My mom has decided that she is Not Doing Christmas this year.
I knew she was feeling a little burned out when, a few months ago, she threatened to just write everyone a check for their Christmas present, and leave it at that.
Then last week, at brunch at my brother's, she sort of pushed along the concept that, instead of drawing names, even, we just wouldn't do presents for the adults this year. I agreed, sort of on the assumption that she was trying to make things a bit easier on us all, economically.
But then I found out that she's not even planning to decorate for Christmas this year. No tree, nothing. "We're not going to be here for Christmas, and it'll just be the one day that y'all are here after Christmas," she said. "It's a lot of work for just one day."
...Because she can't enjoy the decorations without us being there?
I haven't dared to ask her if she's planning anything for the family Christmas dinner (which will be on New Year's Day), for fear that she'll just shrug and suggest steak and baked potatoes, which is what my parents always serve at family dinners. It's good -- I love me some steak and potatoes -- but it's not festive.
I understand about feeling burned out. I get that she's had to host my high-maintenance grandmother every freaking year for the last four years, and I sympathize.
But I also feel kind of let down.
It's not about the presents. Well, a little of it is about the presents, but not in the gifts themselves, but it's about the enjoyment of giving gifts. I'm not really going to miss the stuff, I'm going to miss the anticipation and the opening rituals. I'll miss the dozen candles on the mantle, I'll miss the tree, I'll miss the little decorations all over the house, even though I'm only going to be there the one day.
When I was little, Mom was the Christmas advocate. She loved everything about the holiday -- decorating and music and making cookies and... everything. And this year, it's going to slip by, almost entirely unnoticed.
We're not putting up a tree this year -- Alex is not quite old enough that I can train him to keep his hands off. (He still beelines for the cat's food dish whenever he gets the chance, for petesake.) But when I realized my parents weren't decorating, it became suddenly very important for me to decorate. I put up my usual collection of lights, but it doesn't feel like enough. I want to go to the store and get wreaths for all the windows, stand-up displays for the yard, light-up candy canes to line the driveway... I want to get the ladder out and deck our porch eaves and the roof. I want color and light and Christmas.
I don't know if I'll do all that. But by the gods, I'm getting Christmas presents for everyone. Whether they want them or not.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Cha-click
Wow, what a busy weekend.
Saturday morning, I took Penny shopping. We picked up some Christmas presents for Jess and Ray (alas, she could not find the gifts for them that she wanted, so we had to pick something else) and Alex, and a birthday present for Alex. We also got her Christmas dress (black velvet and silver, very elegant!) and some patent leather shoes to go with it.
I wanted to get a Christmas outfit for Alex, but all Target had for boys were miniature suits -- not even in very Christmas-y colors. I know people think babies look cute when dressed up like little adults, but it's not really my thing. I was looking for something more along the lines of a onesie with candy canes on it, or a bodysuit printed to look like a Santa outfit. So I'm going to have to go somewhere else to get him something. Or else fall back on his solid green onesie paired with red sweatpants.
(In digging through my scrapbook table today, I found the hats he'd been given in the hospital -- Santa-style, red with a white ball, and white with a red ball. I put one on him this morning, just to see if I could. It did go on his head and stay there, but it was so small and stretched so far that it looked more like a yarmulke than a stocking cap.)
I also dragged Penny to the bank with me, and she was so good for all the shopping and errands that after lunch, we packed up the whole family and went to New Town to see Santa.
Penny was excited to sit on Santa's lap, and she went through her entire little wish-list booklet with him. (It's a good thing there wasn't a line behind us.) Of course I took pictures, but I haven't uploaded them yet.
We tried to put Alex on Santa's lap, too, but he started crying the instant I let go of him. I took one picture, and then picked him back up. Maybe next year. Or the year after. Whatever.
And while we were in New Town anyway, we stopped at Barnes and Noble so I could pick up a book for my Book Club's Christmas exchange, and some gift cards for other people. And then we took Penny on a horse-drawn carriage ride, which really flipped her lid.
That evening, we had Braz over to eat takeout Chinese with us for dinner, and he brought me his fancy-pants SLR camera for me to borrow for a week or so, so I can decide if I really want one of my own.
Sunday was the usual chores, and then after lunch I took Alex down to my parents' for a visit while Matt took Penny to the library. While I was at my folks', I picked up her moon cookie molds, since this year's moon cookie party will be at our house.
