We’ve got most of our Christmas shopping done. Thank goodness.

Yesterday, I went through an enormous trial to get Jasbaz’s gift. While I was surfing around Craiglist (I have a severe love for that site because there is so much humor in unexpected places – where else could you find ads trying to trade twenty years worth of Playboys for ammunition! – and free cattle (we almost got new pets for relatives, anyone want a goat?) – and reading daycare provider’s ads who try to juice up their services by spelling things wrong! We teech yalls kids how tor ead good!), I found a wagon for sale for $20. Sweet deal! It’s one of those red plastic ones, a RadioFlyer.

So I called and set it up. Then got completely LOST in one of the neighboring cities even though I’d printed out a map with directions and everything. It’s just that the street name she gave me was actually at the end of a different street and so I’d looped past about nine times with a rapidly hungry and cranky two year old (I can say it officially now!) who was wondering why we weren’t home yet because it doesn’t usually take us two hours to get home. And where was dinner? And papa? And WHAT ARE YOU DOING MAMA? CAN’T YOU TELL I DROPPED MY BABY WILL YOU GET HER FOR ME EVEN THOUGH YOU ARE FRANTICALLY DRIVING AND PISSING OFF OTHER MOTORISTS BECAUSE YOU ARE STOPPING AT EVERY STREET? CAN’T YOU PLEASE?

I stopped in at a local money shark store (those Title Loan type places) since they were not busy and asked where on earth this street was. He consulted Mapquest (thanks A LOT Yahoo Maps) and found out that the road I was looking for was actually parallel to the street I was searching on so I would never have found it had I not stopped. Thanks lady, for the super awesome directions.

But she was kind enough to have her husband load the wagon into our trunk seeing as how Jasbaz had morphed into Godzilla on her front porch. She has kids, she knows how it is. We both looked down at her and shook our heads. Then I packed Jas into the car, handed the lady a twenty and attempted to drive us back home.

Cranky as Jas can get, she loves a good sing-a-long. So all our problems were erased when Britney Spears’ “Womanizer” song came on and you can judge us if you like, but she LOVES when we dance around to that song. There’s a lot of jumping and she just has a blast. We rock the house when we dance to that song. Annnyway, we were definitely singing, swaying our heads, and rocking in the car as I flew down the interstate. Then we switched over to the Oldie’s station and were gifted with Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust”. Bad mood, lifted.

So her gift is done. And we’ve got everyone else’s pretty much hammered down and purchased, with the exception of East Coast Relatives because we are sending you love this year instead. =D (Your gift is coming in the way of saving money so we can vacation with you next summer, paying it forward).

The only person we are unsure about is my Mother-in-law. I have no idea what to get her. What do you get someone who has everything that she wants? My thought was more time with her granddaughter (and incidentally, babysitting for us) but our extreme flightiness with schedules tends to bother her moreso than most people. I mean, I understand her side. But still. Um, ideas? Anyone? Ideas on the cheap?

I figure that if all else fails, I’ll fill a USB card with pictures, get them developed at Walgreens and slip them into an album for her since I know that Jas pictures are ALWAYS a treasured gift with most people we know. It’s like having a goose that lays golden eggs! Except that you have to pay to have the eggs developed. And put the eggs on cd or USB to get them “prepped”.