Some thoughts on Christmas Plus New Year's Goals

Just as I knew it would, my nine days of freedom flew by in a blur of crazy. It seemed especially fast after all those weeks of anticipation when time dragged by in slow motion.

 

I'd like to say that I am back at work renewed and refreshed and ready to face the year. That's what I'd like to say. In reality I am back at work exhausted, headachy, mildly depressed and ready to go home. I don't know that this year's break did my soul much good. Also, it's taken me FOUR DAYS to finish this post. Four. So. You know. Soul crushing work is also a thing.

 

Anyway, on with my thoughts...

 

I started off the first week running errands and wrapping up last minute Christmasy things. Then on Tuesday, Mama  had surgery to correct a couple of bulging discs that were pinching a nerve and causing great pain. Yes. The Tuesday before Christmas my mother goes and has surgery. Fortunately, Daddy was able to go with her so I didn't have to spend the day in the hospital. And thankfully it was a minor surgery so I don't feel guilty about my relief in not having to sit in the hospital. ;-)

 

I did have to surrender and evening at home to go take care of and love on Milo. Poor thing missed  his Mama and Daddy.

 

Mama did fine with the surgery, though and was able to come home Wednesday afternoon. She has had to wear a brace for the past two weeks, lost her voice (temporarily) and has one more week at home before she can return to work. She has reported that the pain from the pinched nerve has decreased daily so...all good news.

 

It did make the whole Christmas thing a tad different, though. She was pretty much out of commission for the festivities. Not that it really felt like Christmas anyway. With temps nearing 80 and rain four days out of seven it felt more like the forth of july except with presents. haha

 

Even though none of us were actually feeling anything nearing Christmas spirit, it didn't stop us from trying. Sis2, the kids and I still got together the Wednesday before Christmas and did our annual Christmas "baking" day...which was actually more of a Christmas "treat making" day. Sis2 did back a batch of cookies, though, so I guess it still constitutes as a baking day? Either way, there was a lot of chocolate involved which is never a bad thing. We made chocolate covered pretzels (white and dark), peanut clusters (which Ethan re-named "peanut plops"), muddie buddies, Italian cookies, haystacks and something else I can't remember now. As you can see out the window of the photo below, it rained that day. STORMED, is more like it. Deadly tornadoes up north of us in the Delta and near Memphis. *shudders*

 

Thursday evening, I managed to get a shot of the nearly full moon and I'm glad I did because it rained all night Friday night so that I couldn't even SEE the full Christmas moon. :( I captured the below shot as I was backing out the driveway on my way to the folks' house. I just loved the way the moon looked with the spider web of clouds surrounding it. Probably should have shut off my head lights, though. They illuminated the house a bit much. And in the interest of full disclosure, the image below has been slightly filtered from the original shot. I filtered it in Instagram to ever-so-slightly deepen the blue of the evening sky.

This next shot, though...totally unfiltered. Emmy and I on Christmas morning.

 

To be honest, I had somewhat of a minor/major melt down Christmas Eve and did not even want to participate on Christmas Day. I wanted to stay home and skip the whole enchilada. If you've been reading here long, you know by now that I usually do tend to have negative experiences and emotions on what is supposed to be the happiest and most wonderful day of the year. And this year, those difficult emotions started on Christmas Eve. Just a combination of stress and sister spats and all that jazz. I ended up leaving the folks' house early Thursday night just to escape it all. I went home, drank a Seagrams, cried and said a fervent prayer to get me through the following day or to just let me sleep through it.

The Lord answered my prayer by getting me through the day on Friday. Thankfully, I'd thought ahead and schlepped all my gifts to the folks' house the night before in case of rain and prepped all the components for Christmas breakfast so that all I had to do Christmas morning was get up, let Libby open her Christmas present, get dressed and go.

Speaking of Libby's present, this year I forwent the traditional toy and got her a package of Rachel Ray's "Soup Bone" dog chews. 100% all natural and made in the USA. The package touted them as "long lasting chews". Libby had hers chewed and swallowed in ten minutes! Guess that means she liked it. AND she's still got two more to enjoy later. Total win.