After we got back from that, I put up our outdoor Christmas lights (I have two long icicle light strands, each of which is nonfunctional for the last four feet. WTF?) Penny was napping, and a little disappointed that she didn't get to help me, but I promised she could help me put up bows and ornaments later this week.
Saturday morning, I took Penny shopping. We picked up some Christmas presents for Jess and Ray (alas, she could not find the gifts for them that she wanted, so we had to pick something else) and Alex, and a birthday present for Alex. We also got her Christmas dress (black velvet and silver, very elegant!) and some patent leather shoes to go with it.
I wanted to get a Christmas outfit for Alex, but all Target had for boys were miniature suits -- not even in very Christmas-y colors. I know people think babies look cute when dressed up like little adults, but it's not really my thing. I was looking for something more along the lines of a onesie with candy canes on it, or a bodysuit printed to look like a Santa outfit. So I'm going to have to go somewhere else to get him something. Or else fall back on his solid green onesie paired with red sweatpants.
(In digging through my scrapbook table today, I found the hats he'd been given in the hospital -- Santa-style, red with a white ball, and white with a red ball. I put one on him this morning, just to see if I could. It did go on his head and stay there, but it was so small and stretched so far that it looked more like a yarmulke than a stocking cap.)
I also dragged Penny to the bank with me, and she was so good for all the shopping and errands that after lunch, we packed up the whole family and went to New Town to see Santa.
Penny was excited to sit on Santa's lap, and she went through her entire little wish-list booklet with him. (It's a good thing there wasn't a line behind us.) Of course I took pictures, but I haven't uploaded them yet.
We tried to put Alex on Santa's lap, too, but he started crying the instant I let go of him. I took one picture, and then picked him back up. Maybe next year. Or the year after. Whatever.
And while we were in New Town anyway, we stopped at Barnes and Noble so I could pick up a book for my Book Club's Christmas exchange, and some gift cards for other people. And then we took Penny on a horse-drawn carriage ride, which really flipped her lid.
That evening, we had Braz over to eat takeout Chinese with us for dinner, and he brought me his fancy-pants SLR camera for me to borrow for a week or so, so I can decide if I really want one of my own.
Sunday was the usual chores, and then after lunch I took Alex down to my parents' for a visit while Matt took Penny to the library. While I was at my folks', I picked up her moon cookie molds, since this year's moon cookie party will be at our house.
After we got back from that, I put up our outdoor Christmas lights (I have two long icicle light strands, each of which is nonfunctional for the last four feet. WTF?) Penny was napping, and a little disappointed that she didn't get to help me, but I promised she could help me put up bows and ornaments later this week.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
WoW Therapy
I resisted the MMORPG scene for a long time. KT and Kevin tried to talk us into playing Everquest, and then when they switched to World of Warcraft, they tried to talk us into that.
I resisted. It seemed to eat up a lot of time, and I didn't have all that much spare time in my schedule. I had even less spare time when Penny was born (though to be scrupulously fair, I got a fair chunk of time back when the Meadehall stopped running).
Two and a half years ago, I went on vacation to Cancun. I was gone for just a bit over a week, and Matt was left home with Penny, who had just turned 3. And when I got home, Matt had started playing WoW.
I watched over his shoulder for about a week before I agreed to get a trial account and, well, try it.
I signed up less than 24 hours later. It was completely engrossing, and I was hooked.
Since then, I've played nearly every week, and very nearly every day. Lately, I mostly only play in the evenings, after the kids are in bed -- and since I've lost my ability to function on less than six hours of sleep, I need to log out by 10 or 10:30 so I can be in bed by 11. Which means that I get, at most, two hours of consecutive play-time.
It's affected the way I play. It's not really possible to do most of the game's instances in only two hours, so I don't run instances, and I certainly don't raid. I don't have the reflexes for PvP play. All of which sort of cuts me out of the end-game content. So I'm working on leveling a couple of alts, and now that WotLK is out, I'm slowly working my original character through the new content.
But it's been bothering me, lately, that I'm sinking so much time into something that isn't useful or productive. At the end of each week, I've spent about 10 hours playing WoW, and I have nothing to show for it. I used to make scrapbooks (physical and digital), read books, take photos, write, go on crocheting or knitting binges...
