S.O.S.

Christmas is less than two weeks away. For several years now, it's been tradition that I write a Christmas story for my nieces and nephews. They get an ornament that goes along with the story. And in past years, they have looked forward to it. I haven't even started the story yet. It's quite possible I may not be able to put one together before Christmas Eve night. The tradition may have died this year. Not good. 

My bachelor's program starts tomorrow. Yikes! I have no idea what to expect. It's only one class, but it's an entire semester squished into five weeks. One bachelor's class at a time might actually be more difficult than two associate's classes. We shall see. 

Something fishy is going on in my checking account. I can usually balance it to the penny. Yes, I am that anal. But I can't figure out where the discrepancy is. And it's not just $1 or $10. That's something I could deal with. Why, oh why, won't it balance?! 

For some Christmas fun this year, we're doing the 12 Days of Christmas for someone. I'm excited about it and hope it makes a certain person feel the Christmas Spirit. However, I have NO clue how we're going to get the gifts to the home without being noticed and found out. This poses a problem because it's totally going to ruin it for me if they figure out who's doing it. 

The real reason this post is titled S.O.S. is because the other night I was scrubbing a cookie sheet of my mom's that had some baked on grease stains. You know the kind. They turn a weird yellow-y orange color and just look nasty. They don't wash off with regular dish detergent (even Dawn won't cut that grease!) and you end up living with a gross looking pan. Well, I found an S.O.S. (lemon scented - what?!) pad under the kitchen sink. I pulled it out and used that bad boy on her cookie sheets and it took that grease right off! Sure, a little elbow grease was involved, but they looked a lot better (I thought) after the S.O.S. pad got done with it. One time, I even spent about an hour scrubbing away at this old dripper pan of Mom's. I don't think she noticed how different it looked when I got done. It's just a pan, after all, but it sure did shine! It reminds me of those older Mr. Clean commercials where they showed a totally trashed, dirty, grimy, gross kitchen before Mr. Clean got a hold of it. Then, they'd show the "after" and it sparkled and shined. I've always wanted to see that happen in person. Kinda got a glimpse of that using the good ol' S.O.S. pad on the cookie sheets. 

Oh, the simple things that brighten my day.