Tag Archives: christmas

When you put a vine in the ground you have to be patient. In the first year the plant will sleep and look like nothing is happening. In reality under the ground tiny little roots will be slowly exploring and looking at how they can make this place their home. In the second year the plant will creep a little bit above ground and see if this place is really going to be safe. In the third year the plant explodes and puts out tremendous growth in all directions because yes, this is my home and I will show that I live here.

We are into our second year of living here. In the first year I put a little bit of effort into putting out tendrils of growth. I went to a few events and I met a few people and I tried to see what direction it would be wise to put energy. But between health and lock down mostly… I slept.

I am now more than three months into the second year. I am slowly creeping along. I am trying to strengthen and deepen the tiny tendrils of roots I put out here. I am cultivating just a few connections. I am sending my taproot as deep into the ground as I can. I am feeding people. I am contributing to my community. I am planting trees. I am branching out in as many ways as I can… slowly. Just tiny little indications of growth that will come without overwhelming the shallow roots I have at this point.

Depending on the state of the pandemic I may get an extra year of creeping growth. To be fair, it’s not an utterly fixed rule of that plants only need two years to get established. Poor weather or soil quality can alter any expectation. I know it will be ok in the end.

At the beginning of my third year here I will turn 40. The first decade of my life was pretty traumatic and unpleasant. In many ways the second decade of my life was more of the same or worse. My third decade was when I turned the tide and I decided how my life would be and I was no longer just a shell being tossed in the tide. I built a rudder and I steered. My fourth decade has been pretty incredible. I like who I am. I like the skills I have developed. I like the strength and capacity and knowledge I have built.

Wisdom comes from experience. Experience comes from making mistakes. I have made so very many mistakes.

In many ways this last year has been one of the most turning-inward years of my life. I am not depending on friends as much as I have in the past. I do not have a therapist for support. I barely write because I have learned that the consequences of having my feelings out in public are too great to bear. What I have now I cannot risk losing and if that means I must be silent then that is the price I will pay.

Which does not mean that my feelings are more muted or less extreme. I am not sure that I suppress them so much as I have learned how to transmute them into other things. I think this was maybe the goal of therapy all along. I have a lot of compassion for myself in my big feelings. I have the ability to sit quietly and wait for my internal storms to pass without inflicting them on everyone else around me. That does not mean that the storms are smaller–it means that the hand I have on the rudder is made of steel and it cannot be moved by casual breezes. I think it would take a hurricane to knock me off my path these days.

Which does not mean I have no bad days. I just don’t document them with the same rigidity.

I’m sure part of that is about what it means to assimilate and be an immigrant. I don’t feel as safe documenting the ways I suck.

I started this first thing in the morning and now the kids are well into the swing of bed time. We had a sharp negotiation over when kids could get up. I started at 10 am. Middle Child started at 4 am. We settled on 7. Seems fair.

Today was a day of Much Cooking. Breakfast was leftovers because we needed the containers back. Then I made two kinds of soup for lunch. One with chicken broth, celeriac root, cabbage, carrot, celery, tomato, bell pepper, herbs and another with veg broth, cauliflower, celery, carrot, flour, butter, SUPER GOOD cheese, milk, herbs. The vegetarian one was better.

Dinner was a turkey, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, carrots, corn, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, parsnips, and we finished with a cookie. It was good. We have a lot of leftovers.

Right now I am in the kitchen babysitting the turkey carcass so the cats don’t help themselves. The necessary food containers are in the dishwasher. Bless the 1 hour cycle. When the dishwasher finishes then I need to shove stuff in it for another 1 hour cycle (it’ll be full again, don’t worry). Then I get to make the overnight French toast.

Christmas planning

For a lot of years now I’ve been trying to move towards less gifting. There’s so much emotional baggage around the entire topic of giving shit for Christmas. Almost no one outside our house is getting “stuff” from us this year. My little adopted nieces and Jenny and Noah is doing stuff for his family. We will give baked treats to our youngling friends in town but I’m not worrying about giving stuff to neighbors we have barely spoken to this year.

