Please Christmas don't be late.

Since Christmas Day is almost upon us, I thought it appropriate to take a little mental snapshot of the state of my home at this very moment, an end of the year holiday inventory if you will.

-Our Christmas tree is dead. Like touch the needles and shards of pine will embed deep into your skin dead. Completely dry and sullen looking. This is to be expected though when some crazy person insists on getting a real tree and getting it the first day of December. No worries though. The ornaments and lights disguise its lifelessness well enough. I am, however, worried about spontaneous combustion. That would be a sad state of affairs for all involved.

-My skin is dry. Perhaps this can be linked back to the Christmas tree.

-I made/asked the Husband to bring in some old tree limbs, for decoration purposes of course. He said a cat had probably peed on it. He's probably right. But it looks so dang festive I don't care. And it was free.

-Bubba will only eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, with the occasional consumption of treats from the advent calendar.

-Bosco's musical talents have reached new horizons, thanks in part to Christmas songs. We've had the pleasure of hearing Jingle Bells at least fifty times, first line only of course, followed by mumbo jumbo, followed by putting his entire life to music. I have a truck . . . not just any truck. It's a truck that does not give off poopy yuckiness. It picks up trash instead. And look! My mommy is cooking dinner for me. I will not eat the trees (broccoli). Singing all of this, mind you. And I've come to realize even more now that I did indeed give birth to the male version of me. Also, I've started to wonder how, after raising me, my parents can still manage coherent thoughts despite their exposure to my own daily barrage of singing.

-There's mistletoe (fake) hanging in an entryway. To be honest, I should have put it in a less frequently used hallway because my lips are always chapped this time of year.

- There's nearly a foot of fresh snow outside and just in time for my snow cone craving.

- 2:00 A.M. has become my new bedtime.

- Presents have been wrapped and stuffed in the closet with an average amount of care. Although, there may be a few gifts I have yet to find because I've forgotten my hiding places. I always wondered how my mother could just plum forget about a present and then find it in February. After spending nearly an hour looking for the whereabouts of the Husband's present and on the verge of hysteria, now I know how something like that can happen. No need to worry though. The Husband found his present right where I had forgot I left it.

-Our carpet is in desperate need of cleaning after the holidays are over. This became apparent when I spot cleaned a few places and now they stick out like a clean thumb. I'm thinking about going over the spots again with dirt just to get the uniform look back. It's seriously driving me nutso.

-I've gained one pound and couldn't be happier about it. I'm stocking up for the cold winter months ahead. Thank you holiday treats.

And now my friends, perhaps you should do the same. I shall see you in the new year! Merry Christmas from this particular redhead and her gang.

My sister said we look freakishly tall in this pic. Nearly the size of a barn! I figured something like that doesn't happen to me everyday so I need to spread the falsehood while I can.

Mission Impossible

On the last shopping weekend before Christmas I voluntarily put myself into the madness mix. Why? Well certainly not because I still had Christmas shopping to do. No I was done with that weeks ago, just like a good little girl.

No, I was on the search for some boots. I needed boots. Flat camel colored boots to be specific, mid-calf. Maybe ankle if I was feeling so inclined. They just couldn't go too high on the leg or else I would start to resemble a gnome. Such is the lot of a short person. I cope as well as I can.

Also, I didn't want any bells or whistles on my boots. No ornamentation or GPS tracking devices inserted in the heel. Nothing fancy. Just a simple dang pair of boots, that matched my precise requirements. This should not have been hard right?

Well apparently these boots do not exist anywhere on Earth except for in my imagination because these boots of mine were no where to be found. Not even in the finest of stores. My sister can attest to this fact seeing as how she was with me, and had to deal with my outbursts of chagrin.

So I learned a lesson, a lesson I had learned in years past, but forgot that I had already learned it. The lesson being: If I'm ever looking for something on purpose I will never find it. However if I'm looking with no particular object in mind I will most assuredly have magical finds. How silly of me to forget this. I should have been looking for ear muffs instead because I don't want ear muffs, and as a result I would have unexpectedly  found boots. I'm a firm believer in reverse psychological. The universe uses it on me all the time.