Anyway, I did have a major headache all day Friday but I sucked it up, took a ton of deep breaths and mostly managed to enjoy the day. As you can see below, Libby enjoyed her Bobo time, if nothing else. :-D

One thing Libby did NOT like about Christmas was the introduction of Sis1 and Emmy's new dog. It's an eight-year-old Western Highland Terrier--a beautiful dog named Maddie. She was, however, under the mistaken impression that she is the princess of the universe when in fact, that position is already filled. By Libby, of course. Let's just say there was a lot of growling, snarling and butt sniffing. Milo, on the other hand, thought Maddie was his Christmas present. He LOVED her.

 

As we usually do, we spent the day at Granny's house eating and chit chatting. I got to play with the kids which is always a win and for the first holiday in about two years, I got to skip Sis1 and our cousin's trip down memory lane about all their wild teenager/high school days. I barely survived it when it happened so I surely get sick and tired of "re-living" it.

 

After Granny's we went back to the folks' house and had a second round of gifts with the little kids. As you can see, nobody got nothing. haha

And for all the surviving, I was thankful to get home, even if I did have to sprint home between thunderstorms. Cause y'all? It stormed off and on all day Friday. Misery!

Below is my Christmas haul. Lots of nice things and one baffling item that I have no CLUE what my mother was thinking. See the lemon merengue pie looking thing in the upperish left? It's cute and all but...not my taste at ALL. I have NOTHING that looks like that anywhere in my house. I know it's ungrateful but when I opened it I had to really stretch my faking it muscles and fake appreciation for it. I have to wonder if she didn't intend it for Sis2? Cause I can totally see her liking something like it. But me? Not so much.

Not pictured is a shadowbox my dad picked out. I've always wanted a shadow box but never would buy one because I didn't know what I'd put it in. Still don't know what I'll put it in it but maybe someday soon something will inspire me.

 

The Monday after Christmas, Emmy and I met up with Sis2 and the kids and ate Micky D's before going to see Road Chip. I think I pretty much kept Micky D's in business over the holidays. This was the second out of three times we ate there.

The kids said this is their new favorite Alvin and the Chipmunks movie. And it I gotta say, it was really, really cute. We all enjoyed it. I, however, suck at taking group selfies with little ones. Poor Ethan! lol

I did get to spend a lot of time eating. And eating. And eating some more. On the mornings I didn't have to go anywhere, Libby and I stayed in our pjs and I ate Muddy Buddies and she wished she could. Speaking of Muddy Buddies, the photo below depicts the SECOND batch that I made of them. I ate the first batch in four days. Oops! They are sooooooo good though. I have a handful left of the batch below and I'm making them stretch until I can get back to the store for more Chex.

 

The Wednesday before New Years us girls loaded up and hit Starbucks for lattes and treats. Don't hate, but Lyssa loves coffee and lattes so she got her very own tall white mocha. Yeah, she's eight but she's a mature eight. ;-) P.S. I was drinking coffee when I was six and it didn't stunt my growth.

She didn't much care for the little chocolate snowman donut so Sis2 ended up eating that. Emmy always gets a frappacino because she doesn't like coffee. But the silly girl ALWAYS gets the grande and only ever drinks half of it. I'm like, dude. Save some money and get the tall. Freak. haha

We chased our Starbucks with our annual trip to the pottery painting place where I painted another snowflake and Lyssa took twenty years to pick out what she wanted to paint. Okay, so maybe it was more like twenty mintues but still. Emmy and I were almost halfway done painting our stuff before Lyssa ever even picked hers out. She ended up choosing a large mug style cereal bowl that we all ended up helping her finish paint because it was a ginormous project. And we had to stop, go eat lunch and then come back to finish it. But Sis2 went and picked it up yesterday after they glazed and fired it and she said it turned out really pretty so I guess it's worth the extra effort and thought.

We did do a little shopping after we left the pottery place. Mostly we were helping Emmy hunt for a Yeti cup because apparently everyone and their brother got one for Christmas except for Emmy!! because they were sold out EVERYWHERE two months before Christmas. And me, I'm just over here like, "Y'all. It's just a glorified travel mug. Get over it." And Emmy's like, "But ice cubes last for DAYS in a Yeti cup." Impressive, yes. Necessary? Not so much. Not $40 necessary, especially. We never did find her one. Poor thing.

