What's Happening?

Well, I can hardly believe how cool I am! (Of course you know I'm kidding.) I have started a page on Facebook.com. We have been trying to think of ways to promote our Etsy.com store and lots of folks seem to endorse having both a company blog and also getting on Facebook. It's actually been kind of fun to find friends out there from my past and from work, church, etc. My lovely nieces and nephews have even invited their aunt to be a friend, so thanks, kids! Katie Kat, too! (Rachel is considering starting a page, but I don't think she has decided one way or the other just yet. And I think Carol might also be interested?)

So, anyway, what I'm finding is that between Etsy, Facebook, a company blog and our family blog, the big challenge is keeping up with all of them! Truth be told, I still think of our family blogs as the most important, and checking out Brenda's, Jenny's, Carol's and Rachel's blogs is one of the first things I do online (ahhhh, Carol, that would be 4 weeks for you, even worse than me)!

So, we'll see how it goes. As for what's new, Haworth has decided to close down on Fridays for the next 3 weeks, so I'm looking forward to a few 3-day weekends! Having said that, it seems that every day I hear something new, either at work or on TV, about more layoffs, company closings, etc. It's a sad time for folks. Herman Miller started their production worker layoffs, too. The new boss I just started working with a couple of months ago tendered her resignation this week (a surprise) and so now my "new" (new for me anyway), department - Staffing and Diversity - will have ANOTHER new manager - at least temporarily. He's a really nice guy, but it 's like - enough already! I'm too old for all these changes.

In Chicago, Rachel has a bad cold, and David and Katie are both working extremely long hours - partly because of the time of the year, and for Dave - he has accepted a new work assignment within Orbitz, and so is getting up to speed for his new position. Congratulations, David! We are so thankful that the kids have good jobs in this day and age.

I'm thinking it's about time for a family breakfast again! How about NEXT Saturday, Jan. 31? Personally, I'd like to try the DeBoer's bakery that I've been hearing about. I think there are two, right, and we went to the "wrong" one last time. Does 9:00am work for everyone? What do you think?

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to loved ones and friends near and far! I have been so far behind on the blog lately that I won't even attempt to catch up with the news, other than to say that we all enjoyed the holidays very much; we celebrated with Dave & Rachel before they left for Colorado and then attended the Hamberg Christmas party, we had a great (and somewhat painful - ha ha) family sledding party, Carol surprised us by coming to town, Rachel and David returned safely back from their fun trip to Colorado, where they enjoyed a relaxing Christmas with Mom and Dad Schwartz (Alec and Joanne), the girls and I had our annual after-Christmas shopping spree in Chicago (see our goofy video below), and we enjoyed seeing some friends and family at Jim and Rachel's last night (New Year's Eve). I've really enjoyed being home for almost two weeks; will return to work next Monday. We send good wishes to Brenda for her surgery tomorrow - all will go well, I'm sure!

(Sorry, these pictures and video are sort of mixed up and backwards from when they happened, but I'm not able to figure out how to move text around after adding pictures, without moving all of the pictures instead. Won't cut and paste my text - anyone know?).....

It's Ally, the Christmas Dog! (See below for more shots.)

Answers to Brenda's Christmas Survey:

Favorite Christmas movie (cartoon or children's)? It's a Wonderful Life and White Christmas

When do you usually start Christmas shopping? The day after Thanksgiving

Favorite Christmas present? When I was a girl, my mom and dad gave me a baby doll one year. But not just a baby doll - a baby doll that had all handmade doll clothes and she came in a hinged case that my dad made for me. My eyes were as big as saucers. That baby doll is still in grandpa's attic. Also, when Rachel was a baby and I was working on our family tree, my Grandma Millard gave me a wonderful scrapbook (before scrapbooking was popular!) of pictures from her whole married life, of my mom and uncles growing up, etc., that included several pages in the back that she wrote all about her life. I'll always treasure that.

