The local Mall had Santa's shop up and running three weeks ago! It use to be way bigger than this. I guess with the economy the way it is, even Santa had to downsize.

The majority of the leaves here in SC are still colorfully on the trees.

The sky is a clear , bright blue with a few wispy white clouds here and there.

The temperature today reached 70 degrees. I had to dig out a pair of shorts to wear today when I went out.

One of the local radio stations started playing their Christmas music last week. So as I'm driving along and enjoying the unusually warm weather, I turn on the radio and what song do I hear playing?

"It beginning to look alot like Christmas......"

NOT!!!!

Today is my 46th birthday. The BF works 3rd shift now, so we celebrated one day earlier this week when he was off. He took me out to dinner and that's when he gave me the diamonds. While he slept today, I went out with my friends to dinner and to the mall.

We had lunch at Longhorns Steakhouse. I started off with fried, thinly-sliced potatoes, served with a salsa type ranch dip...freshly made bread and garlic butter.

Followed by my favorite....caesar salad!

The main course......Filet Mignon, stuffed with Fontina Wild Mushrooms...served with Rice Pilaf and my other favorite...Lobster Tail!

Dessert was a Chocolate Martini.

They say our entire life is a gamble; from the moment each of us is a twinkle in our daddy's eye, while we grow inside our mother's womb, until the time we are born into this world. Whether we make it out alive or go back to our loving Father's arm to look down upon everyone else who survives and gambles with life.

If we survive the birthing process and escape our loving cocoon, we enter into this world full of wonder. Everybody around us ooh-ing and aww-ing, wondering what we'll be when we grow up, already planning our unknown years ahead, when we can't even do or think for ourselves. It's a gamble we take to trust, be fed, clothed and taken care of in the manner a person should.

But alas, we start to grow older. We develope a mind of our own. We learn and begin to do things on our own with the help of others whom we trust to steer us in the right direction. Somewhere along the lines as we are testing the waters, finding out what life is all about, we fall down and scrape our knees. Human that we are, we're going to pick ourselves right back up and do it again because we've learned that being stubbern is sometimes the way to go to get where we want in life. We're going to do it again until we get it right or until we're happy with the outcome. Another gamble in the road to living.

Then we start to gamble with our higher learning years in school. How accepting will people be of me if I don't fit into that certain popular clique at school? If I don't date the starring quarter back on the college football team? If I don't get on the Deans List? If I don't graduate, heaven forbid, because I really want that high paying job the recruiters dangled in front of me like a golden carrot?

Okay, I gambled with all that; got the grades, the quarter back, the good job; apartment in the city and then all of a sudden, I found love. What kind of gamble is love? There's more to lose when it comes to love. But I took another huge gamble and went all the way to marriage. Got a house in the suburbs with two cats and two kids to raise. As I continued to gamble even more with my own life, I now had to gamble with raising two children. Will I be a good parent? Will I be able to teach them right from wrong? Will I be able to feed, clothe, afford their tuitions and keep a roof over their heads?

Marriage is indeed a huge gamble. The stakes are definately higher and there's a whole lot to lose if it doesn't work out. What's the worst that could happen if it doesn't all end in a fairy tale, happily-ever-after? Another gamble called divorce. And the cycle begins again in a different direction, with a different outlook and the desire to gamble even more until we decide if we want to get it right yet again.

Maybe life is a gamble, maybe it isn't. The rules sure are complicated at times. But I guess I'm going to continue playing. Like an addict, I'm going to to continue to feed myself on what I call an addiction to living.