MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Hi Friends!!!



I hope you all are having a great day and spending it with those you truly love! I am laying in bed and typing this on Isaac's new netbook computer. It's really cool, and he is being very nice and insisting on sharing it with me when I want to blog. I know -- who would think a 7 year old needs a laptop computer? But Isaac is not your typical 7 year old, and Bill got a good deal on it during the black Friday sales.

We've had a pleasant Christmas Eve and Christmas Day here at the Blands. Yesterday morning I was awakened by Doctor Cohen's phone call. I can always count on him to call before any holiday to check on my health. I told him I was doing OK, but I am still struggling with fatigue. We talked a bit, and I'm supposed to call him on Monday if it's still not better. Then we can formulate a plan -- we've talked about me taking Ritalin before in order to counteract the sleepiness during the day. Dr. Cohen had thought my excessive sleepiness was due to the recent pneumonia, and he speculated that I was still recovering from that. But it is also a symptom of my lupus and fibromyalgia as well as a side effect of many of the drugs I take. So, who knows -- but I don't have much time available to me when I'm sleeping 12-15 hours per night. And I still wake up feeling tired.

Well, enough of that sob story. After talking with my doctor early Thursday morning, I went back to sleep until much later. At 12:15 I had an appointment at the DMV to get my permanent handicapped placard and license plates. So, Bill and I drove over there. The placard was no trouble, but in order to get handicapped plates for the truck, we needed to add my name to the registration and title. We had forgotten the title at home. So, since it wasn't busy -- the DMV employee suggested we just run home and get it. I asked if Bill could come back alone, and she said that would be fine. She showed me where to sign the forms. But of course when Bill came back several hours later, that employee was gone, and the new one said we needed to wait 3 days after the placard was issued so that I was "in the system" as handicapped. It was really annoying because when we get the new license plates we must "surrender" the old ones. So, Bill had already taken off the license plates and then had to put them back on. Gotta love the DMV!

I then came home and collected the children who wanted to go to the 99 cents store. We found a bunch of treasures. The kids bought a bunch of stuff for each other, and I bought some goodies for the kids' stockings. It was kind of wild and crazy with the 5 of us shopping and hiding things in the cart under my jacket. Bill thought it was funny when I came home $93 later as my budget was supposed to be $30. Theoretically, he told me it should be easy to see how much you've spent at the dollar store where everything is the same price. But, I really didn't care and was just glad to survive the experience.

We then wrapped up the presents. And took some time to admire Bill's new Mac computer. He got a big bonus at work for being such a good employee, so he decided to spend it on a better computer for us. The kids now get our old one, which will be good as their old one had died. I just need to learn how to use a Mac!

Bill went and did some last minute shopping at Fry's. And the kids and I did our chores and got ready for church. He picked us up at 6:15 with chicken from El Pollo Loco. So we ate dinner in the truck while we drove to Simi Valley for 7:00 church. After church we went to the Christmas house. There is a house in Simi Valley that is elaborately decorated for the holidays. And it's our Christmas Eve tradition to go there.

By the time we got home it was almost 10 p.m., but the little boys were all jazzed up about Christmas and they had a hard time falling asleep. When we finally got them down, Cameron played Santa Claus and ate all the cookies and put the presents under the tree. He even left notes from Santa. Molly was planning to help, but she fell asleep before the boys and decided to stay asleep.

We lucked out after a late night, and nobody woke up until 10 a.m. At that point, Isaac woke up and started a chain reaction. He woke up Nate, who woke up Molly, who woke up Cam, and then they all came downstairs to wake us up. We gained about another half-hour of sleep by telling them to check out their stockings. But by 10:30 we were up and opening presents. It was largely a Wii Christmas this year. The price finally came down enough for us to buy one. And then, of course, we needed the games and the controllers, etc. Bill even got me a Wii Fit, so I'm hoping to use if for exercise for me and PE for the kids.

So, of course, the kids were occupied for the rest of the day with their presents. We went out for dinner, but sadly the HomeTown Buffet was closed, so we had to settle for Denny's. The kids were happy with it, though, and they ate and ate.

Right now we're back home. The kids are playing MarioKart on the WII. In a few minutes, we're going to watch one of Cam's Christmas movies.

Happy Holidays!
Much Love,
Michele