what happened to throwing snowballs?

Today was the neighborhood ladies Christmas party—an annual event fraught with delectable treats, lavish desserts, and an ornament gift exchange that pits everyone against each other in a game to “steal” the best gift.  It’s always a load of fun.  I couldn’t wait to go!

Of course I waited until the last minute to shop for my ornament, and to make the treat to share. 

Waiting until the last minute sounds like a good idea on paper…well, to me anyway…but it is not a good idea.  Especially when you are supposed to be making a dish for the group.  

My dish was a spectacular creation.  It was a chocolate and peanut butter brownie mountain, drizzled with hot fudge.  I was asked for the recipe many times tonight, but unfortunately, I do not know how it was made.  I bought it from the bakery. 

Even my ornament was a hit.  I bought a sparkly cow/angel complete with wings and cloven hooves.  It was stolen at least once (the definition of popular at this event.) I even managed to walk away with a very nice ornament myself (stolen from my next door neighbor.)

But I almost didn’t make it to this wonderful holiday event.  It was almost a wash…so to speak.

As my husband was driving home this evening, something splattered against the windshield of the car he was driving.  The same car I was going to drive to the end of the neighborhood (I had a large brownie mountain and a wrapped ornament, so walking was out of the question.) That something appeared to be a water balloon filled with some sort of sticky slime.  Mike was afraid the goop could be corrosive and so he was determined to wash all traces of it from the car before I could drive away. 

This is where you need to accept the fact that I could not drive any of our other vehicles.  I had to force myself to accept this fact as well, now it’s your turn. 

Mike rinsed the car thoroughly and when he was through, I loaded my things into the passenger side and proceeded to the driver’s side door.  This is precisely when Mike decided to rinse the car again.  I was in mid-stoop, just lowering myself into the car, when the icy spray from the hose hit the roof and rained down on me from above.  My hair was wet…my back was wet…my front was wet…and I was as mad as a wet cat.

I expected a little remorse.  A half-hearted apology at least.  Instead I got a grouchy look.  I stomped back into the house to towel myself off.  I contemplated changing my clothes, but I had spent too much time picking out my festive holiday outfit to change.  So I stomped back to the car and buckled myself into the driver’s seat and waited for Mike to be satisfied with the cleaning.  It didn’t take long and I was on my way…in a wet silk blouse. 

Mike did finally apologize…three hours later.  But as I always say, better late than never! 

I’m sure it was a bit unnerving to get hit by a stray balloon of potentially toxic goo as he was driving down a dark road at night.  And I’m sure it was hard to see out of the windshield when the wipers did little more than smear the slime around, almost completely obscuring the view. 

I decided I would cut him a little slack.  After all…I did dry.  And I did have fun.  And Tuesday is his birthday.  It’s not like I could be mad at him on the day before his birthday.  Right?

Until the next time…I will be making my husband birthday breakfast (for lunch.)

pre-holiday ramblings

In no particular order...

Had fun at the party last night.  At least I think it was last night.  Must have had a very good time.  Fell asleep watching an old Christmas movie on the TV in my bedroom and knocked the remote behind the bed.  I will have to endeavor to retrieve it at some point.  Might need giant tongs to reach under there.  Should have vacuumed under there a long time ago.  Does anyone actually vacuum under their bed?  How?  My bed is huge and not easy to move, and my vacuum won’t reach.  Combination of dust and pet hair may have already eaten said remote.  Might as well just go buy another one.  Would be easier and probably safer too. 

Didn’t do much of anything today.  Should have finished the last of my Christmas shopping but after the terrifying experience at the mall on Friday, have decided to wait until after lunch on Tuesday.  Strategy is to avoid all holiday shoppers.  Sort of like picking the best time to go to the DMV.  It’s an art.  Have two more gifts to buy and sort of under a deadline.  Need ideas in a hurry!

Finally my husband has resigned himself to the idea that puppies will chew things if you let them.  Like shoes. Or socks.  Or hats.  Or sweat pants (I don’t know what he sees in the sweats, but he likes them.) And he has come across some mysterious stockpile of jingle bells.  I don’t know where he is getting them, but I have taken no less than six from him in a week.  It’s almost as if he has assaulted a steady stream of elves and robbed them of their jingle bells.  I will need to dig deeper to uncover this mystery. 

Less than a week to Christmas and still haven’t finished decorating the house.  May have to call it a wash and go with what I have so far—a beautiful tree, some lights on the mantle, and quartet of handsome Santas.  No wreaths, no garland on the stairs, no outdoor lights. 

Hardly seems like Christmas at all.  Will have to bake LOTS of cookies tomorrow to make up for it. 

I really do love Christmas…the whole Christmas season.  But this little part of me just wants to ring in the New Year.  I am looking forward to a wonderful 2011…I guess I just need to slow down and enjoy what’s left of 2010!

Until the next time…I’ll be pulling out a wreath for the front door!

merry anniversamas

I’m a little late getting the blog turned in, but I’m sure I will be forgiven under the circumstances.  Mike and I had a nice anniversary…spent at the Joneses Christmas party.  The food was great, the house was beautiful, and I have a ton of recipes that I need to get tomorrow.   