I took a mini-break from WoW this week. I hadn't really intended to. I took Wednesday off to get caught up on some scrapbooking. I didn't log in Thursday because I was doing some Christmas preparations. Friday was Matt's and my usual movie night.
So when I sat down to play one of my alts Saturday night, I was expecting something of a rush from it -- the addict's heightened response to a drug too long neglected.
But instead, I felt overcome with ennui. I had done all this before.
I thought about switching over to my first character to do new stuff, but even the stuff I hadn't done before... I had done before. Kill fifteen of those. Collect twenty of these. Go talk to that guy. Burn down that building. Pick that flower. Make this recipe. The new stuff looks cool and different, but it's not really new.
The game is still fun, but it's not engrossing. It's fun the way Minesweeper and Solitaire are fun; comfortably entertaining, but not challenging or even interesting.
WoW isn't even social for me, any more.
Some of that is my fault -- I don't have too many friends on the servers where my alts are, and most of them don't log in very often. But some of it is just the nature of the game. Even when I'm where friends are, we're not talking that much. They're raiding, or questing, and dealing with combat, and don't really have time to chat. When we do talk online, we mostly talk about the game.
(Before I played, we'd get together with WoW friends and I wouldn't have any idea what they were talking about. Then I started playing, and we'd get together with WoW friends and I'd know what we were talking about. But now that so many of them are raiding, we're back to getting together with WoW friends and I don't have any idea what they're talking about...)
It's not a criticism of my friends. They're having fun.
It's not a criticism of the game. It's a fantastic game.
I'm just not sure that it's for me, anymore. I loved Diablo II, too -- but by the time I'd finished it once and then played around with a couple of other classes, it had lost its shine for me... and I wasn't paying an extra $15 a month to play.
So I'm going to take a longer break -- probably for the rest of the month. I've got scrapbooking to catch up on, Christmas gifts to wrap (and one or two left to shop for), holiday activities to plan, at least three major household projects that I could work on, a digital SLR camera I've been loaned to play with, books to read, and Netflix movies to watch. Hell, I could probably come up with a different activity to do every night between now and when we leave for Chicago, without even breaking a sweat.
I'm going to go do stuff. Productive stuff, or at least alternate entertainment stuff. I'll probably tell you about it as I go.
And then sometime around New Year's, I'll let you know whether I've missed WoW enough to come back, or if I'm going to put my account on hold for an indefinite period. (No, I'm probably not quitting entirely. I know people who have gone on hiatus for as long as six months before coming back.)
I resisted. It seemed to eat up a lot of time, and I didn't have all that much spare time in my schedule. I had even less spare time when Penny was born (though to be scrupulously fair, I got a fair chunk of time back when the Meadehall stopped running).
Two and a half years ago, I went on vacation to Cancun. I was gone for just a bit over a week, and Matt was left home with Penny, who had just turned 3. And when I got home, Matt had started playing WoW.
I watched over his shoulder for about a week before I agreed to get a trial account and, well, try it.
I signed up less than 24 hours later. It was completely engrossing, and I was hooked.
Since then, I've played nearly every week, and very nearly every day. Lately, I mostly only play in the evenings, after the kids are in bed -- and since I've lost my ability to function on less than six hours of sleep, I need to log out by 10 or 10:30 so I can be in bed by 11. Which means that I get, at most, two hours of consecutive play-time.
It's affected the way I play. It's not really possible to do most of the game's instances in only two hours, so I don't run instances, and I certainly don't raid. I don't have the reflexes for PvP play. All of which sort of cuts me out of the end-game content. So I'm working on leveling a couple of alts, and now that WotLK is out, I'm slowly working my original character through the new content.
But it's been bothering me, lately, that I'm sinking so much time into something that isn't useful or productive. At the end of each week, I've spent about 10 hours playing WoW, and I have nothing to show for it. I used to make scrapbooks (physical and digital), read books, take photos, write, go on crocheting or knitting binges...
I took a mini-break from WoW this week. I hadn't really intended to. I took Wednesday off to get caught up on some scrapbooking. I didn't log in Thursday because I was doing some Christmas preparations. Friday was Matt's and my usual movie night.
So when I sat down to play one of my alts Saturday night, I was expecting something of a rush from it -- the addict's heightened response to a drug too long neglected.
