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Rise and Shine – but hopefully not as early as I had to! As you read this we are well into our 9-hour drive to Green Bay, WI for Christmas and New Years. We are praying for good driving weather, safe travels, and hoping our house will be just as we left it when we return. Or maybe even better if Santa’s elves and reindeer feel up to insulating our basement and installing shelving in our absence when they stop by on Christmas eve to drop off our golf cart snow plow and winning Ohio lottery ticket so we can pay our electric bill.  I don’t think that’s such a stretch – we’ve been pretty good this year. Last night we celebrated our first Christmas together as husband and wife. We opened our gifts from each other, enjoyed our lighted Christmas tree and watched a wonderful Christmas movie my mom sent us. That’s even nicer than pre-installed insulation!

While we spend the day nestled all in snug in our bed truck while visions of sugarplums snow-covered cornfields in Illinois dance through our heads, with five pieces of luggage, four bags of presents, three trays of baked goodies, two winter coats and a partridge in a pear tree, I didn’t want to leave you without something mildly entertaining to read on your Christmas eve’s eve. You can breathe that big sigh of relief now. You’re welcome.

And now, a story. Yesterday, like any other normal day, I walked outside to get the mail praying my long awaited package had arrived (it did!), only to find our mailbox knocked off it’s wooden post, dented, and laying face down in the snow. HUH? Two workmen were trimming the trees/messing with the power lines and, in the process, littering our entire driveway with tiny tree shards, apparently wiped it out with their giant utility truck. Excellent – the day before we leave town and actually need that mailbox to be operational. So Ted came home early and off we went to our old friend Home Depot. We are now owners of a new mailbox – freshly installed by my handyman husband. Dear Companies Who Work for Duke Energy, in the future, please ASK before parking your mammoth honking truck in our driveway, leaving branches haphazardly scattered about for us to clean up after you, and if possible, try to avoid taking out our new mailbox. Thanks.

I’ve done some thinking over the past week or so about what our 2011 does and does not need. Here’s what I’ve come up with:

Things we don’t need in 2011:

1. An obscene heating bill – Two nights ago we got our electric bill for the past month, which includes our hot water, heat and electricity. MERRY CHRISTMAS to you too Duke Energy and you’re welcome for the jolly holiday raises everyone got from our electric bill alone. Our bill was 50% more than we budgeted for. When I hear people talking about an outrageous electric bill I used to assume that it was because they were heating their home to a swampy 84 degrees and using their house as runway lights for Lunken Airport. We’re pretty conservative with our electricity – we keep our house at a cool 62-64 degrees when we are home and at an even cooler 50-55 degrees when we aren’t home, because that’s what we thought we could afford. We only leave the lights on in rooms we are presently in. If we leave the room, we turn the light off – always.  And while I do love a nice hot shower, I don’t spend hour upon hour in there nor do I shower three times a day. All of this careful energy consumption and the bill was still several hundred dollars for a two-person family. Ridiculous. No wonder so many people in our nation cannot afford heat and have to make the decision between putting food on their table and freezing all winter long. So we’re brainstorming ways to lower our bill. Maybe we turn down the hot water heater, maybe we limit ourselves to 3-minute showers, maybe we keep the house at 60 and wear sweaters when we’re home. I don’t know. But we definitely do not need another bill like this one every month. We are grateful that, unlike so many others, we are fortunate enough that we can afford any kind of heat at all. I know we are very lucky and truly blessed, but I think Duke Energy is a little too blessed this time of year. I can’t imagine how a single parent with two kids can afford heat this time of year.

2. A storage-only garage and basement – Our house is all unpacked. What isn’t unpacked yet is the garage and basement. It’s not that we have an incredible amount of junk we’ll never use, it’s that a lot of it is tools and equipment that we don’t need in the house, but still need for work purposes. It is somewhat organized in terms of where everything is, but we cannot fit my Buick into the garage right now, nor can we easily get at something specific in the basement without having to move box after box. Fortunately, we do already have a plan of action. We have purchased a DIY shelving system for the basement that will allow us to line one of the walls with hot yellow lumber (aaaahh yes, thank you “damaged” Ikea doors) hanging shelves so we can neatly store boxes off the ground. It will also help us get stuff in the basement and out of the garage so the garage can be functionally used as, well, you know, a garage. And the basement will be roomy for the bowling alley, big screen TV, air hockey table, and bar (with Leinie’s berrywies and woodchuck ale taps!) we intend to put down there with the winning Ohio lottery ticket from the elves.

Things our 2011 does need:

1. A Lara job – If our asinine electric bill isn’t enough to drive the point home, I need a job so we can comfortably pay the rent on this house we love, pay our bills, shop at the grocery store (since they don’t approve of stealing), keep our vehicles running and put money away for savings and retirement. I’m still looking for a job in theatre, a job I’ll be happy at that matches my qualifications, experience and education, and is fun and challenging. But right now that is too much to ask for when I need a job – like a month and a half ago. So at this point I’ll take any job I can find. I’ve been applying and applying and eventually one of them has to bite, right? I’m hoping that after the mad rush of the holiday season that I’ll get some calls. Then once we have enough income to cover our expenses, I can start looking for a job that actually suits my intended career.

2. Exercise – Because nobody likes to feel like a blob. I already make sure we eat pretty healthy, but we’d both like to get into an active routine that consists of more than running around at work (well, maybe not Ted – he has a very active job as it is) and running errands.  We like taking walks, bowling, roller blading, biking, and dancing. They’re all fun, all widely accessible here in Cincy, and now we just need to prioritize and make the time to do it. And if all else fails I seem to get good exercise running from coyotes and shoveling our driveway of doom. But we’ll set our sights above mediocre and aim for something a little less terrifying.

3. Travel & a honeymoon – I think taking time for yourselves and your family should always be a priority. We have plenty of siblings, parents, cousins and other family we’ve love to see more of. Being in Cincy we are in a reasonably central location – enough that we can hop in the truck for several hours and spend a long weekend with them or even meet them halfway and explore a new city in the process. Family is family and there’s no excuse for not making time to see them. It is definitely tricky to find vacation days, especially when you’re new to a job and don’t have any really, but there’s always the weekends. There’s also plenty of places we’d like to discover on our own. We’d love to drive Route 66, we’d love to vacation in Alaska, I’d like to check out some of the Eastern sea towns, and some of the Southern cities. Kentucky horse races are literally next-door. We also have a honeymoon to take – delicious exotic foods, awesome excursions and adventures, a complete change of scenery, and time for just the two of us – YES PLEASE. We’ve saved the money for it, but we have to find the vacation days from work to make it worthwhile.

Since you actually took the time to read all of that (assuming you didn’t freak when you saw how long this was, pansy out a quarter of the way into it, skim the rest and cut to the bottom), I suppose I can put up a few pictures as a reward for your patience and diligence. I know I can be long winded – and anyone who puts up with that should receive something in return.

No picture of our newest addition (the mailbox). Sorry. Merry Christmas eve’s eve!