Get Ready for 2005!

I guess that normalcy is slowly returning. I always feel a little blue this time of year. The holidays are such a warm time of year for me. I love getting together with my friends and family. So much so, that I always am a little sad to see it all be over and done. It's a lot of preparation for just one day that comes and goes in the blink of an eye. Anyway, here I am, back blogging and catching up with you, my friends. How was everyone's holidays? I just clicked over to Snowbabies and viewed some of Deb and Paul's wonderful wedding and honeymoon pictures. It looks absolutley lovely. A big hearty congratulations on the wedding you guys!! I got a great, funny Christmas card from Christine from her Christmas card swap. Andrea sent a great Christmas mix CD, and well my family, my family topped it all of folks. This Christmas was very unique in that it was not celebrated in our traditional fashion. Since Casey has been working the 12 hours shifts, all of the holiday reveling had to be rescheduled. My first festivity occurred the Saturday before the actual holiday. We held our traditional family Christmas potluck gathering. I've done this since I was a kid, and it's a tradition that I wouldn't miss for the world. I got, what I consider, the my best gift this Christmas. My cousin, Ruth, gave me a picture of my grandmother, when she was a young girl. I'm the product of older parents, so I'd NEVER seen a picture of my grandmother at such a young age. Not many of my family had either. So, imagine my suprise when she brought that wonderful, antique picture in and then bequeathed it to me!! The picture was taken around 1910 or so, and it is absolutely lovely! I just cried when I finally figured out that she'd given it to me!! It's one of the best presents that I've ever received. My regular Christmas stuff was great as well. Casey gave me some birkenstocks, and a few gift cards. Then last week, he took me shopping to spend all of those free shopping dollars. That was such a fun day together that we had! The best part of the actual Christmas day gift giving was giving my mother her gift. She had seen this beautiful bracelet out shopping that she desparately wanted. She kept commenting that she hopped the store would put it on sale after Christmas, so she could buy it. Well, I told her that I had stopped by the store and they had sold every last one of them. She was crestfallen. All the while, I had it gift wrapped and hidden in my trunk! Casey and I waited until ALL of the gifts had been exchanged and stockings had been given out to give it to her. It was such fun to see her suprised and excited like that. It's those things that I always remember about Christmas time. We still will be doing Christmas when we visit Casey's family in 2 weeks. Seems we are just prolonging the holiday season. New Year's Eve and Day was quiet and mostly spent visiting with my brother and his friend Tonie, from Canada. We drank champagne and watched movies. I did finally get all of the Christmas decorations taken down and put away for the year yesterday. I put out all of my January snowmen. I collect non-Christmas-y snowmen to put up after I take the Christmas decorations down. I'll try to post some photos on the photoblog tomorrow of those

I have another big weekend coming up again this weekend. My birthday is next Sunday. We are planning on eating at Carrabba's with Melissa, Marcie and my Mom to celebrate on Saturday night. I have no idea what Casey has planned for me on Sunday. His last day of work on his present job is this coming Friday. He'll start the new dream job on the 18th. That will give him a week to rest up and have a little free time to himself, before he starts fresh. Sorry for the long post. I feel we have so much to catch up on in life, but I'll end it for now. I've posted a Tsunami survival story below. That was such a horrific, tragic event, and my thoughts and prayers with with all of those affected. It's an uplifiting story I read about at Modern Pooch, so enjoy!!

Dog Rescues 7-Year-Old in India

Sun Jan 2,10:22 PM ET

By CHRIS TOMLINSON, Associated Press Writer

CHINNAKALAPET, India - "Run away!" her husband screamed from a rooftop after he spotted the colossal waves. The command was simple but it presented Sangeeta with a dilemma: She had three sons, and only two arms.

She grabbed the youngest two and ran — figuring the oldest, 7-year-old Dinakaran, had the best chance of outrunning the tsunami churning toward her home.

But Dinakaran didn't follow. He headed for the safest place he knew, the small family hut just 40 yards from the seashore.

Sangeeta thought she would never see him again. The family dog saw to it that she did.

While water lapped at Sangeeta's heels as she rushed up the hill, the scruffy yellow dog named Selvakumar ducked into the hut after Dinakaran.

Nipping and nudging, he did everything in his canine power to get the boy up the hill.

Sangeeta, who like many south Indians only uses one name, had no idea of the drama unfolding below. Once she had crossed the main road to safety she collapsed into tears, screaming over the loss of her eldest son.

"I had heard from others that the wall of my house had collapsed, I felt sure that my child had died," said the 24-year-old mother.

She told her story a week after the giant waves crushed or washed away at least 123,000 lives on the shores of the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal, with the horrible loss of life and property stretching from Sumatra to Somalia on the west coast of Africa, 3,000 miles away. The tsunami was spawned by the biggest earthquake in the last four decades deep below the ocean about 100 miles off the Sumatran coast.

Selvakumar looks pretty much like every other dog in the village. He hardly ever barks and lets the three boys climb all over him and pull his tail without protest. At night, he joins the rest of the family and sleeps among them, no matter how may times they throw him out.

Most days, the dog escorts Dinakaran to and from school, spending the rest of the day playing with the other two boys, or begging for food.

Sangeeta's brother-in-law gave her the puppy, following the birth of her second son. When the brother-in-law died in an accident two years ago, they changed the dog's name to his.

Sangeeta's family had always lived along the coast, just north of Pondicherry, a former French colony.

The morning of Dec. 26 began like most others, with sunny skies and a cool breeze.

Sangeeta's husband, R. Ramakrishnan, had just returned from his early morning fishing with a boat full of fish.

From their home, the view of the ocean was obstructed by a two-story community center. So when they heard a strange noise coming from the sea, Sangeeta's husband went to investigate.

When Ramakrishnan saw the waves, he ran to the roof of the center and shouted down to Sangeeta to flee. That's when she made her agonizing choice.

"He is somewhat older than the other two. I knew he would be able to run, so I grabbed the other two," Sangeeta explained.

Dinakaran credits the dog with saving his life.

"That dog grabbed me by the collar of my shirt," the boy said from under some trees at Pondicherry University, where the family is waiting for relief. "He dragged me out."

Sangeeta said she wept with joy when she saw her son walking up to her, with Selvakumar by his side.

The Tamils of south India believe that talking about the death of a living person can make it so, so Sangeeta didn't want to mull over her decision or speculate how she would have felt had her son not survived.

She did say that she believes some special spirit, perhaps her brother-in-law's, resides in the young yellow dog.

"That dog is my God," said Sangeeta — with Dinakaran sitting on the ground at her feet and Selvakumar sleeping on the warm asphalt next to him.