Two weeks ago, it was snow...

...now it is a winter heat wave.

With temps in the 40s the last week, just about all of the snow has melted. Two weeks ago we get slammed by a blizzard and 12 inches of snow and now it has melted away to leave mushy ground and dirty gutters.

Somehow the Milwaukee area has been caught in between the Great War between the Cold Miser and the Heat Miser! Just to prove I have no favoritism, here he is, the Heat Miser to state his case:



The family is coming over tomorrow night for our Christmas celebration. Everything is a week early to accommodate my brother and his plans to head east to be with his wife's family. Not a big deal to me. It just meant I couldn't procrastinate on most stuff. I still haven't finished getting gifts, but that will be satisfied tonight. I will be meeting up with my ringer and she will spend my money with glee. She also offered to wrap all the gifts as well. Score!

I did get out to the store last night to buy food and drink for tomorrow night. I am not serving dinner, just appetizers. So buying stuff wasn't a big deal. I just need to cut the cheese (ha!) and sausage and place them on a platter. My nuts will be on the table (nice to see the cashews on sale for once) and the kids will be glad to see the slew of M&Ms that I bought.

Once the food was done, I headed over to the liquor department. I had to get the requisite beer and soda. I also needed wine coolers. For some reason my sister decided to go the cooler route instead of plain wine. I haven't bought wine coolers in a long time. I chuckled when I saw they still make Bartles and Jaymes. I believe I picked up a 4 pack of some fruity mango thing. 4 should be enough as she won't be drinking much. But I have a bad feeling her husband will start drinking them.

I got what I needed and headed to the checkout. Before I got there, I looked at the cart. Mentally I added the bill up. I was coming close to spending as much money on booze as I did food. Sweet! I should have grabbed the last bottle of Maker's Mark, but chose not to. I hope I don't regret that. But I did spread out the soda purchase between Coke, Sprite, and ginger ale. That will go well with the Maker's, Captain Morgans, and Seagrams Seven Crown. If that isn't the best use for "leftovers", I don't know what is.

So Aleta wants to see pictures of my decorated house, eh? Not going to happen. I will post a pic of the tree though. I did a crappy job on it this year, but the finishing touch always brings a tear to my eye. Yes, I get sentimental about putting the star on top. I may post that on Saturday.

As for the rest of the living room- yes, I don't have some Santa towels or shit in other rooms of the house- it is quite simple. I have snowmen all over the place. The only reason I have them out is for my mother and nieces. It is a sad story. Each year my mother would give me some kind of snowman present. I didn't say anything at first, but once these damn things were all over the place, I had to ask what was up.

"Um...why do you keep giving me snowmen each year?"
"Because you like snowmen!"
"I do?"
"Yes, you do. See, you have them all over the place"
"That is because you keep giving them to me"

Yes, I am caught in a snowman Catch-22. Maybe the only way out of this dilemma is to dig out the Satanic Santa and place it front and center.