Seven things we should not take into the new year

It's that time again. Instead of listing out the best moments of my year, I'd like to discuss what should not be part of my world in 2019.

+. Using the letter V instead of ''very''. "It was v. good." "I'm v. cold." WRITE THE WHOLE WORD. It's not that hard!

+ The reappearance of shoulder pads in jackets. Kohl's had an entire section of shoulder pad jackets and it brought me back to some dark days of my youth.

+ All white homes and decor. Colors were made to be enjoyed! Add some color to your home instead of making it look like everything was dipped in bleach.

+ Taking videos while driving. This particularly applies to Instagram. It doesn't matter if you're recording while sitting at a red light. I guarantee you can wait another 10 minutes to share a link with the sweater you wore to the party yesterday.

+ Being sent an email confirming I unsubscribed after I went through the work to unsubscribe.

+ Let's simmer down with everything being mermaid-themed.

+ Being gluten free by choice. As someone who eats a 90% gf diet because I am genuinely allergic to wheat and rye, I feel qualified to speak on this. It's not cool. I don't know why anyone would WANT this lifestyle. Take advantage of all the wheat full opportunities you have. You only live once so you might as well eat that box of pasta. Don't get me started on dairy free by choice. Long live cheese!

Tis the season, 2018

Here we are, two days before the new year and I'm just now getting around to blogging about Christmas. I've followed this same timeframe for the last 10 years so why mess with tradition now?

Mom and the twins arrived at our house the night before Christmas Eve. I treated them to a Hallmark movie that night because what says Christmas like a predictable love story and fake snow? 

We went to a Christmas Eve service this year. I didn't go to church the night before Christmas until I was married but I think it's a beautiful new tradition. We planned to attend a service I thought was at 5:30 but found out at 4:50 was really at 5 o'clock. Since we ended up with a few extra minutes I had Aaron take a family picture of us. I love Aaron but he is not a skilled photographer. He points the camera in the general direction of the subjects and pushes the button. It was a horrible angle and I looked awful. I hadn't tried on my outfit before that night and thought I looked awful but I didn't have any other options so I had to wear it. I have been so self-conscious lately about how I look. I took one look at the picture and started to cry. And cry and cry. I wanted to be thinner. I wanted the rest of the family to be here. I was having a third Christmas without a new baby. It was a straw that broke the camels back situation. This is just the holly, jolly Christmas recap you came here for! 

 I pulled myself together and we got to the service with a few minutes to spare. 

My dainty daughter hiccuped and coughed through the entire holy service. A lady on the end of the row in front of us heard the commotion and all my shushing (the whole church did) and passed us a box of mints. This was the first year Annabelle paid attention to the candlelit portion of the service and needless to say she had a million questions. How would it be lit? Would the whole church burn down? Could she take the candle home? Would I have a candle too? Did we have to share candles? Would it be hot? Could she hold it? Who was going to lit it? Would it hurt when it was lit? 

This was the fifth year in a row AB wore this dress. I'll make her wear it until college.

Growing up we always did the same thing for Christmas. We went to one uncle's for Christmas Eve and a different relatives house for Christmas Day. I felt almost lost trying to decide how to make our own traditions. One tradition I carried over was making artichoke dip. It isn't a holiday without hot dip! After the service, we ate, played games and played music together. Aaron played the keyboard, Christopher played the drums and Annabelle passed out instruments for the music basket for the rest of us. I don't want to boast. But I'm a mean tambourine shaker. It was so fun.

For Christmas, Annabelle made Christopher a little book about their Saturday morning tradition. Almost every week they go to Daddy, Daughter Breakfasts while I sleep in. It's a tradition we all enjoy. She wrote the pictures and told me what to write on each page. Look how she's looking at him! It melts my heart.

One page in the book was stickers that reminded her of him. "I think Daddy needs a bear sticker because we're a bear family. And a soda sticker! Are there any library stickers? But Dad doesn't go to the library because he reads books we already have and read them on his phone and the couch and, yeah. I think a movie sticker is good too. Can we buy some stickers for me too?"

Last year Annabelle started asking for a marble track. For whatever reason we didn't give her one last year so I wanted to be sure we did it this year. We also got her a bike. We have a large yard but much much for her to do outside. We don't have a place for her to do chalk and no paved driveway for her to drive the tricycle. She can ride this bike on the dirt patches and, bonus points, stick her babies in the little seat in the back and take them for a ride.

