A Tale Of Two Cities

Well.  We have hauled out the holly yet again.  Didn't we just have Christmas?  Is it really only 2 days away?
Every year I go through at least 28 decorating dilemmas.  Should I use the same old lights?  Do I put out the Santas in the same place?  Is the wreath too worn out to hang up?  Should I pack up and protect the handmade ornaments?  Or hang them? 

How do we ever survive the holidays?  I have a knack for turning the smallest decision into a huge headache. 
The traveling, the gift buying, the decorating, the entertaining... I can make it all much more stressful than it has to be.
A few years ago, I received a beautiful new nativity set.

I love it, but now I have two.  Actually, I have 4 or 5... most of which are safely stored away in layers of paper.  I still display the one we bought the first year we were married.  This set is old, and the folks are a bit worn out... kind of like us.

 

 

So instead of packing up the old sentimental set, or not using the new fancy set, I put them both out.  Two Marys, two Josephs, two babies, six wise men, two donkeys, two shepherds, two sheep, and one cow.  I told you I like to complicate things. 

The more I look at them, the more I like having two.  I suppose the scene in Bethlehem is one thing we can never have enough of.

If I Run Away

For the boy's Fall Break, we went to The Happiest Place on Earth.  Again.

 

 

 

If it were up to me, I would go to Disney every year.  Maybe twice.  Three times a year isn't inconceivable.  But I'm not independently wealthy, and Dan/Daddy says we need to go on other trips and see other places.  Blah, blah, blah.  Tell that to these faces...

 

 

 

 It was a fantastic vacation, and there was only one sad moment... The day we had to leave.

 

 

 

If I ever go missing or run away from home, you will know where to find me.



Tweezers, Eyebrows, And I'm Back

I have developed a bad habit of not keeping up with blogging.  Maybe it's the busy pace of life.  Maybe I've been out saving the world.  Maybe I should stop lying.

To the 3 of you who read my random stories, please accept my lame apologies.
Now here's a tale I promise I didn't make up.

A few months ago,  I had my eyebrows threaded for the first time. Have you heard of threading?  The practice of threading apparently started thousands of years ago.  A piece of thin thread is used (by a person who knows what they're doing) to pluck your eyebrow hairs.  It's supposed to be less painful than waxing.
When left alone, my eyebrows look like 2 woolly caterpillars.  I've used tweezers on them for years, and I've had them waxed from time to time. 
I had heard of threading, and when a friend told me she did it, I thought I would give it a try.

The young girl who led me to a chair looked at my face and said,
"Do you know your eyebrows are two totally different shapes?"
Well. 
How have I been walking around?
My verdict on threading?  It hurt.  A lot.  My eyebrows looked good, but it took about 18 hours for the redness to calm down.  On my second visit, the technician took off so many hairs, I looked like a plucked chicken.
That afternoon, I asked the boy if my eyebrows looked bad.  He said,
"How fast do eyebrows grow?"
I was done with threading, and I decided to grow my eyebrows back out.  Well, first I had to actually grow them back.

Not long after the plucked chicken incident, I lost my favorite pair of tweezers.  No big deal, you say.  Buy new tweezers, you say. 
I did.  I bought about 5 sets of tweezers.  I tried and tried to find a pair like the ones I'd lost, but none of them were the same.
Then one day, while vacuuming out my car, I found my old tweezers.  Under the seat.
I have no idea how they got there.
Maybe they were trying to run away from home... Dying of embarrassment from my plucked chicken eyebrows.

I've always had a chap stick/lip gloss hoarding problem.  Now I have tweezers to go with them.

Happy Soggy Halloween

The last few weeks (months?) have come and gone and we may never recover.  The blur of activities is winding down a tiny bit, so I decided to decorate for Halloween.

That is the sad state of my back porch, friends.  I threw away some lifeless brown plants and then regretted not moving them to the front porch for added spookiness.
Our weather forecast for the day is dreadful... pouring rain, wind, and a chance of tornadoes.  Sounds lovely for trick-or-treating, doesn't it?

Stay safe today, eat lots of candy, and leave the spider webs until tomorrow!

Smarty-Pants-ivity

School started 28 days ago, and I am 28 days behind on my sleep. I'm not even sure I could catch you up on what we did with the end of our summer... I'm too tired to remember.