Well after spending HOURS looking for shoes and going into a two story Forever 21, and coming to terms with the state of my stretch marks, I tried to drown my sorrows in hot chocolate. But if you can even believe it the hot chocolate was disgusting. I never thought I'd live to see the day where I said such a thing but the hot chocolate HAD TO BE THROWN AWAY. A travesty indeed.

And to put a lovely little cap on things, I discovered that my black shoes, the shoes I was wearing at that precise shopping moment, the shoes wherein I wear when black shoes are necessary, as is a little height,  yes these shoes were in dire straits. Behold the magnitude of the situation:

Steve Madden?! What happened there?



Well I guess if I'm being honest with my near thirty self, I've had those shoes since my college years, and I've rolled my ankle many a time while wearing them. Fond memories for sure. But still . . . it appears that now I need to find the ever elusive pair of camel boots plus a black pair to boot. (Ha!) Because what shall I do when nothing besides black will do and the camel/taupe/tan/brown is nowhere to be found?

What shall I do?!

Friday Confessions: If you can't reach me it's because I'm not in my cave

I can’t believe I’m going to tell y’all this. It sort of makes me feel like a cave woman living with her cave family in a cave, den if you will, snacking on day old dinosaur meat and washing it all down with a hand-scoop of fresh swamp water. Yes, that pretty much sums up how I feel when I tell people I don’t have a cell phone.

You heard it straight from the cave woman herself. My family does not own a cell phone. Smart phone? What’s that? Texting? Sounds creepy? Being able to be reached by cellular technology 24/7? Sounds like a nightmare.

Let me clarify a few things though before you totally think me bonkers.

One: I had a cell phone when I was single and cool. When the Husband and I got married the cell phone went and college tuition stayed. I did however keep that trusty old Nokia of mine as a memento. People laugh when they see it. You're probably wondering why people see it? Well that's because the Husband likes to show it to visitors.

Two: I would like a cell phone. I am not anti-cell phone. The husband is. The thought of wanting to be “reachable” whenever, wherever perplexes him. Probably disgusts him a little too.

Three: The Husband is not unwilling to compromise. When I was preggers with Bosco and birth was imminent, I made requested that we get one of those pay-as-you-go cell phones. He obliged. Turns out though that all I had to do to let him know I was in labor was turn over in bed and tell him my water just broke. Bummer. He did get to use the cell phone a few hours later though to call his parents and tell them their first grandbaby had arrived, which he did right after he spent a few minutes trying to figure out how to use the cell phone. Tee hee.

Four: We still have that very same pay-as-you-go cell phone. I carry it around occasionally in case of emergencies when we are traveling. But you must know that this phone barely qualifies as a phone. It is not smart. It is not even semi-smart. It is only just barely averagely smart. And smart isn’t even the right word for it. Plus it looks like this:

That's a potato.

Only sillier, slightly thinner, and less edible.

Five: So technically I do have a cell phone, but not in the terms a cell phone has come to mean these days. Technology is passing us by, and the Husband usually doesn’t seem to care one bit.

At least this is what I thought until yesterday about 6:08 P.M., when the Husband revealed to me what he is getting me for Christmas/my upcoming birthday. I didn’t even think to measure how far my jaw dropped.

I’ve got to admit I didn’t see that one coming. It’s not a cell phone, but apparently the Husband is willing to go to totally illogical lengths to distract me from that fact. Dag nabbit it worked.

Note: It is absolutely, probably, most likely possible that tiny green alien life forms are currently inhabiting my Husband's body. Has this ever happened to any of you? What should I do?

Christmas Cheer Rules

As promised here are the Christmas Cheer Rules. Follow these fifteen rules to enjoy Christmas cheer well into the New Year. Or your money back.

1. Don’t make it necessary to go to the DMV anytime during the month of December. Christmas Cheer and DMV cannot coexist. It’s a simple matter of physics and latitude/longitude.

2. If you plan on hand-making your Christmas gifts you must start well in advance. July for example. This is the only way the scenario will play out well.

3. Never ever do a Google search for lyrics to a Christmas song, then click on the first link provided. Your computer will undoubtedly be attacked by a Trojan of some sort, leaving your computer a useless pile just in time for Christmas Day.

