Sounds of De-Construction rang through my neighborhood again this past week. This time isn't wasn't a house coming down; but the neighbor across the street cutting down a tree, and several dead limbs. I'm not certain why he chose to de-forest more of the neighborhood (since they torn down a whole block for the new school, the neighborhood is pretty bare), as you can see from the pictures, the tree wasn't sick. Matter of fact, it was really pretty this last fall.

FALL 2000	FALL 2001

Speaking of trees, here's a shot of the moon that I took the other night through the trees out back. (Not my trees though. So far, I have never lived in a house that had a tree.)

A couple of days ago, I took Jodi and Ramone (my old roomie and her hubby) to catch a plane out of Cleveland and bound for Mexico. (I took this picture of them at 5AM before leaving for the airport.) They will be spending the next three weeks of the holidays when Ramone's family. They have called in and the plane trip was fine and they are having a wonderful time. I'll be making the trip back to Cleveland later this month (the 19th) to pick them up.

Does this plane look familiar? Well, I'm sure it does to my mom. She saw me get off it once before on a trip back home. Guess what? She's going to see me getting off this plane again!

During my work day, I travel between the different stores that make up the Waikem Auto Group (6 buildings all together). During this past year working for Waikem's, I've started some friendships with some of the other employees. (Ruth, Loretta and Bob at the Ford store; Nancy Cain at the Honda store; of course, my best friend Jim, next door in the Internet Department; Gayle, the boss' secretary) They recently surprised me with an early Christmas gift of - a Plane Ticket for Home! And not just any ol' ticket either. They have me leaving Canton (whew! no hour drive to Cleveland this time) at 6AM (Sat 15th) and returning at 10:30PM on Tues the 18th. Why are the times so early and so late, you ask? These wonderful people paid to get me the most amount of time back home that they could possibly get for me! To make this gift even better, I found out from my Mom that the Saturday I arrive back home is the day my family had already planned for their Holiday Get-Together!!

Whew! I'm just about "holiday-ed out" as December draws to a close. Since I was able to go back home for Christmas with my family (12/15 - 12/19), I've been having the holidays for nearly three weeks. Hopefully, at some point, I'll rest up enough to re-cover from the "prop-lag" of my trip (it was a tiny plane, so it wasn't "jet-lag" LOL). Christmas was wonderful at both homes. The gifts I received included: a cool t-shirt from Carolynn; several masks from DO, Jodi, Carolynn, Donny, Lisa, Angie and Jon; candy and cookies from nearly everyone; an office utility cart from Jim; calendars from Rick and Jim; and a toaster from DO (no electric can opener, thank goodness!). I'm sure there were a few other things; but my brain is going with old age, so I can't remember it all. LOL Thank You everyone!

Speaking of masks, I got enough new ones this Christmas, that I took them all down and washed the masks and the wall. Below are several pictures of my newest masks, and the entire collection.

Click here to see the ENTIRE COLLECTION
the blank wall	MouseOver Surprise