Random musings for a Saturday afternoon...

Ten random thoughts for a cloudy, dreary Saturday:

1. Clothing manufacturers, please start making more dresses. I haven't found a dress in ages that I really loved and I'm in the mood to buy one. I couldn't find a Christmas dress (meaning a new dress for Christmas, not a Christmas print dress!) this year, or even a new skirt. Please, please, please...make some dresses and lovely skirts....in my size!

2. I love Bath and Body Works Wallflowers. Yummy. And I love them even more when they're on sale for $5 each (starter and refills). Run, run, run to your local store and buy some! We have different scents in the living room, girls' rooms, and our room. They smell so good and help disguise the fact that we have a dog. Don't even get me started on the dog.

3. Our master bedroom got painted today, thanks to DH, my Dad, and BIL. It looks so good! For the last few months we've had a big rectangle of the color painted over our headboard and splotches of other colors covered up with primer. It's so nice to have it painted. It actually makes me want to get in there and do more decorating (which I'm not very good at).

4. If you're planning a wedding to a sports fan, do not get married over Christmas break. Why, you ask? Bowl games. There are more and more bowl games every year. DH watched football most of this week and it will continue for the next several days. Our anniversary (15 years!) is coming up next week and I bet he'll watch football that night, too. *Sigh* Christmas break is a sports fan's favorite time of year. Not because of Christmas...because of the bowl games.

5. Wouldn't you think Christmas merchandise would be marked down more than 50% by now?

6. I love calendars, Day Planners, and organizers. Love them. If things aren't written down in my Day Planner, they just don't happen.

7. I'm trying a new recipe for French onion soup tonight. The little crocks (ramekins) to cook the soup in under the broiler are hard to find. But, once again, Target came to the rescue and I found some. I hope the soup turns out good...we love French onion soup but I've never made it from scratch before.

8. I love the iPod Nano "Santa" gave me for Christmas. Love it! It's so cute...I love little tiny cute things.

9. "Santa" also got me some scrapbooking software for Christmas. My DH, the non-craftiest man I've ever met, has now done two scrapbook layouts on the software! And B, our 7 year old, has done one, too. So the software is definitely easy to use. I'm looking forward to using it for some things, but for other things I really love the look and feel of "in real life" scrapbook pages.

10. I'm not an organized person. Everyone thinks I am, but I'm really not. It just looks that way at work. I'm really so disorganized. Maybe that will be my New Year's Resolution...to be more organized.

They say housework makes you ugly....

And let me tell you -- they are right! I need a big sign that says it to hang up in my house. Then, when anyone comments on the condition of the inside of my home, I can point to the sign and tell them that I just can't afford the "ugly" part! LOL

I hate cleaning. Detest it. Despite it. Would do almost anything to avoid it. It's horrible. Awful. Miserable. Did I mention that I hate cleaning? I have always hated it. I remember scrubbing baseboards with a toothbrush when I was younger...mopping and waxing kitchen floors...scrubbing bathtubs with cleanser...cleaning military houses before final inspection and our family moved on to the next military base. It was terrible. I think I developed an allergy to housework!

Now that I'm older, I find that my allergy to housework has gotten worse. I get so incredibly cranky when I have to clean house. Yuck. Part of the problem is that I'm a "get it done and move on to the next thing" kind of person. Super Type A personality...always on the go, rushing about. I like to do something once and be done with it. Housework isn't like that. There is always another load of laundry to fold, more dishes to do, more beds to make, more things to dust...it just goes on and on and on and on. Pure drugery.

I have learned that, when the housecleaning mood hits me, I have to jump on it right then and there and get as much done as possible before the "uglies" set in and the mood has passed. That's where I've been for the last two days. We remodeled our master bathroom this summer (although there is still some detail work to be finished), and the next project is painting the master bedroom. The paint color is lovely...there's a huge 3 foot x 6 foot splotch of it on the wall above our bed. I'm sick of the splotch and I want to get the room painted. DH is only off work until Wednesday of next week so if it's going to get done, now is the time to do it. Painting the room, of course, requires prep work, which requires that the room actually be clean so the furniture can be moved and the painters (us) can actually get to the walls. So I've left work early for two days to go home and clean. After a couple of hours I'm ready to tear my hair out...and the hair of anyone else who happens to be within range (except DH, who is bald so there's nothing to tear out!). Four bags of stuff for Goodwill, two large trashbags, and at least 3-4 loads of laundry later, the room is almost clean...and it reminds me of how nice it is to have a space that it neat, tidy, and uncluttered. Alas, I've never been able to keep it that way for long!

