Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Year-In-Review

Look what I found on SmallWorld's blog!

As the year winds down, it's always fun to go back and scan the year in blog posts. Today I'll be playing the "First Sentence" meme. Tomorrow, I'll be doing the "Favorite Posts" post. Join me if you want! Here's how…

How to Play.
1) Look back to your archives for 2008.
2) Collect the first sentence you wrote every month for the whole year. (This doesn't have to be the literal first day of the month--just the first post.)
3) Entertain us on your blog, link back here, and post a comment here with the link to your blog. (And if you're blogless, just remember the first sentence you spoke every month for the whole year and post it here.)


I'm not quite sure what she means by "post it here." Maybe that means Smallworld's blog. Maybe it means something else. But, you can go to her blog and read it and see what you think. You know what a rebel I am when it comes to following the rules.

At any rate, here are my sentences....

January
Today is the first day back to school after a three week Christmas vacation.

February
null

March
The snow is blowing.

April
Yes, it's been eons since I've posted.

May
You all know I'm the queen of good intentions.

June
null

July
null

August
I'm never a huge fan of mornings.

September
Now, those of you who know me know that Routines and I don't always get along.

October
1. October is a perfect fall month.

November
The first of what I'm sure will be many pieces of humble pie has just been served up to me, courtesy of NaNo.

December
I'm sitting in the rocking recliner in my in-laws living room.

On the First Day of Christmas

....my true love gave to me.

If I were really clever, I'd try to follow up on that. Clever, or perhaps annoying, take your pick.

Here goes...

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me....(and already this has become misrepresntational, since I'm making a list up about my family's Christmas and not about the gifts I personally received. Hey, this is my blog, and Sweetling isn't even here to try to keep me on task, so nyah and all.)

....a large tub of Heggy's hot fudge.

....two fuzzy webkinz, (two that I personally received, the kids got five more. Not five more each. Just five more in general.)

...three (and a half) hours at COSI (ok, maybe four, but I've already got something in the four slot, see?)

...four brand new Wii games (Mario Galaxy, Paper Mario, Wii Music, and Mario Smash Bros)

....five days in Canton (Tuesday the 23rd through Saturday the 27th)

....six Christmas dances (in our annual Christmas Reflections program. I'm not cool enough to know how to put any of them on YouTube, so don't ask.)

...seven long-time friends (whom we visited in Canton. Counting their children would make it 19, but that doesn't fit in the song now, does it?)

...eight loads of laundry (the last load is in the dryer now. How is it we can generate more laundry when we are gone for a week than when we are home for a week? That makes no earthly sense. Even Einstein himself would be baffled by this one. Oh, and I think the spin cycle on my washer is dying. It certainly isn't draining.)

...nine sets of jammies. (Sadly, none of them are for me. And two of them we still have to find. I spent hours, literally hours, getting run around at Walmart cause they *had* Mario jammies in a size for Toa of Boy, but not for Sweetling. The store that I was at called another store, who said they had them in the Sweetling's size and would hold them for me at the fitting rooms. I drove to that store, and guess what? No jammies in the fitting room. No jammies in her size on the rack. No jammies at the customer service desk, no jammies in the back. No jammies at the walmart down the street, so the call wasn't made to the wrong store. No jammies, no jammies, no jammies anywhere. In the meantime, we lost Toa of Boy's "Tigger" cat webkinz. I called all the Walmarts when we got home, but they couldn't find Tigger either.)

...ten bags for co-op. (We're beginning our research paper. I want them to do the actual research over Christmas break. Yes, I am that evil, thank you. But, I had a twinge of guilt, so I thought, I'll make them research goodie bags. And yes, I'm also that much of a dork. I put a candy cane pen, a happy holiday's pencil, a baggie of M&M cookies, a pouch of hot chocolate mix, and 50 colored index cards--ten in each of five colors--in each bag. They were happy with the bags, and surprisingly excited about doing a research paper.)

...eleven and 12 more cupcakes. (Yeah, I had nothing for this number. I did bake 23 cupcakes for the "Happy Birthday Jesus" party the pre-school and kindergarteners had a church. This is really only significant because Toa of Boy was doing a count down to this party all during December. He wasn't counting down to Christmas; he was counting down to this party.)

...twelve dozen and more cookies. (Really, I lost track of how many dozens upon dozens upon dozens upon dozens of cookies I made. More this year than any other year for sure. I put the cookies in this slot cause it was the biggest number in the song. Just so you know, I baked a lot of cookies.)

AND,

....many, many paid vacation days for the Jedi. He has been off every Friday since the Friday before Thanksgiving, plus from December 19th through Jan 4th. Hooray!

