I’d be a liar if I claimed to be satisfied with progress so far.    The tree did not get put up last weekend.   Bob seemed tired, and I told him we could put it off.   He pointed out that it is getting later and later.   I pointed out that if he is tired, he won’t feel any joy in the doing of it, so what is the point?  I won’t feel any joy in putting him out.   Tomorrow we won’t be able to put up the tree because  I have CCD, we have the STARS Party (Bob is going to miss seeing Santa there, as he has an “errand” to do right before Santa arrives.   He won’t be able to return until Santa leaves.   Poor Bob, missing out on half the fun..  ), and a party at a friend’s house in the evening.  Bob is planning to put the tree up tonight.   If he WANTS to, fine, but if he just thinks he SHOULD, I’m going to play up the wonder of putting it up closer to Christmas.  Yes, I feel like we are “behind”, too, but I think in the long run, it is good for us to figure out which aspects of Christmas preparation are most important to us, and which are “obligations”.   Really, to whom are we obliged to put up a tree for, anyway?   We don’t have children.   We aren’t having a Christmas party here, though I won’t tell friends or family who WANT to visit to get off of our doorstep  .  My uncle will stay with us for a few days, but I don’t think he will mind too much if his favorite chair isn’t displaced with lighted artificial greenery.  Don’t get me wrong.   I LIKE having a Christmas tree.   The question is, how much do I like it.

Recipe can be found on the inside of the lid! I know. I'm such a baking superstar...

An added stress this year:  our Church wants everyone to share their Christmas baking this weekend.   Normally, I would be decorating this week and weekend, and baking NEXT weekend.  I could just not do it, but the woman in charge does SO much for our parish.   She also provides a lot of things for a coffee and after Church herself, so if she is asking this ONE thing, it seems ungrateful to tell her this weekend just didn’t work out for me…  Oatmeal cookies.   I know they aren’t the most Chrismassy cookie in the world, but they are easy.  Craisins instead of raisins could be festive… Thoughts?   Peppermint extract maybe ….. then again, maybe not.

The “one Christmas thing per day” has gone as follows this week:

Saturday-  Arranged the lights on the bush outside better.

Sunday- Cheered Bob on while he put up the wreath.

Monday- Put up the Christmas sun catchers in the window

Tuesday-  Lined the “God Bless Our Home” shelves with garland.

Wednesday- Wrote out cards for CCD teachers.  Got CCD student gifts ready.   Got the ornaments ready for the ornament exchange party Saturday.

Thursday- Bought ingredients to bake cookies for Church’s cookie sharing Sunday.

Friday-  Baked cookies for Church and a cake for STARS party.

I still have a few cards leftover.....

The other day I did a post about how this year I plan on doing one Christmassy thing each day during Advent.  I can do more if I feel like it, but the idea is to not be all stressed out over WHEN the decorations are up and WHEN the cards go out.  I’ll admit, it is easier for me, as I have a small family.  Bob and I don’t have children or brothers or sisters, which means no nieces or nephews.  We are close to our cousins, but their children are of an age where they LIKE getting  cash.   I have decided that if I decide to LIKE giving cash to them, then I won’t have the stress of wrapping presents all the while wondering if they’ll like them.   They are in High School and College, so it’s not like they are little ones for whom unwrapping the package is half of the fun.  Maybe for a little added fun I’ll put in a scratch and sniff lottery ticket.  That will give them an added surprise.  I concede that if I had to shop for half a dozen brothers and sisters and their children, then wrap the gifts this “one day at a time” experiment would fall to pieces.

So this is what I’ve done in the last couple of days…

Thursday-  I bought stamps for the Christmas cards and wrote out half of the cards.

Friday-  Wrote out almost the other half of cards.  (Bob needs to look at who got crossed off… I may have to call people to get new addresses..)  Changed the doorbell chime to “Jingle Bells”.  Wrapped the gift I thought I’d get to Wednesday and didn’t.

Okay, so it does seem like I’m doing more than one Christmassy thing per day, but I’d go CRAZY if I sat and wrote out all the cards at once!  trust me!  Been there, done that!    For the first time in a long time, I’ve enjoyed writing out Christmas cards!

This weekend I’m hoping to bring up the tree and the wreath.   But first I have to do a massive cleaning of the section they are placed in.  My parents used to say “You can’t decorate a messy house” (which used to make this time of year even more hectic), but I’m amending that this year to “the area I decorate has to be dusted, washed, vacuumed and decluttered before I do so).   That’s right.  One section of cleaning and decorating at a time.   Then maybe Monday I can put up some ornaments.