I wonder if this cleaning bug will last a few days longer so I can get more done....I highly doubt it, though, since I'm already starting to feel cranky at the thought of the 3-4 loads of laundry that need to be done before I can officially say the room is clean...and then there is the kitchen, and the laundry room, and my scrapbooking room (I can't even see the floor in there -- it's become the "dump it here because I don't know what else to do with it" room).

It's true -- housework makes you ugly!

Christmas 2006...over already?

It's now December 27. Christmas Day is officially over...too soon. Usually I feel the Christmas spirit very early in December. I love it. I love everything about it. This year, though, things were different...strange...delayed. And I didn't love it. Maybe it was that I didn't have the Christmas shopping finished in early December like I usually do. I felt so rushed at the end, trying to find the perfect gifts at the perfect prices (is it just me, or is that getting harder every year?). Or maybe it was because we were so busy between work, school, the girls' activities, church, and everything else that there just wasn't time to sit down and absorb the Christmas-y-ness that was all around us. Maybe it was because the stores put out their Christmas displays before Halloween (there ought to be a law....) and it just felt too commercial, too overdone. I don't know. Whatever it was, I didn't like it at all. Even after we went to bed on Christmas Eve (after panicking over a missing gift, which was finally found), I told DH that I just didn't feel it this year. And I was so sad about it.

But then, at 6:30 a.m. on Christmas morning, I heard the girls up and about, in the bathroom. They told us they were going to get up at 6:30 to get their hair and teeth brushed and get all ready to open their gifts. LOL! Hearing them giggling together, 12-year-old A helping 7-year-old B, getting along, warmed my heart. It started...that Christmas-y feeling I had been searching for all month. The girls bounced into our room at 6:45. The rule in our house is that they aren't allowed into the living room until 7 a.m....DH wanted to give in but I wanted to build the anticipation a bit longer, while we waited for Grandma and Papa to arrive for the fun. According to the girls, it was 7:02 when we finally let them out into the living room.

Usually there are very large, unwrapped gifts awaiting the family. One year it was a huge Barbie house...another year it was a ride-on Barbie 4-wheeler. As the girls have gotten older the gifts have gotten smaller, but more expensive (read: Electronics). It seemed a bit bare and sparse and I was hoping the girls would love their gifts. They did!! A was especially excited about her cell phone and upcoming trip to Massachusetts to visit Aunt M and Uncle B and see SNOW (she has missed it terribly since we left Alaska).

Brienna was thrilled with everything she got. She loves that monkey Bobby Jack, and her favorites were a monkey pillow and a stuffed Bobby Jack monkey from Grandma and a Bobby Jack fleece hoodie from Grandma Gaye. Of course, she also loves the new bedding Santa brought her!

Santa was very good to me this year. After years of doing my own Christmas shopping, I decided to let Santa handle it himself this year. And he was wonderful! An iPod Nano, a beautiful ring, a gorgeous bracelet...a lovely sweater from A along with a soft pillow she crocheted herself, and a really nice black handbag from B along with a name sign she hand painted for me...I was truly spoiled this year and it was so much fun to be surprised with my gifts! Santa brought DH a small fridge for his classroom and he also got a new stereo receiver, so he was happy as well.

Later in the morning we went to Grandma and Papa's house where we were further spoiled. We spent the rest of the day enjoying the new games Santa brought us (Deal or No Deal, Rummikub, and Blokus -- all huge hits!), spending time with our family, and especially enjoying baby N, my sister's son. It was a beautiful day. It made me so grateful that we are blessed to live near family (right around the block!) and be a part of each other's daily lives, and share these special holidays. We spent time on the phone with extended family and siblings and missed them so much...hopefully next year more of us will be together.

All in all, it was a beautiful Christmas...everything I could have asked for and more...it just ended too soon.