Friday, December 26, 2008

Honest Scrap Award




"Scrap means left over, fragments, discarded material. Many times truth and honesty are discarded material, considered fragments and left over. People like us need to tell it like it is, and let the scraps fall where they will. There are 2 guidelines for receiving this award. One, you are to list 10 honest things about yourself. Make them interesting, even if you have to dig deep. Two, present the award to 7 other bloggers."

1. I actually posted the guidelines. That's unusual for me since I don't ususally follow the guidelines. In fact, sometimes in Bible study the leader will ask me, what did you write for question such and such? And I will answer, "well, I didn't really answer that question as it was asked per-say, but let me tell you about the question I came up with that I did write a response to." But now you know what the poor Sweetling is trying to work from.

2. I think if I've already confessed that I often buy my underwear in the little girl's department and that I would want a belly button ring if my stomach didn't resemble elephant hide, I don't have a lot of other unconfessed loose ends to hang out here.

3. When I think I've done something really, really well, no one seems to notice it. When I've done something that I think is mediocre and fell well short of my ideals, everyone raves about it. (Sweetling says, "Is it because she's crazy?....Maybe!")

4. Every year at Christmas we take turns letting each family member decide on the theme of the Christmas tree decorations. Last year, we had a Webkinz Christmas tree curtesy of Toa of Boy. This year we had a "unique" tree courtesy of Sweetling (everything that went on it had to be a one of a kind item. The exception made was for the barrel of monkeys. Several red plastic monkeys hung in chains from the light strings.) What I'm not sure if i've confessed before was that this tradition started because when I was growing up, the tree in our home always had to be done JUST SO. The lights, the garland, the ornaments, all had to be put on in just a certain way. It was the same stuff every year. And no one in the family was able to give any input or voice into the process except Dad. He had picked out and dictated every last trimming. One year, I begged and begged and begged for popcorn strands. Mama somehow convinced Dad to let me add that one item for just that one year. And so I threaded popcorn till my fingers were numb. It was such an empowering feeling to have made a contribution to how the Christmas tree was decorated. I'll never forget that feeling. So, that's why in my family every year, a different person in the family is the absolute complete author of the Christmas tree.

Sweetling is watching Toa play MarioKart. I don't know what number I'm supposed to be on. You know what that means? It means I get to make something up. (Sweetling glanced over and said, "Just look at the last one.") Silly Sweetling. That involves scrolling up. (she says, "And scrolling up is bad, how?")

Mu hahahahahahaha. There's no stopping me now. What? What? There is no proper spelling of "Mwah hahahahahah." I can spell it any way I want. So there, Sweetling.

We had to pause for kisses.

And Sweetling dear, it happens everytime I try to number a list, whether or not your watching. maybe it has something to do with brain hemispheres. My language side of my brain isn't speaking to the math side of my brain. I think it's because the math side of the brain is such a stickler about how cookies are shared.

5. I think I'm on fivish now. I've stopped playing on webkinz when they took away my ability to name my new rooms whatever i want. There's a difference between "My Kitchen" and "The Smoothie Shop." My Kitchen is allowed. The smoothie shop is not. I don't want to design a smoothie shop and then not be able to name it. Also, my strawberry patch keeps dying because I'm not online every day to rake the weeds under. That's just way to much like my real life gardening efforts.

6. I won't scroll up to check out what number I'm supposed to be on. I will, however, flip up to add a pronoun I realized I missed. (Sweetling says, "I'm right; you're nuts.")

7. I don't have a research topic picked out. My co-op class likes it when i do the writing assigments with them. They are so excited about doing their research papers. Honestly they are. I'm flabbergasted. But I have nothing for my topic. I wanted to do chipmunks, but its going to be way to much work to try to track down five decent sources. What else do I want to read about? I want to do something I'm interested in, but haven't done a lot of reading about. (Which rules out backyard habitats, which was my second choice.) It also rules out the Oregan Trail. OOoooooOOOoooo.....maybe I could a paper on the Underground Railroad and the homes used as waystations. I like this idea. How did I get there from chipmunks? Probably a question best left unanswered.

8. I don't like cherrys. I don't like chocolate covered cherries. I used to. When I worked at a chinese restaurant during college, I used to sneak cherries out of the big jar in the bar. And I would share them with the bus girl. She spoke no English, but we were fast friends bonded together in our pilfering of the cherry jar.

9. I've decided that I might just dye my hair on my 40th birthday. Note that I just used "decided" and "might" in the same sentence. I have a few grey hairs. I also have a few wrinkles on my forehead. I'm not ready to look middle-aged yet. But no longer to people ask me what highschool I attend, so I believe I look middle-aged.

