Christmas stamp puzzle

My grandmother loves to do puzzles.  Every year, for I don't know how long, I have given her a puzzle for Christmas.  In fact, it often is the first gift I purchase every year.  Last year, I gave her a very large flag puzzle.  It was designed to look old and was not only a flag, but had the name of each state on it as well.  With Andrew being a history teacher, she had asked if we might like to have it put into a frame and have it to hang at our house.  I was delighted!  We had a wall that desperately needed something, and the fact that this was a gift to my grandmother and she had worked on it and given it back made it even more special.  She gave it to us this summer and it's been hanging ever since.

I was thinking though, that I would love to have a large Christmas puzzle to hang in its place for the holidays.  One had caught me eye in a catalog months ago, but I refused to justify the $15 cost.  If I'm going to have the freedom to stay home and not have an income (other than my small church job) I must sacrifice material things.  This isn't really a problem for me, but every time that puzzle would show up in a catalog, I would think again about how nicely it would look hanging in my living room.  Finally last month, I received a coupon code that not only offered a discount, but free shipping as well!  I purchased it along with some other gifts I'd been eyeing, and it arrived earlier this week.

The thing that excites me most is how excited Thomas is about all of this!  He can't wait for us to sit and work on putting this together.  We are going to set up the card table in our front room where it can be out of the way, and just leave it there so we can all work on it in our free time.  I am so excited to have something that the family is excited about as well...what a great way to spend some time together, and that definitely makes it money well spent!

I just might turn on Christmas music

I try not to listen to Christmas music until after Thanksgiving, although I will listen if I am flipping through stations on the radio and happen to catch it in the car.  However, it just doesn't get much happier and cheerier than Christmas music, and for today, that might be just what we need!

This week, this year

Two years ago today my mom and I took Catherine and Thomas to a cat show.  It wasn't exactly what we had expected (although I'm not exactly sure what I expected) and I remember my mom telling the kids that Grandpa wanted to buy the cats some toys.  They each picked out an item they thought the cats would love (they were both right, by the way) and Mom paid for them...those were our last (tangible) gifts from my Dad.  He called while we were at the cat show, and it was our last conversation.  He was released from the hospital three days later, and the next day I vividly remember.  My mom had called that day and he was having a really good day, which made the phone call that evening all the more shocking.  It's hard to explain that my father's death was unexpected after a seventeen year illness, but he'd been having such a good day.  I try to be grateful that his last day was that way.

There is a big part of me that would just like to curl up and not face this week this year.  It's easier than last year, but I kind of just want to be alone with my memories.  That is not realistic though, and I'm grateful that life does indeed go on.

Unfortunately, we are facing another family member's passing.  My dad's cousin's wife has had Alzheimer's for years, and shortly after Dad's passing she was placed in a facility for her care.  I learned yesterday that Hospice was called in at the end of last week, and the end is very near.  I am praying it isn't today as it is her daughter's birthday and that just shouldn't happen that way.  Prayers are sent to Nancy and her family.

I really enjoyed our Friday evening

Last evening was a Friday evening that I really enjoyed.  It was the first Friday since August 14 that no one in our house had anywhere to be.  The kids are also finished with fall sports and winter practices haven't begun yet, so we were all home and able to get a lot of housework done.  The kids worked hard on things that had been put off forever, and then I even had them prepare our very exciting dinner of tater tots and grilled cheese.  I know that it might sound strange, but it was a Friday evening that I truly enjoyed!

Having kind of a tough day

I know that life is wonderful and blessed, but to be honest, I'm having a bit of a tough day.  I acknowledge it could be the approaching anniversary of my father's passing, coupled with the craziness of the last couple of weeks, and of course the daily drama of life with teens.  There is also the added expense of having to fix the washing machine, refrigerator, and water softener all this week and new brakes and rotors on our van last week.  While I am grateful the money is in savings, and we are by no means going broke, it just seems as though it has been an expensive year.  I've given serious consideration to trying to find a job, but I suspect poor choices by teens would only grow worse if not supervised.

Right now, the biggest source of stress is my email.  Not the email itself, but items contained within, so I'm king of trying to avoid my email altogether.  My volunteer "job" has exploded.  I have handled several additional responsibilities because no one else would handle them.  I didn't want to, but I did because they needed to be done and that's the way it is.  However, I have been receiving criticism for how I handled things.  People think things should've been done faster or differently, and aren't afraid to let me know about it.  I am astonished, as frankly, the organization should feel lucky they are done at all because no one else was going to do it!  Trust me, I know because last year several of the things weren't handled so I decided to do it this year so it would be done.  It is absolutely amazing to me that people could have such nerve.  It is honestly making me reconsider if this is where I wish to be spending my time and energy.  The hard part for me is that this is an organization that involves my kids.  If it didn't, I would walk away in a heartbeat.  If I do that now though, I'm just leaving my kids to deal with the negativity and lack of follow through, and that is a tough thing for me to do as well.

I am finding myself truly astonished and appalled at the lack of respect, responsibility, and communication that occurs in this world.  Some days are just tougher than others.

I'm not ready for that to end

I've wondered for years if Catherine and Thomas still believed in Santa, and yet I didn't want to tell them...I didn't want that magical innocence to end.  Yesterday Catherine finally made her Christmas list and put it in her window for one of Santa's elves to retrieve.  Thomas made his list in the form of a google doc, then shared it with me.  I had sat and looked at it with him, and he checked to see if Santa had a google account so he could share it with him also.  Again, I just couldn't believe that he might still believe in Santa, but I so didn't want to ruin the innocence of the moment.  I walked into the next room and whispered to Robert, who assured me that Catherine is well aware of the reality of the situation, but wasn't sure about Thomas.  Later I was talking to Andrew, and he said that one of Thomas's teachers had said they had discussed in class that Santa wasn't real.  In some ways I was glad to hear he wasn't so naïve, but at the same time I almost wanted to cry.  We will never again get those innocent and magical Christmases back.  Thomas still mentioned the elf that we have that visits every December, and I'll be honest, I have every intention of playing along as long as the kids will.  These days are special and won't last forever.

I actually enjoyed Halloween

I really truly enjoyed Halloween Saturday.  I think it had a lot to do with the fact that it fell on a Saturday.  It was a chilly and damp day, but it didn't actually rain until after trick-or-treating was over.  There was a big debate about whether or not Thomas was actually going to go out this year.  He didn't want to go by himself, and Catherine didn't want to go with him.  However, it broke my heart to see him sitting, all dressed in costume, on the porch with not too many kids coming by.  Finally I told Catherine that I would pay her to go out and be there for her brother.  He loved getting to trick-or-treat on his final time allowed, and even though she wasn't in costume, Catherine snagged a few pieces of candy for herself.  I had made two crockpots of potato soup for dinner, and after the kids got home we stuck in Charlie's Brown's "Great Pumpkin" cartoon, and shared the evening together as a family.  We even spent some time watching the Notre Dame/Temple game together that evening, and I just really enjoyed the evening with my family.  I'm pretty sure it will be my most favorite Halloween ever!