Holiday Stress

The holiday stress is getting thicker and murkier by the second.  Last night, I went to South Shore and attempted my very first 2008 Christmas shopping ever! But a drive to South Shore also meant: Post office, Safeway and Walgreens. And that meant: Mail, Grocery, Drugs (not that I needed any). But I had to make a mental note to myself: TOOTHPASTE! Hubby and I have been squeezing the life out of our last tube for a week now...stamping on it with two feet had been futile, cutting it apart with scissors and scraping the remnants of the gel didn't quite work either...

So first stop...POST OFFICE. I really wanted to  get rid of all my local holiday mailouts and I only needed stamps (since I didn't finish writing addresses for the international ones that needed to go through the counter...what a waste!) but since I'm usually lucky with random cosmic mishaps, yesterday...was the day...the city pulled out the vending machines for stamps! So off to the counter I went. I could be a pushover dingdong like that.  By the way, I like to buy those "Forever" stamps that don't go up in price. *Does that mean if I hoard a truckload of them I'll be done for life?*. The long line at the post office had eaten me up alive and after 5 years and 3 seconds, I finally emerged from the counter with two books of stamps in hand and a purse a pound lighter from discarding all those holiday photo cards with the good samaritan who saved me a trip to the row of blue mailboxes around the corner (which is really a drive-through where I would usually attempt to line up in between the cars, with my nose straight into a smokin' muffler and my butt kissing someone's headlights while waiting for my turn).

So...

By the time I was done with that first chore, I was already half-dead.

And then I dashed to Safeway. I had to buy ingredients for the Onion Pie I promised everyone for Saturday's party at my cousin's.  I don't know why I thought of it. Food Network has dunnit again! But since I'm unofficially the official "bringer" of a vegetarian dish, I believe an onion pie would be something new for them. I'll make a second pie with bacon bits, of course! Don't think of it as dessert.  Think...quiche. Right now, I'm already barraged by emails from the cuzzos, "Are you sure???".  YES, I'VE NEVER BEEN SO SURE!!!

It was so cold strutting to the parking lot to put my grocery in the trunk that by the time I was done with this second chore, I was officially a zombie.

And then I finally went shopping. But I wasn't in the mood anymore. I have a long list for hubby's five million relatives and my own close to five million family members, not to mention the fact that I'll be working on a self-inflicted go-with-the-times budget that's good to stretch for about 3 special people. Okay, 3 and a half people. It's really not the money part (though it really is too!), but more of the legwork that sucks out my energy. I've been telling myself each year that I'll start shopping online. BUT I ALWAYS END UP SIDETRACKED BY BLOGGING!  I'm starting to loathe shopping. What's happening to me? I finally picked up a set of wicker stick diffusers with different scented oils but I think those would end up in our house.

Then hubby called to remind me to slow down and not run over two dead racoons he saw (he knows me very well, I have the uncanny ability to double kill something) on the way home. HOME. I wanted to throw a fit, cry like a baby and demand to go home.

SO I did (go home, I mean).

And I remembered not to run over the racoons. But I forgot all about the TOOTHPASTE.