Then I came home.

Not much happened today.

It's how I'm differentiating myself as a blogger.

Just thought you should know.

In celebration, I'm headed to Las Vegas in the morning.

OK, it's not really for my blogaversary, but I am going to Sin City for the first time ever!

I'll tell you more about it later, but it's going to be a quick trip.

I'm staying downtown and not on the strip, so I don't know what I'll be seeing, or if I'll even make it to the strip.

I guess I should try though, huh? It's not like I'll be going back anytime soon as far as I know.

I wish you could all come with me, wouldn't that be fun?

"I need a table for The Internet, please. We can pull up some chairs."

It looks like I'll be able to torment you all from the sky on the way out there (Four solid hours of me! Bored! In a metal tube!), so peace out, I'm going to bed to get rested up for the trip and give you time to make, "Liquor in the front, poker in the rear" jokes, or whatever they do there.

In celebration, I'm headed to Las Vegas in the morning.

OK, it's not really for my blogaversary, but I am going to Sin City for the first time ever!

I'll tell you more about it later, but it's going to be a quick trip.

I'm staying downtown and not on the strip, so I don't know what I'll be seeing, or if I'll even make it to the strip.

I guess I should try though, huh? It's not like I'll be going back anytime soon as far as I know.

I wish you could all come with me, wouldn't that be fun?

"I need a table for The Internet, please. We can pull up some chairs."

It looks like I'll be able to torment you all from the sky on the way out there (Four solid hours of me! Bored! In a metal tube!), so peace out, I'm going to bed to get rested up for the trip and give you time to make, "Liquor in the front, poker in the rear" jokes, or whatever they do there.

9 years, to be precise.

(Note: if you're looking at the archives, you'll see they begin in April of 2003. I had a couple of urls before this one, so you'll just have to trust me.)

I'm not sure what I can say that I haven't said the other 8 years, but I never dreamed that day I opened a Blogspot account and chose "Busy Mom" (because everything else I wanted had been taken already) would lead to everything I've been privileged enough to do here.

Thank you.

Truly, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I enjoy it so much, but it always goes so fast.

In some ways, it feel like forever before it will roll around again next year, and in other ways each year we go, it seems like we just went.

I think they call that whole freaky time observation thing, "old age", no?

Maybe I'll just keep that to myself.

Anyhooters...

Today it was back to reality, and I nearly nodded off more than once, I was so tired.

Man, the other drivers were kinda pissy about it, too.

For the past 13 years, I've been extraordinarily fortunate to be able to take a trip to the beach with my friends.

In fact, I'm here right now.

The other 6 people are out walking and being all exercise-y, and I'm here producing quality content for you.

Yes, even for YOU over there, and you there in the classroom when you're supposed to be listening to your teacher (Hi, and I don't think you're supposed to have your phone out right now, but then again, what do I know?)

I'm nothing, if not a giver.

I was a little worried about the trip this year since I've recently started a new job.

It meant that I had to ask for 3 days off pretty much my first day there.

Fortunately, I was able to get the time, 'cause it would have been a shame to waste a perfectly good job.

Yeah, I know 2012 isn't really novel anymore, but just work with me here.

We had a lovely Christmas, though it involved some driving around.

My MIL's birthday is 12/23, so we usually go there (about 2 hrs.) to celebrate her birthday and Christmas there.

But, this year she wanted to do it on 12/24 which was all well and good, but Busy Girl had to work in the afternoon.

So, we went down there in 2 cars for lunch and Busy Girl, my dad and I turned around and came back after we ate, while Busy Dad and the boys stayed there for the day with his mom and brothers.

It turned out to be just as well since, despite my solemn vows to the contrary, I really wasn't ready for the big day the next day.

(Aside: 2012 is my year! I'm going to get everything done by Thanksgiving! Umm hmm...)

Busy Girl also had to work Christmas morning.

She works at a church nursery, so we just had to delay things a little until she got home.

We all went to Mass and she went to work afterward, and we came home and had breakfast and stalled for a while.

I'm impressed with myself as I kept the boys out of the living room (where tree, presents and Santa stuff was) until she got home since she didn't want to miss anything.

New Year's weekend was fun.

I took the boys to St. Louis to visit friends (real long time readers may remember my friend 4ladsnme) since Busy Dad had a large report due for work and hadn't been able to get it done.

We went skating at Steinberg, ate at Fitz's and hung out.

Busy D. got to play golf, so he was thrilled.

