Acceptance

Okay, so into every year a few holidays must fall. And I admit to being a bit hit-or-miss with putting the Merry into Christmas. The Ragamuffin Soul has issued a challenge that Jan has seen fit to not only accept, but pass along. So, I think I shall opt to play along because my own ragamuffin soul tends to feel more ragged during this theoretically joyful season.
I think I can manage two posts per week on the progress in meeting the following goals:

• Spiritual I will set aside a time of prayer solely for praising God every single day.
• Physical I will walk 25 miles per week. I will put down the pie. I will dance when no one is looking.
• Relational I will choose people over projects.

Tacky Gifts

The girls and I were wrapping gifts tonight at the dining room table. The paper was purchased at 90% off during a way, way after Christmas sale at the Hallmark store. It never occurred to me to read the labels because gift wrap is gift wrap. It's all paper.

Upon closer examination this weekend, it turns out that some of our super sale paper has a most unfortunate feature. It is self-adhesive. And the stuff tears... repeatedly while one is trying to unroll it. I like to position, and reposition the packages to maximize paper use, but that is not possible with gummy goo on the back of the paper. It sticks to skin. And hair. There might have been some teensy shrieks of minor fury from the dining room. I'm not really sure what was happening outside the growing red haze of a narrowed focus on the persistently uncooperative paper, but I do recall the mister coming into the room and promising to replace all the paper with new at any price if I would just put down the self-adhesive stuff.

Eventually the screaming stopped. The girls opted out on the self-adhesive paper, but I can say that it looks rather nice once it is carefully smoothed over the planes and angles of a box. The great irony of the stuff is that once one folds down the ends there is still a need for tape to close the ends because the folds cover the adhesive. The stuff sticks to itself very well. Fortunately, the paper can be peeled oh-so-slowly back in a Herculean exercise of patience to be replaced in a new position without any real reduction in tackiness.

There are two rolls of the self-adhesive stuff still unopened, and there is the option to include gift wrap with our Angel Tree goodies. It is time to take the mister up on his offer of new paper because it would be wrong to wish the frustration of sticky paper on our Angel Tree recipient's parents. It's one thing to demand such rigid "Waste Not!" measures of oneself, but quite another to impose them on someone else.

Nameless

My mister likes cats. He likes to take the kids to look at cats. They all like to "ooh" and "ahh" over all the kitties.. My job? Is to be the official veto. I look all the feline cuteness right in the fluffy little face, and say, "ohbutno!" Then the family walks away from the kitties. Except that my veto broke. We walked into Pet Supply to stare with goony eyes at fuzzy creatures. The mister and Little Bit continued past the Grandma sitting at the adoption table. I? Stopped.dead.in.my.tracks. So much for "ohbutno!"
The ball of growling fur curled in Grandma's lap was transferred to my own where (he? she?) it made a valiant effort to hide in my sleeve. My kitty was a tortoise shell ball of variegated black and tan without so much as a spot of orange anywhere on her. We learned that kitty's supposed name was "Penelope", and we filled out the papers to be able to a) bring her home and b) change her name. Having decided that the kitty is not "Penelope", we have yet to determine what name does suit her. The list of possibilities is downright disturbing. Stella Cupcake? Alice/Alyce? Jinx? Perhaps she shall remain Nameless.

Leftovers

We roasted an extra turkey breast on Thanksgiving Day so we could enjoy it through the weekend. Except that the remaining sides and desserts were minimal. At 3:00 p.m., a text message solved my quandary. some friends had plenty of sides leftover from their turkey dinner, but not quite enough turkey. We piled into the car and headed over to enjoy the latest feast with friends armed with turkey and a fresh batch of turkey gravy. Our entree combined perfectly with the leftovers, and the assorted kids disappeared to watch Elf while the grown-ups settled in for Four Christmases.
This morning I crawled out of bed to snag a remnant of the pie of Thanksgiving past with my coffee. (The breakfast of champions, y'know.) I plunked my behind into the chair at the computer to mindlessly play a color block game on Facebook while washing down the last creamy bite of pie with caffeinated goodness. Checking the status updates to reveal that either no one else is doing anything interesting, or they are doing such interesting stuff that they do not have a moment to post.
Me? I am going to rile up the dogs by saying words like, "eat!" and "walk!" in my most exciting voice. Then the mister and I will go out to get boxes for a couple of oddly shaped gifts. Later today, we will do something about the naked tree parked in the center of the living room. And later still, something about the bad cat stalking the tree in the living room. Because that's not going to end well when the tree is covered in pretties.

Angel

I slipped out of the house in the wee hours. I made a quick trip to Big Box to pick up a couple of things which were neatly stowed away before the girls awoke to, "Get up. Get dressed. Or get left." Relative normalcy, except that it was 3:00 in the morning.
The girls and I loaded into the car to ghost down our dark, quiet street. The main artery through Pleasant Suburb was empty and still. At least it was until we neared Big Box with all the light and activity of people scurrying after $9 baby dolls and cheap electronics. We passed Big Box while reassuring Erin that no one was trampled in the shopping at our Big Box last year, but that we would still avoid it. She gave a shudder, and we proceeded on down the road toward the anchor stores of our expedition.
Penney's at 4:00, Macy's at 5:00, the coffee bar at 5:20, Steinmart at 6:00, Old Navy at 6:15, and World Market at 7:00. Our purpose with this mission was to do some Christmas shopping, but mainly to select gifts for our Angel Tree recipients. Pleasant Suburban Elementary adopted a Sister School, and Erin chose a girl a year younger who hopefully has similar taste for our family from the school's Angel Tree. The girls and I sorted through the paper angels at church before picking one who is in her senior year at one of Pleasant Suburbs high schools. For these young ladies, we went out into the pre-dawn shopping extravaganza to maximize our giving. By 8:00, we were at home boxing gifts for wrapping while sipping coffee or cocoa and nibling on peppermint bark.