But instead, I felt overcome with ennui. I had done all this before.
I thought about switching over to my first character to do new stuff, but even the stuff I hadn't done before... I had done before. Kill fifteen of those. Collect twenty of these. Go talk to that guy. Burn down that building. Pick that flower. Make this recipe. The new stuff looks cool and different, but it's not really new.
The game is still fun, but it's not engrossing. It's fun the way Minesweeper and Solitaire are fun; comfortably entertaining, but not challenging or even interesting.
WoW isn't even social for me, any more.
Some of that is my fault -- I don't have too many friends on the servers where my alts are, and most of them don't log in very often. But some of it is just the nature of the game. Even when I'm where friends are, we're not talking that much. They're raiding, or questing, and dealing with combat, and don't really have time to chat. When we do talk online, we mostly talk about the game.
(Before I played, we'd get together with WoW friends and I wouldn't have any idea what they were talking about. Then I started playing, and we'd get together with WoW friends and I'd know what we were talking about. But now that so many of them are raiding, we're back to getting together with WoW friends and I don't have any idea what they're talking about...)
It's not a criticism of my friends. They're having fun.
It's not a criticism of the game. It's a fantastic game.
I'm just not sure that it's for me, anymore. I loved Diablo II, too -- but by the time I'd finished it once and then played around with a couple of other classes, it had lost its shine for me... and I wasn't paying an extra $15 a month to play.
So I'm going to take a longer break -- probably for the rest of the month. I've got scrapbooking to catch up on, Christmas gifts to wrap (and one or two left to shop for), holiday activities to plan, at least three major household projects that I could work on, a digital SLR camera I've been loaned to play with, books to read, and Netflix movies to watch. Hell, I could probably come up with a different activity to do every night between now and when we leave for Chicago, without even breaking a sweat.
I'm going to go do stuff. Productive stuff, or at least alternate entertainment stuff. I'll probably tell you about it as I go.
And then sometime around New Year's, I'll let you know whether I've missed WoW enough to come back, or if I'm going to put my account on hold for an indefinite period. (No, I'm probably not quitting entirely. I know people who have gone on hiatus for as long as six months before coming back.)
Friday, December 5, 2008
Crisis
In the car this morining:
"We're going to go shopping this weekend, Penny, so you can help me pick out Christmas presents for Jess and Ray and Alex."
"I'm going to get Alex another hippo!" (One of Alex's two favorite toys is a squashy green hippo.)
"Sure."
"Do you think Jess would like a dinosaur?"
"I think Jess would love a dinosaur."
"And I'm going to get Ray a big soft dinosaur for Ray-Ray, too. So he can sleep with it."
"Okay."
"Mom?"
"Yes?"
"Why are there no dinosaurs anymore?"
"Um... Well, something happened that made the world colder, kind of like it was winter all the time, and the dinosaurs really needed warmer weather, so they died."
"...What happened to the baby dinosaurs?"
Oh shit how do I cover this? "Um, I don't think there were any. I mean, all the babies grew up to big dinosaurs, but it was so cold that they just didn't have any more babies." Right? Didn't I read somewhere about lizards not laying eggs if the weather is screwed up? Or the eggs not hatching, or something?
"That's sad."
"Yeah, it's kinda sad."
"I'm crying." I flipped the rearview mirror down, and sure enough, she had laid sideways onto the seat and there were fat tears rolling down her face.
"I'm sorry, sweetie. It is very sad."
Baby's first existential crisis?
By the time we'd dropped Alex off at daycare, though, she was recovering. "I'm going to make dinosaurs!"
"That's great, sweetie. You do that."
"We're going to go shopping this weekend, Penny, so you can help me pick out Christmas presents for Jess and Ray and Alex."
"I'm going to get Alex another hippo!" (One of Alex's two favorite toys is a squashy green hippo.)
"Sure."
"Do you think Jess would like a dinosaur?"
"I think Jess would love a dinosaur."
"And I'm going to get Ray a big soft dinosaur for Ray-Ray, too. So he can sleep with it."
"Okay."
"Mom?"
"Yes?"
"Why are there no dinosaurs anymore?"
"Um... Well, something happened that made the world colder, kind of like it was winter all the time, and the dinosaurs really needed warmer weather, so they died."
