You know what I need?

More hours in the day?  Better time management?  Someone to sweep my floor continually?  (How much are those robot vacuum cleaner things?  No – for real.  How much are they?)

Maybe I do need those things.  I don’t know.  Maybe I need less distractions.  Or fewer tasks.  Or something.  I don’t know.  It hardly even matters because I don’t have those things.  You don’t have those things.  We’re just living the one life we’ve got and some days that’s not enough and some days that’s too much and at the end of the day we have the same number of hours as the next person and I spend my days being equal parts satisfied and horrified, productive and wasteful, pendulum swinging all the life long.

Our Christmas tree is up and the living room lights feel cozy and I’m eating peanut butter fudge and I figured it was past time to just say a regular old hello and happy ‘Tis the Season.  My rhythms for writing have been off for so long that it almost feels like Off IS the rhythm and I’m not entirely okay with that but I’m basically alright with it because I don’t have time to figure out any other way to be.

 

 

This weekend we enjoyed a lively and sweet visit with Oma and Papa Dale.  It makes my heart all kinds of satisfied to watch my children laugh and play and share stories and enjoy the company of two people whom I love so dearly.  We shopped in TR and we dined out and we dined in and we decorated the tree together and we decorated gingerbread houses too.  (Here’s a tip – it’s totally worth the extra couple of bucks to buy the packaged gingerbread house and just go with it instead of crafting your own and buying the random candy assortments and honestly, I think in the end, it actually saved money.)  We celebrated our Christmas together and it was a perfectly wonderful way to kick off December.

 

 

We’ve started our paper chain again and already today we forgot to follow through with the scheduled activities.  Fa la la la la.

Otto dropped my phone and the screen appeared very cracked, but turns out – it was just the screen protector.

Just as we suspected, the cat loves the wrapped presents and the low ornaments.  Thought we were safe now with no toddlers living in the house and then I had to go and allow a stray kitten to come into our lives.  Puck!  (Whose middle name is truly Cobb Salad.)

 

 

Did you know there was a book by Lois Lowry that goes back to the community where The Giver takes place?  Mosely checked it out from the library but I’ve snagged it from her and it’s so fascinating to me.  I love when authors fill in gaps.  Speaking of good books, I reread The Help last week.  I wanted to see if it was appropriate for my girls to read (I decided I definitely do not think it is for a teenage audience, at least not my teenage audience.)  But goodness, it’s a beautifully told story of hope and change and courage and struggle and relationships and complications and human nature and the mystery of it all.  I loved it the second go-round as much as the first go-round.

Next year I will have three teenagers.  It feels surreal, in case you were thinking about asking me how it feels to almost have three teenagers.

 

 

London’s birthday was in July.  Last weekend she and I finally went on her birthday date to the movie theatre.  Six months late.  Because that’s how it goes sometimes.  We saw Thor.  I like watching movies with my big kids.  Since it was Birthday (six months late, but whatever) we had popcorn and the largest icee I have ever ordered, or seen, for that matter.  Thor was pretty entertaining, although superhero films are not my genre, you know.

For the first year ever honestly, I am trying to do a nightly advent reading as a family.  Why’s it so hard to be daily faithful in that small way?

 

 

I’m not going to let myself eat another piece of peanut butter fudge because that’s just crazy – right?

I forgot how cathartic it is to write for a bit about this and that and nonsense and such.  Sigh.  Thanks for reading.

 

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