Have a Merry and Blessed Christmas

Moving Part 1

It's finally become concrete in my mind that we are moving. For starters, of course, we are putting our house on the market in a few weeks.

Last night, I had a surge of energy and motivation and started boxing up toys to save and toys to give away. After an hour and a half of non-stop sorting and moving, I had 3 large plastic containers ready to store and a 4 or 5 big garbage bags in the garage ready to give away.

I looked around the house expecting big results.

Have you ever done those puzzles in newspapers or magazines with titles such as "Can You Find 9 Differences Between These 2 Pictures?" You have to squint really hard and study the pictures intently for several minutes to come up with one or two changes.

When I surveyed my house after that initial purge of stuff, that's what it felt like. I think we have our work cut out for us.

Oh well, little by little we'll get it done. Maybe someone will think a house full of clutter is just beautiful.

Happy Feast of St. Lucy

Among the many things I love about being Catholic, celebrating feast days is near the top. Bringing the seasons of the liturgical calendar and the lives of the saints into the home is such a rich and lovely way to allow faith to penetrate daily family functioning.

Today is the Feast of St. Lucy. We celebrate the kids' patron saint days with a special dessert or meal, usually. I feel a little sad this morning because I forgot to plan something special. We've been so busy that although I knew it was coming, I failed to get my act together.

We have a 4H Christmas program and a Nutcracker performance today, so preparing the usual St. Lucy Cats yeast rolls is off the table.

So, here's my plan: Lucy means 'light,' right? So, we're having potato soup for dinner because it's white (hence, 'light'). I hope Lucy can see the connection. I can probably manage picking up some cookies or something to round out my 'theme.'

Actually, I was planning potato soup anyway. It just occured to me that I could twist the plan to my advantage. Haha.

If this seems lame, keep in mind that the first thing I heard from my 4-year-old this morning was, "Hey Mom, picture the skeleton of a Baryonyx in your mind. Got it? OK, now tell me about it." So, I'm functioning on overload.

I would like to mention that our son made it all the way through the 8:00PM performance of the Nutcracker last night without difficulty!!! I am very proud of him. He had quite the running commentary, but I'll close with the best conversaion of the night:

V: (during the waltz of the flowers) They don't look much like fairies.

M: They're not fairies, honey. They're flowers. Do they look like flowers?

(long pause, studying the dancers)

V: Yeah. Dead ones.

First Snow

 

 

 

It was barely enough to justify the snowsuits, but lots of fun nevertheless!!

Dog for Sale, cheap

A 6-year-old dog should be over the chewing phase. I thought we had things under control with the use of a crate in the garage at night. We began this arrangement after she ate some wooden door trim after hours. I thought she was doing just fine by herself in the house during the day, aside from breaking a couple pesky little rules such as staying off the couch and not going upstairs. These are minor transgressions in the grand scheme of things. And, really, she's not here by herself very often. It's not like some poor dogs who stay cooped up by themselves all day long, every day(and behave just fine, in spite of the injustice).

Just a side note, but aren't dogs, um, animals? Pardon me for speaking so harshly. Yes, they're pets who deserve to be cared for, but instinctively, shouldn't they be able to stay outside for more than 10 minutes by themselves without having a fit at the back door?

OK, we adopted a rescue dog. I should have expected some psychological issues. But I was either clueless at the time or in denial.

So, the problem today is that she chewed up my good rug in the living room. I am rather angry with her.

I'm just trying to decide if God is trying to teach me patience, or if he's trying to clue me in that we need to get rid of her before our special needs child arrives.

I'm sure there's a dog lover out there who could give her a great home. Maybe he or she would even let us come visit...

Ballet Burnout

(This morning as girls are dancing around the living room to Nutcracker music)

Victor: This is no place for dancing!! This is an army campsite!!

Update

Well, our little dancer is fine. She actually had no signs of illness yesterday (quite the contrary as she was as full of energy as ever) and made it through her LONG rehearsal last night without difficulty. I'm still trying to keep things low key, just in case. She slept in a little this morning (thank goodness for homeschooling), and we'll just have a low pressure day.

In other news, Eustace and I had a much-needed night out sans kiddos while Lucy was at her practice. We had originally hired a babysitter because we planned to attend a Christmas party for the hospital. But, we changed our minds at the last minute and went out just the two of us. That was one of the better decisions we've made in a while...