For Christmas dinner, I planned on making our traditional four-course Italian meal. Turns out it's easier when there are seven aunts around to help. I made antipasto, chicken soup, and ravioli and saved the roast beef for another night. I use only the finest family heirloom dishes. 

Just kidding. They're from Dollar Tree.

I hope your Christmas was full of joy and cookies and free of tears. I ate more cookies than should be allowed but Christmas comes only once a year so I live it up while I can.

(barely) decked halls, 2018

I almost gave up on Christmas decorating this year. More accurately, I decided it might be easier to skip on by Christmas entirely. 

I ADORE Christmas. I always have. Last year, my cozy New York house was a new high in Christmas decor. I loved how everything looked. It was glowing, sparkling, and smelled with happiness. 

Back in the glory days of my favorite house.

This year I had boxes of Christmas decorations, fake trees, bags for Goodwill, Amazon boxes and laundry lined up behind the couch in the living room. I couldn't find half the things I wanted. I couldn't get any of it under control. I can't make heads or tails of decorating in this house on a good day, let alone December. I don't have a mantle or even stairs to hang stockings on. Things literally fall off the walls. I'm a perfectionist by nature and it always gets worse around holidays. Everywhere I looked on blogs or Instagram I saw perfectly done houses and mine felt like a wreck. Not many people here put up lights so yet another tradition (driving through neighborhoods while drinking hot chocolate) was falling apart. So I gave up for a few days. I didn't have the energy or the desire to do much of anything. Eventually, I pulled myself on by my bootstraps because stuff had to be done and I want to give my family a nice Christmas. I'm not in love with how things turned out, but I'm so glad I made myself do it.

For our theme tree this year we chose to make an Amelia Bedelia tree. We combined the two trees we saw in her books- one with pompoms and lots of round ornaments, and the other that had a mirror on top with a sign that said "see the star" underneath. Our first mirror broke and I didn't make a long enough pompom garland so it's a bit wonky, but Amelia Bedelia herself is the definition of wonky. 

Our regular tree has more ornaments every year. I read an article about a woman who has 400 trees and we might have her beat in a few years if we keep collecting ornaments at this rate. One of my favorite things to do this time of year is sit near the tree in the living room with all the other lights off. It's so peaceful.

 I got the little houses on sale at a thrift store for 75 cents each. Don't say I'm not a big spender!

I love creative little salt and pepper shakers. Christopher gave me these penguins a few years ago.

I bought this set as a Christmas gift to myself. I don't care about cars but I love red and green pickups at Christmastime. Sadly, the cats are no respecters of my beloved items and they broke the truck this morning.

Speaking of Linus George and Lucille Barbara, they've figured out how to climb the Christmas tree. They were not part of my original theme.

season's snapshots

Cinnamon playdough and cookie cutter gifts for her school friends.

Linus and Lucy, always on high alert under the tree.

Sesame had been asking for an elf all season and my aunt mailed her one as a surprise.
She loves it.

All ready for her first school Christmas concert!

currently- the unChristmasy December edition

Pondering: Jesus' mother Mary. People often talk about how she had to tell Joseph she was pregnant, but I'd like to hear how the conversation with her parents went down. "Hey Mom, here's the jug of water you wanted oh and btw, I'm pregnant and if you can tell Dad so I don't have to that would be great. K, thanks bye." 

Proud of: Annabelle and her desire to help the less fortunate. I gave her a quarter to give the Salvation Army outside of HobLob and the action really stuck. When we got home, she collected four baskets (she wanted all the coins to be separated), found her jingle bells and walked around the yard looking for people who would give her money for the poor people. She asked if we could walk around the neighborhood and knock on doors. It was so sweet. As much as I want to encourage her generosity, I was not about to knock on rednecks doors and ask for donations. Instead, I told her she can collect coins she finds in parking lots and donate that money.

Saving: money. I am very thrifty. Outside of groceries, I seldom buy items without coupons or discount codes. I have swagbucks, ibotta and several money-saving apps. I saved up my Walgreens points and got $50 worth of free products. I love a good deal. I was listening to a podcast and they had an excellent deal for The New Yorker magazine. It was something like 50% off plus an additional $10 off PLUS a free tote bag. I all but pulled over as I drove so I could get the deal before it ended. Then I remembered I don't even like The New Yorker. In my attempts to save money, I almost wasted money on a magazine I don't read because it was 75% off. I cannot pass up a good deal!