I kinda went a little crazy on the way home and let Emmy drive. I only had three minor heart attacks. Two involving her veering toward deep ditches and one as we drove over the levy at the lake. But I didn't yell. We both laughed.

It's still so weird to me that she's old enough to even sit in the front seat, much less, DRIVE. I mean, isn't she five?

P.S. We were approaching a stop sign in the photo below so that's why here hands aren't entirely on the wheel. She actually did the whole 10 and 2 thing when actually moving. So don't judge her too harshly here like some family members did after I posted that photo on Facebook. Family members are JUDGEY. I forget that sometimes. D'oh!

Gratuitous cute staged Libby shot. She "stole" my hoodie and wore it better than me.

 

I saw the New Year in with steak (not pictured) and wine. Daddy and I took Emmy back to T-town, well, we met her dad halfway, earlier in the day and on our way back home we stopped and picked up a pack of steaks which he threw on the grill and I snarffed down like it was my last meal. Steaks don't happen every day, y'all. the wine, I enjoyed in the privacy of my own home. It was part of my Christmas present from Sis2. It's actually not that strong of a wine--Boone's Farm--which I'm told is just a glorified wine cooler but the light weight that I am, I don't complain. Besides, "real" wine just doesn't taste all that great to me.

 

New Year's Day was spent at home with Libby. I never changed out of my pj's until I got ready for bed. Well, scratch that. Until my 8:30pm shower before bed. Yes, I slept on damp hair. But anyway, I basically just moved from one piece of furniture to the next in my bid to be in complete bum mode. It was the most fabulous rest I'd had for the entire nine day break.

I honestly had no intention of going anywhere for the rest of the weekend but my mom's family decided to have a last minute gathering on Saturday. A gather I did not take the first photo of. I know. I'm shocked, too. We weren't there that long and I spent most of the time we were there talking to Sis2 and one of our cousins. Not a lot of family showed up for this gathering so it was rather quiet which was nice, actually.

Sunday I bummed around the house again, skipping church and everything! I watched four  hours of Super Soul Sunday on Own, read a couple chapters of a book and took a two hour nap. Why can't that be my life every day?

But alas, I am back at work and in full swing. I am thankful for my job and the wonderful people who are right beside me swinging those axes in the salt mine. I am thankful that I have my home to escape to at the end of the day. And I am thankful that I have yet another year to do my best and love the people I love and hopefully...prayerfully...I am going to attempt to re-claim the joy I lost over the past few years.

I don't really do the whole resolutions thing but I have goals.

1. Read at least one book a week. I know this should be a no brainer because I'm a total book hoarder and once upon a time I used to read a book a DAY. But that was back when I was a  happy-go-lucky-didn't-know-what-stress-really-was baby. I bet you I read maybe ten books last year. It might have been more but I'm guessing it was close to ten. Maybe twelve. And that makes me sad. Because I love books. I love getting lost in them and I'm so angry at myself for letting that huge part of my life slip away into the gutter of stress and depression. I am re-claiming my love of books. One book a week, ya'll.

2. One hour less of television a week. I know that sounds really small and insignificant but, old habits die hard so I'm giving myself permission to start with baby steps. One less of mindless television will be huge because I am such a couch potato. Television, DVD's  whatever...it's just so easy to escape to. It's mindless and requires no real participation from me. But I need to be mindful.

And while we're on the topic of being mindful...

3. Spending 30 minutes a day in mindful prayer and meditation. Thirty minutes of giving my mind exclusively over to God. Talking to Him. Listening to Him. Reading His Word or singing a song to Him. I've become so lax in my relationship with Him...relegating Him to those few minutes before I drift off to sleep at night or worse...squeezing in a quick chat with him while I'm on the toilet or in the shower. He deserves so much better than that. He's so much BIGGER than that.

So that's my three goals. I'm not even talking weight this year because I've come to terms with the fact that my body is just going to do whatever it's going to do and it requires no input from me. I'll just continue doing the best I can to be healthy and let that satisfy me.

One book a week. One less hour of television a week. Thirty minutes a day with God.

Happy New Year!