The Holidays are over and I am glad.

And........we're back.  I have not felt much like blogging the last couple of weeks.  The holidays mean more than presents and drinking for me.  They mean relaxing and being off from work.  They also mean doing some work around the house, which I did not do nearly enough of over my days off.

Now that the holidays are done for the year and a new year has begun, I am glad.  The holidays are also somewhat of a stressful time as well.  Trying to make sure you didn't miss anyone on your Christmas Gift list.  Making sure you got equal gifts for all the nieces and nephews and so on and so forth.  It can get to be a little overwhelming.

I think things have settled down now and I can enjoy getting back into the work routine once again.  My office is moving to a different location this month so I have the opportunity to go through all my work papers and such and downsize and organize.  Being better organized is my number one goal for 2011. 

I never make resolutions just goals.  My goals are generally set pretty high but with smaller goals in between.  I am almost 100% out of debt.  One of my other goals this year is to be completely out of debt.  I canceled all of my credit cards last year and paid them off.  There are still a few medical bills that need to be paid off and that is about it. 

In 2009 I had $1650 in overdraft charges at my bank.  2010 I had $0 overdraft charges.  In 2009 I had about 20 different disconnect notices from different utilities and the like.  In 2010 I had one disconnect notice right at Christmas time and it was because a mailed payment was a couple of days delayed because of the holidays.  All things considered I did a good job of meeting my goals last year.

What are some of your goals for 2011?  I'd like to hear about them.  Post a comment or e-mail me at eric.cole.young@gmail.com

New Christmas Ornament!

Click On The Image To Go To The Shop

This fun Retro Ornament is sure to make the Christmas tree better this year!  There are other items in the shop with this Rockabilly design.  Have a look and let me know what you think about them.  Remember your hard earned dollars make my Christmas a good one!

Ornament of the Day!

Click On The Picture To See The Shop

This is a Rockabilly Christmas Ornament that I designed.  There are several other cool products in the shop with this Skull & Crossbones with a Santa hat.  Click on the image and take a look at all the stuff.  Comments?

Pinup Christmas Cards and More

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This is based off of a very old vintage Pinup.  I have put the design on a few items including T-shirts, Cards, Christmas ornaments and more.  Have a look at the shop by clicking the picture.  I will have more designs coming soon.  Some of you may remember my old T-Shirt shop Rockabilly Tees.  I used to do a lot of Oldskool designs.

Holiday Traditions

Years ago my brother-in-law and I had a Thanksgiving tradition.  We used to spend Thanksgiving day exploring caves in the nearby hills of the Ozark Mountains.  We would recruit a couple of friends to go with us.  This tradition was started because neither one of us are the football watching type and we didn't feel like being in the house while the cooking was going on.

We would leave relatively early in the morning and go to whatever cave we had chosen for that year.  Many of the caves in the Ozark Mountains can only be found by word of mouth.  Most cavers in the area choose not to mark caves on maps.  This is because many of the caves that are marked on maps around here are trashed by party goers.  True cavers have respect for caves. 

But I digress.  These caving trips were before my nieces and nephews came along.  My daughter was just a baby.  There were not that many kids to keep an eye on.  Now my brother-in-law has five beautiful kids with my sister.  They range in age from 6 to 13 years old.  We do not leave them to get underfoot while we go out caving.  Now the tradition is to take the kids on a hike while the cooks cook.

The hikes are fun and we have been doing them for a few years now.  There is a nice valley behind the houses and we usually find our way down there looking at bluffs and trees and nature in general.  Traditions tend to change over the years.  What kind of traditions do you have?

Five Myths about Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is the Red Headed Step Child of the Holiday Season. At most department stores the Christmas decorations are going up before they even have the Halloween stuff in the clearance section. thanksgiving just gets lost in the transition. It hasn't always been that way but at this rate Thanksgiving will only be around for a few more years. Here are some myths about Thanksgiving and the facts.

Myth number 1: Pilgrims started Thanksgiving

Nope. 100% untrue. Pilgrims were too busy building houses and fending off wild animals and killing the natives to have any kind of celebration! Thanksgiving started with the celebration of the arrival of Spanish explorer Juan de Onate landed in Texas near El Paso on the banks of the Rio Grande. It was more than two decades before the Pilgrims had their first Thanksgiving celebration.

Myth number 2: Thanksgiving is all about Family

Yeah right. The only Holiday where more people get arrested in a domestic dispute is Christmas! Thanksgiving was set up for communities to come together to celebrate the harvest. This gave people that would not normally have a chance to get together to meet. A lot of times it was more of a traders market with an evening feast.

Myth number 3: Thanksgiving was about religion

If by religion you mean thanking your lucky starts that that drought or too much rains or fires or animals didn't destroy your crops! Religion did not play a roll in thanksgiving back in the 1500's in early America. Like I mentioned earlier it was more about community and less about church.

Myth number 4: Thanksgiving is all about the Turkey

Alright, today it is called Turkey Day but back in the 1500's it was more "the kill of the day" not necessarily Turkey. Most animals start rutting when it gets cooler. You were as likely to have a deer on the plate as a Turkey back then. It wasn't until 1863, when Abe Lincoln made Thanksgiving a national Holiday. With a national Holiday you need a national emblem to make it official. The Victorians decided on a Turkey and Turkey-Day was born.

Myth number 5: Pilgrims wore Black and White clothes with funny hats and over sized Buckles on Everything

Yeah, right, traipsing around in the woods you always want to wear something white! And while you are at it wear thew most expensive and uncommon dye color you can get! This depiction of the style of the day is more of an artists rendering and interpretation. In reality, the pilgrims probably wore a lot of earth tones and clothing that would make work easier. Yes, they were prim and proper when they went to church (which was more likely a monthly event than a weekly event) but they worked from daylight to dark. They got dirty, and bathing had not been invented yet.

That is my take. Got any more myths about Thanksgiving you'd like for me to tell you the truth about? Leave me a comment and I will see what I can do. Say, do you know how to keep a turkey in suspense? I'll tell you tomorrow.