Reading: Fierce Kingdom by Gin Phillips. I started it at 1 in the afternoon and stayed up until after 1:30am to finish it. I couldn't put it down. If you're like me and ever wondered what you would do if there was a shooting while you were at the zoo, this is the book for you. If that sounds like a terrible story then move right along. I can't tell you the number of times I've considered where I'd hide during a zoo attack and it all played out in this book. Some of it was a little wordy (something crawled over the mother's foot which led to several paragraphs down memory lane blahblah) but overall it was engrossing. 

Apologizing to: the mother's from AB's school. When I dropped AB off at school on Wednesday I asked if she's been behaving well. They gave a glowing report. When I picked her up, Miss Shiela pulled me aside and said, "Annabelle blurted out to the whole class that Santa Claus isn't real." She gave me a look that said I needed to get my truth-spreading child under control. I apologized profusely. The day before Annabelle was at swimming lessons and made the same announcement to the whole pool. I thought I had gotten through to her when I said she couldn't say that in public because other children might not know. Now I keep my eyes averted when I see a mother from her class.
I was starting to regret telling her if it meant she'd ruin other children's fun, but she told me "I'm glad you told me because I was wondering why I've seen so many different Santas out there."

Protecting: Linus and Lucy. If they don't make it, it will be because Sesame loved them to death. She's trying to teach them how to play patacake and do the cooking game on the ipad. They've been dropped, squeezed, kissed, wrapped in blankets, made to dance and treated like babies. She loves them. They tolorate her. It's an arrangement that's worked well so far. 

all I want for christmas is good hair and an empty laundry room

No one has ever accused me of being hard to buy for, but just in case, I've compiled a list of my top ten Christmas desires. The price range is varied so there will be something for every budget.

1. Hair that stays a nice shade of dark brown. It brings me great sorrow to report that the gray and white hairs on my head are rapidly multiplying. I have highlights on top but all the offending hairs underneath shine like Rudolph's nose when my hair is up. I'd like hair that stays the right color until I am of an appropriate age for it to change.

2. Everywhere I look I see "blessed not stressed" and "too blessed to be stressed" shirts. The sentiment is great but it's not realistic. I realize how blessed I am, BUT I AM ALSO STRESSED. Thus, I present to you my patent pending sweatshirt design. 

]\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ (<--- Lucy the cats contribution to this post)

3. For slightly round midsections (aka baby weight that never disappears) to come into style. 

4. A floor with hidden compartments underneath so we could hide all the toys out of sight.

5. Dunkin Donuts delivery service

6. An hour long nap each day. Or longer! I'm not picky.

7. For a fresh breakfast to appear for me in the morning. I'm not even asking for EVERY morning, just Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. I think that's very reasonable.

8. A chauffeur to drive Annabelle to her various activities. Driving to school and beyond is something I did not look forward to in parenting and it's turning out to be just as soul time-sucking as I thought it would be. I'd also like said chauffeur to be free.

9. I am so thankful for my washing machine and dryer (#blessed) but I'd like a few changes in the laundry department. I'd like underwear and doubled shirts to be separated before going in the hamper. The same goes for socks. Please unroll socks so I don't need a facemask and salad tongs to separate them.

The current laundry situation at my house.

10. For everyone in the world to chew and swallow quietly. People at the international space station shouldn't hear you eating an apple. 

we've already lost them a few times so we're great cat parents

Back when we were living in Tennessee, we made an unusual discovery one Saturday.

Something had pooped on our stairs. Not the outside stairs. Not the deck stairs. The stairs inside the house.

We didn't own a pet. Annabelle was months old so obviously, it wasn't her. Needless to say, but I'll say it anyway, it was not me or Christopher. The babysitter said she hadn't let any animals in. We never figured out the culprit, but I choose to believe it was a cat. I can't bear to think about a stray squirrel in our house.

This evening we had another unfortunate situation with an animal using my laundry basket as a bathroom. Unlike last time, we can narrow it down to one of these cute faces.

 

We went to the mall for a jacket and came back with kittens.