4. Never intentionally take away the element of gift-giving surprise for another. Included but not limited to flat out telling someone what they are receiving for Christmas and/or revealing Santa’s true identity. (This rule, however, does not apply when snooping on behalf of yourself. Feel free to sneak through closets, attics, and underwear drawers until you have spoiled all surprises for yourself.)

5. If you plan on making Almond Roca toffee, be sure to mix in the almonds before you have the candy all spread out. If you forget this key step, you will feel stupid and angry. This of course is the opposite of Christmas Cheer.

6. Don’t watch Extra with Mario Lopez because you will want to gauge your eyes out and also cut off your own ears. Many have failed to heed this warning and are now sitting by their Christmas tree, without eyeballs or ears. That is no way to spend the holidays.

7. Cobwebs are not an appropriate holiday decoration whether they be real or fake. Take care of them before they take care of you.

8. Presents smaller than a car must be wrapped. And if you are giving someone a car for Christmas you are required to donate one year of your life in service of Santa Claus.

9. December 1st through 31st be aware that your car becomes a “Christmas Music Only Zone.” Respect this law.

10. Do not stay up until 2 A.M. more than three nights in a row. Otherwise your body will stage a mutiny and you will say things you’ll regret like, “I swear if this cold doesn’t go away fast I’m going to rip my nose off.” Obviously breaking this rule while also breaking rule #6 is a dangerous combination.

11. During the holiday season you must have the makings for hot chocolate somewhere in your place of residence. A Christmas without hot chocolate is like Ireland without leprechauns. Scary and depressing.

             image

12. Generally speaking, you should not make relationship decisions during the holidays. Keanu’s famous words, “Relationships based on extreme circumstances rarely ever work,” are never truer than around Christmas.

13. If you are travelling for the holidays don’t forget to bring your brain along. You can’t pick one of these up at the store, at least not for a reasonable price.

14. More often than not, the smell of poop will over power the smell of pine. And pine is essential for Christmas cheer. Unfortunately the way the world is today with babies and indoor bathrooms, this situation is unavoidable. To increase the odds of pine dominance always wear a small branch of pine needles under your sleeve. Breathe in deeply whenever necessary.

15. Sanitize. Sanitize. Sanitize. And by sanitize I mean chocolate.

Friday Confessions: I'm not sure addiction is the right word for it

Friday Confessions time. I admit that I may or may not be addicted to Etsy. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? In my almost always correct opinion, it’s the happiest place in cyber space.

It’s like lemon drops, new car smell, cuddly baby monkeys, the most perfect piece of peach cobbler, freshly shaved (shorn?) legs, and a whole bag of chips just for you, all wrapped nicely together (in handmade paper!), then sprinkled with fairy godmother dust until it’s bubbling over with massive amounts of wonderful. And then all your dreams come true.

But you see, it’s hard for me to say I’m truly addicted. I have yet to compare myself with other people and their Etsy consumption. And comparison is key when trying to figure such things out.

Also there should probably be some more scientific research on the subject before I can make an educated guess. Show me studies, statistics, lab rats, what have you. But this information simply doesn’t exist, yet. This is why I say I may or may not be addicted. I’m leaning towards may, just based on a gut feeling of mine. I’m prone to gut feelings.

But I’ll let you make your own judgments about me. It should be known that I did about 82% of my Christmas shopping through Etsy shops this year. Lovely things for the children, the man attached to me by marriage, mother, sisters . . . myself. Husband it was so thoughtful of you to let me pick something out for myself this year! What a handsome devil you are. I love what I picked out for myself!

Why did I do this instead of go to the blasted mall? Well at some point this year I jumped on the handmade band wagon without really realizing it. Not me personally making handmade things. Heavens I don’t have the patience for that right now. But supporting those who do and have dreamy products to show for it.

Just a snap shot of some prints I got for the kiddies and myself to fill up these sullen empty walls of ours. Remember how I am trying to make my house a home? Bingo.

And this is just what I can show you. I can’t show you gifts for people who might actually peruse this post. That would be breaking Christmas Cheer Rule #4. Never intentionally take away the element of surprise for others on Christmas morning (Perhaps I’ll tell you the other rules another day. There are fifteen after all. Rules that is.) Just know that the other gifts are equally awesome.

