Click on that pretty picture above to see where I am today. The weather is yucky, and there’s a couch, a blanket, and a book calling my name.

—- No really, listen closely. “Ree, Ree, we miss you…come see us….” —-

Edited to say: I know it seems like cheating, but it’s 9:53 pm on the 7th, so I have this future posted. Really - I’m sitting on my couch reading. XXOO

I’m literally here at my kitchen table. Well, now I am, but I wasn’t all morning. After getting up at 6 am and driving 60 miles on icy highways and getting lost for 30 minutes I was taking advantage of an outplacement program that came included as part of my we don’t want you anymore severance package. Which, really, if you have to be unemployed on a forced sabbatical, it’s a pretty cool benefit to have available.

I sat in a classroom with other financial services people, healthcare/drug-company people, and (hah! bet you would have never guessed this!) auto-industry people. (In Detroit! I know! Fucking amazing, ain’t it?) Learning how to create a resume (properly-not in the 13-minute panic that sets in before you have to send it to someone) was useful, but the most important thing I learned is:

NOT everyone knows what they want to be when they grow up!

(Seriously? Oh mah holy hell, y’all — it’s NOT just me. Who knew?)

Apparently, the fact that I’ve been in banking/human resources/information technology for (shhhhhhh. no comments from the peanut gallery!) twenty-seven years does NOT mean I have to do that forever. (Damn good thing too. There’s what? Five banks left? and I’ve worked for 3 of them…).

Did you follow that? I probably shouldn’t set my sights on writer, either. Snort.

Actually, I knew it. I really did. It’s been on my mind for a while now. But I haven’t figured it out (yet). I waffle back and forth (and forth? can you go back and forth between 3 things?) between getting my teaching certificate (hmmm, maybe if I started researching that, I’d know what it involved), working as a consultant (for myself or for someone else?), or trying to get back into the corporate world as an actual employee (pretty blech-y sounding right now - especially during these economic times).

And honestly, if you can follow that mess of sentence structure and parentheses and disjointed thoughts, you are my hero because you actually understand how my mind works. Will you marry me? I no longer move from A to B without going through C,D,#,(,2,15,Z,and X first.

Um. Sorry.

Aaaaaanyyyyyyywayyyyyyy, that’s what my brain is crunching. Everything I learned today and want to figure out. Aren’t you jealous?

Oh, and the brakes went out on the truck today while Shortman was driving it home from school and that’s going to cost us more than the truck is worth. (So, y’know, I had all kinds of fun imaging him overturned on the road because of no brakes! Wheee.)

—- So tell me. If you could re-invent a future for yourself, what would you do? —-

The Hotfessional Soundtrack

(Okay, stolen from a few sources, like Amaelija (dude, where are you?) and Major Bedhead, who stole it from Poppy. And I know I missed some thieves participants, bite me I’m sorry.)

Here’s the rules:

1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. When you go to a new question, press the next button
5. For every question, type the song that’s playing
6. Don’t lie and try to pretend you’re cool. (That really takes all the fun out of it. DON’T DO IT!)

Opening Credits:
Ain’t No Right - Jane’s Addicton
I do love some Jane’s Addiction

Waking up:
Arrival at the National Treasure Archives (National Treasure Soundtrack) - Trevor Rabin

First Day of School:
Save The Country - The Fifth Dimension
I am a child of the sixties…and I started school in 1968.

Falling in Love:
Voices in The Sky - The Moody Blues

Fight Song:
Put your Arms Around Me - Natasha Bedingfield
Obviously, a lover, not a fighter.

Breaking Up:
River Deep, Mountain High - Ike and Tina Turner

Prom:
Rendezvous Waltz - Frankie Yankovic/Walter Ostanek
Weird Al’s Dad, and yes, it’s a polka. Shush. My gramma used to play this.

Life:
Vital Signs - Rush

Mental Breakdown:
Standing - Liz Phair
It’s an instrumental from Exile in Guysville, and there’s no video, so I’m giving you a different one.

