Dear Santa, Here's What I Really Want For Christmas.....

Hello world! Please know that I've missed blogging and my little life seems to have gotten more stressful that I could ever imagine. But that's no excuse. Thanks to Birdie Mae for leaving a comment and telling me to get off my duff and start writing again. (She didn't really say that but I feel that was the gist.) I don't think anyone really understands what a blogger feels like when someone leaves a post saying they read it. I like to believe that many people read my posts, but without a comment, I can't really tell. Okay, so enough of my excuses...on to the update and the topic of today's post.


First, I just found out last night that I made an A on my last course of my master's degree. This is huge for me. I've maintained a 4.0 GPA....of this, I'm very proud. I'm hoping that this will relieve some of the stress that I've been feeling, but the reality is that I'll just find something else to stress about. I'm not sure what that is right now, but I'm sure it'll be here before I know it. I just hope that I can continue to blog. Not that this is an excuse or anything, but having dial-up at home doesn't make it any easier to check email, blog, or surf the Web.


So....I've finished my master's degree. There's a few days until we get out of school for Christmas break and I'm really pretty glad about that. It's been a long year (and it's only half over.) The week I had off for Thanksgiving was much needed and so will the upcoming break. My family and I are traveling to Denver to visit my brother and David's sisters. (Side note...for those of you that don't know, David's sister is married to my brother. It makes for neat and tidy holiday gatherings. We don't have to share our time with anyone. We just all meet together.) Hugh and Melissa came last year, so now it's our turn. I don't really relish the idea of the very long drive and the possibility of getting snowed in. I don't mind cold weather, I just don't appreciate it when the weather cramps my style. I may not have anywhere to go, but at least I'd like the opportunity to go somewhere if I wanted to.


So today's topic......I have to moan and groan for a second. We're starting our third week without an ice maker. For those of you just joining us, I'm a total ice monger. When I was very small I remember having those little ice cube trays. First we had the metal ones that had a lever you pulled to break the ice and then we got the plastic ones. I hate ice trays. Sometime when I was growing up, we got an ice maker. That was the beginning of my ice monger ways. When David and I moved to Mississippi and we were furnishing our house, I had two requirements. One was to get a washer and dryer and the other was to get a refrigerator that had an ice maker and access to the ice through the door. I got what I wanted.


I've enjoyed having an ice maker at home. It's not often that you won't find me without a soda, water, or Crystal Light with ice in a cup near me. I'm not fond of hot drinks (I'll drink hot chocolate during the season occasionally and only a small teacup of coffee in the morning to perk myself up) and I really don't do room temperature drinks. I would never make it in Europe. I've been told that they don't really use ice over there. My ice mongering ways have even led me to have ice at school. When I taught in Florida, my school had an ice maker that teachers were allowed to access. I bought this HUGE Circle K cup that I filled with ice every day. I would then either fill it with water or transfer some ice to a cup and drink some diet soda.


When I moved to Mississippi, the school I currently work at doesn't have ice that's available to staff. I think that if I wanted some ice, they'd charge me by the small Styrofoam cup. So I do the same thing....add water to the ginormous cup or use the ice for a soda. I just get the ice from my house instead of at school. So fast forward to three weeks ago.


I woke up, got ready for the school day and then when fixing my breakfast, I reached into the ice maker to get some ice to go with my Crystal Light I was planning to drink while I ate breakfast. When I looked at the ice maker, I could see that the arm of it was not moving. It looked like it stopped moving before it made it all the way back to the bottom. In other words, it was broken. It took David a few days to look at it, since it seemed we had something going each night. He finally took it out and looked at it. Apparently he wasn't able to find anything obviously wrong with it. Not good. A few days later he took it all apart and did some diagnostic testing on it. He hypothesized that the motor wasn't working and then ordered one on the Internet. It took FOREVER to get here. (Like over a week!) David replaced it last night and it still doesn't work. He then pulled out the fridge to see if there was any blockage in the water pipes and cleaned off the filter. He also replaced the water filter too. Still doesn't work. We're about a week away from going to Denver so David won't be able to do anything until after Christmas break. He said that he would probably replace the whole thing. Let's hope that works.


So that leaves me in a quandary. I still require ice. For home, I've bought a couple of bags of ice and put them in the ice tray. This lasts me for a couple of days. For school, I stop at the gas station for a cup of ice each morning. It's a pretty large cup and it costs 59 cents. You can't beat that. I put the cup in the fridge at school that I keep cold enough to keep the ice frozen. So far, my plan is working out. All I can say is that if this was summer, I would have had a freak out/melt down by now.


So, if you have any pull with the big guy in red, please mention to him that I'd like a commercial grade ice maker. For my house. Really. I would ask him myself, but I have a phobia of store Santas (that's another post for another day.)