My big kids asked for a few items to finish their rooms from Santa. Eldest Child wants a box that can lock to keep stuff away from the little siblings and some fake foliage to finish her woods-motif bedroom. Middle Child wants a small table and a tea pot (haven’t found the tea pot yet–gulp) for playing tea party in their room. Other than that they are getting a few books and their stockings are barely half full. Additional presents are a floaty/light weight hippy dress for EC because even in Inverness she is often overheated and she has outgrown most of her clothes and MC got a beautiful hand made wrap in colors that they will love to go with their dressing up fancy obsession.

Last year I got everyone themed night clothes and they asked if we could please do that again so both big kids picked out a style they liked from Etsy. This was not a family tradition before moving here. I am amused that the kids have decided that this is going to be a tradition moving forward. Given that Noah is not usually one for wearing pajamas it may be a little weird for him to have to come along on this one.

Youngest Child is getting a gnome village from Santa and little gnomes in her stocking with some bath toys and hair clips. A couple of books as the only things to unwrap at this point.

It’s seeming a bit hilarious that I’m getting the biggest Santa present because I asked to upgrade the shoe racks as my gift. When we moved in I got a really irritating cheap £20 shoe rack as good enough to last until I knew what I wanted. Now I know what I actually want and Noah ordered it. They are fairly large because with 5 people and actual seasons we have way more shoes than we have ever collectively had before. So my present is a house thing for all of us.

I have a few things for Noah but not a lot and that’s all I can say about that because he reads this. I feel a little guilty about not doing more for him and yet he’s been telling me for years not to get him much. I don’t think he asked for a single thing this year. He doesn’t need any clothing items at all.

We didn’t do the mass Christmas card thing this year. I’m exhausted and sending a card to the US costs £1.70 a pop. We used to send about 100 cards. That adds up, yo.

I’m having a hard time shaking the programming from my youth that giving so little means I don’t love people very much. But we don’t need very much at this point and there isn’t a lot anyone wants. EC genuinely doesn’t want much. She likes having a room that is easy to tidy and she feels like she is mostly past the toys-stage and she’s not a makeup person and she doesn’t use fancy bath stuff and she doesn’t want or need a lot more clothing or shoes. We have all the art supplies we need for quite some time. MC is the sort who would always appreciate more but they have enough toys to keep them busy and they have a bursting wardrobe. They would appreciate being given more things but I can’t think of much they would actually use. YC doesn’t need much more stuff. They have enough to keep my house a constant tripping hazard already. I already rotate baskets of toys in and out of sight because if everything is out it is too overwhelming and just a mess. They would not be impressed by gifts of clothing even though they are the ones who are changing size the most quickly.

I am glad I didn’t get Christmas stuff out super early like I kind of wanted to. YC is breaking a lot of things and that’s feeling stressful. I don’t think things will be up long after Christmas this year. It will be nice to get back to having a lot of empty space in the house. I think I will like Christmas stuff being out more in about three years.

We’ve all been low key sick for the last week and we are all very low energy. It’s a cold, not Covid. Sore throat, barely runny nose, weak ass cough. Mostly just tired. But this year that means absolutely no going to school so EC has been home. After the last few years of starting to shove me away hard for budding independence reasons she has been real cuddly and that’s nice. I get in good snuggles with all three kids a lot these days.

Just plugging along.

Stop and appreciate the moments of joy

I’ve done ALL THE THERAPY and one of the things I’ve learned is that when you are depressed or anxious or both at once… it’s extra important to stop and take moments to notice a job well done. Even if you feel like a fuck up all the time, that’s probably not true. Sometimes you get it right. Stop then. Notice. Try to let your brain experience a few moments of feeling something other than self hatred.

Right now I am watching the cats climb around on the climbing gym in the middle of the lounge. It is one of the most charming sights I’ve ever seen.

Our lounge is definitely the largest room I have ever had in a house I have lived in. It’s easily twice the size of the living room we had in California and it has a sloping roof that goes up to about 12 or 15 feet. (I have to measure soon. I will know for sure then.) The room is pretty packed right now. I spent all day moving stuff around. My family never once challenged me on why I wanted to do all the shifting, they just helped.

