It's the Little Things....

I haven't been keeping up very well this past week with posting as I have been working -feverishly -to finish one last tablecloth. I thought I would have it done by Sunday night but that didn't materialize. Then I figured with what little I had left to get it done I could have it done by Monday night, but that didn't pan out either.

Now, I have four leaves on one lousy little poinsettia in one corner and a very simple border to complete around the outer edge and that's going to have to wait now till Tuesday before I get that topped off and then, it will be completed!

I would have had it done earlier tonight but Mandy informed me she wasn't going to have the time to wrap the presents I have for the kids and adults so it came down to my wrapping gifts tonight and getting that done -or finishing the tablecloth and I decided to go for gift wrapping.

Because I do have a bit of an evil streak in me and also, because a certain little girl here is a complete clone of her mother and her aunt when it comes to snooping in packages, I have all the packages wrapped and stuffed into a big plastic bin and a clothes basket and I don't have them hidden. Those two "storage" containers are sitting in the dining room, just waiting to be handed out Christmas Eve.

However, all the packages for Maya and Kurt are on the very bottom of the big bin so there is no way Maya can get into that and try to sneak a peek at any gifts! Good way -maybe -to kind of scare here into thinking she's not getting anything but maybe a lump of coal cause she hasn't been behaving very well and Mandy and I have warned her time and again that she was skating mighty close to the edge and just might not get ANYTHING from ANYONE much less Santa Claus for Christmas.

Yes, I am just ornery enough to try a stunt like that on her and see how well it flies!

Monday afternoon, when Mandy got home from her jaunt over to Dubois to try to finish her shopping, I had some local errands to run so I headed out the door shortly after she came home.

First stop was at the mail boxes to check and see what the postman might have dropped off.

Since we no longer have a post office here in our little village, the residents -most of 'em anyway- get their mail at individual boxes that require a key to open them and there are three clusters of this type of mailboxes at strategic intervals around town. The cluster where our box is located is situated pretty much in the center of the village and much as I dislike not having a post office building here to go into and college our mail, it is nice this way in that you can pick up your mail at any time of day or night.

Provided, of course, that you have your own little key to open said box, that is.

And when I went to get our mail today, imagine my surprise when the mailbox key wasn't in the little area between the front seats of my jeep! It's where we "always" keep that key but today -no key!

Now Mandy has a small problem -or has had in the past -in keeping track of keys, particularly her car keys. And about a month or two back, she informed me that she had either lost -or well, misplaced -one of the two mail box keys we had.

But today, it appeared she had now lost the only other key we had to use to pick up our mail.

I turned around and came back to the house -honking the horn as I pulled up out front and she came to the door to hear me having a bit of a hissy fit as to what had happened to the other mail box key. She initially tried to pass it off that I had lost it but then realized the last time we'd used it was on Saturday and that day, she, the kids and Sammy, the mutt, had walked up in the freshly falling snow to get the mail and she was the one who had charge of the key then too!

She was a bit ticked at me for being ticked at her and tried to blow me off by saying she would hunt for it in her purse or her jacket pockets later but I figured, with her track record, I'd best find out what we'd have to do if it didn't turn up and get ready to set that ball into action, ya know.

So off I went to the post office in the next neighboring village to drop some cards into the outgoing mail and also, ask the postmistress there for information on what we would have to do if we can't find the key.

It also just so happens that the postmistress there is my son's girlfriend so along with getting information on the set-up for replacing a key, I also had her cancel the stamps on two cards I had in my purse but I didn't drop them in the slot but put them back in my purse to bring them home with me.

Why? Because these were two little Christmas cards I had purchased for Maya and Kurt and I didn't want to wait till we got things with the mail box squared away to give them to them.

So, when I came home, I pulled these cards out and told them a bit of a fib that when I went to the post office where "Aunt Betty" works, she was "changing" the mail (which she wouldn't be doing for mail coming to our village but Maya and Kurt don't have a clue as to how that works but I also figured that Maya is slick enough though to notice a good stamp that hadn't been cancelled) so anyway, I told them Aunt Betty had just come across, it so happened, these two cards, one for each of them and I gave them their own cards.

What happened next totally took both Mandy and I by surprise.

Maya opened her card, looked at it briefly, but that was about all the reaction she gave.

Kurtis, on the other hand, was so excited over this little card, squealing like crazy, saying "Christmas card, Christmas card" and then, when Mandy read it to him and told him it was from Grammy, he really got excited!

I'd be willing to bet that people around the country and certainly those folks in Washington -senators and representatives -wouldn't get this excited if they had finally just passed a bill for affordable health insurance! No sirree Bob, I bet they wouldn't!

But he sure reacted in a way that you'd have thought he just got that or else, maybe a winning lottery ticket!

Just too doggone funny, it was!

All of which just further proves to me that with little children, it often really is just the little things that excite and please them the most.

Hope he's that happy come Christmas Eve now when he actually gets some real packages and presents to open!