"...What happened to the baby dinosaurs?"
Oh shit how do I cover this? "Um, I don't think there were any. I mean, all the babies grew up to big dinosaurs, but it was so cold that they just didn't have any more babies." Right? Didn't I read somewhere about lizards not laying eggs if the weather is screwed up? Or the eggs not hatching, or something?
"That's sad."
"Yeah, it's kinda sad."
"I'm crying." I flipped the rearview mirror down, and sure enough, she had laid sideways onto the seat and there were fat tears rolling down her face.
"I'm sorry, sweetie. It is very sad."
Baby's first existential crisis?
By the time we'd dropped Alex off at daycare, though, she was recovering. "I'm going to make dinosaurs!"
"That's great, sweetie. You do that."
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Raining and Pouring
Did scrapbooking last night, and got to about halfway through June, including Penny's pre-K graduation. Which seems much longer ago than just six months.
I've got Father's Day left to go, and some silly pictures of my brother and Alex, and then a two-page spread for the Summer Bash, and then I'll be out of pictures and it'll be time to put an order together.
It felt really nice to sit down and do something constructive and productive, for a change. WoW is fun, but too much other stuff just gets shoved to the background when I'm playing all the time. I need to go back to having a No-WoW night every week so I can spend time on things that matter a little more to me in the long run.
Also, I got a Christmas card from my old friend Jenn, who kind of fell out of touch two or three years ago. She mentioned in the card that she'd stumbled across Matt's twitter and flickr pages, but didn't give me her email address, so I googled her name and parts of the address from the envelope, and eventually found her Amazon.Com profile, and shot her an email. Which she answered this morning, so I'm excited to be back in touch with her.
Though it wasn't a day of pure win.
The school nurse called yesterday morning to tell me that Penny's blood sugar was over 350, and I wibbled on about the cough she's got and blood sugar spikes that go along with fighting off illness, and then realized about an hour later that I'd completely forgotten her breakfast insulin shot.
Penny spilled some milk on some school papers, and thinking that they were from last week or the week before (she's more of a pack rat than Matt or I ever were, and that's saying something!) I threw them out. It turned out that they were this week's homework. As in, the homework she has to turn in on Friday. Parent of the year, here I come!
KT's computer is just about gone, limping by on life support, and when I tried to talk her through a problem she was having, I think I only succeeded in confusing and frustrating her to the point where she was about ready to pull the plug.
I sent a scolding email to my office, and despite doing what I thought was sufficient mitigation to make it sound less like a scolding and more like a reminder, I managed to completely piss off someone by inadvertently making them come across as a whining tattletale.
You know, I don't generally mind taking the good and the bad together... but does everything have to hit at once?
I've got Father's Day left to go, and some silly pictures of my brother and Alex, and then a two-page spread for the Summer Bash, and then I'll be out of pictures and it'll be time to put an order together.
It felt really nice to sit down and do something constructive and productive, for a change. WoW is fun, but too much other stuff just gets shoved to the background when I'm playing all the time. I need to go back to having a No-WoW night every week so I can spend time on things that matter a little more to me in the long run.
Also, I got a Christmas card from my old friend Jenn, who kind of fell out of touch two or three years ago. She mentioned in the card that she'd stumbled across Matt's twitter and flickr pages, but didn't give me her email address, so I googled her name and parts of the address from the envelope, and eventually found her Amazon.Com profile, and shot her an email. Which she answered this morning, so I'm excited to be back in touch with her.
Though it wasn't a day of pure win.
The school nurse called yesterday morning to tell me that Penny's blood sugar was over 350, and I wibbled on about the cough she's got and blood sugar spikes that go along with fighting off illness, and then realized about an hour later that I'd completely forgotten her breakfast insulin shot.
Penny spilled some milk on some school papers, and thinking that they were from last week or the week before (she's more of a pack rat than Matt or I ever were, and that's saying something!) I threw them out. It turned out that they were this week's homework. As in, the homework she has to turn in on Friday. Parent of the year, here I come!
KT's computer is just about gone, limping by on life support, and when I tried to talk her through a problem she was having, I think I only succeeded in confusing and frustrating her to the point where she was about ready to pull the plug.
I sent a scolding email to my office, and despite doing what I thought was sufficient mitigation to make it sound less like a scolding and more like a reminder, I managed to completely piss off someone by inadvertently making them come across as a whining tattletale.