We’ll see…

I hope you are enjoying your Christmas preparations, whether you celebrate Advent or not!

 This week’s word for Peter Pollock’s  blog carnival is “Arsenal“.  I was thinking about the weapons we use when once close friends hurt us.     These are  the words swimming in my head.

Touche′

Hiss for hiss

Snap for snap

Lie for lie

Bite for bite

A turned cold shoulder and a nose pointing skyward

We clank these against one another like sharpened swords

Wounding one another with stabs both frontal and to the back

Neither will win

No prize is at the end

Only the price of our once close friendship

I disengage and appear the one defeated

But am  I?

So how ought one cope with these hurts?

Romans 12:19-21

Mother’s Day has come and gone, and I still find myself missing my mother.

I had good  news  a few weeks ago.  My Parish nominated me for a Catechetical (Sunday School teacher) award.  Truly, it was just a good feeling to find out that people I like and admire like me, too.  But in my head, I could hear my Momma proudly proclaim “It’s about time!”  (She was my “cheerleader” my whole life…)  I didn’t tell many people because I could hear my mother’s admonishment in my head “It’s not nice to brag!” while at the same time, I knew if she were alive she would call  everyone she knew (just to say “hi”, of course  ), then casually mention the news when they asked how I am.  I could  hear the lilt in her voice as I imagined the conversation.

Yes, I’m missing her.  But I’m thankful to have had her so fully that I still have her voice in my head.

This post is being linked to Peter Pollock’s One Word Blog Carnival.

My friend BunBun is looking SO forward to Easter wanted me to share the latest news as to the welfare   of her cousin, Easter Bunny (Energizer’s sister…..) ….

A man was blissfully driving along the highway, when he saw the Easter Bunny hopping across the middle of the road. He swerved to avoid hitting the Bunny, but unfortunately the rabbit jumped in front of his car and was hit. The basket of eggs went flying all over the place.

The driver, being a sensitive man as well as an animal lover, pulled over to the side of the road, and got out to see what had become of the Bunny carrying the basket. Much to his dismay, the colorful Bunny was dead. The driver felt guilty and began to cry.

A blonde driving down the same highway saw the man crying on the side of the road and pulled over. She stepped out of her car and asked the man what was wrong.

“I feel terrible,” he explained, “I accidentally hit the Easter Bunny and killed it. What should I do?”

The blonde told the man not to worry. She knew exactly what to do. She went to her car trunk, and pulled out a spray can. She walked over to the limp, dead Bunny, and sprayed the entire contents of the can onto the little furry animal.

Miraculously the Easter Bunny came to back life, jumped up, picked up the spilled eggs and candy, waved its paw at the two humans and hopped on down the road. 50 yards away the Easter Bunny stopped, turned around, waved and hopped on down the road another 50 yards, turned, waved, hopped another 50 yards and waved again!

The man was astonished. He said to the woman, “What in heaven’s name is in your spray can? What was it that you sprayed on the Easter Bunny?” The blonde turned the can around so that the man could read the label. It said: “Hair spray. Restores life to dead hair. Adds permanent wave.”

It DEFINITELY beats what she went through last year….

A cyber friend of mine is hosting a blog hop (which seems to me to be like a “blog carnival”, but with a different name.  If I’m wrong, I’m sure she’ll clarify in the comment section)  called “Tell Me a Story”.   Unfortunately, I have been too self absorbed to keep up with my blog lately, and do not have a new story to tell you, so I’m reprising an old story from my life which is dear to my heart.

I was about thirteen years old when I first decided I wanted to bake Christmas cookies.  My Momma, God rest her soul, wasn’t much for baking.   She was a great cook, and when I was little, we’d make boxed cakes together.  When I was ten and I wanted to learn how to make kolacky’s, she said “ask your grandmother”, who responded by giving me a recipe she found on the back of a can of Solo™.   The first time I made them, it was a family project, since I didn’t know the first thing about rolling out dough.  After that, though, I was on my own with the baking most of the time, but I didn’t mind.  My work was my “gift” to my parents, who were so loving and did so much for me.  My Daddy even helped me adjust the recipe using ingredients his grandmother would have chosen.

Three years later I decided it was time to expand my repertoire to include Sugar cookies shaped for Christmas.  An elderly neighbor who was very fond of my family gave me an old cookbook to keep, and I found a recipe I was confident I could handle.  The cookies weren’t as soft as I’d hoped, but my parents, uncles, grandma, neighbors, and anyone else who had them said they were fine, especially with a nice cup of coffee.

