Current location:	home
Current mood:	happy
Current music:	theme from West Wing (RedHead1der watching DVD's)

Happy New Year!!!
Okay,I know it's, like, almost the end of January, but better late than never. Redhead1der and I had a good Christmas with family. Nice and relaxing, taking full advantage of sleeping past 6:30 am.

We spent most of Christmas day with Patrick's family at his niece's house in Olive Branch. We left there about 3 or 3:30 and drove down to Ackerman and spent a few nice leisurely days with my folks. Saw the Alvin and the Chipmunks movie - that was cute. Jason Lee definitely looks different without the mustache. Went back up to Grenada, MS on Friday. Spent the night at Pat's parents house and came back home on Saturday. Did a little bit of shopping at the outlet stores in Batesville on the way back.

Pat had to be back at work on New Years Eve but I didn't have to go back till the day after New Years. Boy, was I paying for it at work when I got back. Still doing the auditing thing with a little bit of help but was still basically about 2 weeks behind up until this past Friday. There are now 2 other quality auditors (FINALLY!!!) besides me. I spent a few days training them so they would know how to do it properly, and thanks to them, we finally got caught up last week. This week, the other 2 are auditing the Memphis and Salt Lake agents and I'm auditing the agents in the India office. Pretty soon, there will be someone in the India office doing the audits, and then I'll be auditing the auditor.

I'm just glad we finally got caught up. I hated being that far behind, but if I hadn't taken the vacation time that I did between Christmas and New Years, I would have lost it (both the vacation time and my mind---hahaha!!)

Over the holidays, my parents gave us some deer meat they had gotten from one of the boys at the church there who does a lot of hunting. I'm 33 years old and had never had deer meet in my entire life. They gave us 3 small trays of deer steaks and 4 2-pound rolls of ground deer meat. We gave 1 of the rolls to Pat's parents and 1 to his brother and sister-in-law who live in Blytheville. My mom had told me how to soak the steaks in milk the night before to get rid of some of the "gamey" taste. Pat cooked one batch in the crock pot and the other 2 batches we just cooked in a skillet. I used the 2 remaining rolls of ground meat this past weekend. I put some of it in some chili for a soup & chili luncheon we had at church yesterday, and the other roll got used to make a meat loaf on Saturday evening. I've decided I definitely like the ground deer meat a LOT better than the steaks. With the ground meat, you can't tell it's deer. It tastes just like regular ground beef.

We've been having our share of cold weather around here. Until this past weekend there hadn't been any frozen precipitation. We had a bit of freezing rain on Friday, and some of it lingered till Saturday. I went to Jackson, TN on Saturday for a birthday party for 2 of my nephews, and I got there and back just fine. I got so tickled at my youngest nephew Corey (he's 2 - turning 3 in April). I took a picture of him while he was playing in the den, and of course he wanted to see the picture (I just love my digital camera!!). I showed him his picture and I swear, he said "Aww. That's cute." Gee, wonder where he's heard that before??? Mommy, Grandma, and Granny, no doubt. Later, when Will and Ryan were blowing out their candles and letting Mommy help them cut the first piece of their cakes (Susan had made 2 small cakes - one decorated for Will and one for Ryan), Corey was sitting in his chair with this long look on his face, as if to say "I wish I had a cake." He looked so sad.

Well, I better go before this turns into a novel. Hope all of you are doing well. Take care and God bless!!