So what say you? Am I showing signs of addiction or just a normal amount of adoration?

For those interested, here are the prints I purchased and the shops so you can peruse the magic for yourself. I love them all.

Anything that quotes truth is worth my money. The first one is going right above my stove. And the other is going above my washer/dryer. This is the kind of inspiration I need and want.

Kantan Designs

I sing this song to Bubba everyday. Awwww. Love it.

Sugar Fresh

It's uncanny how well this print portrays my Bosco. He's going to immediately turn into his superhero self when he sees it.

Cinnamon Ink

I love this watercolor print titled Love Birds. It suits the Husband and I quite well. I'll let you decide which bird is who.

ashmae

Happy Christmas shopping!

Baby Steps Backwards

Be still my barely beating heart, it seems as though my fear of insects has been rekindled. Remember when I was trying to overcome my intense phobia of spiders? I was coming along quite well too. I managed to kill a few all.by.myself. A feat of miraculous proportions if you had ever seen me in close proximity to a spider, especially the hairy jumpy ones.

But since the Husband was getting tired of coming hither every time I beckoned him for spider removal, I figured I should become a little bit more self-reliant. He asked me what I did before he was around, and I honestly couldn’t remember. I figured I had never come close to a spider before I met the Husband. That was the only logical explanation. But anyway, my mission to no longer fear reaching close enough to kill a spider had been mildly successful. Albeit there was still perhaps a scream or two that escaped during the extermination process. But that is almost required technique when smashing a spider with a big hefty boot.

Now I’ve been using the past tense here for a reason because something happened to make me retreat to my old ways. Something so hideous and unsightly, that even in death I could not stand to look at it, let alone dispose of it.

When Bosco told me there was something strange in his wagon, I went to take a look see. I figured it was a spider or an escaped piece of baby poop, but I needed to act fast before Bubba decided to eat whatever it was. Did I tell you about the time I found him sitting in his bedroom with spider legs hanging out of his mouth? No? Well I was probably too traumatized to talk about it at the time.

Anyway, I followed Bosco to his wagon and saw this (Am I the only one who sort of feels like throwing up just looking at it?):

Dead, obviously. But it was horrifying nevertheless. So many curled up legs. Such long antennae.

If I had seen it in a living state it would have looked more like this:

Photo credit

Scutigera coleoptrata. More commonly known as a house centipede. And what I like to call, Fetalus positionus inducera.

I’m about 1.8% guilt-ridden that I didn’t feel one ounce of pity for the creature who apparently got stuck, or decided to just stay put and die because the thought of enduring another winter was just too much to handle.

All I could think about was getting the carcass out of my general vicinity. But I couldn’t bring myself to even grab it with a piece of tissue. So I took a couple pictures (of course), wheeled the wagon into the bathroom, shut the door, and waited for the Husband to get home from work while wallowing in my lost dignity.

While I was out . . .

Hey! Remember how I just wrote a post about finally getting our Christmas tree up after much travail? Well, this weekend, just for kicks, I redecorated the whole thing. The ornament placement was really bothering me.

Well that is not entirely the truth. I’ve come to learn first-hand that redecorating the Christmas tree is what one has to do out of necessity when one has a jolly little fifteen-month old human who somehow ends up sprawled on the floor with the Christmas tree on top of him.

I’m not gonna lie. I thought this was something that only happened to silly sitcom families, and on America’s Funniest Home Videos. This isn’t something that would ever happen under my watch. That last sentence I can still claim to be truth though, seeing as how I was not home when The Incident occurred. The Husband was on duty and that’s all I’m going to say about that.

Except I will say that the Husband’s efforts to fix/cover-up the incident exceeded his normal standards. Either that or I was uncharacteristically inattentive. I didn’t even notice anything askew until Bosco told me Bubba pulled the tree down.

I thought he was joking until I noticed that some of the ornaments I intentionally placed in certain places on the tree were now in other places, and the kitchen table was littered with various ornaments that had lost their wire hooks to the dark pine abyss . . . and the carpet was damp, and there were drenched towels on the kitchen floor, and the stench of guilt lingered in the air. It was all almost too much to bear.

