Christmas 2010

This Christmas was a season of simplicity, change, love, strength and faith for us. Many aspects of our lives have changed over the course of the year.

Back in June, I took an amazing trip to France. I was able to delve into the culture, see the appreciation that the French have for life and to understand first hand the way they celebrate it. It was an eye opening experience to see such happy people who seemed to hold a great deal of value in family, friends and the enjoyment of life with less of an emphasis on the size of their homes or the make of their cars. I'm not saying that this doesn't exist in America, but what I am trying to say is that as a culture, the French seem to have figured out that "things" don't create happiness.

This was a subtle lesson that I didn't even realize I was learning, at the time. However, the experiences that I took away from France aided in the transition that was soon to come in our lives.

Sometimes we fail to "see" all that is magnificent in our world. Whether it is a sunbeam that created a rainbow, an outburst of laughter from a child, the kiss of a loved one or the simple fact that you have a roof over your head and food on the table. I hope that you celebrated the glory of God, the love of your family and the many blessings in your life this Christmas holiday.

a do over.

I have these L brackets on a wooden shelf, only when we moved, I donated all of the L brackets except for 2, on accident. The 2 that I kept, were conveniently connected to the other wooden shelf...right. I went to Lowe's to buy 2 more L brackets (because i donated 6 of the same bracket and thought it would be amusing to BUY yet 2 more).

I went to screw the brackets into the shelf and one side was too loose. Realizing that the screws were too long on that one side, I went to back them out with the drill, but, the screws were stripped, damn them. What do you do to get stripped screws out of a bracket that is connected to the shelf that you are trying to hang because you have already hung the other shelf that had the brackets perfectly screwed in them forever, son of sh*t? Well, if you are me, you take your thumb and put it on the top of the screw and put a wrench on the bottom of the screw and turn really hard until a shard of metal is embedded in your thumb.

That is day 1.

Day 2:

In this new home, I have to orchestrate myself and the doors in the master bathroom. It is a daily synchronized beauty regimen. Open one door, go in, slightly close that door to open closet door. Close closet door to open linen closet door....but watch out for bathroom door that you originally slightly closed because that MO FO creeps open and tries to jack up your symphony of moves. This happened to me, this morning and my elbow took the hit, in the form of a black knot.

Then, my kids were having a terrible horrible no good very bad day and therefore, used their Mommy, me, as their personal punching bag to release ALL emotions. Aww, for me? Thank you.

I was being nice and going to make popcorn for them while we watched a Christmas movie together, only when I took the popcorn out of the pantry, a glass jar of pickles fell onto the tile. Immediately following it was a jar of pepper jelly, guess which one shattered? Yep, GREEN pepper jelly jar. AAAAHHHHH.

I went into the garage to get the broom and dust pan, when I grabbed the broom, the rake fell and gouged my eyelid. Are you *&*%^$ kidding me?

I swept up the glass, cleaned up the jelly, cried the whole time because my kids are also in the background fighting over what Christmas movie to watch, Polar Express or The Smurfs. Now, that's the spirit.

The corn is popped, nearly burnt, my eyelid hurts, my elbow now has a mass growing on it but hey (after a lot of tears, tantrums and crying, while my children watched me) we are watching Polar Express together, which is our family tradition.

I get up to get something out of my room and SLAM my shin into the aforementioned shelf on my bedroom floor that cannot be hung because it has the cockeyed L bracket with the stripped screws that have taken up residency in my thumb. S E R I O U S L YYYYYYYYYYY

Can I have a do over, please?

Do not feed the models......

Everyone says "what are you feeding them?, they are growing too fast". Well, it is true, I have repeatedly fed these models. My bad. I cannot believe, in 4 months, Bella and Lexie have both grown a complete size in clothing and shoes. Nice, but terribly inconvenient for me since they now require more new clothes. It would have been better organized of them to grow right before the school wardrobe/investment was made. Esh.

I am very blessed to have sweet, tenacious kids, even if they are going to be 6 feet tall with size 13 shoes.