And despite the holiday frivolity, we didn’t drink more than what was required for a nice holiday glow.  I did, however, eat more than enough cheesecake to wake up with a hangover of a different variety.  I don’t believe I would be exaggerating if I said; everything was so good I could throw up. 

I don’t think I will though.  Instead, I’ll just grab a couple of Tums and try to get some sleep.  I have every intention of sleeping in Sunday, especially since the day will be spent cleaning out the garage, or some other menial task on our quest to get things organized before Christmas. 

It’s time to purge another batch of paraphernalia that no one has bothered to miss in over a year’s time.  I think everyone should do this.  It’s amazing the amount of crap we collect when we aren’t paying attention.  I need to learn to “just say no” to the useless junk that collects in the corners when you can’t figure out what to do with it. 

My new motto is: If it doesn’t have an immediate purpose, don’t buy it. 

It would have saved me the grief of trying to find homes for all the enormous ugly vases that have never once housed a flower.  And I wouldn’t have to feel guilty about throwing away the giant corn husk rooster that is now coated in enough dust to set off an epidemic of asthma attacks. 

Time to turn in…my pillows are calling my name.

Until the next time…I’ll be putting the roosters out to pasture.

vampires, caffeine, and romance thwarted

Have you ever had one of those days when you just don’t feel like doing something…but you know you have to?  Like, for example, writing a blog?

I’m writing it, don’t worry, but I really wanted to just slip under the covers and try to sleep off the caffeine hangover I am riding at this moment.  I still haven’t fallen off the Diet Coke wagon, but I did have my share of root beer today.  I was indulging for my pre-anniversary celebration.  And because I’m also giving up artificial sweeteners, it was loaded with real sugar.  So I’m riding a sugar and caffeine high, and I can feel the crash coming. 

It was worth it. 

Mike and I went to dinner and a movie, and had a nice time.  It was the first real “date” night we have had in months.  It’s tough when the realities of life get in the way.  Mike has a high pressure job, and I have…well…I have lots of laundry and other very important things to do.  I’m supposed to be finishing a couple of books, but that will have to wait until after the holidays. 

It might have to wait until I get over my new obsession with the Vampire Diaries.  I don’t expect this obsession to have any real legs.  It is just a mild case of “gotta watch it” syndrome.  I expect it to run its course fairly quickly.  Unlike my magazine obsession that has been going strong for more than a decade.  Of course, that one might be on borrowed time too, now that my puppy has taken the job of magazine destruction.

I guess it’s HGTV for me for a while.  Surely he will grow out of this chewing phase soon.

Tonight’s festivities aside, tomorrow is our official anniversary (thank you to those of you who have sent me private messages to congratulate me) and if Mike can take a break from working on his projects tomorrow afternoon, we may find a little time to spend together before the Christmas party in the evening.  With that in mind, I am going to try to grab a few hours of sleep. 

Good night all!

Until the next time…I’ll be sneaking a peek at the Vampire Diaries videos online.

just a few days closer

It was almost Christmas weather today.  It started out with a snow day in Atlanta, and morphed into a warm wet day.  The icy roads had melted by the time I set out to finish my Christmas shopping. 

I did a pretty good job. 

I only have a little more to do before I can officially start wrapping...my least favorite part of the whole deal.  It’s sort of like folding laundry.  I don’t mind sorting and washing, but I hate folding and putting away.  But wrapping presents, as tedious as it may be, is sort of important to the whole Christmas thing. 

So a wrapping I will go!

But if I can push it off for a few more days, I will.  I like to lay everything out on the bed and organize before I wrap. 

But before any of that happens, I am preparing for my anniversary.  Because we had a party to go to Saturday night, I think we will be celebrating our anniversary tomorrow evening.  At least I hope so. 

Until the next time…I’ll be planning!

what’s wrong with a little harmless obsession?

I admit it.  I collect magazines.  And not just any magazines…home decorating magazines.  You’ve heard of them…House Beautiful, Country Living, Cottage Homes, Traditional Home, Southern Accents…and the list goes on.  My husband has repeatedly asked me to pick a few and get a subscription rather than picking them up for full price at the store.  I keep telling him that I will narrow the choices down after sampling them just a few more times.  I just can’t decide which ones to get.  Why can’t I just have them all? 

Because the magazines are piling up all over the house, that’s why. 

And my wonderful husband spares no opportunity to remind me of that fact.  I have vowed to weed through the current selections (some of which date back as far as 2005) and recycle the ones I don’t want anymore.

Again, a very difficult decision, I sort of want them all. 

Not so long ago, I actually tossed quite a few of them into the recycling bin, only to fish them out a few days later.  You just never know when I will have the opportunity to remodel my Paris apartment…right? That is, if I had an apartment in Paris…which I do not.

But I can dream can’t I? 

My dreams notwithstanding, I believe my husband has enlisted the help of an accomplice to rid himself of my magazines. 

Enter Indiana Jones, the accomplice.

