Putting away Christmas

I have started to put away the Christmas decorations.  It is breaking my heart a little bit this year.  It always fees a bit sad anyway, but this year I've actually had to fight some tears.  Andrew is working today so it's just me, and I'm grateful for the quiet opportunity.

The first thing I did was take down Thomas's ornaments so they would be separated.  Thomas took a few of them with him, but the majority were still on our tree this year.  This is the very last year that my baby's ornaments, and all of those memories, are going to hang on my tree.  The last year of his "new driver", or football, or tennis ornament.  The last year of the special ornaments from family and friends over the years.  This is what we want in life, of course, for our children to grown up and be independent.  But I can't deny I'll miss unwrapping and hanging those memories each year.

I've also been a bit emotional as I've put away the pictures we have out each year.  I miss the little people in those photos so much.  Again, I'm grateful they have grown into who they are, but I miss those little people.  And as hard as the last year was, I miss the simple little problems they had back in those days.

We also have a lot of Christmas things that are beagle related, and we miss our sweet Abby so much.  There were tears on Christmas morning as we still had Abby related memories as gifts, and it's hard to think about her without crying, even now.

I was sick for a week right after Christmas, and between that and they kids having their own lives, it all just felt different and not very "Christmas-y".  There were no lights that we went to see, no fun TV episodes or movies, no family games.  While I have strived so hard to accept this is the way things are now, it still felt, well, less than.  I'm working on that, and I'm hoping it had as much to do with being sick as anything else.

Tomorrow is the last official day of break, but there is a massive winter storm heading our way.  Neither Andrew nor I are supposed to have students on Monday anyway, but our boss has let us know we'll probably do a Zoom meeting and then work from home.  I don't have that much I can do at this point, but I'm sure I can find some things.  While Catherine won't have to work, Thomas still will, so snow days are tougher than they used to be for my heart.

To be honest, I'm looking forward to having a less cluttered home, and I'm hoping that will lead to a less cluttered mind.  And I'm working on remembering my blessings and being grateful for each day.

The end of 2024

I'll be honest, I had high hopes for the year 2024.  Overall, I'm going to have to say it was not one of my favorites.  It was a really hard year with my kids.  Some of it was certainly of their own doing, and some of it is the fact that they are struggling to adult in a world that isn't really set up for young adults to adult effectively.  They are learning, and I am grateful that we are able to help as we can.  We'll miss Lincoln and we'll definitely miss Abby from this year, but overall we are healthy as we head into 2025.

This year has flown by faster than I thought was possible.  I know I wait all year for the holidays, but they will be here again before I know it.  These holidays felt like I blinked and they were done, but I know even though it's another year to go, they are just around the corner.

I've been sick for several days so we are staying home this evening.  I regret not getting able to hang out with our friends, but I'm completely okay ringing in a quiet New Year with just Andrew (and Maudie, our only remaining cat).  For today and tomorrow, I'm completely okay with just vegging on the couch and enjoying football.  And we don't go back to work until next week!

I didn't take any of this Christmas for granted

This has been a really nice Christmas, and I don't take that for granted.  My heart was so full last night as I went to bed, and both Thomas and Catherine were sleeping here.   I loved it when T told me that Thomas really wanted to wake up here on Christmas morning.  It was so sweet.  We had a lovely morning exchanging gifts and getting ready before heading to my mom's this afternoon.  My sister and mom and a family friend joined us for lunch and then we all exchanged gifts.  By this time, I was fading as I've had a cold for a couple of days but had continued pushing through.  We gathered our things and headed home.

Yesterday was an even better day.  I went with our dear friend to pick up her oldest from the airport.  We went back to their house and joined our families together for a wonderful dinner.  I loved having all of kids together and I especially loved that the significant others have joined.  The food was good, but the company was even better.

It's been a truly wonderful couple of days filled with many people I love, and I don't take that for granted!

Break has arrived

I am officially on break!  I don't go back until January 6, and this is just a great feeling.  I'm the only one home this morning and I have my candle lit, the trees are on, and the TV fireplace is playing Christmas tunes.  It's a perfect morning, or at least it would be if I didn't have a bit of a migraine.

