Zooing it up

 We had a run of insanely warm weather for about a week. It was 72 on Christmas day!

 The kids are chaotic, the house is a disaster and I was keen to get us out of here.

 I usually take them to the zoo in October to take the annual birthday hippo photos, but we never made it this year.  Better late than never I suppose! (They have even painted the hippo recently.)

A nice break from the house.

it is BRRRRRRRR degrees here now, it was nice while it lasted!

We decembered

December is almost over and we've done all the December things.

We visited Santa.

 We saw the nutcracker.

 We decorated.

We churched.

 We had presents.

 We saw lights.

 I bought things.

 We decorated cookies instead of gingerbread (BEST MOVE EVER).

 I did a new Santa tree (LOVED IT).

 We saw the Krampus.

 We visited the Christmas traditions festival twice.

And we admired Christmas windows.

(And this mommy busted her ass and is so glad it's all winding down.)

Green eyed monster

I’m not really sure it is the green eyed monster if we are being truly honest, or if it’s that time and age have brought me to the social media breaking point.

It’s incredibly hard to watch people on line who cry for their mothers when they are sick, have parents who help with everything, who go on week Long Beach vacations several times a year, and just generally post all the things I’ve never been able to have. Mostly I am a “it is what it is” girl, but the thought of losing what little I do have in my mom has really thrown a big monkey wrench into that.

This year this was doubly compounded by my fathers somewhat random refusal to come to thanksgiving. He says it was because I hadn’t called, but oh hey, the seven days leading up to that were pure hell. And, btw, the phone works both ways.

Right now I am attempting to just sit with it all. Watch a movie, sew a stitch, read a book, make a meatloaf and just let it all settle in around me. I have moments where I feel like I can do it, and moments where I would still like to just put on my shoes and make like Forrest gump. My flight or fight was SO INTENSE for a few days that every day I actually did ponder just starting to walk every morning until I could walk no more. If nothing else, I would eventually have been too exhausted to think.

Instead I finished putting up the Christmas crap.

(My current urge is to resume driving everything we own to the goodwill.)

2019 Christmas cards

 When I saw these deer jammies in target I grabbed them on a whim and realized Christmas cards could be so easy this year with them.

So cute.

A visit to santa

Grant wants EVERYTHING this year, Sam's list is pretty reasonable and Jackson has not a clue what he could he use. LOL This santa has spent a lot of time the last two years chatting up the kids and really being pretty awesome. He even engaged Jack, which I appreciate.

 I picked up an instant collection of 45 records a few weeks ago, the graphics are so good.

And I have been hunting unsilvered ornaments for an unsilvered tree.

Little turkeys

Gobble, gobble turkeys.

Magic pockets

In my early 20s I had a relationship with someone that had magic pockets.

He had an uncanny ability to anticipate problems and prepare in advance. They were small problems, sure, but, it was never short of the most helpful thing ever. Have a blister? I have a band aid! Hung over? I have an alka seltzer! Hungry? I have a taco!

When the kids were small it was easy to have my own magic pockets - that one will need a nap, this one will need a snack, I’m going to need a break after that...

I’ve spent years mastering that skill.

Right now everything is so topsy turvy there is no anticipating anything. Wake up, pee on that days fires, toss and turn all night, get up and do it again.

It’s heightened my awareness of two things - I depend heavily on my own magic pockets and I sure do miss feeling like answers are just a pocket away.

There really are no appropriate titles

There's been so much going on over here.  I feel a lot like there really just is no place to even discuss it. Obviously I use Instagram more than the blog now, but Instagram does not feel like family like it used to here.


Today I am spending hours and hours and hours sitting in a surgical dermatologists office while dave has a sizeable skin cancer removed in a MOHS surgery from his ear.  It's in a challenging spot, and who knows what awaits me on this day. Skin grafts, reconstruction, it's all a mystery until the day is over I suppose.

As if that wasn't really stressful enough, my mother was diagnosed with alzheimers last Friday. It's been a pretty rapid decline from her usual airheaded type stuff to where she can barely even use a debit card on her own.  I am completely and utterly freaked out about this for so many reasons.  First is that she is really the only grandparent my kids know. I am GUTTED for them. Second is that it has rapidly become something else I have to juggle while I still have two small kids, one teenager and no help. (Dave's family doesn't live here, my dad is not any help and my mom was pretty much my only back up.) And I do not even really have a clue where to begin.  We still have to see the neurologist, and I am sure they will tell me where to start, but, well, all the feelings and thoughts and things about this.  She and I have an extremely complicated relationship as it is, and this development is really forcing me to unpack 44 years worth of mother baggage in about a week's time.

So, there we are.  Husband with skin cancer (he had two other spots removed which thankfully were benign, but he's on a 6 month check schedule for a few years), mother with alzheimers, kids with all the kid things, let's not forget my own health issues (hello RA!) and the holidays bearing down on me like a train.  I am really trying to just keep swimming, but I swear, all of life is just keep swimming and I am wearing out from it all. :(

Jack drives

 poppet, just because

 Turning 15 now means learning to drive in Missouri.  Jack passed the test with no problems, but the wait to get the actual permit processed was 4.5 hours! Complete insanity.

It was right after Halloween we went to take the test and grant wanted to wear his dragon costume. One learning to drive, one still wearing costumes everywhere.

And we have had snow already! This happened on veterans day.

Life

 I thrifted an amazing Alice in wonderland feedsack.

 And a bag of so cute fiber optic witches.

 And quilts and things.

 This one REALLY needed some sun to clean it, but it was already too late in the season and I haven't had a good day since.

 I made a cute runner for my MIL's birthday.

 Thrifted an amazing afghan.

 Grant's been sick again.

And the cat is enjoying the fire in her old (ancient) age.

A few Halloween things to remember

 Sam's pumpkin from her class party.

 An upgraded porch this year.

 The front window (for my own reference, it was hard to find last years photo)

And a nice new addition to the collection.