10. I play, gasp, D&D. This is the big, dark secret of my life. But contrary to popular Christain belief, the game does not promote idolotry, witchcraft, or the occult. However, I'm running an adventure for the Jedi, and I think its very very likely that his paladin is not going to survive the upcoming encounter. So, it might be fair to say that the game does occassionally lead to marital disharmony. (Curiously, he just had some horseshoes made and imbued with magic that might make the difference between life and death for his character. He's going up against an evil wizard who weilds ice and cold magic. Key to the wizards' tactics is immobilizing his victims by freezing their feet in ice OR causing a sleet storm that makes the ground underneath so treachorous that their ability to move and to engage in combat is seriously impared. The magic horseshoes will protect the paladin from both of those attacks, so the Jedi's character now has a fighting chance. Get it? get it? I'm so funny. Sadly, Sweetling has wandered off and so isn't here to appreciate my sense of humor. I'll show her....I'll include her in my tag list.)

Which brings me to the part that everyone dreads (or just ignores). I need to tag seven people. this is complicated by the fact that I haven't been conected to the blog community in two months. But I'm tagging people anyway. What's the worst they can do? Ignore me?

I tag Sweetling, Christopher Robin, Holly, Susan Marlow, that's four...dare I tag the Maven? I feel unworthy to do so ;) I might just tag Violin Mom. I don't leave many comments on her blog, but I like reading it. Oh, and Mango of course, if she can tear herself away from curriculum reviews ;) Oh, and my twin, whom I just barely connected with before falling out of the blogworld. Ha. That's like seven or eight. Now I have to go get a shower. Later I'll try to read and catch up and post replies on other people's blogs.

OH!!!!! OH Oh OH! And I have to grab the cool button from Nora's site. It's all about the buttons baby.

After the Long Dark

I'm sitting in the rocking recliner in my in-laws living room. Sweetling and her new Squirmle is snuggled in beside me. We have been discussing the Squirmle's name. Which shall be Fuzzy, of course.

I've been struggling with how to squirm my way back into blogging after dropping out of the NaNo project. (Sweetling says, "I'm sure Fuzzy can help you with the squirming part.") I have somewhat to say about the NaNo, but haven't felt like hashing it out on the keyboard. Instead, I'll just drop in one cryptic sentence. No, I lied, I'm going to hash it all out.

The first weekend in November was our Women's Retreat at church. On Friday night, I was sitting at the campfire, debating whether or not I was going to return to my hotel room and get out my laptop to slap in a couple thousand words. And I sat staring at the fire sparks dancing upward into the night sky, I was contemplating why I was doing this, and whether it was worth the sacrifice of time away from the rest of my life to get the words out each day. Because it would be a sacrifice. Even when I wasn't sitting at the computer, that what my mind was focused on. And to meet quota each day, time from something was going to have to go. The way I was approaching it, a little here a little there, then a big push to finish up in the evening, it was family time or time with the Jedi that was going to be the sacrifice. So, why was this so important to me that I wanted to sacrifice a month of evenings with my husband and family?

Because I needed the self-affirmation? Maybe. And sitting at the campfire, I was also remembering the written words I had fed to the flames when I had sat near that exact same fire-ring two years ago. I sat and I thought about the past two years of my life. And I licked the chocolate and marshmallow goo from the s'more off my fingers. And I knew I wasn't going to go back inside to pull out my laptop to write. I was going to take the weekend as a retreat. And it was going to put me hopelessly behind on my NaNo. And I wasn't going to try to get caught up when I got back home. I was going to spend my evenings playing Wii with the kids and watching Ghosthunters and Mythbusters with the Jedi. NaNo just wasn't going to fit into my life.

But I didn't give it up gracefully. I must admit. I went through a serious pity-party pout fest. Because I wanted both. I wanted the NaNo label on my blog. In fact, I wanted a NaNo button I could wear on my person. Look at me, the button would say, see what I'm doing. But I wanted my evenings free. And I wanted to keep school on track. So, two new blog entries about where I was spending my time went up. Because I didn't want to take away from my life and family to do NaNo, but I also couldn't give up NaNo without feeling a little matyrdom festival going on.

I was hashing this all out in Sunday school a week or two after the retreat. One of the Dear Sisters said that she thought keeping track of my time was a good idea. She thought perhaps if I did that I would be able to find the time I wanted to do NaNo. I said, in a rare flash of insight, that I didn't think this was a time-management issue so much as a heart management issue. I still feel that this statement is the best single description of my short-lived NaNo journey.

And Nora said she'll make me a NaNo drop out button for my blog. A NaNo drop-out button will make it all better.

In the meantime, Nora tagged me. So I'll scoot over to her blog and see what the tag is. Sweetling can help me generate my list of miscellania. She'll, of course, try to get me to follow the rules and guidelines of the tag. Silly Sweetling.