I am leaving in a few hours to go get my MIL.  I'll spend a bit of time finishing the house before I leave.  I'm so grateful for this break and the family with whom I get to spend the holidays! 

A great weekend for getting in the holiday spirit

This weekend has been wonderful.  It's been a fabulous way to get into the holiday spirit.  I only work three days this week, and I'm ready to get them over with and enjoy 18 days off.  I'll have things to do and some payroll to run, but it'll be greate to have some down time.

It started Friday.  Andrew and I decided to meet at a local restaurant that always has really festive holiday cocktails.  We decided to go ahead and have some dinner as well.  We came home and watched an "okay" Christmas movie.  I was in bed early and happy to sleep.

Yesterday I woke up early and couldn't sleep.  Andrew had to work at a basketball game during the day.  Once Andrew arrived home, we made the trip north and our first stop was to see my grandmother.  We took her a swag for her door, and it was lovely to visit with her for a bit.  Then we had an absolutely wonderful family Christmas at my cousin Mindy's house.  There were about 27 of us there all together, and that included two-year-old Reid, who was just adorable.  Thomas and his girlfriend brought her niece, and it was a blast to have her as well.  It was such a fun evening.

Today we had lunch and met some friends half way at one of our favorite restaurants.  We hadn't seen them since March.  It's a chilly and very wet day, but now that we are home the Steelers game is on and it's a lovely evening.

I'm so very grateful for this weekend.  It's really helped to get me into the spirit of the holidays!

It's my favorite thing about our church

This evening we handed over the gifts for the Giving Tree that we do at our church each year.  Over the years, this has become "my thing".  I am the one that gets the information from the school, creates the gift list, and gets the gifts to the school social worker.  Our church has members that are becoming much older each year, and many of them wish to simply give a financial donation.  That means I am also the one that does the shopping for those gifts and wraps them as well, then gets everything sorted and handled.  I love it!  It is my absolute favorite thing we do at our church each year.  I am so grateful that our church is so supportive and generous with this activity.  This year we were able to provide 61 gifts to two families that included a total of seven children.  It is such a blessing!

An unexpectedly lovely Wednesday evening

We've made it over the hump of the week.  And the best part is that there are only five more working days remaining in the calendar year for me!  Yay!!!

Wednesday is the day we get out of school early, and I only had one quick errand to run before coming home.  Unfortunately, Andrew has to work at a basketball game this evening, but Catherine is here with me.  I was able to finish up the gifts for the church Giving Tree and accomplish a few other things.  The trees are lit, the balsam candle is lit, it's snowing outside, and we put the fireplace with Christmas music on TV.  Catherine was making a dessert for her school carry-in potluck meal.  I had to smile as it reminded me of so many memories of past holiday seasons.  Catherine even mentioned that she wished Thomas was here.  At first she mentioned it was because he was a big help with her dessert, but then later she admitted she enjoys having him around.

Two weeks until Christmas.  Looking forward to down time and hopefully a good amount of family time!

Sixteen years of blogging

It's my blogversary!  Sixteen years of recording memories here on the blog!  I'm so grateful I started this sixteen years ago, and I'm so grateful for the memories recorded here.  I can't really think of a better way to have recorded my kids' childhoods.

We are well into the holiday season.  Today was one of those days when I began to wonder if I'm going to find time to sleep at all between now and Christmas.  In addition to my jobs, this is the busy time with the church job with it being the end of the year.  I'm also in charge of the Giving Tree at church, which I love!  This year, though, most of the gifts are being purchased by financial donations to the church rather than members doing shopping.  It is truly, truly a privilege to be able to provide Christmas for two families including seven children.  It brings me great joy.  I think almost everything is purchased, now I just need to get everything wrapped.  I love seeing the stacks of gifts pile up!

We had lunch with our good friends today.  We haven't been able to get together since August, and we didn't want to wait until Christmas Eve for our next visit.  Friday evening was a gathering with some of Andrew's colleagues.  It's the most wonderful time of the year!