The Christmas tree is massive and the pile of presents is kind of ridiculous. Well, ridiculously large looking but an awful lot of it are things we genuinely need. EC has a bed frame in there. We all got stuff for dealing with the climate–that’s a big deal! There are kitchen things in the pile that we will use for making family food. There are hair supplies and soaps and bath bombs (not a necessity) and face cleaners.

Ok, there are some purely frivolous things too. My kids didn’t ship their toys to Scotland; they got rid of almost everything they owned. There’s a doll house and dolls and toddler learning toys. There are some bath toys. Lots of art supplies; both of the big kids have completely used up their stock of art paper so now they each have a new sketchbook. There is a sewing machine; EC has asked for one for a few years now. It seems like a great time. MC begged for a keyboard. Given that every time my children get the chance to bang on a piano they spend hours doing that… it seems like a pretty reasonable gift.

And books. Of course there are books. More books than I would normally buy in one holiday but A) they were phenomenally cheap and B) we are absolutely book starved. No regrets.

It’s a lot. I won’t do a Christmas this big again, probably in my whole life. We are still just starting and after this we won’t have room for so much.

The play gym can fit down in the apartment when the lounge needs to be used for another purpose. It also folds up for handy storage! I love it. I could never have gotten something like this in California. Here an outdoor play structure like I had there would be fairly unusable a big chunk of the year.

Circumstances change.

Our strict budget starts in a week. I’m ready.

When I turn off the seizure causing blinking lights (the kids love them) and just have the still lights to illuminate this room, it looks pretty magical. I will leave on some lights all night long so that when the kids wake up they will come in to a lighted room. The sun isn’t up till after 9am right now. I told them they couldn’t come out till 5am. They have watches! Monitor your own behavior! But the light are necessary.

The future is unknowable. I don’t know what challenges will come. But right now, we are all set for a magical Christmas.

Stop. Notice. This is something I helped create too. We did it.

I think I can go to sleep now, at a reasonable hour. I have a fun day ahead of me.

Always more

Yesterday I was looking at the “body battery” function on my watch. I know it isn’t perfectly accurate or anything, but it measures how my heart rate is doing, compares it to how much exercise I’m getting and how my sleep I get and it sort of figures out when I need more rest and when I should probably get off my ass and exercise some more because I have extra body reserves. It was really low. I got down to 3 by the time I went to sleep. This is not a battery you are supposed to use up every day. It’s a negative thing to keep it under 20 on the regular.

Yesterday was a high heart rate, stress the fuck out sort of day. I don’t think it had to be and I don’t really know how to calm down. I opened the box of Christmas card (I’m never using Minted again because they ship the cards straight to you instead of to all the fucking addresses we entered) and learned I had to put return addresses on every envelope and stuff the fuckers. Just what I want to see when I really need to get those bitches in the mail. Surprise! Fussy work! Noah helped and it got done in a bit under two hours. Our address is a pain to write that many times.

I walked over to the Tesco and mailed off the Christmas cards, a letter to the grandparents from MC, the birth certificates we neglected to bring to the Consulate, and the notarized documents for selling our DVC property. Even with extra fast shipping and tracking on a lot of it… postage was a whopping £40. I sent all the US cards to a buddy and she’s opening the box and taking it to the post office to have them all stamped and sent out. If we had sent them all individually from here it would have been in the neighborhood of £140 all told. We are getting a deal. Thank you, kind friend.

I’m having some big feelings about freakin Christmas presents. A whole bunch of presents were in the boat stuff that is… I don’t know where. I am starting to feel really paranoid that they lost everything and just haven’t told us yet. I haven’t heard a word from the UK company in 11 days and that’s a bad sign. The last time I was told a UK shipping company would be contacting us for delivery it turned out the company was given our contact information in error and our stuff wasn’t on the god damn boat it was supposed to be on. This is incredibly distressing and I don’t know how to get my heart rate to stop skyrocketing every time I think about it.