Loop

Thanksgiving night disappeared into history as I fell asleep to the end of "Meet the Robinsons", and I've been hearing that song from the end of the movie repeating, "... these small hours..." since I woke. The song, which I happen to like, is playing on a loop that emphasizes the small moments that are adding up to the sum of our lives.
The Thanksgiving dinner with our beloved friends who treat us like family. The remote control cars skidding around Ally's kitchen as Katie and Erin try them out. Marsha saying she has plenty of wine, only to be told her glass is, "dry as a bone" as it is refilled. Cheering for the running football player only to discover the runner is an Aggie. (Oops.) Curled on the couch talking with Susan while enjoying the hum and thrum of our loved ones' voices from the kitchen. Carting home the big bag of hand-me-downs for Erin because Ashley has outgrown her. Jose attempting to make off with the chocolate bread. Bryan agreeing to take a car load over to Old Navy for the Thanksgiving Day specials. All of us satisfied with the shared meal produced by our collective kitchens.
This is not quite the life I chose. Or the one expected. But these small hours are adding up to days, weeks, and years worth cherishing. For which I am infinitely thankful.

Low End

It's low, and I admit it. I have resorted to bribery. The girls have been promised a candy bar of their choosing in return for 180 minutes of bass guitar practice this week. The thrumming of a bass guitar is a sound irresistable to my ears, and a couple of candy bars seem like a reasonable price for 360 minutes of happiness.

Missing Piece

We are in a holding pattern. Maintaining The Boy's privacy, it will suffice to say he is not living with us at the moment. We sent him a card for Thanksgiving because he will not be home. It had a joke about a turkey crossing the road to get to a side dish. He had the grace to say that our family really likes "jokes like that" instead of labeling it lame. I so wish he were going to be with us, but there are circumstances beyond any hint of my control that require otherwise.
He is changing, maturing, growing... and there is a bittersweet joy in these changes. It is bitter to be apart from him, but incredibly sweet to see him, hear him, and dream of him returning to our home. In the meantime, I can send him goofy cards that are no longer really right for him. Because he is shedding his adolescent goofiness like the ugly duckling morphing into a swan.

So. Tomorrow we will celebrate Thanksgiving with our loved ones sans one. We will miss him. There will be too much cranberry sauce without him at the table to inhale the stuff, and an undercurrent of sadness and longing running beneath the thanksgiving and celebration slated for the day. Still, we give thanks nonetheless.

Honestly

Middle Child has started reading my blog. She is mildly scandalized by the tales I tell about her. However, she does have the developing sense of right and wrong not uncommon to a 12 year-old. There are some things which offend her greatly, and others that fail to do so, but really ought to do so. She recently informed me that in a previous post there were comments that seemed to indicate that tattoos and piercings were out of the question. While I have a couple of holes in each ear, and no ink whatsoever as of this writing, there is a formal policy in our household stating that the offspring may poke all the holes and be adorned with as much ink as they wish at the age of 18. (Yes, I know they will be legal adults able to make such decisions themselves. Eventually, they will know that as well. Probably as soon as one of them reads this post.) The point of this policy is not so much to prevent the lovies from covering themselves in permanent cartoons or hanging chains from their noses (or worse), but to ask that they wait for a bit of maturity before making permanent decisions about their bodies.
I am less alarmed by the potential for their appearance to shock the casual bypasser than I am that they will do something dumb in the bloom of youth that won't go away. Because taste changes. And so do bodies. Walker and I once saw a woman in a tank top go by us who had failed to consider that the location of her tattoo was one given to stretching and sagging. Oh, dear. That little guppy looked suspiciously like a postpartum whale. Ew. Not to mention the possibility of infection or poor workmanship by individuals who would be willing to apply permanent decor to the bodies of underage youth. Those stretching rings that go in the ear lobe? I bet that cannot be undone without surgery, and I wonder if it can be undone then... Anywho. The tween's need for Mama's complete honesty with the bloggy world should be satisfied.

Eh?!

Um. Little Bit turned nine this weekend. And I was completely prepared for that even if it does mean she has less than a year before she hits double digits. What I was not prepared for was a photo editing session involving some quick snapshots of Middle Child. I wanted photographic evidence that she dressed up for a band field trip to a Big Metro Symphony Orchestra performance last night. (If you were the "older couple sitting in front of us"? I am so sorry they were too uncouth to shut up instead of commenting on the conductor. Thank you for suggesting they do so.) I edited the photos, and the results were good enough to be added to an album on Facebook entitled "Centered" that starts with Miss Kate's newborn photo (awww.) and ends with whatever has been recently uploaded.
And when those photos are viewed in order? The inescapable reality that our first precious, longed-for baby girl has somehow slipped over the threshhold from childhood into adolescence. It's one thing to know this, but quite another to see it.

Picture Post: Morning at the Museum

Ice

We took three tweens, Erin and her best friend McClain ice skating since school let out at noon. Erin and McClain were celebrating Erin's 9th Birthday. The tweens were helping. McClain hugged the rink wall valiantly for a half hour before declaring that she does not like ice skating. Erin discovered that skating on ice is hard, but she definitely liked it. She found it hilarious to fall flat on what she insisted on calling her, "gluteous maximum".