December has arrived again

As Thanksgiving week comes to an end, December has already arrived.  My shopping is almost entirely finished, so I really get to relax and enjoy this month.  I only have 13 official working days this month!  Granted, I'll have things that have to still be done while we are off for the holidays, but that is done on my schedule.  I'm looking forward to doing things...all things Christmas!

Our family has started watching the corny Christmas movies, and we absolutely love them!  I especially love sharing them with Catherine and my mother-in-law also really enjoys them, and I'm looking forward to her being back in a few weeks.  I'm enjoying looking at various Christmas crafts, and I'm hoping to create a few over the next several weeks.

The only downside to Thanksgiving weekend is that it brings the end of the college football season.  Those Saturdays in the fall are my absolute favorite days of the entire year!  I can't even begin to explain what happened yesterday to our Buckeyes.  It was just crazy.  Still plenty of good games to watch in the next couple of weeks!

Happy December!  May it be full of jolliness and lots of merry moments!

Making memories

Here we are, at the day before Thanksgiving, and I am looking at my nicely decorated Christmas tree.  I have ALWAYS refused to decorate before Thanksgiving, but since we ate on Sunday, and especially since Thanksgiving is so late this year, bring it on!

It actually happened in an unplanned way.  I was working on getting the trees up for planned decorating this evening.  Thomas texted as he was off work early and they were actually in the area in early afternoon.  I was happy to accept extra help in getting the trees put together and with lights, and Andrew was happy to have some help with the outside lights.  Everyone worked all afternoon, and after a quick break of pizza for dinner, the trees were all decorated by 7:30 last evening.  Thomas's fiance specifically mentioned how much she had enjoyed helping and sharing in this tradition.  The tree is full of so very many memories.  Andrew became a bit emotional as there are so many ornaments for our sweet pup.  She was included every year.   Thomas wanted to take some of his favorite ornaments with him.  It was fine, but I insisted on taking pictures! We laughed, but those memories are important to me as well.  In fact, apparently he was complaining to his fiance (let's call her Lynn, going forward) that the tree at their apartment only had "generic" ornaments on it.  I'm grateful these traditions and memories mean as much to them as they do to me.

How we spent our break

The last two weeks have been awesome in that I rarely had to wake to an alarm.  Sadly, it was not good sleeping most of the time.  Due to some scheduling snafus, I ran out of my maintenance medication.  Not being able to regulate my thyroid really took a toll.  I've been able to resume my medication for about a week now, and things are going slightly better.  I spent two days traveling to pick up my mother-in-law and she was here for nine days.  I enjoyed having her here, but it's also tough at times.  There was also drama with my mother and sister on Christmas, and that made the day particularly challenging.

As my children are adults, I understand that they won't be at each and every holiday event anymore.  I had hoped for a bit more of some compromising when it came to Thomas and his girlfriend, and that is also made some times challenging.  Andrew and I are struggling with having the young adults living here, but who want to live here as though they are still teens.  They need to be responsible and they need to pick up after themselves.  The attitude was bit much at some times.  Those are the drama we could do without.

The first Saturday of break was the extended family gathering.  Last year there were over 30 of us, this year there were only 16.  I was the only one from our house there, and that was the case with many others as well.  Hopefully next year there will be more able to make it.

There were good things, though, and I do want to remember those.  The Friday night before Christmas, Catherine arrived and was here for a week.  We had a lovely dinner with the five of us, and then drove around town through various neighborhoods looking at lights.  It was a fun evening.  We also had an evening where Thomas's girlfriend joined us for dinner, and then we played a fun trivia game.  We laughed a lot, and it was one of my favorite memories of the break.  I'm also really grateful that my mom made an effort to get us together with my cousin and her family.  I'm so glad the kids could have some time together.

We also had a lot of fun on New Year's Eve.  We stayed over at our friends' house, and we laughed so hard that my muscles still hurt today.  We really needed that evening.

In twelve hours I'll be back at work.  I'm ready for a routine again, but I'm not super excited about early morning wake up times.  I'm grateful for the opportunity to have a great year!

Christmas 2023

Christmas definitely had ups and downs this year.  The good news is that I'm convinced we can still enjoy some time together.  My favorite part was yesterday morning, and opening our gifts together as a family.  My kids gave very thoughtful gifts this year, and that was very sweet.