Noah’s Santa present arrived broken in November. I’m glad I ordered the blasted thing as early as I did. The replacement is sitting in customs in town and has been for 3 days. I don’t know why since it already spent several days in customs in a different part of the country. My stomach hurts.

The parent of a kid who has been whacking on MC came to the school yesterday to intimidate/threaten my children (EC had told the boy to stop hurting MC or she would tattle… she didn’t threaten to hit him or anything) and that’s causing some rage and panic. The school needs to handle this mother-fucking today or I am going to cause a massive stink. I don’t give a flying fuck that it is the last day until after Christmas holidays. I’m not giving the school a lot of leeway here. I will go to the Council first and if it can’t be resolved to my satisfaction then I’m withdrawing my children. Fuck school. Other parents do not get to harass my children.

No wonder my heart rate is sky high.

My body feels like I am gearing up for a big fight and I hate it. I feel sick.

Oh, and YC is sick. Life is awesome.

No stockings

The boat sucks. Transparent International sucks. Putting our stuff in storage for months sucks. Our stuff supposedly arrived nine days ago but the company on this end hasn’t contacted me. Either customs is taking absurdly long (it generally takes 48 hours) or it didn’t arrive for the second time. Or the company who is delivering it just… doesn’t feel like working effectively and quickly. Who knows.

A whole bunch of the stocking stuffers are on that damn boat too. Well… I guess some of them can wait for Easter? Others will just be given late. We will still have magic. Frankly… the kids will get plenty.

The trip to Edinburgh went fine. We did our paperwork. Now some bits have to be mailed off. I think that will happen tomorrow. Every day a bit more gets done, we take a few more steps towards being fully settled. I’m told that once our stuff arrives we will be offered compensation for how terribly over-estimate this has gone. If it takes till after Christmas (looking likely) it will be more than 18 weeks, on an 8-12 week estimate. Awesome.

I’m starting to feel scared they lost our stuff and just don’t want to admit it yet.

I’m trying to find joy though. Today a tree surgeon came and took out some non-natives and we now have a giant pile of stumps and tree chunks and wood chips. We will have a lot of fun with that. I am really looking forward to setting up a proper mud kitchen out there with rough materials instead of something store bought. That makes me feel… really happy. That speaks to my values.

It’s weird figuring out what things are part of your values. I want my kids to be happier playing with a pile of logs than sitting and watching a screen and I teach them that this is the way to be by going out and doing it with them. I want my kids to turn to me when they have emotional distress instead of eating their feelings or hurting themselves or finding awful romantic partners and so far… they do. They talk about the things that upset them and they try to find ways to solve their problems that are fairly constructive for little kids.

I want my children to be doers, not people who sit around being entertained as a lifestyle. I model that. I live that. And so far… they are running into slight troubles at school because they are not people who sit and wait for life to happen. They get up and do things. Will this make them suitable for every job? No. But it will help them find the right one for them someday.

A long time ago I was drawn to people who were very certain of their own “rightness”. I was like a moth to a flame. I wanted to be near people who felt confident and sure of their own path. I became that kind of person and it makes some of my old connections trickier. I am absolutely certain that those paths do not work for me. Is there anything wrong with them? No. We all get to be however works for us. I’m just grateful that (so far) my children have very complementary personalities to my own.

When I go check on Youngest Child lately, she is more and more often in the lounge sprawled out reading a book. She’s going to fit right in. She talks up a storm. She demands to go outside and play. I like her so much. Sure it’s going to take her a few weeks to wean off of demanding the iPad every single time she opens her eyes… that’s a hazard of travel. We can’t bring books with us in large quantities. E-readers are not the same in the eyes of a toddler. I am buying books. Not tons. Well… a fairly surprising amount considering we have been here three months. I think if I include Christmas presents I have bought 6-10 books for each person in the house already. Once the boat arrives that won’t feel as important. We already have books… we just don’t have our books and the pain is becoming unbearable. We are readers and our books have been in storage for a year. We have all used e-books… it’s not the same. It doesn’t fill the same need in our souls.

