This is one time I'm glad I don't have comments on here any more because I'm sure what I'm going to write about tonite isn't going to be understood by a lot of people.  You haven't lived my life in my shoes so there isn't really any way you could begin to understand where I'm coming from.  But I need to just let some stuff go.  Purge, shall we say.  Been there, done that here before.  Time to do it again, I'm thinkin'.

Bear with me.

As always, with some personal stuff, I can't go into detail.  But I can write about how I feel about it, as long as I keep to generalities.  Let's just say for the first time in 34 Christmases as a married woman I thought I was finally going to spend Christmas the way I'd love to spend it.  But, yet again...it ain't gonna happen.  Oh well.  And, really...that's all I'm at liberty to say.  Cryptic, I know, but trust me.   And it isn't because I'm spineless and can't speak up for myself, either.  I'm good at doing both.  But sometimes, in marriage, you just have to do the right thing whether you want to or not.  I am doing the right thing.  Trust me.

Ok.  This is really weird.  In the slow months of the year -- now -- I average between 300-400 visitors per day.  All of a sudden I'm spiking again...over 700 a couple of days ago, around 900 yesterday, and something like 1,037 so far today.  What is up?!  Could it be spam commenters?  But I don't have comments.  It creeps me out because it's totally against the law of averages for my blog readership.  Anyone else spiking?  But why do I ask?  No one can tell me, HA!

Oh well.

My darling little grandson has been in no hurry to become verbal.  He's been able to communicate his wants and needs just fine using the word "Ahhhhh!" in about a hundred different volumes and tones for several months now.  A pointing index finger has helped him along, too.  But I realized he's finally given me and Dear Hubby names!  I am "Ah MAH!" and Dear Hubby is "Da DAH!"  With a lot of emphasis on the second syllable, mind you. 

Christmas shopping tomorrow.  I'll be at the store I plan on shopping at when the doors open at 8 am.  I was hoping for 7 am, but we don't always get what we want in life, do we?  I'm still hoping most people like to sleep in on Saturday a bit and I'll pretty much have the store to myself.  Hope is eternal.

I got a Christmas card from my wonderful friend Ivona the other day.  Inside she'd written she'd love to get together and go out to lunch..."and bring that baby along!!" she said.  In my Christmas card to her I wrote, "I'd LOVE to go out to lunch...but on a "grown up" lunch."  Hopefully on a Saturday!  There's that word again...hope! 

While I'm in the hoping mode, why not hope for world peace this Christmas season?  And hope for at least one election year that isn't full of slimey politics?  And I'm going to hope for a world that comes back to its senses, where kindness and honesty and decency once again abound.  Where parents raise their kids instead of the other way around.  Where everyone has enough to eat, a warm house, and money for gas to get to work.  Money for gas for vacation!  For traveling during the Christmas holidays!  A world where every little child gets their Christmas wish fulfilled.  Where hope truly is eternal.