Real or artificial tree? Right now, artificial (I'm allergic to real) - but I loved having real up until a few years ago

Colored or white lights? White lights

Favorite Christmas memories? Going to my Grandpa & Grandma Millard's for Christmas dinner - Grandma would always have handmade placecards, there would be a great meal, and the men would do the dishes! At our house (when I was little), I remember making popcorn balls and all kinds of Christmas candy. Since our girls have been born, I have always loved their excitement about Christmas, even now - when they were little it was especially fun to watch them open their presents - their eyes would get real big, and they would say "this is just what i just wanted!" Now, I think my favorites are the Christmas Eve service and our traditional fondue meal on Christmas Eve, our special Christmas breakfast, opening the stockings, and Christmas morning at our house.

Favorite Christmas song? The First Noel

Do you like eggnog? Yes!

Peppermint candy canes or fruity ones? Peppermint

And Now, for some Christmas Cheer, please say hello to Ally the Christmas Dog!

A Happy Christmas Lunch.....

Macey just loves her little sister....

Well, it was a complete pleasure having a Christmas lunch with Rachel, Bren, Jen, Mace & Kels at Alpen Rose today. Macey was darling, as usual, and it's so much fun to listen to her now, as she is talking all the time. Kels was a little bit leery of Aunt Jean at first, and who can blame her - who in the world is that woman who wants to hold and kiss her, anyway? I can see how much she's grown as she is now much more aware of which people are NOT her mom! But, afer a little bit, with Jen sitting nearby, she was all smiles.

Macey tells me that she has a blue house, and a blue bedroom. She noticed that I had brought along a small bag that happened to hold a little stuffed moose and a little stuffed cow. She saw a head peeking out and said "who is that peeking out of the bag?" Of course she soon found out!

We enjoyed our lunch very much and talked a bit about Christmas. We confirmed that we'll be having bingo as usual, but also decided to add Pictionary to our game list this year. (Bren - I think you said you'd check on a paper & stand for the game at your office? If not, just let me know and I'll bring home a flipchart stand and paper from mine. Thanks.)

It was a very stressful day (outside of the nice lunch we had), until I found out aroudn 3:00pm that Scott has KEPT his job at Herman Miller, and so we can breathe a sigh of relief again, at least for now. Haworth just announced yesterday that they are closing down their entire Allegan plant and all told 350 people will lose jobs - I think I'm alright for now, too, but I feel a lot better knowing that Scott has kept HIS job at least. Whew!

Here's a fun idea for our family Christmas party that I'm totally stealing from Brenda and Keith (if you don't feel like participating, no biggie, but could be fun.) I love the idea of wearing the ugliest Christmas sweater you can find - it could be hilarious to see what we all come up with - from the thrift store or an old person's closet - although it will be hard to top Keith's getup. So, if you're so inclined let's have an "ugliest sweater" party! Of course pictures will be taken, and maybe even prizes awarded, who knows?

I'll get back with everyone soon about our menu - still thinking about that....

Enjoy all of the pictures from today. We had a very good time!

"Ho Ho Ho!"

I know, I'm pathetically behind on my posts. It's like I said to my friend Lynne last night - "Christmas is barreling down on us like a freight train!" - and I haven't even cleaned up from Thanksgiving yet! I hear there could be a lot of snow this weekend, so probably a good thing to snuggle up inside and get some work done around the house. I know we'll put up our tree for sure, and I'll wrap some of those great buys we got on Black Friday.

I think Lynne and I will be going to the Christmas Home Tour (that the Holland Garden Club puts on every Christmas) later this afternoon/evening. There are 5 homes on the north side of Holland that will be decorated to the hilt for Christmas. It's those huge mansion-type homes out by the lake. I'll probably been insanely jealous afterward, but it still puts me in the Christmas spirit! And truth be told, I feel very lucky to have my house.

Scott and I took Dad to buy a new TV set on Tuesday night. He is pretty excited! I'm happy to say that we found him a nice 47" one at Sam's Club. It's HDTV and he will be getting all set up by Charter Cable today. I talked to him last night (he's already watching the reguar channels) and he told me he could see the score from the Piston's game more clearly than he has been able to for a long time. So, that's great. The man spends most of his hours in front of the TV - I'm happy we are able to make it a little nicer for him.