The adults went to a party on NYE while the kids stayed home and ate brown food (tacos, pizza, chocolate).

We got home before the ball dropped and tried to shoot fireworks, but it was too danged windy to even light them.

January 2nd it was back to reality. Everyone had to go back to school (I KNOW!) and I had to work.

That just ain't right...

Speaking of work, new job is going well, though I don't quite know what I'm doing, yet. I love the people I work with, and it's interesting, so far.

The more pressing news is that I'm going to the beach in 3 days.

I'm fired up, except for the fact that, as usual, an expense came up right before and I had to spend half my money that I've saved on the car.

Brakes, schmakes. We'd figure out how to stop one way or another.

If you made it this far, congratulations.

This is what blogging used to be like.

It wasn't compelling, controversial or full of all-knowing wisdom, was it?

It may have even been *whispers* "boring".

But, I promise, people really did care what others had been up to and looked forward to hearing about it.

Oops, I guess I'm not over my "good ole days" relapse.

I truly appreciate it, and as I was reading there, something in my site description struck me.

Not simply because it was about me, but because it's descriptive of something larger in blogging as a whole (not just in the context of Babble, they've been very good to me) that I ponder from time to time:

"...her confessions are less dramatic than most"

I fully realize this is a geezer case of "back in the day", but seriously, why does blogging have to be "confessional"?

Why isn't writing about about your day good enough?

Why must a blog be "useful" or "controversial" to be "worthy"?

To me, blogs that try to out-controversy, out-wise commentary, out-advice all the others (and many are well-written, but the intent is obvious) become "websites" rather than blogs.

That distinction is entirely in my head, but I just miss the days where you read blogs to catch up on someone's life, find a new joke or just enjoy that person's point of view on things.

No, I don't get to say what blogging "should" be like (write about what you like, REALLY!), but I do know what it "could" be like, and part of me is a little sad that there's many in this community don't.

Perhaps it had something to do with the fact I've been standing in the kitchen continuously since Friday night.

OK, that's not true, we did make the 2 hr. journey to my MIL's on Saturday for lunch, but Busy Girl and I had to come right back home after lunch because she (Busy Girl) had to work.

She worked, and I made the Christmas magic to prepare for the boys' arrival home.

Despite my solemn vows (made right about this time last year, in fact) that I'd never see the wee hours of Christmas morning again because we didn't get everything done ahead of time, I saw the wee hours of Christmas morning again because we didn't get everything done ahead of time.

Anyway, I cooked until my head fell off, and then we ate it.

The food, not my head.

Sadly, I am really sore today from all the standing. Indeed an attestation to my physical conditioning of late.

I didn't even bother all you guys about cooking beef tenderloin as usual (I can't ever remember what to do), but it would have been moot, as I think the oven is about to go to God.

It came out OK-ish, but other stuff either didn't cook right or burst into flame.

Oven diagnostics are on today's agenda so as to avoid the Great Appliance Failure of Year-End 2011.

Actually, catching up on some online stuff is on today's agenda because I have to go back to work tomorrow.

I didn't take much time off this holiday because I wasn't sure what the custom was at my new job.

In fact, they had to tell me today was a holiday.

Over the past few years, I've just been able to take whatever days off I wanted/needed, and didn't pay much attention to which day was the "official" holiday.

But, now I have to think, and I nearly made a big fool out of myself by going to work today, as this whole Christmas falling on a weekend thing is complicated at a hospital.

Santa was good to us, I was excited to get an iPad, so I will shut up about that, now.

It was probably our last large-ish purchase for the next 6 years or so because we'll have kids in college beginning in a few short months.

In fact, that may have been our last purchase ever now that I think about it while preparing FASFA forms.

It's Sunday night, the point in our program where I swear I'm going to get on the ball and write more regularly here.

I am nothing if not consistent here in my utterly recognizable school-and-soccer-practice life.

So.

I got a new job, and it ate my brain.

The end.

OK, not really.

I mean, it's "not really" the end rather than "not really" that I got a job.

I'm unclear if I still have my brain.

I've been at it a week now, and I think I'm going to like it once I figure out what exactly it is that I you know, do.

It's really different for me as I've been doing the same thing for the past 9 years, essentially alone.

Now, I have co-workers I really like, but am having to re-learn things like how to go to meetings, use Outlook, ask other people for vacation time and how to interact with people.

I also have to re-learn how to dress myself since previously, I could pretty much wear the same thing every day (and, may have) and no one would really notice.

