Monthly Archives: December 2008

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Random thoughts

I’m really tired and wish I could take a nap. Z is actually napping for the first time in weeks, but Audrey is awake, and it’s apparently not in my constitution to fall asleep while one of my children is awake by herself.

I’m planning out a quilt for my bed, and I’m overrun with fabric choices. I’m passionately in love with at least 5 different collections. I think I might make a reversible quilt, with one collection on one side and another on the reverse, but how to narrow it down to 2?

Check these out:
Nest by Tula Pink
Neptune by Tula Pink (I’m really leaning toward these two together.)
Urban Couture (I LOVE this)
Soiree (love this too, but it might be a little too “girly”, maybe I’ll just make myself a blanket out of it.)
or I could go a completely different direction with
Hello Betty
and Zippity Doo Dah
….
I think I just found a winner, although I still want to do something with all those other fabrics:
Check out these panels- super easy quilting works for me!
#1
#2
#3
#4
and all of it with super cute birds.

What would you do?

Got to go wake Zoe up, but before I do, did you know that the Whos in Horton Hears a Who are the same Whos as in the Grinch Who Stole Christmas? Or maybe a different generation of Whos, but still! I had no idea.

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A more specific challenge

I’m almost done with the uberlist 2009 (not the uberlist 3000, that’s something else entirely) and in looking it over, I realized that while most of the subdivisions of the list are pretty evenly weighted with to-do items, one is looking a little anemic. That subdivision is Personal Development.

Just for reference, the other subdivisions are: books, local attractions, trips, spirituality, leisure, home, writing, health, homemaking skills, and entrepreneur endeavors; so obviously there are things listed in those areas that will aid in my personal development. What I’m looking for is things that will stretch me out of my comfort zone. Right now the items on the list mostly have to do with being more outgoing (I’m in an introvert phase at the moment- I kind of cycle through extroversion and introversion in a bipolar fashion). This is what I currently have:
35. Ask 3 different people to hang out and actually do it
36. Have 3 different couples over for dinner/games/something
37. Visit teach regularly
38. Make a new friend
39. Take a dance class

Any suggestions? They don’t have to be related to being outgoing, anything that you think would help me develop those quintessential qualities everyone’s working toward will do.

Help me out folks, I just need 3 more and then I’m done.

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A challenge for you for me

Instead of posting the post I was going to post (how many more times can I say post?) that I had all written and then thought better of, because it was all about me being judgy, and that just has the potential to go bad really quickly, I’ve decided to call out a challenge.

I’m writing up my new uberlist for 2009- my list of 109 things to do (in lieu of resolutions). I’ve done the cheating maneuver of taking off the things from this year’s list that only applied to this year, and keeping the things that I’d like to do again next year or didn’t accomplish and still want to give a go. I’m at 87, which leaves me 22 open spots. So challenge me. Give me something to put on my list to try to do in the next year. Preferably something I can actually accomplish. I will take all suggestions, although I reserve the right to amend them.

Go at it.

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Of good report

Things that are making me happy today:

Zoe’s excitement over all her new toys. She got about a toyshop (or maybe just a boutique) worth of new toys, and is loving them. Between the trike (her request from Santa), her dollhouse (a surprise from Santa), her kitchen (an unexpected post-Christmas hand-me-down from cousins- thanks Auntie Lizzie!), all of the other toys she got and all of Audrey’s toys, she’s loving life.

I am finding WAY too many things on Etsy. It’s evil I tell you. I am restraining myself, however, and only marking things as favorites- not actually buying anything. Are these not the cutest things you’ve ever seen? And this?

The birds on my Christmas tree. We started out with just one, on the top. Now, thanks to the ornament sale at Michaels (hello 60% off!) there are 8. Hooray birds!

I am eating peachie-o’s, and in all likelihood will continue doing so until I make myself sick, as I’m sure Bruce predicted when he saw them sitting on my desk. What can I say? They’re my vice. My yummy, yummy vice.

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At this moment

it is 9:25 pm.

Zoe is still awake, talking in her bed. Her bedtime is 7:30.

I am well aware of the math going on here.

Audrey just barely went back to sleep after screaming her little head off. We reattached said head before putting her back to bed.

I’m really tired.

I’m having flashbacks to when I was little and couldn’t sleep, and would be awake past the time my mom would turn off the bathroom light- which meant she and dad were going to sleep. That’s when I knew it was incredibly late and I would never get to sleep. Those nights sucked.

I’m having difficulty justifying going to bed while Z is still awake.