You know, I don't generally mind taking the good and the bad together... but does everything have to hit at once?
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Night Off
I think tonight I will not get on WoW. My "main" is level 72, and both my alts are at 66 (though the one is this close to 67, after last night's frenzy).
But I was sitting in the green room watching the kids this weekend, and I realized that my scrapbook table has become completely buried under Penny's random drawings and other stuff, and my pages are still sitting there, somewhere, stuck back in May or something. And here we are in December.
So I'm going to take the night off from WoW and get some scrapbooking done. Even if it's just one page (after I take the time to clear all the crap off my desk), it'll hopefully give me some momentum. I don't want scrapbooking to become just another of my abandoned hobbies.
But I was sitting in the green room watching the kids this weekend, and I realized that my scrapbook table has become completely buried under Penny's random drawings and other stuff, and my pages are still sitting there, somewhere, stuck back in May or something. And here we are in December.
So I'm going to take the night off from WoW and get some scrapbooking done. Even if it's just one page (after I take the time to clear all the crap off my desk), it'll hopefully give me some momentum. I don't want scrapbooking to become just another of my abandoned hobbies.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Long Weekend
It's almost a relief to be back at work today. Even Penny didn't whine about going back to school this morning.
Which is not to say that I didn't enjoy my long weekend. It was just crazy-busy, and the kids had matching cases of cabin fever as soon as it was half over.
Thanksgiving was at my parents'. John and Sam were not with us -- they were up in Richmond with her family, instead. So we had KT and Kevin and Jess over, instead. Dinner was wonderful, and we all ate too much, and generally had a pretty good time. Penny and Jess were most wroth with us when it came time to go home again.
Friday, I drove down to Chesapeake so KT and I could go see Dark Knight, which was playing at the second-run theater by them. We had a good time with that, too.
When we walked into the mall, we were almost immediately accosted by a lady handing out candy-canes and religious tracts. She pressed them on us with a bright smile, and then waved at the kiosk behind her. "Help yourself!" she said. "Great stocking stuffers! It's all free!"
KT and I looked over at the counter, more to be polite than anything else, expecting to see miniature Bibles and "Jesus Loves Me" doorhangers. And there were a few of those sorts of things... but not very many. Most of what they'd laid out was not only not overtly religious, but distinctly secular. Stuffed snowmen and reindeer; little keychain charms with holly leaves, rubber toys in various seasonal shapes... that sort of thing. Big bowls of assorted hard candy and chocolate miniatures. "Please take all you like!" the lady said cheerfully.
KT and I each took a little stuffed reindeer and a rubber toy for the girls, and thanked them warmly. My religious views are fairly firm at this point, but if I was in the market for a church or belonged to a church that I wasn't strongly attached to, these people would have certainly drawn me. Open-handed generosity with no strings attached and a minimum of "message" is a good start. As Matt said, when I told him about it later, "It's almost as if they've read the book."
On the way home, I wound up behind a Ford Expedition with new-vehicle tags that had its hazards on, even though it was going plenty fast. A mile or so later, I realized that the blinking of its lights was too irregular to be the hazards, and the driver was speeding down the interstate with one foot on the gas and the other foot on the brake, feathering the brake the whole way. I was behind the damn thing for at least thirty-five miles, and it never let up. Except in the tunnel, when the brake lights were steadily on. Even though it didn't slow down at all.
Eventually, it pulled over to the far lane and slowed down to exit, and as I passed, I saw a tiny sylph of a woman, leaning so far forward that her elbows were resting on top of the steering wheel (I guess so she could see over the hood of the vehicle?). I desperately hope it was a borrowed vehicle that she was unfamiliar with, because otherwise in about three months, she's going to need new brakes, and in six months, her mechanic is going to tell her that the monster needs a new transmission, and she isn't going to have the slightest idea why her new car is breaking down so fast.
Saturday, we went down to John and Sam's for a brunch. Sam's parents were visiting, and they were charmed and amused by Penny and Alex. We wish we could've stayed longer, but Alex got kind of cranky about things. Goofy boy.
Matt went to the movies with Braz that afternoon. Lucky for me, both kids slept through most of it, and Alex woke up in excellent spirits, so we had fun playing until Matt got home with pizza.