Indy has developed a new habit of shredding magazines, more specifically, my magazines.  I found a Country Living torn up on the living room floor yesterday.  Two different Traditional Homes bit the dust in the days before that.  And I lost a prized Martha Stewart Living to the powder room toilet just this evening. 

Don’t ask me how or why my 120lb Mastiff puppy put a Thanksgiving issue circa 2008 into the toilet, because I have no idea.  But I really liked that particular issue.  I’ve decided to attempt to dry it out.  I know…I know…yuck…but there are some really good recipes in there! 

I am convinced my husband has told him to do this.  What other excuse could there be?  I have had this puppy since he was 10 weeks old and only now; coincidentally coinciding with my husband’s requests to “throw some of those damn magazines away,” my eight month old dog is tearing through my magazines faster than I can replenish them.  And he’s not going for the newest issues—the ones I can replace—he’s going after the out of print issues! 

And it’s not like he found them lying on the floor…he has fished them out of magazine racks!  Pulled them off the coffee table!  Taken them from my bedside table! 

It is a conspiracy.  And my husband is the head conspirator.  The next thing you know, he’ll be convincing the cats to push the magazines from their new perch on the top of my dresser so the dog can get them. 

I suppose in the grand scheme of things I can’t complain.  If I try hard enough, I can look at the positive side of things.  Perhaps this is just Indy’s way of helping me make room for more new magazines.  Maybe it’s time I actually sent in those subscription cards after all.  I think I can pare it down to four choices.  Well, maybe five. 

I’ll do that next month.  I want to make sure I get all of the holiday issues first.

Until the next time…I’ll be pulling out the blow dryer for Martha’s stuffing recipe!

an anniversary of sorts

Saturday is my sixth wedding anniversary, but today is the eighth anniversary of our first date.  We need to celebrate, but unfortunately Mike has been working sixteen hour days with a project he’s working on so a celebration will have to wait. 

For now we’re watching a movie and relaxing.  Sometimes those are the best kind of nights anyway.

It’s hard to believe we have been together for eight years.  I suppose I should state the obvious and say that there have been hard times and easy times, and that every minute was worth it.  That’s what you say when you absolutely love the person you are with.  And I do.  But I am really looking forward to a time when things go a lot more smoothly than they have over the past eight years. 

I look forward to a day when our exes will have vanished fully into the peripheral, and the kids will be self-sufficient, happy adults.  A day when our home will be a converted barn tucked into the North Carolina woods where our nearest neighbors will be bears and wild turkeys. 

But for now I’m looking forward to Saturday night. 

We aren’t going out for a traditional anniversary dinner.  Instead we’re going to a neighborhood Christmas party.  It should be fun. 

I might even dress up for the occasion. 

Until the next time...I’ll be finishing my Christmas shopping!

the ghost of christmas past

I watched a modern adaptation of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol this evening and it got me started thinking about my past Christmases and what would happen if a ghost were to come and take me on a journey to revisit some of the more memorable ones. 

Where would I begin?  Which Christmases would I include?

Of course it would only be natural to include a few of my first Christmases.  My ghost would undoubtedly catch me in the act of meticulously unwrapping my presents under the tree to peek and then carefully rewrapping them and tucking them back in their places so my mother wouldn’t know.   I wonder if she has any idea that I have been doing that for years.  I suspect my children might do the same thing (it could very well be a genetic trait.)  This may be the main reason I don’t put presents under my tree until Christmas Eve.

Or maybe I don’t put presents under the tree because of that one childhood Christmas when the dog tore through all the presents about two weeks before Christmas.  We thought we had been robbed…until we saw teeth marks in the packages. 

Surely the ghost would take me back to my first Christmas after marrying my ex-husband.  My mother, my sister, and my sister’s husband (Uncle Paul) traveled to New York to spend Christmas with my new in-laws on Long Island.  It was interesting at best.

Like the Osbornes spending Christmas with the Obamas. 

Uncle Paul wreaked havoc with the water lines, ensuring that everyone got a nice little shock in the shower at least once. And my sister’s morning sickness, combined with my former mother-in-law’s dictator-like regime with regard to the kitchen, sent my family trekking through the backs of yards to the closest McDonald’s at all hours of the day and night. 

The only worthwhile moment of the entire trip came in the form of a tour of New York City in the back of a beat up pick-up truck driven by my ex-husband’s crazy Uncle Jimmy. 

Uncle Jimmy was not my ex husband’s real uncle, but rather a very close family friend.  I believe he had served in World War 2 with my former father-in-law.  He was in his sixties, and missing a few teeth as I recall, but he was a live wire who enjoyed life to the fullest. 

It was December in New York, and the city was covered in snow.  This particular night was especially cold, and even with a camper top on the bed of the truck, it was still freezing cold.  Because my sister was pregnant she was allowed to sit in the front of the cab, and I was allowed to ride up there with her.  That might have been a perk if the passenger window hadn’t been stuck in the open position.  The heater was turned up to full power to keep the frostbite from setting in, but we were still wrapped up in wool coats and scarves like foreign immigrants landing on Ellis Island circa the turn of the twentieth century. 

