Then there is the whole “Merry Christmas” versus “Happy
Holidays” crap that I can’t stand. Let me be clear on this one. If I know you
celebrate something other than Christmas, I will gladly wish you a “Happy
Kwanzaa, Chanukah, Yule, Festivus, ect.” Until I know you that well, I will
gladly wish you a “Merry Christmas” instead. And anyone who becomes offended by
me wishing them good things can take a long walk off a short pier.

It’s as if someone says to you on Friday afternoon, “Have a
good weekend!” and you get offended, who really has the problem in this
situation?

Sorry, stepping off the soapbox now.

So Christmas is over and the usual clean-up begins. Trying to
find places for all the stuff our little one received, and trying to keep it
all together. She already misplaced the pieces to one of her games in record
time. Luckily I found them.

Also I managed to come down with something earlier this
week. Caught a cold last weekend from our wee one, and by Monday at the end of
work, I was a wreck. Fever and chills, body aches and a massive sinus headache
and congestion. Not sure if it was flu or a cold, but it leveled me for nearly
two days (Tuesday and Wednesday), but I managed to pull myself around for
Christmas and family visiting.

Funny thing is Christmas this year is more like a Tennessee Christmas
than one back in Michigan. I don’t even think it got below freezing at night
and it was nearly 40Ëš yesterday and it will be nearly 50Ëš today and tomorrow.
But when the other shoe drops, we’ll pay for the warm weather I’m sure.

I don’t know. I’ve got other things I want to get off my
chest, but I feel as though I’m rambling on and maybe I need to think things
through a bit more before I try to write them down. You see, I write these
things to get them off my chest and out in the open. Some things just don’t
need to be brought up to my wife, because they will bother her and I don’t want
to burden her with this crap.

Two things she doesn’t need to know is that I am desperately
homesick for Tennessee. I well and truly hate being here in Michigan. And the
second one is, I am really disappointed in the job choices I had once I got
here and I feel I will never be appreciated (or compensated) here like I was at
my old job. (I took a heck pay cut to get this job, thinking I can move up
inside the company, and while I still might be able to do that, it won’t be as easy
as I thought it might be.)

I was on FaceBook today and watched a vid of a friends kid
unwrapping her present. My friend Tom’s voice was on it and I got this sudden
wash of homesickness for all the familiar things back home. There is an
internet meme going around that says, “The air hurts my face… Why do I live in
a place where the AIR hurts my FACE?!” y

Yeah, that’s how I feel most days.

I’m Alive… So Far…