You'll all be relieved to know that I secured the time off for my annual Girls Trip in 23 days, 2 hours and 29 minutes, so it's safe to go ahead and choose a travel buddy for when I load you all into my suitcase.

ANYWAY...

New job is taking up much needed brain space.

It's the same hours, at the same place, but something about it has thrown me way off.

I cannot remember anything outside of it, and that's particularly inconvenient here so close to Christmas where I'm expected to make everyone's dreams come true and feed them the meal of a lifetime.

So, that's all of my less-than-dramatic confessions for tonight.

Until right about now, the whole "going off to college" thing has been largely imaginary, even though she's gotten 2 acceptances (with money, even!).

It still seems like kind of a game. A game that costs around $50 for every entry, but a game nonetheless.

We've been on a couple of college visits, one to a school I'm somewhat familiar with, and the other to a school from where I graduated, so those visits still seemed a little pretend.

But, last week we went on the first visits that seemed real.

Busy Girl and I got in the car Wednesday night and drove the 350 miles to West Lafayette, IN to visit Purdue University.

We were both excited to see it since it's among her first choices, but it still didn't seem real until I watched her go in to her appointment with the business school.

I know people send kids to college all the time, but this is starting to get serious, yo.

She had that appointment, we walked around, shopped at the bookstore and ate in one of the dining services areas like real students.

Then we had a campus tour that was nice because we had a tour guide all to ourselves and got to ask lots of questions.

Then, we drove down to Bloomington and did much the same thing at Indiana University.

Holy Honkers, that place is massive.

I discovered I could be a professional college visitor, I had a blast.

Actually, Purdue was my first real college visit.

I was essentially told where I was going to college (family legacy) and I applied and went without visiting other places, so this was kind of new to me.

One thing that was a little unexpected for me was my reaction to imagining my child at a school with the same colors as mine with people passionately singing a different alma mater.

Weird, I know, but it just kind of struck me.

Anyway, it was all very informative once I caught onto the fact that when they said "parents" they were talking to me.

I work on a college campus, so I suppose I officially looked like the slack-jawed people I often see touring with their high school seniors.

Being the parent on a college visit is a sure fire way to make you feel old.

The students are her peers, and I'm just the person they have to condescendingly inform about "safety".

Also, I realized I was expending a lot of mental effort on wondering if there's a grocery and a drugstore nearby. When did I become that person?

Anyway, who knows how all this will turn out?

We're still waiting on some letters, and I have no idea what we'll be able to afford, especially because we'll have another kid coming along to college right behind her.

Meanwhile, I just continue referring to the whole thing as "school camp" and enjoy all the pretty brochures that come in the mail.

**********

Don't forget, I'm giving away a $50 Visa gift card. Enter to win so you can buy me a Christmas gift.

This was in the paper in 1963, store employees gathering around the TV in the electronics department watching the news coverage that day.

I think this is a cool picture. My Dad is in the front row, second from the right.

(Also, to those of you who it means something to (you know who you are), Happy St. Cecilia Day!)

(Note: I'm not interested in a religious debate, just so you know.)

Anyway, most of you who still actually read here know my mother died about 5 1/2 years ago.

Prior to her death, I had never given much thought (or credence, actually) to stories of "signs" people sent loved ones after their death, so that's really why I rarely talk about stuff like this.

I'm quite confident grieving people are so desperate to ease the pain and to feel the presence of their loved ones that there is a psychological component to these stories.

But, after my mother died, it also became apparent that perhaps there may actually be a few things that can't quite be explained.

Though I'm a nurse, and I've seen my share of kinda wild stuff related to death and dying, I am SO NOT the person you'd expect to receive "signs", so image my surprise when I got a couple.

Her first birthday after she died, I was on the way to work.

I stopped to get something to drink at McDonald's and parked for a moment to use the wifi from a local park.

While I was sitting there, a very obscure (and very out of the station format, I haven't heard it since) song that she used to sing a lot came on.

I was busy processing that, and the window was open, so I didn't see the homeless guy approaching my car.

He apologized for startling me and offered to sing me a song.

He had obviously had a beer or five, but was otherwise calm cool and collected, and for some reason I said, "Eh, sure, why not? Pick a song my mother would like."

Mind you, I gave no other information, and he (very beautifully, I might add) began, "Happy Birthday to you..."

I'm convinced my mother had something to do with it because she was pretty funny and was a recovering alcoholic (who worked in rehab with people from all walks of life), so the idea of her showing up through this guy in the park was amusing.

That's one of my stories, what's yours?