My mother rode in the truck bed with her sons-in-law, and had to listen to them whining about dying from breathing in exhaust fumes, despite the fact that the back window and the window to the cab were both wide open.  I remember looking through the small opening at the three of them, shivering in the back as they sat against the side walls of the truck like a load of illegal day workers.  My mother laughed the entire time as the men complained.  

In the front of the truck, Uncle Jimmy narrated our journey…loudly…with more than a trace of Jack Daniels on his breath.  We were introduced to every sight the city had to offer. 

Uncle Paul shouted from the back that he wanted to see a real prostitute, so Uncle Jimmy drove us to 42^nd Street to find one.  As we set out on foot, Uncle Paul approached several women dressed in flashy winter attire and inquired, “Are you a hooker?”  

He was asked to leave two separate topless bars for similar questions.

We even ran across a religious zealot, shouting for us to save ourselves while we still had time, and carrying a sign that promised the end of days was nigh.  Twenty two years later we’re still here, so I gather his timing was just a bit off.

There were many Christmases before that year, there have been many Christmases since, and hopefully there will be many yet to come, but I will never forget that night in New York City.  It was the best tour I had ever taken, and the best tour guide a person could ask for.  We even got to see the heart of Harlem and Lady Liberty from afar. 

Uncle Jimmy past away several years ago, but he will never be forgotten, I am certain. 

Until the next time…I’ll be waiting for the spirit of Christmases yet to come!

the weather outside is frightful!

The moral of my story today is…be careful what you wish for.

I have been hoping and praying for a little snow for Christmas.  There was always snow for Christmas when I was a kid, so I have craved that same holiday ambiance since moving to the south.  Every year I pull out the Farmer’s Almanac, months in advance, trying to convince myself that this year it would snow at Christmastime. 

Well, after almost ten years of waiting, I got my wish today. 

It wasn’t a heavy dose of snow, but it did flurry all day long.  And admittedly, I love, love, loved it!  That is, until I had to step outside and get into my frozen car to drive someplace. 

I had forgotten how cold a snowy day is. 

I bundled up by wearing my snug pajamas under my clothes and thick fuzzy socks inside my sneakers.  Then I pulled on my heaviest wool coat and wrapped my head with my husband’s cashmere scarf.  Add to that a pair of dark sunglasses to keep the wind out of my eyes and I was ready to go outside.  Thank goodness my sleeves were long enough to tuck my hands inside since I don’t own a pair of gloves. 

Now if only it would snow enough to close down the city so I can stay inside and admire the view. 

Well…we still have twelve days til Christmas Eve…that’s plenty of time!             

Until the next time…I’ll be picking up a pair of fur lined gloves!

eighteen years of labor

Today I had an epiphany. 

My epiphany was this...raising a child from infancy to adulthood is akin to a difficult labor and delivery.  I don’t know what the catalyst to said epiphany was exactly—it was somewhere in the middle of a conversation with Mike where we were talking about toddlers and teenagers and the comparison—but I remember the moment it came to me.  It was right after Mike said, “I wish their entire lives could be as easy as that first year.”  It made me think about my kids and their lives from the beginning until now. 

And at the beginning there was that first pain of labor. 

I had long difficult labors, but like most labors they started slow.  They started with a few little cramps—not comfortable, but hardly horrible. 

That is sort of like the first year of your child’s life. 

Having a new baby means lots of hours of lost sleep, a fair share of vomit in your hair, and no time to take a shower or eat a peaceful meal.  But it’s hardly difficult…on a grand scale anyway.  My apologies to the new parents of the world, but you will soon discover that this was the easiest your baby will ever be. 

The next step of labor is when those little cramps get stronger and begin to make you take pause.  Your resolve is slipping, and you’re almost ready to accept that shot of pain killers that you swore you would forego in favor of the purity of a natural childbirth. 

This is like the terrible twos and threes.  Your little darling is getting more and more difficult to manage as they become mobile and learn to manipulate their surroundings.  You think this is the worst phase you will encounter, and you can’t wait until it passes and your child becomes the angel you always dreamed about. 

You get over that idea just about as fast as you get over the idea of “natural” childbirth.  Somewhere in the middle there, just as you feel like you are being split in half by some acid dripping little alien, you break into a full on panic, pleading for as much of the damn drugs as they are willing to give you.  Damn the consequences and the purity.  Suddenly, the idea of natural childbirth simply means the baby will come out of the correct hole, as nature intended. 

Because if nature didn’t want us to be fully medicated they would not have invented morphine!

In the hours (or years) that pass once you accept your fate and dull your senses to better manage the process, things roll fairly smoothly.  You don’t mind carting your children to baseball practices, cheerleading tryouts, and birthday parties every weekend.  You don’t complain about having lost your own identity in exchange for being their mom.  In fact, you thrive on the chaos…you are medicated…certain that everything is going to be alright.  The hard part is over, right?

Wrong!