I found the local used book store and I’m already making friends with the proprietor. I think we will get to know each other quite well.

The guy who did our tree removal asked about getting our families together for dinner. He wants me to hurry up and make more friends locally. I think he sounds delightful. He spent several decades riding his bike around foreign countries. We will have lots to talk about.

I have a whole bunch of tendrils out into the community. The beginnings of beginnings… but I’m not following through very much yet. I talk to people when they touch my life incidentally but I’m not following up with more close contact. I’m still so tired. I still feel so overwhelmed. I don’t know how long it will take me to feel like I have anything to give a real relationship but I’m not there. I still go to sleep and wake up feeling so weary I want to fall over. I still feel like my days are completely packed with chores… I don’t know when this will change. I don’t know if or when this will ease and until it does I should not lead anyone on with the belief that I have something to give.

My bucket is empty.

I haven’t had 24 hours of down time in over two years. I know that is pretty par for the course for parents… but not many parents do continual travel and interact with their kids 24/7 the way I do. Shorter breaks don’t feel very refreshing because my level of over work is so extreme.

If I get four whole hours off in a week… it feels like a drop of rain in the ocean. I don’t notice it. I don’t settle or relax. I have not yet figured out how to recharge, not really. I just keep pushing through.

I am reading the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence that is the basis for all of their education theory. It’s really quite refreshing and more in line with my overall belief system and educational theory than I would have expected. I really hope I can help MC pop a wheelie and get over the hurdle of school feeling just that teensiest bit too hard (fucking handwriting) so that she can go back to full time school next year. This is about the best school is going to get.

I’m going to make “lines” with sticks and then we are going to shape letters with wood chips and talk about why the proportions are the way they are. Why do you space things this much. Why do you need the arches and the curves in these places. Why do you need these kinds of gaps between words to be readable.

Kinaesthetic education, yo.

Because when we are all done we can use a broom and sweep up the results and then try again. It’s perfect. I’m actually really excited about this.

I have so much confidence in my children that it sometimes feels unreal to me that anyone can feel this way about anyone else.

The other day I was wandering somewhere with EC and we saw some of these abstract statues of a mother curled around a child. She said that when we get the house more properly settled she wants to find something like that for us to have in the house because that is how she thinks of me. My heart exploded. I had so many feelings at once. I wanted to create children who felt tenderly held. I wanted to create relationships where my children felt adored and respected and appreciated… I did it and I will keep doing it. I said, “Ok. We can do that.”

I kind of love that my baby will say her name all day long “_____ hat. ______ bear. ______ shirt.” but when a stranger asks her what her name is… she smiles at them and refuses to answer. It feels like she only wants to share her identity with us. I know that isn’t it. I know this is just a normal developmental stage… but it feels really lovely anyway. This baby feels really lovely in general.

On the train home last night a guy was sitting at the table next to ours. For the first hour or so he kept his airbuds in and I worried about disturbing him. Then we ended up in line at the snack stand together and he started talking to me. He told me that he has rarely ever seen three children as well behaved as mine. Yes sir, I’ll take your random approval… Our train was over an hour delayed and we just talked and played and read and drew and had a good time together without being fussy. Even though we arrived home more than two hours past our bed time. My kids are tough cookies. They rarely whine and when they do it is generally a sign that something pretty serious is wrong. I trust them.

That’s part of why I am going to listen to MC and flexi school for the rest of the year. She is good at telling me where she needs to be and what she needs to have happen for a given period of time. She has sure changed a lot over the course of her life. She has tried out some pretty intense things… but she tells me when she needs me to shift and that’s the best I can ask for.

We will figure out this journey together.

This is where I want to be. I am with the people I want to be with. Sure, there are bumps and inconveniences… that’s because life is an adventure. And sometimes adventures make you cry.

Because it is fun!

