The Ghost of the Christmas just past.

I'm sitting here nursing a headache with a cup of coffee.  No, it's not one of those headaches, I wish.  It's combination of a lack of caffeine late in the day and eating greasy food in the wee hours of the night headache. 

I'm watching Jolea's friends on Spanish Fly.  Spanish Fly is a fishing show on ESPN.  She's friends with the Host of the show Jose Wejebe,  but also with his guest fishermen the Goins family.  The Fishtafarians, as the Goins are know by, are a family of artist.  Jolea met Jose and the fish family back when she was working as a dock master in Key West.  This episode is pretty interesting, too bad it won't be aired again so Jody can watch it. 

I don't post much about Jolea, because I figure you all read her blog if you're reading mine and I don't want to spoil the surprise if you come here first or subject you to a re-run if you come over here after stopping by there first.  If you don't read her, check it out.  She's our little Adventuress.

 We had a couple of the Pickers over last night.  Dawn and Mike came down too.  With a lack of band members and Jody refusing to play, Mark coaxed first me and then Dawn to learn to play the bass.  He kept saying "it's easy..."  Uhhh, not really.   It's a lot like patting your head, rubbing your stomach, chewing gum and walking backwards all at the same time.  It's not one of those things I can just naturally do, like knitting with my eyes glued to the TV or closed.  It requires me to get one hand going and then get the other hand going in a different direction and then try to stay on the beat with one hand and off the beat with the other and then listen to Mark giving me cues to what notes are coming up a whole beat ahead (how does he do that?) before he's even played the note.  The whole time I'm trying not to do what I've been told all my life to do and that's follow directions.  When you tell me A.... that means play A right then not D then A.  I've also been told, by my husband, that it's not good to multi-task.  "When you multi-task, you are not giving your full attention to any one thing."  OK... so  do I multi-task or follow directions or chew gum or pat my head?  Good grief, I may have to stick to chopping, otherwise know as mandolin for dead people.  That's Dawn by the way in the picture. I'm in her camera.  Dawn and Mike shouldn't have left at 1:30, because by 2:15 I had a big ole greasy breakfast cooked... bacon, eggs, biscuits and gravy.  I have cotton mouth so bad this morning I could drink a 6 pack of beer. 

It's that day we all dread.... the day we take the Christmas tree down and box up it and all the ornaments.  Hey... is this what the British (and Canadians) refer to as boxing day?  I never knew what that was all about but they seem to look forward to it more than Christmas Eve or Christmas.  I guess if you have a real tree that's dropping all it's needles and you have to keep all open flames extinguished you'd probably be excited for Boxing Day.

To all my readers from across the pond, or now down under, or across the desert, or through the woods (Duder), Happy Boxing Day. Oh wait, I think yesterday was Boxing Day... oh well today is Boxing Day at the Cruzans.

This year's Santa ornament. (jeez that picture is fuzzy)

This year's Snowman ornament.

Jolea had a boot for this year, I couldn't find anything Beachy... but I'll keep looking. And Jeff got a Santa on a cycle.

This is the one Maria (Overboard) sent us from Japan last year.

Here's the lovely tree in all it's dimunitive glory.  If Jolea isn't home next year, there will be no need to keep all those decorations and the big tree in the attic.  Jody will think he's free to throw them out.  I got this tree from the Library at school, gotta take it back this week.

Have a great week, hope it's a short one for you.