The teen years crash into you at a hundred miles an hour, just as the drugs wear off.  You are pitifully unprepared for the horrors of this delivery.  This is harder than any book described.  More visceral than any firsthand account you had memorized in preparation. This is where the sensation to push that baby out of your body (or out your house) is so overwhelming, you can barely breathe through it.  There is no Lamaze training that can prepare you for the gut wrenching anguish of knowing that no matter how badly you want to push, the doctor keeps telling you, “It’s not time yet.” 

“What do you mean it’s not time?!?” You squeal.  How can it not be time?  You need this creature out.  But they are not ready to go yet, no matter how loudly (or often) they scream to the contrary. There are still very important preparations that need to be made before you deliver this frenetic teenager into the adult world. 

And as you both scream obscenities until the air is tinged a vivid blue, you finally realize that you have come full circle with this little bundle of joy and mayhem.  Nothing alive could create as much grief, pain, and mental anguish…or as much unparalleled love, pride, and devotion as the child that you witnessed taking their first breath on this earth…and will hopefully witness taking their first steps into maturity and self-reliance. 

I love my children with all my heart, and sometimes it takes a step backwards to see what is right in front of me.  They aren’t babies…or toddlers…or children…or even teenagers forever and one day you will look back at their lives—their trials and tribulations…their triumphs and advancements—and you will miss every crazy moment. 

I know I will.

Until the next time…I’ll be embracing the ring of fire with my eye on the prize!

it's a wash!

I very literally spent my entire day doing laundry.  I have washed every article of clothing, every towel, every sheet in my house. 

This was all part of my “winter cleaning” agenda.

Today I attacked my bedroom and all of the clothes that I have had in baskets because I was either too busy or too lazy to fold and put them away.  Somewhere along the way I lost track of which basket was which.  I think I might have even rewashed some clothes that were already clean because I couldn’t tell the clean baskets from the dirty. 

My husband had been asking where all of his socks had disappeared to.  He was certain they had been stolen by a sock thieving bandit.  But the truth was, they were tucked into different baskets, slid under the bed, or otherwise hiding in plain sight. 

He now has a giant pile of folded socks right next to his pile of folded shirts, pants, and underwear. 

As wonderful it is to have a closet filled with clean clothes (and a pile of folded clothes on the dressers, tables, and shelves) it seems as if I have burned out my washing machine in the process. 

I can only hope it is just too exhausted to carry on.  Hopefully after a good night’s rest it will be ready to jump into action again for the clothes that get dirty in the night.

Or maybe I can go just a few days before picking up a laundry basket again.  I certainly wouldn’t mind a bit!

Until the next time…I’ll be trying to find places to put all the clean laundry!

shall we call it reindeer red?

I have decided to change my hair color. 

This is one of the perks of being a woman, I think.  We can arbitrarily decide to become a blonde, brunette, or redhead depending on our moods.  And if I have to color the dreaded gray streaks that seem to be infiltrating my follicles more and more lately, I may as well have a little fun while I do it.  

I was born a brunette, and for many years it seemed to naturally darken more and more as time went on.  Then one day I discovered the first of many gray hairs.  It’s been all downhill from there. Like a snowball rolling down a mountain. 

I was just coloring my roots.  You know, get rid of the gray with the least amount of change.  But it got boring.  So I added highlights.  And I hated them.  Then I became a redhead.  And I got tired of that.  So I went back to my natural color.  And after a long stretch of my natural color I developed amnesia and got highlights again. 

This is where I am now—streaks of platinum blonde in my dark hair have grown out to reveal new growth of gray scattered in with the dark brown—and it looks horrible.  But thanks to the magic of color in a bottle, I will be going back to a dark red color starting tomorrow.  If it doesn’t work out I will chalk it up to a holiday experiment. 

As long as I don’t end up with Ronald McDonald red, again. 

Surely I’ve learned my lesson after that one…

Until the next time…I’ll be coloring my hair!

the magic of christmas

I was watching Miracle on 34^th Street this evening and it brought up the subject of Santa Claus.  I had participated in a lively debate on the subject just days ago and the classic movie put a lovely point on the topic for me.

The debate with my friends was about at what age children should be told the truth about Santa.  And if Santa is even relevant in this day and age. 

I believed in Santa Claus as a child. 

It is one of the strongest, most vivid memories I have from childhood.  In fact, if I think back, I could probably recall at least one present from each year I believed.  Santa Claus is quite simply the definition of the “magic” of childhood.  I think I knew the truth long before it was confirmed, but I didn’t want to stop believing, so I held on for as long as I could.  I was almost twelve when I finally had the indisputable proof.  But because my younger sister still believed, I was able to hold on to the magic for a few more years through her. 

And that is what it is all about for me.  The magic.  It is something every child should feel and every adult wishes they could recapture. 

Finding out there is no Santa Claus is the first official step away from childhood.  And it’s a steep step that most of us spend the rest of our lives trying to back track.  At least a little.  Even if it’s just once a year. 

While my children were little, because of their belief in Santa Claus, my house was again filled with the magic of Christmas.  It wasn’t quite the same as when I was a child, but it is the closest I have ever come to that wonderment from my childhood. 