Driving Song:
Everything is Sunshine - The Hollies

Flashback:
If You’re Gonna Jump - Natasha Bedingfield
I seem to have a lot of female artists on this thing.

Getting Back Together:
Crossroads - Cream

Wedding:
Bad Influence - Pink
This is remotely funny I guess, if you listen to the lyrics. Or maybe not.

Birth of a Child:
A Thousand Miles from Nowhere - Dwight Yoakam

Final Battle:
Disappear - INXS
Mr. Hot and I used to dance around our kitchen to this when we first moved in together. Michael Hutchence - we miss you.

Death scene:
Next Time - Stroke 9

Funeral:
Extraordinary - Liz Phair
“…I am extraordinary, I’m just your ordinary, average everyday sane psycho. Supergoddess…”

End Credits:
Devil Inside - INXS

—- As much as I love those End Credits, I thought for sure that Buckcherry and Crazy Bitch was going to pop up. —-

***Edited to say: I just noticed that Major Bedhead’s version was different. Damn. Oh well. You could steal that one, too.

—- We would often be sorry if our wishes were gratified. Aesop (620 BC - 560 BC), The Old Man and Death —-

For more Mute Monday participants, check out The Troll Report.

What’s been going on in the last two weeks? Here you go - in alphabetical order,

Diva, The

• Worked the week before Christmas, attended office holiday parties, brought home gifts galore, including food and liquor. Did not share. (Spent most nights at his boyfriend’s house - came home to eat and shower.)
• Managed to carry down the bags of water salts and fill up the conditioner. Once. It’s nearly empty again. (Lucky for him, the homeowners forgot to go to Sam’s Club to get more.)
• Killed the battery in his car. Deader than dead. On the coldest day of the year so far. Guess who got a new battery for Christmas? (Oh, and boots! because guess who didn’t own boots? In Michigan? During record-snow-December-2008?)
• Left on Christmas Eve to go to West-by-Gawd-Virginia. Walking out, said, “I haven’t wrapped your gifts yet, so I’ll give them to you when I get back”. (The bottle of wine received was his redemption. For now.)
• Went back to work on Monday, got fired, came home sobbing. (A theory circulates that the writing was on the wall, although it is vehemently denied.)
• Made an appearance sometime on New Year’s Eve (to eat and shower) and then disappeared for two days. Came back (to eat and shower) long enough to do a load of laundry, repack, and leave again.
• Purchased milk and dishwashing detergent per his Dad’s request. Offered to pay for it. (Netted with phone bill for the month.)

Hot, Mr.

• Watched football. Lots of football, both American and the kind with the round ball. (And drank beer. American, German, and Japanese.)
• Bought his own Christmas gifts. Let wife buy own Christmas gifts. Watched and provided moral support while wife spent 4 hours wrapping Christmas presents for younger son. (Ended up wrapping one…badly.)
• Helped wife and younger son shovel 12 inches of snow off of 1200 foot long driveway. Yelled constantly. Cheered slaves workers into action whenever energy flagged. (Okay, so he actually did most one-third of the shoveling.)
• Ran on the treadmill nearly every day. For at least thirty minutes each time. (And stunk up the house with Icy Hot while moaning about knee replacement surgery.)
• Drove the 75 miles from home to the Pistons game on New Year’s Eve for this
  
  (and the Pistons won).
• Stopped shaving. (Discovered wife is not fan of poky face. Shaved.)
• Turned 53 and made own birthday dinner. (Yummy turkey chili - so what if it was canned?)

Hotfessional, Ree the

• Made Spanish crumb cakes for son’s final Spanish class before Christmas break so he could get brownie points from his teacher extra credit. (School was cancelled due to snow so she was stuck with four dozen cookies no one would eat.)
• Dragged husband shopping to Kohl’s seventeen thirteen five times to shop two-day sales. (And appropriately rewarded him for being the chauffeur.)
• Wrapped 22 presents for Shortman, five presents for Mr. Hot, three presents for The Diva, two presents for The Diva’s sister, and one present for herself.
  