The next year, I had every hope of having the same sort of success with the same recipe.  I may not have loved it the year before, but they were better than any I had ever tasted from a box.  So I went to work on them the day before Christmas Eve, and after finishing up the last batch, found the first batch cool to the touch.  `I filled up a plate, and brought it into the living room to serve my parents.

I took a bite of a Christmas tree, and spat it out into my hand.  My mother did the same with a candy cane.  My Daddy, God bless him, swallowed his angel, and said “I need a cup of coffee with mine…”

I insisted he didn’t have to eat it, that we had to toss them.  Even I thought they were horrible, and until that day, I never tasted a cookie I didn’t like.   My Daddy’s reaction was that I was overreacting, and that if I had mine with a cup of milk or tea, I’d find it delightful.  I didn’t.

Neither mother nor I wanted to serve them on Christmas, but Daddy insisted.  I gave fair warning to everyone.  Only my Daddy, and my (now) favorite uncle, Uncle Johnny, ate them.  All of them.  With lots of coffee.  In my heart, I believe they ate it because they truly loved me, and didn’t want me to feel like my efforts to give them something were for naught.  Every time I remember this story, my heart overflows with affection for them both!

Anyway, I put away that cookbook, and didn’t take it out for another nine years.  My Daddy had already passed on, and it was our first Christmas without him.  I opened to that recipe and found something stuck.  It was old dough.  It blocked the slash between the one and the four.  That’s right.  Instead of using 1/4 teaspoon of salt in the dough, I used fourteen (14).  I suppose I should have been moved to tears for ruining the last batch of sugar cookies I made for Daddy, especially by doing something so stupid.  But instead, I smiled, realizing how truly awful those cookies were, and how much love it took to finish them off. With the help of my now favorite uncle.

I know it’s late to be posting about New Year Resolutions, but….

I found this picture by searching "feather duster" on Photobucket. Is anyone else disturbed that people are taking pictures of their feather duster?

I was thinking about my NYR this weekend as  I was getting ready for company.   This year I revised a NYR from last year.   Last year I resolved to organize one room in my home every month.  The idea was that before the year was over, my home would be organized.  It was a good theory.   I just didn’t take into account that while I was reorganizing kitchen cabinets and scrubbing them down in March, the bedroom closet I organized in January was gradually reverting back to it’s old ways, and the DVD shelf in the living room was back to hiding the movies I meant to see.   Yep.   I’d focus so hard on the “room of the month”, that I let progress I made previously be threatened, and even violated.

This year, about a week before Christmas, I found a website by a woman calling herself Flylady.   I like her.  One of the things she suggests is focusing on decluttering (the eventually deep cleaning) one room per week.  She advises 15 minutes each day of work in “the room of the week”, gives suggestions for what to accomplish each day, sends reminder emails, etc.  While I don’t necessarily always limit my time to 15 minutes, I do like the idea of focusing on one room per week.   (She also encourages 15 minutes of clearing a “hot spot” in another room each day, and has a host of other suggestions, but I am still working on “baby steps”).     Hopefully by the end of the year, the bedrooms, living room, dining room, kitchen, and bathrooms will all be organized at the same time.   That leaves the garage, laundry room, and basement for next year.  (And the world won’t stop turning if the garage takes the year after that…).   The important thing is to not neglect one or more rooms in favor of the room I’m working on.

I have already seen an improvement.  Getting ready for company was not nearly as stressful as it usually is.   It also helped that our guest is so ultraly laid back, that I had to ask myself why I am even bothering.  Alex is not a fussy (and by that I mean nitpicky clean….  ) sort of bachelor,  his girlfriend is nice, and, let’s be honest, she isn’t going to criticize her boyfriend’s best friend’s wife’s housekeeping.

So why fuss with pillows, decorations, etc and be in such a hurry to make the house “presentable” when I wasn’t going to be judged anyway?  Because this is how I make people welcome.  Once that dawned on me, I felt less stressed, and even enjoyed the preparation.

I need to look at organizing my home the same way.  No one is judging me.   My husband loves me, and accepts my limitations.  Our friends and family visit  to and enjoy our company (snort), not evaluate my housekeeping skills.   I am CHOOSING to do this to make our home more relaxing for my hard working husband and myself, and to be able to welcome people I care about easily at any time.

Yes.  I think this is the year I succeed in organizing my home.  (At least the “living” areas.)