I still have a week off of work, although there is plenty to be done before I go back next Wednesday.  Looking forward to some quiet time and of course, New Year's Day!

It's about time to celebrate

Here we are at Christmas Eve eve.  It's been a much busier week than I had anticipated.  I'm grateful Catherine is here though.  I'm trying very much to feel peace, but it just feels like some things have been really tough lately.  The temperatures certainly aren't helping to feel like the holidays either.  Temps near the 60's aren't very Christmas-like!

We made it up to see my grandmother today.  She was delighted to see the kids.  It's hard to visit with her though, as she doesn't always understand what is happening around her, and conversation can be tough.  Still we are so grateful to have her around.  I would love to try to get over to see her again on Monday, but I can't promise anything.

Here we go...Merry Christmas!

Almost ridiculously giddy

This evening I needed some string cheese, so I ran a quick trip.  Not to our local grocery, but to the empire grocery, if you know what I mean.  I had checked each time I was there (not overly frequently) if they had their stock of Christmas cards.  Picking up my Christmas cards and stamps each year is one of my favorite things.  I was delighted to see that the cards had indeed arrived.  Not just delighted, but almost ridiculously giddy!  And I ordered my stamps yesterday.  Yay!!!!!

I am also rather giddy about the fact that tomorrow is no school.  This extra day is much needed, and I'm very grateful.  And even beyond all of that, today was the most perfect fall day.  The colors are really starting to pop, and the tree at our school is beyond gorgeous.  Even though it was in the 70's, there was a nice breeze and absolutely no humidity.  I'm giddy about heading into my most favorite season, especially with a long weekend!

Finally putting away Christmas

I have been trying to put away Christmas for quite some time now.  Andrew insists it wait until January 6.  Unfortunately the first week of the year is the craziest week for me between year-end at church and progress reports at school.  We finally hit January 6th on Friday, but I still had a crazy amount of work to do.  Finally on Sunday afternoon I was able to get started, but then I spent the evening at church after Andrew returned from taking Thomas to school.  I then spent Monday and Tuesday evenings at church as well, and yesterday I worked on church things after getting off work (late) at school and then headed to church again.  Last evening Andrew and I decided to relax and just enjoy an evening together.  So today, I finally get to work on the trees...and I'm hoping to have things done by Sunday.  Isn't this ridiculous?!

I'm enjoying putting things away though as it gives me another chance to cherish the memories.  Our tree is full of them and I'm grateful.  I can't help but think though, that in a few years the kids will take their ornaments, and our tree will seem so empty.  I also love the decorations that we've purchased, especially lately, and I love the decorations that were made from family members.  I'd love to get my house put back together, but I'm so grateful for the time to remember.

Christmas 2022

Another Christmas Day has come around and now it is evening and nearly gone.  It's really been a lovely day, and the first white Christmas we've had since 2017.  We headed north today, and we were surprised how not great the roads still were, which helped to show us we definitely made the right decision last evening.  Mom had let us know this morning that she wasn't feeling well at all and wouldn't be able to participate in celebrating today.  The meal had already been moved to mom's friend's house, and I was so grateful she still wanted us to come on over.  Deb has never married and has no children and her siblings live hours away, so she had never hosted a big holiday meal.  She was excited about having the opportunity, and we were grateful that she was such a gracious host.  One of my cousins even brought their kids over for a bit, and Deb insisted we visit while she cleaned.  It was a wonderful afternoon.

The kids really enjoyed their gifts this morning, and we enjoyed receiving gifts from them as well.  Catherine and my mother-in-law especially enjoyed the blanket sweatshirts we gave them.  I'm not entirely sure what we'll do this evening, but I'm sure it will be entertaining.  There is plenty of wine in the house, and no schedule for tomorrow either!