  Determined once again that gift bags are really NOT the devil’s instrument. (Make a note next year, dumbass.)
• Finished 3/4ths of a crocheted baby blanket. Ripped out 3/4ths of a baby blanket. Restarted baby blanket from scratch. (Now 8/9ths completed.)
• Did not slap The Golden Child, even after spending better than three hours in his holy exalted presence. (Did get one hell of a headache from grinding jaws together in an effort not to say “Bite me.”)
• Wiped everything (and I do mean every-fuckin-thing) off of laptop, and started over from scratch. Managed to forget nearly every password for every protected website. Banged head against the wall repeatedly while looking for “forgot your password?” links. (Asshat bot-creators.)
• Took down, packed, and stored all of the Christmas decorations and restored living room and kitchen to pre-holiday status. Forgot (again) the vow to put things back in an organized manner and threw it in whichever box was closest. (Sliced thumb wide open while trying to replace the bulb back into the porch light fixture. Said fuck a lot.)
• Exercised at least 45 minutes on twelve out of fourteen days! (Ate enough chocolate to erase eleven of those days.)

Shortman, The

• Went snowboarding. Three times. Spent over $100 on lift tickets. Spent over $50 on lunch on those days. (Broke no bones.)
• Lost his wallet with his driver’s license, Subway gift card, Red Cross blood donor’s card, and school i.d. inside. Luckily, no cash was in said wallet (see above). When his mother drove him to the Secretary of State’s office in a snowstorm so he could get a new license, he remembered where said wallet was located while they were standing in line. (Called his dad to confirm that it was in the other pair of khaki pants.)
• Played untold hours of Word of Warcraft. Ate untold cans of Spaghettios. (Sometimes, he even put the pasta in a bowl and heated it in the microwave instead of eating it directly from the can.)
• Learned to play “Sweet Emotion” and “Love in an Elevator”. Guitar Hero Aerosmith. (On ‘hard’.)
• Applied to two universities. Decided to major in criminology/criminal justice. Assured his parents that he will survive if he moves out of state. (Parents are skeptical.)
• Managed to NOT do a single lick of schoolwork. Has not read Shawshank Redemption. Has not worked on presentation that (due to aforementioned snow day) he missed giving before break. Has not printed out recipe for Spanish Crumb Cakes that will need to be made (again) tomorrow for sucking up to teacher his Spanish luncheon. (Will roll his eyes and grunt when his mother reminds him of these things.)

—- There you have it. —-

1. Figure out if I have any design skills at all by creating a new header every month. (Jury=Out. I started to hate them by the end of the year.)
2. Link to each and every new commenter’s blog. Spread the love, so to speak.

And so I did. I actually managed to keep those blogolutions the entire freakin’ year. Twelve new headers (which, if I had thought of it, I would show you, but … I didn’t say I was smart enough to actually save every month’s header).

And a post that linked to each and every new commenter I had throughout 2008. No I really did. I found some wonderful bloggers doing this. I hope you did, too.

And so, as 2008 closed, I give you December’s new commenters.

