Mission accomplished

We're back from the land where time stopped. And overall, it was a quick but good trip.

The alarm promptly went off at the buttcrack of dawn, so we all showered and packed and jumped in the car to head to my parents. The mission for this weekend was to get the new computer that my siblings and I bought my parents for Christmas up and running, get their DSL hooked up, and attempt to teach my dad how to use Microsoft Outlook.

Since Joey is a former programmer, he totally gets off on doing anything with computers. Me, not so much. So I left him to his devices (with Dad as his willing and very talkative assistant) while my mom and I proceeded to cook up a storm and Monkey Man entertained himself with a deck of playing cards, his Game Boy, and Lord knows what else while I wasn't looking. At least he didn't electrocute himself or anything like that.

My mom and I cooked the following items: one pecan pie, one coconut pie, one batch of macaroons, turkey, stuffing, green beans, rolls, and we even made pimento cheese, y'all. I swear to God that I gained at least 10 pounds in less than 24 hours. My mom was as happy as a clam, because unless she has the two of us slaving away like galley slaves in the kitchen, she's not satisfied. So there was some damn fine eatin' this weekend.

I'm almost scared to say anything for jinxing it, but when I walked in the door I was shocked to see my dad walking without a cane. Without holding onto anything. Like nothing had ever happened. It made me cry. He and I ended up washing the ten zillion dishes, pots, and pans last night and even though he was really tired, he stuck it out like a trooper. It is just amazing how far he has come since August 18th.

Anyhow, we got home earlier today, I made a Target run (egads!), and then wrapped about 95% of our Christmas presents. A few must wait until certain little people are asleep tonight, and then I still have some that should hopefully arrive tomorrow, but I feel sooo much better now. We have one Christmas party this week, Joey has one dinner with a supplier and then an office luncheon on Friday, and hopefully we'll get together with Cat Door M and his lovely bride (if she's recovered from her bronchitis enough) to have some cocktails and exchange presents. Of course, hers hasn't arrived yet and with my luck tomorrow night will be the only night they can come over....argh....But then on Friday we head back out of town again, first to the Out-Laws and then to my parents, then home on Christmas Eve.

On an entirely different note, I stopped at Dairy Queen today and was told that they no longer have the Banana Cream Pie Blizzard anymore. Dude, that is just wrong on so many levels that I don't know where to start.

Off to scrape up something to eat. I feel kind of ill after eating myself almost to death this weekend, but the troops aren't just hungry, they're HONGRY. And that's not good.