I got:
-two super fancy pots. Enamel coated cast iron! Whoooo!
-a super sharp large knife
-TWO cool teapots for one. I think word is getting around that I’m drinking more of it. 🙂 (One is beautiful for loose leaf tea, which is mostly what I drink.)
-the crunchy lunch set of my dreams <3 -a wide assortment of delightful bath products -a great spatula -super awesome socks -a really long beautiful pearl necklace (Shanna picked it out!) -two beautiful bracelets -a great handcuff necklace -gorgeous Edwardian underthings -comfy jammies Noah got: -this awesome book from Santa
-a bunch more books (xkcd vol 1, Watership Down, Strega Nona, The Reluctant Dragon, uhm something I can’t recall from his parents)
-an interesting old fashioned microscope
-Star Wars stuff! cookie cutters, pancake molds, a spatula (Darth Vader), and a fun cupcake set where you can have the little guys battle
-kitchen towels and a good apron
-a knife sharpener
-a rotary cheese grater
-a variety of neat card games for playing with kids
-sushi tie

Calli got specific to her:
-clothes 🙂
-a plush Minnie ornament

Shanna got (much to be shared when Calli gets bigger):
-a wooden activity cube
-a shape/animal stacking game
-a plush Mickey ornament
-bath foam letters/numbers
-magnetic letters and numbers for the fridge
-a pouch for carrying around dolls/stuffed animals
-a set of play silks
-art supplies (window crayons, watercolor paints, a little notebook, and a cool pencil)
-3 more anamalz
-a Minnie purse
-a couple of nail polishes
-a marble sorter/tower
-pirate water bottle
-clothes + jammies
-set of tablecloth and napkins for her little kitchen
-a medical toy set
-practice chop sticks
-lego silverware
-this big, neat ladybug tent!

an awful lot of that came from out of town relatives or were stocking stuffers. we are very very privileged to experience such an overwhemingly wonderful Christmas. 🙂

So! What did y’all get? 😀

HEY YOU GUYS!!!!

I’m awesome and I didn’t put Thunderbird on my new machine when I got it. Uhm, that’s where my addresses are. If you want a Christmas card (complete with pictures of my cute kids) leave me a (screened) comment with your snail mail address. 🙂

Hey Arbus–want a picture for your fridge so you can confuse your family? 🙂

Just because

32 days till Christmas.
12 days till I get to introduce my beautiful daughter to the awesomeness of Disneyland. The first thing she will experience is the Candlelight Processional which is a special Christmas thing they do and I’ve never seen it.
1 day until I get a new oven! A convection oven! I will get to bake again! Even though my fucking pain in the ass stupid midwife *still* hasn’t filed insurance paperwork and paying for this right now was not in my budget. (Have I mentioned that my kid is three months old and she still can’t be fucking bothered to file the paperwork? If she doesn’t file in the next five weeks we can’t file at all. And I can’t file unless I get billing information from her with codes and everything and it is no more trouble for her to get that together for me than it is to just fucking send it in herself. Oh wait. SHE PAYS SOMEONE TO DO HER BILLING AND SHE STILL HASN’T GIVEN THEM THE INFORMATION. I am so pissed. Noah thinks that taking her to small claims court is rather ungrateful given that she literally saved my life. He has a point. But I’m still really angry that she isn’t doing her job.)

Time is just plugging right along. I should post more just to give rbus something to read. 🙂

The person I helped…

This was the message I got on MDC:

“To the mama in CA!

Thank you so much. We got your box yesterday and oh my- when we saw the UPS truck pull up we knew it had to be from some lovely mama here but then watching the delivery man struggle w/it was almost too much! It was just so big! DH went down to get it- good thing he was home, I never would have been able to bring it up all the stairs we have, and brought it straight up to our room. We coud not wait to open it!

Everything inside was great and DH made 2 comments that made my heart melt- 1) “I feel like a kid on Christmas morning!” (he was so excited and relieved) and 2) “I can’t believe just one person sent all this- she’s amazing!” My thoughts exactly. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

We’ve had a really bad week this week with our oven going out on Monday (luckily we rent and don’t have to worry about fixing- but do have to deal with a lazy rental co.) and our plans for a homebirth going out the window (it’s just too bad this little isn’t due a month or two later- the issue would be null and void, we’d have the $$ from taxes) and just a general heartbreak on that.