It certainly doesn’t stop me from trying to recapture it each year.  I still watch the classic Christmas specials like Rudolph, Frosty, and Charlie Brown.  I immerse myself in the twinkling lights, Christmas carols, and frosted cookies until my memories swirl around me like a tornado of snowflakes on Christmas Eve and Santa Claus becomes real again. 

When my children asked me, so many years ago, if Santa was real, I told them that Santa was as real as we believed he was.  I still consider this to be the truth. 

Christmas is the one time of year when believing in magic is not just for children… because Santa real if you believe.

And I believe in Santa Claus.

Until the next time…I’ll be hanging my stocking by the chimney with care.

things are getting very hairy!

It is freezing cold in Atlanta Georgia today. 

The cold snap that dumped buckets of snow in the northern states has moved into the south with a vengeance, and all I can say is…thank goodness for the winter coat!

My girls and I were just discussing our winter coats the other day.  I jokingly told them they didn’t need new razor heads because the cold front was moving in, and they would need that extra layer of fur.  Who knew I would be so right? 

I’m pretty sure the human body was designed this way…to build a nice warm outer coat of hair to keep us warm in colder weather.  But as American women, we work diligently to remove this fur coat before it has a chance to fill in. 

Unless we run out of razors.

This is when a household of three women turns into a war zone.  With only one unused razor head and three sets of hairy legs, the battle can get ugly!  Of course, I had the razor head stashed in my bathroom, so the only way anyone could get it would be if I relinquished it.  But I had no desire to give up my precious razor.  If you hadn’t noticed lately, razors are expensive these days, and I haven’t been clipping coupons. 

My husband believes that in tough times, people grow their hair longer and let beards come in to save on trips to the salon.  I believe this financial conservation extends to women and their razors.  We try to stretch it out longer and longer. 

But at some point, it becomes ridiculous. 

The girls and I were comparing our situations…in the most ridiculously exaggerated manner.  We were trying to compete for the most desperate condition to win the remaining razor head.  Despite the fact that I should have won, I did not, and I relinquished the last razor to one of the girls.  Honestly, I didn’t even realize under arm hair could get that long!

Later that night I went to the store for milk and grabbed another package of razors. 

I have decided that, cold weather and fiscal responsibility aside, women were not meant to have hair on their legs or under their arms.  There is something very unladylike about that.  And as much as my husband likes to conserve energy and resources, it would seem that he is willing to splurge in the razor department. 

Who knew? 

Of course, if I play my cards right, I can get a few higher wattage light bulbs out of the deal too.  Everyone knows you need proper light to shave your legs.  Especially someone who is as tragically uncoordinated as I am…

Until the next time…I’ll be shedding that winter coat just as the really cold weather hits!

december book club

 I was late to book club this evening.  I totally forgot it was tonight.  How I could forget our annual Holiday book club event is beyond me.  It was my favorite one of the whole year…we didn’t have to read any books this time.  Or rather, we could read any book we liked, and we didn’t discuss any of them.  Instead, we had a wonderful dinner and played several games. 

Mrs. Jones and I played as one team versus the rest of the group.  It seemed fair that way, but I think they could have used a few more players.  We completely destroyed them at Christmas Pictionary.  Not that we gloated about it or anything…or maybe we did, just a little. 

We had a great time, and didn’t want to leave at the end of the evening.  Mrs. Weenie gave us all a cute little Christmas pail filled with candies to take home.  Mine spilled all over the floorboards of my car as I pulled up my driveway.  I suppose I didn’t need any chocolate anyway. 

Since I had forgotten about book club, I will need to push my “to do list” back a day to catch up on the things I didn’t get done this evening.  Not that I’m complaining, I didn’t want to do laundry or dishes anyway. 

Until the next time…I’ll be cleaning M&Ms out of the seat cushions!

winter cleaning

The cold weather has officially moved in. 

I think we might have reached forty degrees today, but it felt much colder.  The wind was gusting through the slightest cracks in the windows, whistling loud enough to wake me up at dawn.  But I didn’t get out of bed at dawn…I lingered for as long as the dogs would let me.  The extra time in bed felt wonderful!

The day was spent doing little more than organizing and cleaning the house, and I couldn’t be happier.  It is something that is usually reserved for spring, but makes a wonderful difference if done in the winter.  I can’t wait to tackle the garage!

Well…that might have to wait until spring.

Next week I will need to get moving on my shopping or I will never finish by Christmas.  I may even get a jump on the wrapping.  I always tell myself I’ll wrap it all before Christmas Eve but always seem to find myself scrambling to get it all done in the wee hours of the morning.

But before I start wrapping, I need to finish my winter cleaning.  Tomorrow I’ll be finishing up a week’s worth of laundry and hanging more Christmas lights.  And then I might start on the baking. 

There is never a shortage of things to do in the month of December!

Until the next time…I’ll be blasting the Christmas carols while I vacuum.

a house is not a home

All roads lead back to home.

It’s a great saying.  It makes me think that no matter where you go, you come home at the end of your journey.  It speaks of Dorothy, clicking her ruby slippers, repeating “there’s no place like home…there’s no place like home.”  Something special is awaiting you once you cross the threshold of your very own home sweet home.

