Yahoo!

I'm on the computer so guess what that means?! I'm free!!!

Yep, the tree is down, Christmas is put away - inside and out - and the house is clean. YAHOO!! Thanks Mom for helping me break down Christmas while Gib and Mike manned the Man Cave portion of the day's detail. I've mopped the laundry room and my bathroom, but I need to wait on the wood floors; there are too many people moving about right now, so I'm going to do it after a break. There was some mention of Mario between Gibbie and I a few minutes ago...before the phone rang and Mike and Gib took off for the upstairs.

Indy has gone off to her New Year's Eve party with Joey who arrived from West Virginia yesterday; Taryn is getting ready to leave in a few minutes to a New Year's Eve dance at church. A couple days ago, Mariah was on the phone with her friend wanting to know what we'd be doing for New Year's Eve. Like we usually have such great plans. So I answered yes, I had a great idea for all of us to get 14 hours of sleep. Mariah goes, "no for New Year's" and I repeated, "Yeah, we'll all go to bed at 10 pm and get up at noon the 1st day of 2009...that'll give us 14 hours of sleep - I can't think of a better way to start a new year!" Mariah stares at me blankly for a loaded second or two and then says dryly into the phone "we're just hanging out". Mike and I busted out laughing.

For our New Year's dinner I made up a Kielbasa Stew that I thought turned out pretty good. I'm always looking for a way to sneak in canned Field Peas because I tried them out this year and really like them, but others not so much, so I like to find ways to work them into recipes. This one was the best yet. It had Polska Kielbasa, potatoes, onions, carrots, green beans, field peas, and the 5 remaining cherry tomatoes in the plastic box looking lonely. Mariah and I made a chocolate pudding pie with heath toffee pieces in an Oreo cookie crust. It was yummy. For a second there it was going to be ours, all ours, because Taryn thought I was putting nuts in it, but Mike ruined it and told her it was candy. Drats!!

Well, Kristin called to see if we would hook up our Mario online and play against each other and I'm wondering if everyone is afraid Baby Peach is going to kick trash and I haven't been invited to the party.

Or maybe I'll mop - nobody moving around down here anymore. But I'd rather play first. Then again, it's about time to drive Taryn to the dance, so I guess I'll be mopping at midnite. Sounds like a song, doesn't it?