BUT your package came just at the right time to bring a bit of holiday cheer, hope and a better out look even just for the moment!

Thank you and bless you! ”

My Christmas was made. 😀

Giving is better than receiving.

MDC (are y’all sick of hearing about it yet?) has a thing they do every year called Holiday Helpers. Folks who are in need ask for stuff they need. Last year I sent small boxes to like eight different families. This year I’m just adopting one family. It’s really nice to think about how happy this family will be. It makes me happy. 🙂 Christmas is coming!

Plugging along

Mudding and sanding are completely done. Today I am going to sweep and mop the garage. Then the kitchen. And then we can vacuum the rest of the house. 🙂 Tonight the garage will get the first coat of primer. I think two coats are a good idea given some of the areas of funk (the wall next to the house is stained and the beams are all pretty foul). The second coat will probably happen on Thursday. The inspector came this morning so I’m about done with this stage of the project. Yay! Decorative painting is going to wait a few months until there is more money in the kitty.

So I will probably start moving stuff out to the garage on Friday and Saturday. I only need help for the biggest pieces and then I can handle the rest of the work by myself over the next week. YAY!

Cookie baking is done. Cinnamon rolls are happening on Saturday.

Christmas cards are completely done and in the mail.

Yesterday I made a whole bunch of Aloo Gobi Mattar and it is really really good. Today I am making corned beef and cabbage (and potatoes, of course). Tomorrow is some cut of beef that Noah took out of the freezer; I should probably figure out how I am cooking that. I should also make veggie soup today or tomorrow and that will use up the vast majority of the veggies in the house. With the generous help of Sarah’s freezer foods I think we will be set for meals (except for Christmas dinner) for basically the rest of the month. That’s kind of awesome. 🙂

Wow. I have cleaning, cooking and wrapping presents left on the agenda for this week and setting up the garage for next week. I think this may be my lowest stress Christmas in years. 🙂 Everything is coming together easily and in advance. Yay!

It’s that season

It’s time for American Gift Giving Holiday cards! If you have moved in the last year I pretty certainly don’t have your address. If I have sent you a card before there is only like a 75% chance that I still have your address. I’m *awesome* like that.

So! Now’s the time! All comments screened so you can give me your address if you would like a card.

Of course I am already thinking about Christmas.

On MDC there is a thread about trying to limit Christmas so that it doesn’t become a gimmee spree. One woman posted something she got from a book:

The Four Things Children Need At Christmas

1. A relaxed and loving time with family.
2. Realistic expectations about gifts.
3. An evenly paced holiday season.
4. Reliable family traditions.

Combine this with the other maxim about presents posted in the thread:

Something you want.
Something you need.
Something to wear.
Something to read.

It’s making me stop and think about Christmas again. Last year I burned myself out with cookies. I shouldn’t do that again. I’m also thinking that due to financial schtuff this year I really should tell people that we aren’t buying presents. That’s going to be hard emotionally for me and I think for Noah. Awkward.

Christmas Cards

If you would like a Christmas card it is worth checking and seeing if I have your address. I’ve been pretty good about updating my address book recently when I’m sent addresses for things like parties but it may not be wise to assume I have your address. Unless I have sent you a baby picture recently. Those folks can assume I have your address.

Comments screened.

A very good day.

Today I made four batches of Cinnamon rolls. This was after a fudge on the first attempt when the dough wouldn’t rise. Bother. I also made and put in the fridge: molasses crinkle dough, sugar cookie dough, and refrigerator cookies.

I went through nearly 10 lbs of flour and like 3 lbs of sugar. I need to go buy more flour before I can make more cookies. 🙂

This is so much more fun that studying for the comp exam. 🙂 I asked Noah for a laptop-free day and he was awesome about it. He read me some Peter Beagle stuff for a while and he spent some time reading The Moral Animal and talking to me about it. We also MST3K’ed a few Christmas movies. It’s really been a wonderful day. 🙂

And now my darling little boobie monster is falling asleep while eating. I’ve been impressed by her overall good nature today as I’ve spent very little time with her.