But what happens if all roads DON’T lead back to home?  In fact, what if NO roads lead back to home? 

As I was attempting to make my way back from the other side of town this afternoon, these questions suddenly seemed deeply prophetic.  All roads to home were blocked at every intersection due to a parade.  I had to double back no less than three times to find alternate routes.  After a roundabout journey that took me within two miles from home four times before I was actually able to reach my destination, I was beginning to believe that I wasn’t meant to go home.  And then I had a moment of clarity.  A moment when I had to ask myself…“what is home?”

There is a great old song, “A House is Not a Home” by Luther Vandross.  That song popped into my head as I was driving in the rain, cursing the stupid parade for not being cancelled due to bad weather.  And I cursed the city for not putting up more signs to warn me that I would be virtually trapped on the other side of town if I dare venture out between the hours of four and six pm.  And I sang the few words to the song that I remembered, basically the “house is not a home” part, over and over again. 

And it’s true.  A house by itself is not a home.  It is just a house.  A big box with a bunch of rooms filled with a bunch of stuff.  None of those things make the house a home. 

A home has nothing to do with your address.  Or your tax bracket.  Or your decorating style.  A home is the place your heart takes you to.  A home is like an old worn out blanket that wraps you in warmth and comfort whenever you need it.  A home doesn’t mind muddy dog prints on the floor, or a few dishes in the sink, or flaking paint on the porch.  You can have the most wonderfully appointed house and still not have a home.  Not if there is no one there who loves you. 

I will no longer think of my house as an important feature in my life.  It is not my home…it is just my house.  My home will go with me wherever I may choose to go. 

My house will stay right where it is.  Cold and dark if no one is at home. 

Until the next time…I’ll be leaving a candles burning for warmth and light as winter descends on Atlanta.

oh my god, i'm psychic!

Yesterday I promised a funny Christmas story, and this one is one of my very favorites.  This is not the first time I have written about it, in fact, it is a favorite of many in my family.  

The first time I sat down to write this story was a Christmas Eve, my 36^th Christmas Eve.   

Even now, several years later, I fondly remember so many a Christmas Eve in great detail.  My parents always allowed us to open one present on the night before Christmas.  It was like the big tease for the next morning.  And every single one of the Christmas mornings that I remember were magical. 

I love Christmas really, the entire season.  And over the years, I’ve seen my share of fun and sentimentality.  But that Christmas Eve eight years ago seemed more poignant than the others, probably because it was the first Christmas after my divorce, and it was also the year that my first born decided he no longer believed in the magic of Christmas. 

My son was so wise for his age, he always has been.  Even at three years old he had sorted everything out.  His sister was just an infant when he was three, and convincing him that babies needed special care was difficult.  He knew all about babies, or so he said.  

“Babies aren’t made of glass, Mommy.”  He retorted when I tried to tell him to be careful with his new sister.  I assured him that he was correct, they were not made of glass, but still, they were fragile and could be broken if not careful.  “Don’t be ridiculous!”  He snapped back in his wise little voice.  “Everyone knows babies are made of wood!”  

This was, of course, during his Pinocchio phase.  

Only ten years later he had discovered the true origins of “you know who” and somehow that upset me more than when I myself discovered the truth.  My only saving grace was my daughter, who still believed, and would for, I hoped, at least for a few more years.  As I learned when I was my son’s age, as long as someone in the house still believes, there is still magic.  It’s not quite the same, but it’s all we have. 

I have discovered that the older you get, the more important the memories from your childhood become.  I used to think that the people who were sad at Christmas must have had terrible childhoods, wrought with misery and bad presents.  But, I’ve since had reason to re-think my logic.  I now firmly believe that the sad people at Christmas are the ones who had wonderful childhoods, and great memories, and are simply coming to grips with the fact that no matter how hard you try, you can never go back.  And the magic of Christmas, regardless of how much you wish for it, cannot be recreated after the spell has worn off.  Until recently, my younger sister didn’t even put up tree anymore.  She hadn’t had one since her children still believed.  I find that to be one of the saddest things of all.  She seemed almost angry with her memories for showing her that place she can’t get back to.  I think she has made peace with those memories in recent years.  

Me, I try to get back there every year, living vicariously through the children and clinging to every Christmas decoration from days gone by, and adding to my collection with an assortment of Santa figurines, and snow covered villages.  

But as much as I love Christmas, I still wish I could have selective memory, giving me the option of believing in Santa yet again.  My mother has a similar gift, often times completely forgetting a moment in time and finding herself laughing hysterically at the joke she was in on and yet has no memory of.  

Curiously enough, the moment that most comes to mind is a Christmas memory from the not too distant past.  It was the year my sister and I were both expecting (my first and her second), and for the first time in several years, we were spending Christmas altogether at my mother’s home.  My sister woke up that particular Christmas morning and informed her husband that she had had a very vivid dream.  She dreamed that our Aunt Phyllis had presented us each with a carefully wrapped package that turned out to be a single Italian Christmas cookie.  It was the cookie that reminded us most of our aunt, the kind she made each holiday season by the dozen.  Yet, my sister dreamed that she gifted us each but one.  Of course, she told the same story to me when we arrived at our mother’s home for the Christmas festivities.  