I’m having secondary flashbacks to the night when Z was probably a little over a year old and she stayed up until 5 in the morning. I finally just got her out of her crib and let her play in her room while I laid on the futon in her room. I remember a moment at about 3 in the morning, when I was long past tears and she came up to where I was laying and just laughed and laughed, and I momentarily wondered if, in fact, she was evil. (It was 3 in the morning. I think that very brief thought is completely justifiable at that time in the morning.)

I think I need to grab some sleep while I can.

Goodnight everybody, wish me luck. Forget that, wish Zoe luck. :)

PS. I should add, that to her immense credit, she has stayed in her bed this whole time unless I’ve told her she could get out. (She got out because we had to trim a hangnail on her toe, and she needed to eat a piece of bread and then brush her teeth.) She’s been fantastic about staying in her bed, apparently the threat that we would turn her big girl bed back into a crib was threat enough. :)

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At this moment: Christmas morning edition

It’s 7:45.

Z is still asleep.

The rest of us are awake.

Z’s trike is waiting for her.

Audrey is staring up at her reflection in the mirror above her swing, cooing and laughing in delight. She has no idea it’s Christmas.

The tree is lit.

The heater is on.

Merry Christmas everybody. May your day be merry, bright, warm, full of presents, and just a little sleepy. But in a good way.

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At this moment: Christmas Eve edition

Zoe just apologized to the baby Jesus from the Little People nativity set. “I sorry baby Jesus. I sorry that happen”. I have no idea what happened, but it’s nice she apologized.

Chocolate chip cookies for Santa are baking.

Audrey is cooing in her bouncy chair.

Now Zoe is walking around offering us hot cocoa from a watering can. This is perhaps a comment on the amount of hot chocolate her momma drinks, but I don’t think so.

She is also showing off her new Tinkerbell doll, which is the second present she got to open today, after the first one she opened, a princess vacuum cleaner, failed to work. Stupid mail order Disney.

The stockings I just finished making are hanging in front of the TV console, held up by Little People nativity pieces. (They are not being held up by midgets, as my previous phrasing made it sound.)

The King’s Singers are singing on my television. They’re not living up to the hype.

What’s happening at your house at this moment?

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Speaking of Christmas

Go check out Zoe awesomely singing Christmas carols on her blog: zoecalamity.info.

And speaking of using one’s talents, go check out Audrey’s statement to the world at her blog: audreykatana.info
(And just for the record, I totally discovered the song featured there. B usually finds the cool music, but no, this time it was ALL ME! ME, I SAY!)

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There’s no snow in Africa this Christmas or, Some thoughts on Christmas

So I have a confession to make, and it’s an embarrassing one, so go ahead and get your mocking pants ready: I totally cried in the car today listening to “Do they know it’s Christmas?”. What can I say? That Bono is a sneaky evil one. I’ve just been thinking about the point of Christmas over the last couple days, and the thought of people being hungry and cold and “not having” (along with all those manipulative major chords) got me a bit teary.

I’m in the middle of an incredibly good book right now called The Jesus of Suburbia: Have We Tamed the Son of God to Fit Our Lifestyle?
by Mike Erre. He’s a pastor, and he posits that as a culture we have “tamed” Jesus, making Him into a nice man who gives us everything we want and makes us safe and happy, rather than seeing Him for who He really is- a revolutionary who will completely and utterly upheave and reconstruct your life if you let Him. You all know I’m a sucker for revolution, (viva!) and this book is seriously fantastic- it’s refocusing how I see Christ and my relationship with Him. I’m not quite finished with it yet, but I highly recommend it. And it’s on clearance right now at Amazon. (Brandy and Hilary, don’t bother going and getting copies, I already ordered them for you. :) )

One of the things he points out though is that to a large degree we’ve lost a sense of wonder and awe about Christ. He’s become so commonplace that we forget the majesty. We forget what it must have meant for Him to condescend to take a mortal body and walk among us. We forget the magnitude of His gifts to us. I’ve been pondering that, and it led me to this thought while I was thinking that Zoe and Audrey are getting a metric TON of presents this year:

I want them to get tons of presents. I want them to feel bounty and abundance and overwhelmed with the generosity of someone who loves them. It doesn’t matter if they think that someone is me or Bruce or a jolly fat man riding around on a sleigh giving presents because he loves Jesus so much that that is how he chooses to celebrate Jesus’ birthday. (That’s how we explain Santa. Except we don’t call him fat. That’s just courting the bad list.) I want them to feel the wonder and awe, because I want them to have a glimpse of what it feels like, so that when they learn about all the gifts of Christ, maybe they’ll remember.

And speaking of gifts from Christ, how often do we take stock and realize that we’ve received so many gifts, so many blessings, that some have ended up stuck on a shelf and forgotten about? Do we remember our own bounty, our own spiritual abundance? Do we share it? Do we share our physical abundance? Do they know it’s Christmas time at all?