named him Herbie.

Herbie was a great pet at first.  He played with the boys, didn’t bite, didn’t pee all over everything like the one Weary Parent refers to, he was actually quite entertaining.

Three months into Herbie being our family pet, we learned the hard way what a pain in the rump these critters can be.

Herbie managed to chew his way through the wire top we had on his cage.  He escaped! 

He’d been out and about the house for about 4 hours when we found him and put him back.

Since he’d chewed through the wire top, I needed to come up with something to cover the gapping hole until I could get something more appropriate.  I chose two catalogs – JCPenny and Sears (back when they were THICK – remember those?). 

It sure didn’t take that critter long to figure out his way around those.  Well, not around actually, but through them!  He chewed a HUGE hole right in the middle of BOTH catalogs and was out again.

This time Herbie was a free hamster for just over a week.  He’d left his mark in every room of our 11 room house and managed to make it INTO the walls. 

In my office I could hear his little scratches on the wall – but there was nothing I could do to get to him.  Naturally I assumed he’d come back out the way he went in. 

Silly Me!  What was I thinking?  The demon hamster had chewed through one wire cage cover and two huge catalogs – why on earth would I ever think he wouldn’t chew through a wall.

He DID!

Yep, right there, next to my desk, a hole big enough to fit a golf ball through.

Well, we caught him again and put him back in his cage.  This time with two iron skillets.  I knew the vermin wouldn’t come through that.

The next morning the boys woke up for school and pointed out that Herbie must have really worn himself out because he was sleeping like a rock.

A rock he was!

It wasn’t until about a year ago that the boys actually learned that Herbie wasn’t still in the house and he wasn’t still on the loose.  Herbie had died right after his last adventure.  Yes, I told a mommy lie to protect their little feelings.  But vengeance would be mine!

I took Herbie with me in the car while running errands and winged him out the window somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

 

Missions and Directions

When I first started MomGadget (the blog) my intention was to focus on gadgets entirely.  Mostly those that make mom’s life easier.  Over the last several weeks, I’ve felt myself being pulled in a very different direction — and I want to ask your opinion.

Do you think I should keep this blog focusing entirely on gadgets or do you think it would be more interesting and beneficial to readers to encompass gadgets along with the work at home tips mixed up with a little off topic ramble every now and again?

Being self diagnosed with A.D.D. — I do feel a bit more comfortable with the more random topic than feeling as though I’m blogging in a box of sorts.

So I’m asking you, my readers to give me a direction – a mission, a purpose – one that will be make and keep this blog more interesting to you.

 

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