But being the weirdo I am, I had to try and put everything back where it had been originally or else my obsessive nature would have eaten me alive. Because I had enjoyed seeing that ornament from that couch, and I had enjoyed seeing that other ornament from the other coach. My oh my, the levels to my crazy run deep.

Bubba is fine, I think. A little shy around Christmas trees now. If I had witnessed The Incident in person I might have been compelled to say goodbye to Christmas trees forever. My human baby! With pine needles stuffed in his mouth! Scratching his eyeballs! Sapping up his hair! Destroying his Christmas cheer! With a face that surely looked something like this. Something pitiful.

But perhaps my imagination is even worse than the reality.

You are all witnesses though. I said in Post 128, Line 40-41 that the tree was not as stable as I would have liked. Freaking foreshadowing people.

Please note: A counter weight consisting of roughly ten pounds of coins has now been placed on the opposite side of the tree (a side that cannot be accessed by toddlers, let alone me) so as to hopefully prevent further damage to my children and my holidays.

Nothing a little determination can't fix

Do you remember where you were and what you were doing this past Monday evening? Normally it would take me about ten minutes to answer this question myself. My memory is not what it once was. Plus in the winter (well I guess year-round) days have a way of melding into one.

But not this Monday. No, I remember exactly what I was doing. It was to be a joyous occasion in our household for it was the day that our real Christmas tree was to be bought, arranged, decorated, and cherished. Was being the operative word.

Without going too much into detail about the crazy workings of my mind and the Husband’s mind, we (I) managed to pick out a tree worthy of our humble abode. The Husband schlepped it home in his truck while I taxied the rest of the family back home in our car, apparently a car uncapable of Christmas tree transporation, according to a marital partner of mine.

Later in the day, when the Husband was able to set aside time to trim the trunk and put it in the stand, Bosco had managed to work himself into a frenzy after being promised a magical Christmas tree decorating evening. He had our new yearly ornament all ready to put on the tree at his eye level. But the poor chap ended up waiting a long time, thanks to cosmic unknown forces.

Things did not go so smoothly, as they have a tendency to do when I have high hopes and even higher expectations. Last year the same thing happened . . . I can’t remember what exactly. But I’m sure things did not go off without a hitch. Was that the year we picked the tree out in the pouring rain? For the record I’d rather ponder which tree has the best overall persona while standing in falling snow, not rain.

Or was that the year we had to tie the tree to the top of our car with semi-worthless string that was threaded around the roof of the car then through our open windows all whilst I worried about being strangled to death.

Oh maybe it was the year I got Irremovable Sap of Strength stuck to my hands, these hands of mine that have never been the same since.

Well no matter. It’s all in the past. This year was its own kind of special.

For starters the trunk was too big for our tree stand. I suggested going to get a new one, a tree stand that is. The Husband suggested something else, something more frustrating. Just know that our tree is not as stable as I would desire it to be and I’m not quite sure if it’s able to get any water. Also I’m not sure if the Husband is who he says he is.

With the tree now in relatively acceptable conditional I proceeded with my plans of perfection, that was until I had arranged the lights on the tree then plugged them in for my moment of triumph. And of course the one time I failed to test them earlier is the one time only the top part of the tree was all aglow.

Well by that time the kiddos were well on their way to earning the title of beasts so we kissed them softly and sent them to bed, without any bread or Christmas cheer. It was rather heartbreaking for me.

The Husband and I then spent the next two long grueling hours of our lives testing the strand of lights that refused work. Yes we did this rather than just go out and buy a new set. Please direct all questions and comments on the matter to the Husband, seeing as how he was the one who wanted a good challenge.

After some dumb luck, brain power, and I think maybe a little Christmas magic sent our way, we got half the strand of lights to work, then eventually the whole thing. But my question is why all of the sudden did eight lights decide to burn out? Not one or two. But eight? I’ll just add this to the list of questions I have that will probably never be answered. Like what are hot dogs made of, really? And why isn't Oprah president yet?

I am glad to report though that the next night we finally finished what we started. The tree is lit. The garland strung. The ornaments placed. And most importantly, my house smells like a dang pine forest. I love it. It is worth it. It is worth it. Repeat after me.

I sincerely hope none of you try to sell me on the idea of a fake tree because I will hear nothing of the sort. Nothing! Of the sort!