This is the boy's last year of Middle School, so I may have had a "moment" after dropping him off that first day.  He is changing and growing so fast it makes my head spin.  I know all moms say that about all kids in every stage, but these time are mind-numbing for me.
Gone are the chubby cheeks and the crayons.  Now his voice is deeper than his dad's, and I don't even know how to turn his math calculator on.

There is, however, one thing I can count on no matter how big he gets. 
Make that 2 things.
His creativity and his sarcasm.  One is a gift, and the other is spoken like a second language in this house.

We were discussing an English test the boy took recently, and he explained to us he "disagreed" with the teacher about his answer.

The test question asked, "How can a letter be delivered majestically?"

The boy's answer?

"By a king or strapped to a unicorn."

I laughed for at least 30 minutes.  He is right... kings and unicorns are majestic.

We came to the conclusion the teacher was looking for a description or a definition of the word "majestically."

He does "think outside the box," and he is sarcastic.  So we talked about how his answer could have been perceived as both.  The "X" mark on the question will hopefully cause him to think before answering so quickly next time. 

I am still chuckling to myself about a unicorn delivering a letter.  I'm also praying a little harder for his teachers.

And It's Not Even Shark Week Yet

We "vacationed" to see Dan/Daddy's family for a few days last week.  It's always great to see family, but it's even better when they live at the beach.
It's not so great when it POURS rain almost the entire time you're there.
It's also not so great when your child gets strep throat while you're there.

We made a visit to Urgent Care with the boy's temperature at 102.7, and the physician wouldn't even let us leave the office until they were able to start bringing the fever down.
We've actually made lots of visits to Urgent Care with the boy while in Florida.  It's become a tradition.
At least 3 times for strep... more when he was younger.
Twice for hives.
Once to the ER with a sea catfish barb embedded in his thumb.
Do we know how to vacation, or what?

The boy is convinced the ocean hates him, even though he loves it.  He told me he thinks his death will be by sea life... which makes the rest of my story a little freaky.

The sun came out for the last 2 days we were there, and I let my sick kid go to the beach. 
The water was beautiful.

I was taking off my flip flops and putting my stuff down on a towel when I heard the boy calling me.

Apparently, Dan/Daddy had dived right into the ocean, and a lady in the water close by was yelling,
"Sir, there's a big fish near you!"

Dan/Daddy called back to her, "That would be a shark."

She was on the shore in about 1.3 seconds.
Dan/Daddy started making his way to the sand (but not nearly as fast as the lady).
The boy yelled to me,
"Come watch Daddy get eaten!"

Maybe we watch a little too much Animal Planet.
Perhaps it was the heat and sun.
He was running a very high temperature the day before.
Please don't think he was being cruel... he loves his dad. 
I just think he has his mother's sense of humor.

Youth Camp And The Zombie Apocalypse

The summer is more than halfway over, and I don't even have a tan to show for it.
I do have a few itchy streaks of poison ivy, and the boy has strep throat.  We know how to have fun.

We knew this summer would be a busy blur, but I don't think any of us realized just how fast it would go.
Our schedule has included (or will include):
1 week of Soccer Camp
6 days visiting the Florida grandparents
6 days visiting the South Carolina grandparents
1 week of VBS at church
1 week of Youth VBS at church
1 week of Youth Camp
13 episodes of The Walking Dead

Those last two items on my list are more closely linked than you can imagine.  The 3 of us recently started watching what is - quite possibly - the grossest and scariest TV show I have ever seen.  It's a very well-written show, because the more I watch it, the less it becomes about the zombies.
I start to wonder what I would do in a survival situation... which may or may not include dead people coming back to life.
I've contemplated packing a backpack with food... and a hatchet.
I've also decided that watching this show may be the only thing that ever motivates me to lose weight and exercise.  You know what happens to the slow people.

When I chaperoned the boy's Youth Group week at camp, I was able to put my zombie apocalypse skills to the test.  I functioned on very little sleep, lined up for my food, rationed out meds, screamed, and ran.  Not in that order.
We spent 3 days doing different types of mission work in Kentucky, and we had a great time.  We had 31 teenagers and 7 adults  in our group, and everyone made it home alive.

By the end of the week, I felt and looked more like the undead than a survivor.  There were dark bags under my eyes, I was moaning, and I think I was even dragging one leg.