• Aunty Belle has a front porch and a back porch. She’s got laughs and dee-bates. She’s also posted about the Next Great Idea. Go see.
• The Troll (No, not that kind of troll. This is the good kind of Troll) is the brain trust behind “Mute Monday” - the visual meme.
• Fellow Taurean Moi is also a boot aficionado. More about Moi is available by checking this out.
• There are cooking blogs, and then there is The Karmic Kitchen. I’m so making these - since I, too, believe miniature marshmallows are sacrilegious when it comes to sweet potatoes.
• Jamie - at Have Inspiration, Will Travel, made me spit wine with this hilarious photo.
• Shredder Blog is in German. Which means I can’t read it regularly, but I can pick out things that I recognize without reading. Like videos!
• A lot of you already know LouCeeL. He completed Blog365 successfully…388 posts in 366 days. And yet, as I was perusing through his posts, this one spoke to me.
• MomBabe (yes, the famous one!). I extra love her, because she has cute blond hair and because she gave us a list of her favorite posts!
• the sparring k9 writes without capital letters. See her beautiful art.
• Violet in the Middle is in the middle of the state in the middle of the country. Her favorite joke made me laugh, in a sick, sick sort of way. She’s a new blogger, so give her some love.
• How awesome is the name Jerry Sweet Sucks? But when you find out that Jerry Sweet was this woman’s husband, and now she’s a widow, it takes on a new meaning. I love it when Bobo takes over.
• It’s just chaos at Hey Lola. But there’s nothing chaotic about these beautiful things she makes. Yes, Lola. There are nipples.
• ProlixFrolicks (yea, cool, eh?) is writing a novel and sharing it with us. Oh. And his photographs. (Plus, he’s cute, too.)
• This site is going to make me gain 60 lbs. The Potato Chef is going to be my favorite site when I start growing mah own damn taters!
• Moms Without Blogs. Brilliant. Awesome. And she totally got me with this post.
• Peggy Sez writes at Divas Season2. Things like this and this had me laughing.
• Random Reeds’ mimi’s mommy stopped by during the Holiday Open House.
• Small Town Mom writes here. She turned me on to this. If only I could handle it.
• Jenn! at Juggling Life! stopped by. She really did! (Swoon). I love her comic strip posts.
• And if that wasn’t so totally cool, there was Mrs. G from Derfwad Manor. I can’t even give you highlights. There are too many to count.
• Reaching the midwest from Oklahoma City - Pamock. Love her tagline, “I’m an Okie, he’s a Brit.” Her losing her cat story is breaking my heart. Come home Mr. MG.

Whew. All told, and according to my spreadsheet, I had 405 new commenters in 2008. Granted…some stopped by once and have never been back. But looking through the names, I see so many people that I am thrilled to call friends.

People have asked how long it takes me to do these posts. Let’s just say that this month, my ass is so numb from sitting on it, that I don’t know if I can get to the kitchen to refill my wine glass. (Which, means, oh mah holy hell, a long-freakin’ time…) But it’s a labor of love. I will always be humbled by the number of people that stop by to see what I have to say.

And I thank each and every one of you. You make me want to sit down and write every day (you may wish I wouldn’t, but too bad. Pfffffft.). You brighten my life with your notes and emails.

—- And oh mah holy hell. The holidays are finally fuckin’ over. I can get back to real life now, right? —-

—- Hope your first day of 2009 is relaxing and full of love. I’ll tell you how I did with my 2008 resolutions tomorrow. Snirk. —-

Two thousand and eight is dwindling down,
Or already over for some,
Whether you’re in jeans or evening gown,
This heartfelt wish is from…

Me - the Hotfessional and my family,
Love, happiness to yours and you -
Mr. Hot, Shortman, the Diva and Ree
Wish you much health, wealth and joy, too.

To one and all - Happy New Year,
Your friendship is more than divine.
Raise your glass for a year of cheer,
And here’s to Auld Lang Syne.

I hope that 2009 brings everything that your heart desires. I hope the loves of your life know no pain. I hope that it is a healing time for broken hearts and lost souls. I hope that the Miami Dolphins show the Detroit Lions how it’s done. I hope that my hair grows back and I get a new, awesome job. I hope that I get a chance to hug each and every one of you who stop by my little piece of the world.

—- But most of all, I hope for Peace on Earth, Goodwill toward all Men and Women. —-

I get to re-image this laptop. From fucking scratch. New operating system. New installation of Firefox. New everything. I just spent close to an hour ransacking my office for the XP disk, the disk for my wireless card, the password for my wireless connection…

Yea. Aren’t I just the lucky one.

Excuse me a minute while I write a quick letter.

Dear Google-Hijackers,

Thank you, you dickhead bot-birthing-mutha-effin’-pricks.

I hope your balls rot and fall off.

Love (Okay, that’s a lie. HATE. I HATE YOU and I would like to stab you. Repeatedly.),
The Hotfessional

So, I’ll be here, banging my head against the walls. In case you’re looking for me.

—- Damn good thing I replenished my vodka supply. —-

Edited to say: Okay, so that wasn’t too terribly painful. I’m back. I think.