I was thinking - should we do a quick update via "comments" to my blog as far as how we stand with our buying for our adopted Christmas family? I'm sure we don't want to duplicate items. We should have everything bought by next Tuesday, so that Rachel and I can bring the gifts to Brenda next Wednesday. Here's what my family has so far:

1. Christmas-themed wicker basket for non-perishables


2. Christmas gift wrap, scotch tape, bows


3. 1 set of blue full-size flannel sheets


4. Gloves for the mom


5. Insulated gloves for John


6. Earrings for Sarah


7. Hair straightener for the mom


8. Black bath mat


9. Long-sleeved top for Sarah

I still plan on getting a few canned goods and Katie will be getting a gas card. I was also thinking that the mom probably doesn't get too many luxuries for herself, so I plan to buy her a couple of things from Bath & Body Works. How's it going with everyone else?

On the subject of Christmas, I'm excited that we'll be having it at our house this year! Rachel and Katie and I have been talking about what we might want to do that's fun and maybe a little different from what we've done before, but so far we haven't come up with any brainstorms. Of course we will still want to stay with some traditions, and I think everyone still likes to play bingo, which is fine, but I'm just wondering if anyone has any other thoughts/ideas of fun things we might do? I'll also start thinking about the menu soon and probably ask you to bring something, OK?

Ta Da!

Now Announcing! (drum roll, please) Scott and Jean's new and improved Etsy site! Yes, we were inspired by my sister Carol, who at last count had sold 18 items on her shop - way to go!), to post some of our stuff on our site again as well. We originally opened up an Etsy site like two years ago, but only posted a few items and then more or less gave it up.

However, we've decided to try again. "If at first you don't succeed, try, try"....you get the idea.

If you 'd like to check it out, go here: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=73278

Also, about Friday morning - Rachel N., so wish you could join us for breakfast! Bren/Jen, we'll give you a call on Bren's cell phone (I'll bet we'll run into you somewhere, too!) sometime after 8:00am.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

What? Thanksgiving Already?

Everybody wants to get into the act! My little buddies and I wish all our friends and loved ones near and far a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Scott and I tried a new restaurant last night called JoJo's Supper Club - It's in Douglas. We had driven down to Saugatuck to pick up my favorite dressing at the Butler Pantry - and by the way, Saugatuck was having their Christmas Open House and the little village looked absolutely lovely - Christmas lights everywhere, and balls of lights that seemed to be suspended from the trees and floating in the air. It was magical! I highly recommend that if you have a free evening it's nice to just drive through - kind of gives you a nostalgic feeling. Although I haven't mentioned this to Katie yet, I'm hoping that when she comes home for Christmas, we might take a carriage ride in Saugatuck this year. I read that it costs only $5 per person for a 15 minute ride. Anyway, we also decided to drive through Douglas - also very nice - there's something special about the little towns/villages that are decked out for Christmas. I love it! I digress. I had seen this JoJo's place online and we decided to give it a try. All in all, not super great, but like I told Scott, it's always fun to try new places! Actually, I did have a very nice curry carrot soup that was very good, but Scott was not overly impressed with his burger, which was served up on raisin bread! Gourmet, I guess? Oh, well...

Today we went to Sam's Club to stock up on some things before our current membership runs out next week. Got some good deals, and ran into Karen & Gary Collings and our neighbors from down the street there. I think by the time we chatted and got through all of the aisles, we were there for over 2 hours!

I've really enjoyed seeing all of the pics and reading the blogs from the rest of the family. Bren and Jen especially keep up with things so well, and always have entertaining tales to tell, and pics to show. And I'm proud of Carol and her work on her Etsy site! It looks great, and things are beginning to sell, too! Way to go, sis.

Some of you may have heard that Herman Miller will be letting go quite a few workers in the next few weeks. Although we feel pretty confident that Scott will keep his job, it's still a bit unnerving. All those who will be let go will know prior to the Christmas holiday, so that's good. The company has been very good about keeping everyone informed. They offered a "buyout" to whoever was interested, but we decided to wait it out and see what happens.

Can't wait to have the kids and Ally home for Thanksgiving! They arrive on Wednesday, and will be staying until Sunday morning. You know what THAT means! Whoo Hoo! Friday morning shopping! There should really be some good deals this year. Hey, I was wondering - would any of you like to meet the girls and me for breakfast somewhere around 9:00am or so? Where would be a good place? It would be great to see you, since we'll be at the Hamberg side of the family for Thanksgiving this year. How about sharing your ideas either on your blogs or via email?