Cookies!

My mother hand copied all of our family recipes into a cookbook for me. I think this is awesome and spiffy and I am incredibly grateful. You know that perfect cursive that was above the chalkboard in third grade? My mother writes like that. It’s incredible. Her handwriting is a joy to read. And tomorrow (Thursday), along with Miss Laura, I get to start baking! I’m so thrilled. So you all get a poll!
Continue reading

Thinking about traditions

I have a mixed history with Christmas. Sometimes it has gone well (I had a couple of good ones thanks to Tom) and sometimes it has gone very poorly. Now that I’m the mommy I get to set a lot of the parameters around how Christmas goes so I’m thinking about that a lot. There are a few traditions my mother started which I want to continue:
-You get to open one present on Christmas Eve. It’s jammies. Ha!
-Your stocking is full of a mixture of very useful things and very silly things. Socks and underwear are pretty standard.
-Home made cinnamon rolls for breakfast. 🙂
-Your “Santa” present is unwrapped under the tree so that you can have something to play with before everyone else is ready to open presents.

What kinds of traditions did ya’ll grow up with? What traditions do you still keep?

Before anyone is snarky: yes, I recognize that many of my friends are Jewish. Tell me about your Winter Holiday of Choice traditions. 🙂

An excess of riches

Or at least, too much stuff. About nine years ago I bought some wrapping paper from my nephew as he was trying to win a prize in a fundraiser. I’m uhm, still using it. From the looks of the rolls, I may have another four or five years. I’m getting somewhat sick of it and would rather not have more than a decade of the same wrapping paper. So I would love it if some folks brought their presents over here and we can wrap your presents. Hell, I’ll do most of the work if you play with Shanna. 🙂

So c’mon… you know you want to get out of wrapping presents…

Holidaze party

Party! (Before you get lost in details: remember that I ALWAYS APPRECIATE RSVP’S!!!! Yes, I’m yelling that.)

What: Holidaze party. You will probably already be in a daze by then, so what’s one more party?

When: Sunday, December 21st from ~1pm-7pm. If you are having a mandatory shut down the week after we can discuss staying later and drinking more seriously.

Where: Our house. Duh. (If you don’t know where we live let me know and I’ll send you the address.)

Why: Because parties are fun. I will be free of all school obligations and feeling celebratory. Because I will have cookies and cinnamon rolls and brownies and crumbles and all sorts of other stuff for folks to eat. [I will have gluten free stuff (I’ve already figured out what I’m doing), There will be dairy free stuff. And I’m going to try to have some diabetic friendly deserty something as well on principle. If you fall into one of these groups here is your social pressure to show up and appreciate my efforts. 🙂 ]

Who: Lots of folks I like and Noah likes. Which includes you, so you should come. 🙂

FAQs:
Should I bring anything? Only if you want to. Things that would be the most appreciated would be food of the savory nature. Dear God don’t bring sweets. If you want to bring alcohol make sure it is really really nice alcohol. We got rid of all the cheap shit and we don’t have any desire to replace it.

Can I bring anyone? Of course your SO is invited. If you want to bring several of your friends please check with me first. This is a fairly large invite list and this is NOT A DHP. So please don’t post this to everyone you know. 🙂 If it looks like only ten people are showing up I will probably say, “Sure–the more the merrier.” If it looks like 50+ people I will say, “Uhhh… well… uhhhhmmmm how strongly do you feel about them coming?” Mostly I just want to have a vague idea of how many people to prepare for at the event.

Will the party be kid friendly? I bloody well hope so because I have no where to hide my kid. I will point out that if you are the sort to have a mandatory shut down the next week and you want to hang out later drinking and you do something in the garage it would probably be fine.

Should I bring you a present? I love presents! I love presents so much that here is a link to my wishlist. But no, you don’t have to bring me a present. 🙂 Or Noah. Or even Shanna. 🙂