It wasn’t unusual for my sister to have strange dreams.  She often said she believed herself to be somewhat psychic after dreaming about a plane crash that did in fact occur.  A strange coincidence, we all believed… well, until that Christmas day.  My aunt arrived in full holiday attire as she did each year, laughing and giggling like a round elfin woman, bearing gifts for everyone, my sister and me included.  

In fact, she handed each of us a tiny gift that eerily resembled a wrapped Italian cookie.  I admit that I felt a slight chill run down my spine.  It was very strange.  Too creepy to imagine, really.  My sister looked over at me with her mouth slightly agape, and then back to the small gift.  I took her queue and opened my package.  

It was a single Italian cookie.  

What happened next could only be explained as electrifying.  My sister, seven months pregnant with her second child, began jumping up and down, exclaiming over and over again, “Oh my God, I’m psychic!”

 I was no better, repeating her words, “Oh my God, you’re psychic!”  She continued by describing her dream in each minute detail.  She held up the wrapped cookie as ironclad proof, and then retold the story of the plane crash she had dreamed of years earlier.  I backed her every word, as convinced as she that she was indeed, psychic!  

We were in a whirlwind of chatter, completely oblivious to the laughter across the room.  I don’t remember how long before it set in, and I can’t remember the exact words that were said at that point.  But, the gist of it was this … my brother-in-law (the infamous Uncle Paul) had called my aunt in the early morning hours and relayed to her the strange cookie dream.  The two of them concocted the idea of staging a harmless Christmas prank.  It was a good one too.  It always brings back fond memories of Aunt Phyllis, who has since passed on.  To this day, more than twenty years later, we still toss out the line my sister was so fond of that day, “Oh my god…you’re psychic!”  

I wish I were as lucky as my mother, though.  She got to enjoy that story twice as if she’d never heard it before.  And she was there for the whole thing. 

I guess getting old isn’t that bad.    

why I blog

Life is short.  We are here but for a moment, and we have very few opportunities to make our time memorable.  And I don’t mean to say that any of us needs to strive for fame, or notoriety.  But to have an opportunity to touch the people who cross our paths, even for a moment, is a great gift. 

I don’t know how long I will be on this earth.  Life is full of mysteries, and I hope that mine is long and full, and that I have many chances to make a difference in the lives of those around me.  I am a writer, so my gift to the world comes in the form of words.  I write for the people, be it one or one thousand, and if even one of my blog entries has touched someone’s life…made them think…made them laugh…or maybe even made them cry…then I have done what I set out to do almost one year ago. 

Of course, I discovered somewhere in the middle that writing a blog about myself and my life is a little like doing a reality TV show in print.  My husband often steers far clear of the blog for fear of what he might read.  My children read occasionally, mostly on the days they find themselves featured as starring characters.  And the rest of my family checks in on a fairly regular basis to see what I might be up to next.  I am very lucky to have a wide range of readers who come back day after day (even on days when I didn’t have much to say) to read the blog, hopeful that I will come up with something funny to bring joy to their day. 

Thank you for sticking with me even when the funny comes less frequently, and the drudgery of daily life seems to weigh heavily on my shoulders.  This has been a rough year for my family, but we are very much looking forward to Christmas…and beyond that, a very Happy New Year. 

I have lots of fun stories in store for you this holiday season…maybe even tomorrow!

For tonight, I would like to ask that everyone who reads the blog today please keep my cousin Debbie in their thoughts and prayers.  She is in the hospital, and perhaps if we all send her a dose of positive thinking, she will be home with her family for Christmas.

Until the next time…I’ll be here, enjoying my moment, for as long as they let me!

not car trouble...again!

There was no Christmas shopping for me today.  Today was one of those rare days where everything seems to go wrong, and yet, still I survived. 

My brakes went out going down the road (I discovered a leak in the brake line and replaced the fluid as a quick, albeit temporary fix) later this same vehicle overheated, stranding me at a McDonald’s (the closest place to pull into once the smoke started pouring out from under the hood).  As I sat in the McDonald’s parking lot with my hood lifted, I could smell the delectable scent of French fries in the air.  Not a good day to have given up all things fast food, for sure.  I sat for over thirty minutes waiting for my son to come rescue me.  Thank goodness he answered his phone.

And thank goodness for mobile banking. 

After swiping my debit card three times with no success, I had to transfer funds from one account to another in order to buy the coolant that I needed to get the Land Rover back home.  Who knew I had spent so much money with so little to show for it? 

Once I managed to get back home, I used my handy jumper cables to start my daughter’s Honda Civic so we could finish our errands. 

I suspect this weekend will be very busy for my husband.  He will be fixing both the brakes as well as the radiator lines in the Land Rover. 

Thank goodness I know very little about fixing cars.

Until the next time…I’ll be finishing up my Christmas shopping.