A change to our Christmas Eve plans

We had to abandon our plans for the day.  We had planned an afternoon Mass and then venturing to our former town for dinner with both families.  I was beginning to be concerned though, about the trip home after dark.  The wind didn't die down until late afternoon.  When Andrew's mother, an extremely devout Catholic, suggested just watching Mass on TV, I knew she had no interest in leaving the house.  Our church decided to cancel services, and I realized that things were just not good out there.  I had planned ahead earlier in the week and made sure to have a frozen lasagna so we could have a decent meal in case we needed to stay in.  While I would have loved to have been with our friends, I can't be sad about a cozy Christmas Eve at home.  We had many of these in years past.  Merry Christmas!

So much...too much

It's been a heck of a week in absolutely all fronts.  Andrew and his mom arrived here Monday evening, and that was the last day our lives weren't crazy until today.  Tuesday I had to work quite a bit both on school work and at the church, in addition to a meeting.  Then Wednesday was more of both, and the meeting was much more lengthy.  Additionally, there was some shopping and things that needed to be finished up, and since Andrew was working at baseball practices and athletic events that lasted hours on end, I was the one that needed to handle it.  Yesterday we were supposed to go to my mom's house and be helpful, but she decided she wasn't up to it.  Goodness knows what condition her house will be in for Christmas, but I can't worry about that because there is nothing I can do about it.  Instead of helping, she had me drive up there and run some errands for her.  I'll be honest, I was exhausted but did appreciate a bit of quiet for several hours.

Then last night "hit" in many different way.  We had a winter storm come through that dropped the temps by 40 degrees in six hours (the bulk of the drop was in just a few hours).  Then the rain turned over to snow, and the winds picked up to actually allow us to reach blizzard status for a few hours.  Everything is basically shut down for 24 hours, and we weren't sad that all activities for last evening and today are cancelled.  In the meantime though, our family heard from Robert, and it was pretty awful.  There had been some miscommunications between all the kids, and he decided to absolutely attack me in verbal ways that while not surprising, certainly were hurtful, and he decided to draw in others as well.  It's been a very, very long time since we had an evening filled with that much drama, and drama that was completely unnecessary.  Thomas was concerned that Christmas would be ruined, and I assured him it was days away and we'd all feel better after a good night sleep.

Today the windchill is in the -30's for the entire day, and we are grateful for a 100% completely unscheduled day.  Since there is no where to drive, Andrew and I have even allowed ourselves a daytime drink.  It's a wonderful day to be stuck here with family and our Christmas prep!

Fabulous family fun

Yesterday was a fabulous way to begin our winter break.  We left late-afternoon to head to my hometown, and our first stop was to see my grandmother.  We took her some fun gifts of a warm fuzzy blanket, some fuzzy socks, and some soap and lotion from my favorite store in town.  Grandma especially loved seeing the kids, and since she was dressed and had on a festive necklace, we took some pictures.  We then headed a mile or so north to my second-cousin's house, and altogether there were 33 people there.  We had a blast.  one of my cousin's kids from Virginia was there, and it was also her 30th birthday.  In addition, our cousins from Massachusetts were there.  It was so great to see them!  My oldest cousin realized that all surviving members of our generation were there (her brother passed away twelve years ago) and so we took pictures.  So glad we thought to do that!  It was such a special evening, and I'm so grateful for family willing to host and willing to travel!

Today, Andrew has ventured east to get his mother.  Originally, it was going to be tomorrow, but things needed to be rearranged and he is there now.  I'll be glad when they return tomorrow, and we are looking forward to all of the time we'll have together!

Christmas stamps

Today I needed to mail my absentee ballot (we have now all officially voted) and while I was there, I realized I hadn't yet purchased my Christmas stamps.  It used to be this was one of my favorite things of the fall season, but life changes.  I'm still looking forward to sending cards, but there has just been so very much going on, and I'm getting older!  I was pretty disappointed in the selection this year, because I don't want religious stamps and I didn't care for the elves that were released this year.  Santa Claus stamps as a repeat of last year it is!  For the first year since I became a parent, I won't be sending a photo in any cards this year.  For one thing, the kids aren't here, and while we could take a picture over Thanksgiving, I'm not going to stress about making that happen.  For another thing, my kids are basically grown, and they don't change that much.  Pictures aren't necessary this year, and I am looking forward to our cards going just a little more quickly.  Looking forward to the season this year!