We'd like to get a rabbit or dog but we can't have either in our current home. We've discussed getting a cat for a while but it never seemed like the right time. We are frequent window shoppers at the pet store and when we were there today they had a litter of kittens. Christopher instantly started campaigning that today be The Day. I had several reservations.
1. How much work would they be?
2. What do we do with them when we travel?
3.  I'm not much of a cat person. I'd prefer them in a perpetual kitten stage but news flash! that's not a thing.
4. What if we ended up with a snooty, prissy cat who did nothing but stare at us while sitting in the windowsill? What kind of pet is that? Cats are like kids. You never know what kind of personality they'll have.
5. I'd prefer a rabbit.

Christopher wore me down convinced me that there is no time like the present and while we're at it, let's get two kittens! Because they're cheap and need a friend! And they're so cute! And he wanted the orange one but he'd let us pick out the other. So that's how we ended up buying kittens today. Considering how many times I've asked if we can permanently borrow someone's baby only to have him shot the idea down, I think I was very generous to agree to his idea. 

As I carried the box of kittens out of the mall I had instant buyers regret. Maybe we hadn't thought it through enough. What if it was a curtain climber? What if they got out of the house when we were leaving for school? What if they ruin my precious throw pillows? When I was five, we had a cat for two weeks. I adored Snowball. I remember falling asleep with him. I snuggled him. I was devastated when we got rid of him. Mom had just had the twins and the cat that to me was a dream come true was to her a menace to her household. Snowball would climb up the curtains and run along the curtain rod. He constantly got out of the house and we'd have to chase him down. He scratched everything. It was too much. All these years later I understood why Mom decided to get rid of Snowball and I had just agreed to take my family down that same path.

Then we got to the car and I took the first kitten out of the box. I was like the Grinch. My heart grew three sizes.

I was a smitten kitten.

They are so cute. SO CUTE. 

I brought the following names to the table:
Ross and Rachel

Luke and Lorelai
Albert and Victoria
Fred and Ginger
George and Barbara
Jim and Pam
Johnny and June
Philip and Elizabeth

Christopher suggested:

Odin and Frigga (Thor's parents)
Arthur and Molly (a couple from Harry Potter)
Others names I don't remember but made me roll my eyes
Linus and Lucy

We agreed on two- Fred and Ginger and Linus and Lucy. I was really going for Fred and Ginger but Linus and Lucy won. 

So far they've spent a considerable amount of time wrestling, hiding under beds and in the bathroom, and exploring. They took naps snuggled in our arms. We refer to Linus as Christopher's cat because he was head of the whole buying operation and really wanted the orange cat. He's more skittish (aka a scaredy cat) and into arching his back. He bats at Lucy and picks fights. Lucy is the girls cat and she's more into cuddling and sitting on AB's bed while Linus cowers underneath. 

OMG I JUST WROTE A WHOLE PARAGRAPH ABOUT CATS. I'M TURNING INTO A CRAZY CAT LADY.

they called it tornado Christopher

Someone is currently banging on our house. Annabelle told me there was a knock at the door but when I checked, no one was there. It's either someone here to fix the siding loosened in the hurricane two months ago (because our landlords are not on top of things) or someone is using a sledgehammer to break through the brick exterior and come to murder us. I'd like to thank true crime podcasts for putting that last thought into my head.

If I never finish this post it's because the latter came true. 

Most of Saturday was dark and rainy. We have a yearly tradition of drinking apple cider while we drive around leaf peeping. There are almost no leaves to peep, but we got the cider anyway. I'm not a big Starbucks person but their caramel apple spice is delicious. Who can be a big Starbucks person when you practically have to sell a liver to get a drink there? 

While we were out we went to a Christmas tree lot worthy of the most beloved Hallmark movies. Or maybe we went to our storage unit and dug our fake tree out of the dark recesses of the back. Setting up the first of our trees happened in a very calm and soothing environment.

We only got the lights and angel on that night but I thought it looked so pretty. I think lights can be almost as pretty as a tree full of decorations.