Sunday, I had intended to get out our Christmas lights and put them up, except that I'm pretty sure the box of decorations is in the attic, and since it was raining cats and dogs all day, I didn't push Matt to hurry up and get them out. So maybe I'll do that this weekend. At least I got out the advent calendars this morning, and I've put up my office decorations.
This week, I need to get back into the routine -- Between the stomach uck and the holiday and the having the kids in tow all the time last week, I didn't exercise at all (unless you count one slow lap of KT's mall before the movie). I need to get back to the gym this week before I lose the habit altogether. (Also, I need to upgrade my membership to include the family so I can sign Penny up for swimming lessons in January.)
Which is not to say that I didn't enjoy my long weekend. It was just crazy-busy, and the kids had matching cases of cabin fever as soon as it was half over.
Thanksgiving was at my parents'. John and Sam were not with us -- they were up in Richmond with her family, instead. So we had KT and Kevin and Jess over, instead. Dinner was wonderful, and we all ate too much, and generally had a pretty good time. Penny and Jess were most wroth with us when it came time to go home again.
Friday, I drove down to Chesapeake so KT and I could go see Dark Knight, which was playing at the second-run theater by them. We had a good time with that, too.
When we walked into the mall, we were almost immediately accosted by a lady handing out candy-canes and religious tracts. She pressed them on us with a bright smile, and then waved at the kiosk behind her. "Help yourself!" she said. "Great stocking stuffers! It's all free!"
KT and I looked over at the counter, more to be polite than anything else, expecting to see miniature Bibles and "Jesus Loves Me" doorhangers. And there were a few of those sorts of things... but not very many. Most of what they'd laid out was not only not overtly religious, but distinctly secular. Stuffed snowmen and reindeer; little keychain charms with holly leaves, rubber toys in various seasonal shapes... that sort of thing. Big bowls of assorted hard candy and chocolate miniatures. "Please take all you like!" the lady said cheerfully.
KT and I each took a little stuffed reindeer and a rubber toy for the girls, and thanked them warmly. My religious views are fairly firm at this point, but if I was in the market for a church or belonged to a church that I wasn't strongly attached to, these people would have certainly drawn me. Open-handed generosity with no strings attached and a minimum of "message" is a good start. As Matt said, when I told him about it later, "It's almost as if they've read the book."
On the way home, I wound up behind a Ford Expedition with new-vehicle tags that had its hazards on, even though it was going plenty fast. A mile or so later, I realized that the blinking of its lights was too irregular to be the hazards, and the driver was speeding down the interstate with one foot on the gas and the other foot on the brake, feathering the brake the whole way. I was behind the damn thing for at least thirty-five miles, and it never let up. Except in the tunnel, when the brake lights were steadily on. Even though it didn't slow down at all.
Eventually, it pulled over to the far lane and slowed down to exit, and as I passed, I saw a tiny sylph of a woman, leaning so far forward that her elbows were resting on top of the steering wheel (I guess so she could see over the hood of the vehicle?). I desperately hope it was a borrowed vehicle that she was unfamiliar with, because otherwise in about three months, she's going to need new brakes, and in six months, her mechanic is going to tell her that the monster needs a new transmission, and she isn't going to have the slightest idea why her new car is breaking down so fast.
Saturday, we went down to John and Sam's for a brunch. Sam's parents were visiting, and they were charmed and amused by Penny and Alex. We wish we could've stayed longer, but Alex got kind of cranky about things. Goofy boy.
Matt went to the movies with Braz that afternoon. Lucky for me, both kids slept through most of it, and Alex woke up in excellent spirits, so we had fun playing until Matt got home with pizza.
Sunday, I had intended to get out our Christmas lights and put them up, except that I'm pretty sure the box of decorations is in the attic, and since it was raining cats and dogs all day, I didn't push Matt to hurry up and get them out. So maybe I'll do that this weekend. At least I got out the advent calendars this morning, and I've put up my office decorations.
This week, I need to get back into the routine -- Between the stomach uck and the holiday and the having the kids in tow all the time last week, I didn't exercise at all (unless you count one slow lap of KT's mall before the movie). I need to get back to the gym this week before I lose the habit altogether. (Also, I need to upgrade my membership to include the family so I can sign Penny up for swimming lessons in January.)
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