I've been absent from here for a bit, but trust me it wasn't from being a sloth.
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| A photo of Santa driving through Chick Fila, instead of my dog's backside.... |
We made it to Texas, all three of us. Lily may have had a slight blowout while sitting on my lap, waiting to board our plane; my yoga pants, top and cardigan caught the brunt of it. I wanted to warn fellow passengers eyeing the seat next to me, but how do you tell them that you not only have a dog in tow, but you also have the remnants of dog blowout? I did the only thing I could think of, I put in headphones and never made eye contact.
It's such an understatement to say that the dog doesn't prefer flying in a little fabric suitcase, shoved under the seat in front of me.
It's even more of an understatement to say that I'm not too crazy about the experience either.
However, the look on the faces of the ladies who spied me scrubbing the backside of an 8 lb Shih Tzu in the sink of the airport bathroom using nothing but my hand, then drying her off with handfuls of paper towels - that was priceless. It still makes me giggle outloud to remember it. Most of the time Miss Lily is absolutely charming, if not a bit over-clingy, but sometimes she lives up to her name - ShihT....zu.
It was fun to come home late at night, after traveling all day, with an out of sorts dog, two days after we'd paid more to groom her than I do to get my own hair cut, and have to bathe her before bedtime. Then sleep with a slighty damp dog. And let me tell you, no matter how clean a dog is, when they're wet they still smell like wet dog.
After that, we jumped right into Texas living. We tend to epitomize the Bloom Where You Are Planted, or Love the One(s) You're With - we don't think about the other place much when we're not there. That lack of mindfulness doesn't include the people we love who we leave behind, but rather just the place.
Within a handful of days we had food, remembered where stuff was around our house, and were unpacked.
We came back 10 days earlier this year and that was definitely a better plan. Christmas is upon us, so we went up in the attic and hauled down all the bins and boxes. Then we had the Texas Littles for an overnight stay to help us decorate the house.
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| Our Texas Littles, decorating our table top tree. The switched into pjs to be dressed appropriately for the event. |
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| The manger scene was a gift from our middle daughter, given during her early marriage broke years. The embroidery behind it was a gift from our oldest daughter. Treasures, both. |
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| The tree and snow village finished. The little bandshell plays music, which the Littles particularly love. Do you spy Elfina's little red leg sticking out from the light fixture above the table? |
In honor of my memories of my own mother giving each of us six kids a box of icicles and letting us throw them pell mell all over the tree, and never rearranging a single clump - we follow the same rule. Let them decorate whatever however, and leave it. So much more fun to have a sign of little people underfoot than to have a perfectly decorated themed tree.
Pulling down the Christmas decorations from the attic made us realize anyone our age doesn't need to be pulling down the Christmas decorations from the attic. So we emptied out our indoor storage closet next to our garage and made room to store our 3 ft tree, fully decorated plus all the other Christmas decor. Next year we'll be able to pull stuff out much more easily, and without climbing up and down stairs.
I also came back to Texas with a renewed energy for keeping our house in better shape. My daughter, Sarah told me about
Cleanmama, a blog devoted to doing exactly that, and so far I'm keeping my head above water. A simple system of doing one thing in the house each day, with the weekend pretty much off. I dusted yesterday and didn't catch the fan blades or blinds, but I did get the brundt of it done, and it is better than it was before. Improvement, not perfection. After the holidays I plan to go in and do a more thorough job of getting things whipped into shape.
On other fronts, I've been knitting socks lately. There's something so interesting to me about the construction of them, how someone sat down with a ball of wool yarn from a sheep, and a couple of sticks and figured out how to clothe their feet. Brilliance! So I decided to really pay attention to the construction, how what does what and why. The first sock didn't fit my skinny ankle, so I ripped it out and started over. By jove, I think I figured it out. But I had to put it down after sock #1 to move onto a pink and purple stocking cap for a certain little person to receive on Christmas.
Which also made me aware - don't buy cheap knitting kits from the big box stores. The yarn is awful - scratchy and feels not nice in the knitters hands, so how on earth can it feel good around one's face and ears? This particular person spied the kit, including the oh so enticing pom pom that goes on top, so I'll press on, but next time I'll either support the local yarn store, or at least buy the better stuff from Hobby Lobby or Michaels, or order it online. There's way too many hours that go into a handmade gift to start with crummy supplies. As soon as I finish this stocking cap, I'll go back and knit sock #2, so the pair can make their debut on my feet.
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| Ordered online, at $8 a skein which has enough for two socks. Not bad price and feels wonderful to the touch. |
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| Self-striping yarn is such a wonderful invention! |
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| That thick part is the gusset, knit to hold up to the heel of a foot. |
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| Finished. Not subtle but when you spend hours on a sock, they should scream for attention in the room, in my humble opinion. |
Lastly, I spent a couple of hours at Target two days ago, finishing up my Christmas shopping, and my oh my, they have the CUTEST Christmas paper and tags! I'm a sucker for those, and try every year not to buy more, but they get me every time. The Magnolia Market section is best to either avoid or be ready with your wallet when you approach because everything in it is lovely and charming and cozy. I avoided most of it by reminding myself, "self, you don't want to have to store all this stuff after Christmas'. I also asked two women there if they had 'little girl jewelry' to which they replied that Target had cut down their jewelery section overall and what I saw was all they had. Wrong. They have adorable, sweet, age appropriate jewelry in the girl section, and at a fraction of a cost compared to the other, grown up stuff. Sweet little chokers with unicorns and such. :-)
That's it for now - back later, after I get all those gifts wrapped, packages mailed and decide what to do about Christmas cards this year.
P.S. I just finished a book, Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens and it was SO good. Right after I finished reading it, it was announced that it's going to be
made into a movie directed by Reese Witherspoon, which is no surprise. Then I scored a copy of Leif Enger's new book, Virgil Wander, from our library and am really enjoying it too. Nothing too heavy around the holidays - just good fiction that makes for a perfect read in a tub full of bubbles at the end of the day.
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