It continued to pour and thunder for the rest of the day and into the night. All night long our phones went off with alarms from the national weather bureau. Flash flood warnings, tornado watch, and finally a tornado warning. I ignored the first message that came through about taking shelter. I didn't feel like getting out of bed and honestly, I thought it might be overkill to find shelter. Christopher was asleep on the couch and all our phones were in our room so he had no idea what was happening. A few hours later he came to bed and the tornado warning blared again. He made us get up and bunk down in the bathroom. When he brought AB in the bathroom, she looked around at the room and the pile of blankets to sleep on and said, "Well, this is weird." I agree, sister. It is weird to be laying between your parents on your bathroom floor. Christopher left the room to get pillows and when he came back, he couldn't open the door fully because of all the blankets on the floor. I was sitting closest to the door and started to move the blankets out of the way. He lost his balance trying to squeeze through and grabbed on to the towel rack about my head to steady himself. The rack ripped out of the wall and he landed ON MY FACE then fell into the tub. My nose started bleeding. I crawled over to the toilet paper while my head tipped back, blood dripping down. Christopher got himself out of the tub. Annabelle sat with her blanket wondering what was going on. In the end, it was Christopher who caused the most damage during the storm. 

Sesame on the High Seas

I have traveled many miles and crisscrossed many timezones since I last posted. We went on a week-long Disney cruise to the Bahamas with Christopher's family. It would take 46 posts to recap the trip in the longwinded way I often do, so I'm going to post a few key pictures instead. Long story short, I'm currently searching Zillow for island homes in our budget.

Exploring Key West in the rain.

Every night our housekeeping man Greyson, made towel animals.
Annabelle liked to play with them and by the end of the week, she had quite the collection.

I don't know why we still live in Georgia when there are places like this in the world.

Here we have one of the few minutes Princess Sesame carried her own dress.
For the rest of the time, she requested I, her lowly servant, carry the train for her.

"I know Elsa and Anna. I've already meeted them at my house."

Sweet cousins!

Bippity Boppity Boutique. I teared up watching her get made over.
She looked so big and I kept picturing her getting done up for her wedding.

old friends are the best friends

A little piece of home flew in to visit us last week.  My sweet friend Autumn arrived with her lavender hair and avocado print shirts.

I never know where to bring guests when they visit. Sometimes I wonder if I just don't know the good spots, but turns out there aren't many local attractions. Members of my family tend to find places I never heard of so I shouldn't have been surprised when Autumn arrived with a list of places to explore. Our first stop was billed as "one of Georgia's seven natural wonders." The website said it was a courtyard with terraces, waterfalls and "exotic flora." We arrived to find the whole place shut down and orange netting around half of it. Autumn suggested climbing over the gate but I am no breaker of the law. We looked at the swamp and strange trees instead. Annabelle was not a fan.

Autumn's next stop was a "prehistoric sand dune." The gps took us on a 20 minutes drive that looped back to right by the closed garden. The sand dune with a history dating back to the early 1800's was nothing more than a pile of dirt with a 'no trespassing' sign. I can't believe someone made a website for it. These people need to redefine their definition of interesting. 

By this point, Annabelle had had enough of sightseeing flops. She was coughing, getting a fever and saying she needed to go home. I told her we'd go to the playground since she'd been asking for weeks. Autumn put the address in the gps which proceeded to send us down a dead end dirt road. The next attempt told us to turn into a cemetery. I'll be honest. I was not my best self at this point. I had a headache and wanted to lay down but needed to give Autumn something to see, even if it was a playground. I took over the navigation and got us out of the wrong side of town. AB miraculously perked up when her feet hit the ground at the park. Funny how 45 minutes earlier she had been moaning and groaning about how she was homesick but a quick trip down the slide fixed all her problems.

That evening Autumn and I went out on the town. We poured over menus on several websites and made a list of who had the best appetizers. We made a game plan- appetizers and a drink at one restaurant than a second round of appetizers at a follow-up restaurant where we would also get dessert. In the 28 years of our friendship, it was one of our best plans and it went perfectly. We ate our weight in fried pickles and onion rings. We shared macaroni and cheese and potato skins. We talked about makeup, education and why some of our childhood friends ended up like they did. Only the most well rounded of conversations for us! We went to the next place but were too full to order more appetizers so we talked and people watched for hours. On the way home, we had to stop to put air in the tire. All the teens of the town were hanging out at the gas station. They were piled in trucks and standing around in little groups. As if the sand dune fail hadn't been proof enough that not much goes on here, those dudes sealed the deal. We were the crotchety old women wondering why the youths of small-town America weren't at home, tucked into their beds at such a late hour. We weren't crotchety old ladies when we got home at 12:30 and put line dancing tutorials on youtube and danced in the living room. We might be bad with directions but we can do the Watermelon Crawl and isn't that really more important, anyway?