Chars Life and Times

Today is the first day of the new year of 2009. Happy New Year! 

Did you make New Year resolutions?

I figured out many years ago that New Year’s resolutions were somewhat hopeless statements. I have broken more New Year’s resolutions then kept them. I resolved in the past to quit smoking, lose weight, and be good (when I was much younger) but they never seem to stay resolved. I still smoke and I’m still fat, so why bother?

This year, I slept in, (until 5 pm) ate bunches of crackers and cheese and just chilled. My hubby watched the recorded Rose’s parade and I just worked on writing on the computer. This was a very nice New Years Day! Hope yours was grand too!

Evidently the big sales that most stores hoped would save them this year didn’t happen this Christmas season. Stores are still reducing prices down to the very depths in order to get shoppers to come through their doors. 

More and more stores are filing for bankruptcy protection, some that even surprised me. I remember shopping for my son years ago at the KB Toy store in our mall. I thought it was the best toy store around. They filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this month. I was really shocked at that one, even though our local store closed in our mall many years ago.

Another surprise for me was Circuit City. When we finally got a Circuit City store to our city, I was ecstatic! However, Best Buy built within two blocks of our Circuit City store within two years which I am sure affected them. Circuit City filed for bankruptcy protection last month. They do plan to keep on operating. 

The bottom line is people are not spending any more than they have to. If they still have a job, they are afraid of losing it and if they have already lost their job, they don’t have any money to spend for luxury items anymore. 

According to Lieutenant Governor Patrick Quinn, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich will be convicted of his crimes, impeached and out of the governor’s office by February 12, 2008. Blagojevich has said that he is innocent and hasn’t done anything wrong. He has gone to his office every day since he was arrested on December 9, 2008 and has even signed in new legislation. Blagojevich has acted like nothing has happened and it is a normal and usual work day at his office.

If Blagojevich is removed from office, Lieutenant Governor Quinn would take over as Illinois governor. Quinn has said that he will call for a vote in order to fill President-Elect Barack Obama’s seat that is now vacant. He said he will not just appoint someone to take that seat like normally a governor would do in this type of situation.

It will take a two-thirds vote in order to impeach Governor Blagojevich. Lt. Governor Quinn states that there are more than two-thirds of the senators that are willing to impeach the Illinois governor. It is just a shame that it will take two months in order to remove Gov. Blagojevich from office. I feel he should be immediately removed and not allowed to pass legislation and carry on the Illinois Governor’s seat as if nothing has happened. 

A family in Irvine, California brought home a box of crackers and it had $10,000 in a white envelope in it. What a shock! They didn’t feel right in just spending it, so they called the local police who thought the money might be part of a drug deal. 

The police heard from the grocery store who said that a hysterical older woman had come in earlier, totally upset because she had accidentally returned a box of crackers with her life savings in it. The store had restocked the box instead of destroying it as it usually does. Evidently, the California family had purchased that gold mine of crackers. 

I guess the elderly lady wasn’t that grateful about getting her money back, as the California family didn’t hear from her and didn’t even get a small reward. That’s a shame. They should have gotten something for being so honest and not spending the money. Instead, they called the officials and returned the money to its rightful owner. 

Every year for 13 years, Snowzilla has risen again. In Anchorage, Alaska a giant snowman has been createdin Billy Powers’s front yard. He says he doesn’t know how it was built or by whom. This year it is 25 feet high and city officials are having a fit, again.

They say it is an eyesore and against city codes. They had asked Billy Powers not to build it this year, but it has appeared again. Powers has rung up mountains of fines because of this great snowman. His neighbors are upset because of all the traffic going by to see the great Snowzilla and it is just causing a massive problem traffic jam.

I don’t see what the problem is. In fact, I think it is really cute! It had to take tons of manpower to create this massive snowman. How can someone not love this fantastic snowman named Snowzilla!

Christmas is finally over!! Thank goodness!

I spent my Christmas day sleeping. My son woke me up early. He came over to get his Christmas and couldn’t stay long as his dad brought him and he was waiting in the driveway. I wrote out his check, all the while him mentioning to me that he couldn’t believe I didn’t have it ready since I knew he was coming. Bah Hum Bug! He’s lucky he got anything.

I decided I was still tired so I went back to bed with some Vicadin. Since I fell the other day on my back, I have been in pain. The Vicadin must have really knocked me out because I didn’t wake up until 9:30pm. I guess could say I slept away Christmas. No problem though, nothing was going on anyway.

I hope you had a better Christmas day than I did.

Today is Christmas and I am writing this on Christmas Eve. It’s cold outside and lonely here at home. I don’t much like Christmas like I used to. My son is now 26 years old so it really isn’t fun anymore. We don’t even put up a tree or send out Christmas cards anymore. It seems like a waste of energy. We usually go up north by Chicago on Christmas day, but it has been put on hold because of the bad weather they have had this year. Therefore, on Christmas day my hubby and I will just sit at home, on our computers, me probably writing and him playing a game, just like any other day he is off work. 

I will be glad when Christmas is over and things can get back to normal. No more rushing. No more crowds and angry people fighting over presents. No more stupid Christmas programs on television. Back to the same ole, same ole.

Whatever you are doing today, I hope you have a Merry Christmas!

If you are reading this on Christmas Eve, I hope you have all your shopping done. Ho Ho Ho ! 

I had a wonderful time yesterday. I had an appointment to see my shrink and got all ready to go, running late as usual and hubby mentioned to me it was a little slick outside. Did I listen? Not too much. I opened the front door, saw the steps had ice on them, stepped down cautiously, and feet went out in front and fell flat on my butt. Yikes!! 

Luckily, hubby heard me scream (and cry-yes it hurt!!) and came out and helped me up. Since it was raining sleet, my whole backend was soaked! Well, I couldn’t go to the doctor like that, plus I decided it just wasn’t worth the effort to go out in this crap. Called the doc and got a new appointment for today. 

I sure hope your day was better. 

Winter officially started yesterday according to the calendar, but I’m already tired of it. The snow, ice and extremely cold temperatures have just gotten the best of me. I live in central Illinois and Sunday it barely hit a high of 5 degrees and last night it got down to 1 below zero. Now that is cold!! The average high temperature this time of year is supposed to be in the middle 30s with the lows being around 20 degrees. We are way off of the norms. 

I think we are just getting started with this extreme weather. Forecast for tonight after midnight is sleet and freezing rain with snow tomorrow. And can you believe this? By the weekend we are supposed to be in the 50s! Is that strange weather or what?

All I know is that I am ready for spring!  

We all realize that we are in a recession, but Christmas just comes once a year. I am not really into shopping any time of the year, much less at Christmas time, but you can’t help but wonder about all the traffic on the streets lately. I had to go to Petsmart for my weekly stock up the other day, and there were cars lined up for almost a mile to get into Wal-mart. I was amazed that at Petsmart, all the Christmas goodies were already half off. I never have seen this kind of price cutting until AFTER Christmas. Of course, my furry kids just had to have some new chew sticks. They won’t care if they are red and green or not. 

Stores are doing all they can to get those last minute customers in their stores and buy their products. They are so afraid that the recession will make people stay home and not buy for Christmas. I think that people who ordinarily buy Christmas gifts are going to do it anyway, just maybe spend a bit less this year than usual. 

For me, well I’ll just stay home and give gift cards.