1. Christmas is something like thirty-seven days away. Seriously. Usually by this time, I have my whole shopping list made up, some... or better yet, most of my Christmas presents purchased and a whole game-plan made up for all the little this-and-thats I want to do for the season. Not this year. In fact, I haven't even started on the annual Christmas calendars for the grandparents. Usually they're already ordered by now so I can get the good discount deals! And it's not that I've been too busy to do it. There's been time available. I just haven't really been thinking about it. Or I'll think about it a bit, get a little piece of it pulled together and and then totally get side tracked with something else. And then I walk into a store a see all the Christmas decorations and get that panicky feeling inside. And I know, I know. It's not all about the presents. Really, it's not. As a matter of fact, our family seriously doesn't need anything year. We've been hugely blessed so much already. But I really love the gift giving side of Christmas. While we don't exactly have the money to be giving extravagantly, it's still fun to put thought and effort creating the perfect little something for each little person. (even though on my side of the family, we do draw names. Can you imagine having to buy gifts for the whole clan!?!) So that's my goal for this week: get on the ball with my Christmas game plan. I don't want my favorite time of the year to pass me by! (notice I said "time of the year" and not "season." Brr! Bring back the warmth!)
2. Do you ever have something that's driving you crazy but you can't quite put your finger on it and then all of a sudden it hits you and moves your crazy to absolute nuts? Ok, I probably sound a little off my rocker here, but let me explain. We don't have a tiny house, but we don't have a huge house either. I'd say the house itself is just the right size for our family. But it's always messy. Even when it's clean. Something about it just feels messy. And cluttered. And overwhelming. Part of this problem has been clear as glass to me for a while: our family room furniture. It's big. Like the huge, overstuffed comfy cushy stuff that would be great in a movie room or basement. It's way too big for the room. But I've accepted it and realized that I should just be thankful that I have furniture. It's not like twenty years from now we'll still have these same couches sitting in our family room. (At least I hope not!) But there was still something else nagging me. Something messy. And then a week or so ago Mark made a comment about how it drove him nuts how the large collage of framed pictures on the big red wall in the kitchen never seemed level. And he was right! Even though this wall isn't technically in the family room, it might as well be as it's visible from pretty much any point in the room. When we bought the house it was painted an obnoxious UT burnt orange which had to go immediately. So we went with yellow but that didn't work either. So a few years ago we switched to red. And while I still love red in the kitchen, I realized it's not the paint that just doesn't seem to fit, or the collage of pictures, or even the hideous intercom system motherboard that doesn't even work (seriously, why would anyone need an intercom in a house our size!?!). It's the way too large, way over the top bold textured plaster treatment on the wall. You know, the style that was popular about 10 years ago or so where someone comes in with a huge bucket of plaster and rubs huge random streaks all over the wall in every which way. So that when you hang a picture on it, it can never stay balanced. It's hideous. And it's exactly what's making the social area of our house look messy! Like scribble all over the walls! And there's nothing I can do about it! Literally, to get rid of it I'd have to have someone come in and sand down the entire kitchen and then refinish the walls. It doesn't matter what shade of the rainbow I paint them. Can't hide ugly. But I did take the collage of pictures down, deciding that, while subconsciously they might have been an attempt to cover up the wall, they were really just emphasizing the messiness of it. In their place I added a few little shelves I had on hand, a mirror to reflect light from the other side of the room, the clock that's always been there, and a couple other little ditties on the shelves to have something there. The one consolation is that the mirror (which previously lived in the guest room/ office/ sewing room) rests on a shelf and completely covers the super 70s intercom.
And that's my rant for the week.
Note to self: Get over it. You have a kitchen. With an eating area. With electricity. Which is far more than many, many people have in this world. Stop sounding like such a brat.
3. Our house has been bombarded by the annual winter cold for the last week or two. The coughing, sniffling, sneezing cold. Started with Rudy, add Kolbe, and finally Mark. Mama Bear is still unscathed, though last night my throat did feel kind of raw. We'll see how today goes. I wish kiddos came in to this world with the natural ability to blow their noses the way they know how to suck. Though I have been lucky in one case. My poor little Kolbe was not born with the ability to suck. But he always has been able to blow his nose. Seriously! I'd say from about nine or ten months on. What a cool trade off! Once he knew the meaning of the phrase "blow your nose," he's been able to do it. I suppose the fact that his mouth and his nose were once completely open to each other internally kind of helped. Rudy is on the more normal side of things. You ask him to blow his nose and he naturally blows out of his mouth. And then when I suction it with the bulb syringe, he gags like crazy. Like to the point where he barfs on my face. For real. I made the mistake of standing him up on the changing table instead of laying him down, thinking gravity would play in to drawing the snot down. But it just made him gag more and as he leaned forward to grab on to me, he up and barfed his juice on my forehead. (Inner self says, Repeat after me: I love being a mom. I love being a mom. I love being a mom!) Lord willing these colds will clear up soon. It doesn't exactly help that children their age can't take cold medicine. All I can really slip them is some Tylenol or Motrin here and there to alleviate some of the pain they must be feeling in their throats. Or as Kolbe says, "The back of my mouf hurts." I guess I shouldn't complain. I don't remember Kolbe's cold being too bad last year, and Rudy, other than a couple days of pink eye when he was three months old and one little bout with the 24-hour bug last February, has never even been sick before. And he's almost two!
No comments:
Post a Comment