Ed Icionsub

This song by Whitney Houston was rated by Yahoo users as one of the top favorite love songs:

I probably should have posted this on Valentine’s Day, but I got busy . . .

Valentine’s Day sometimes sneaks up on me. If I am not in the stores buying groceries or household supplies, I don’t notice the aisles and aisles of displays of chocolates and large red cardboard hearts. I always try to buy a nice box of Godiva chocolates for my wife. She is not a big fan of chocolates, and especially forgoes cheap chocolates. But once a year I know she does appreciate a gold ballatin with a red ribbon from the Godiva store. And, of course, a Hallmark card that poetically says I love her.

All this fuss about groundhogs today. The big one lives in Pennsylvania and has seen his shadow. So we are all supposed to get 6 more weeks of winter. Yeah, right.

Pennsylvania weather has absolutely nothing to do with the weather in Tennessee, Texas, North Dakota or anywhere more than a few hours drive from the Mid Atlantic area. So, Georgia decided to get their own groundhog and let him predict the arrival of spring for the southeast. And this groundhog did not see his shadow. So we are all supposed to enjoy an early spring.

Well, the first day of spring on the calendar is exactly 6 weeks and 4 days following groundhog day. So, in my opinion, we only have 4 days to quibble about anyways! Four days is certainly not worth all this fuss.

My family that lives in Virginia gets together for dinner on all the major holidays. This year there was a unique attendance of my mother, one of my sisters, my sister’s daughter and my sister’s brand new granddaughter. That makes four generations of women and girls at the dinner.

My younger brother usually takes photos of the family gatherings and sends them out via email to the rest of us who could not attend. This year he took photos at Christmas but none of them turned out well. I don’t know why they are so out of focus and have people with their eyes closed. But it is a shame that this unique opportunity at the Christmas gathering with four generations was not recorded in a good photo.

This morning I spent an hour or so looking at toys on the internet. I have to buy birthday present for my three nephews and I’ve been looking for something unique for them. It can be hard looking for toys just after Christmas. They each have been good boys and I know that Santa was very good to each of them at Christmas.

My oldest nephew is going to be a teenager and I know he loves to play games. So I’ve been looking at electronics for him and I was able to get some good ideas from the ShopWiki web site. Video games and and all the different gaming platforms can be hard to keep up with, so I had to call my sister and ask her what he has and what he would like to get. I’m torn between some handheld games or one of the new remote control toys. Some kids really like the remote control trucks and the new ones are awesome.

The other two nephews are just a week apart in age – obviously different mothers. It was very strange to have a sister and a sister-in-law expecting their babies at the same time. They are young enough that they would like the classic toys – like action figures and robots from some of this year’s hit movies. I took them to see G. I. Joe and we all really liked that movie. But they also really liked the Transformers movies. So I have to decide what would be the best birthday presents for each of them andd clear it with their moms before I order them.

Today starts a new month, a New Year and a new decade. I’m very much looking forward to the good things that 2010 holds for us. Happy New Year!

All three of my nephews have a birthday coming up in February. In fact, the three of them are just days apart on the calendar although several years apart in age. I always thought it was a little unfair to kids to have a birthday too close to Christmas – they have a strong likelihood of getting shortchanged in the gift department.

On the other hand, someone who is well organized and plans for the upcoming birthdays can take advantage of the Christmas sale prices and buy the gifts for each nephew at Christmas or shortly after Christmas and set them aside until they have to be shipped to the boys in early February.

This year our Christmas is quiet and peaceful, with just the immediate family gathered here at my house. The rest of the family is a day’s drive from Nashville and we just are not up to the trip this year. So the rest of the family will be gathering later today at one of my sister’s house and enjoying a huge covered dish feast together. Since we are not there to defend ourselves, I’m sure we will be the source of all the gossip and snide remarks that only your family can generate. So instead of those festivities, we are having a nice Christmas dinner here and a lazy day enjoying our games and toys here at my house.

Hope Santa find your house tonight and is very, very good to you. Merry Christmas!

Every spring, the ski club has a regional convention in Myrtle Beach. I used to go as a ski club member and enjoyed the hotel discounts, but then I discovered the money saving bargains of Myrtle Beach Golf Packages. I was surprised that I could book the room and greens fees to Golf Myrtle Beach online and save more money than the group discount rate that the ski club gets for us.

This next spring we will enjoy Myrtle Beach Golf plus the beach sports with the ski club and we will save enough money that we can do more Myrtle Beach Golf Vacations later in the summer.