Under the Same Sky

I'm going to try something new and actually follow through with a picture of a finished project! We bought a new flat-screen TV to hang over the fireplace and we have had a LOT of setbacks in getting it put up, but it's finished now!



M thought this picture needed annotation but I'm too lazy to write captions directly on the photo like he envisioned. I shall just direct your attention to the highlights. First, we were not actually watching South Park, just flipping through channels with the mute on (as we were listening to Nat King Cole singing about Christmas.) Just getting the important stuff out of the way. ;) The TV looks smaller than it actually is. The big electronic things in the right bookcases are the receiver, dvd player, xbox and wii, and the important thing here is that... note that you don't see any cables from those items. We're going to do a little more prettification of that area but for now--not seeing cables running in front of the bookcase is enough. :) Also, those big black things on either side are speakers. Amazingly enough, those speakers were dragged all the way from Sweden with M--so purchased long before we moved in here--and they just happened to fit the spaces in the bookcase like that. Absolutely incredible...though they've been there so long now that I barely see them anymore.

And.. just a quick note on the presents on top of the bookcase. We put presents up there last year to keep them away from prying toddler fingers and then realized that it was really, really cute that way. So, there's my home decorating tip of the day--when possibly, use your wrapped presents as decoration, as it looks festive and happy and Christmasy, and it also keeps people from looking too closely at the interesting things under the tree. I do have some presents under both of the trees as well, just to keep it pretty. So far, Evelyn's been pretty good about not bothering them.. hope she keeps to that.

Now, the second thing I wanted to write about is Christmas cards. If I don't have your address and you think I should, send me an email at kisha at mosaicminds dot net. If you want to know my address, I have a contact info post here (friends only).

I read somewhere that the average dryer cycle costs about fifty cents in electricity. Using that figure (and not even calculating the potential increase caused by the extra-long, higher cycle that I dry diapers on) and then adding in a little extra for the two washer cycles they go through, plus the laundry detergent used.... it is actually cheaper for me to use disposable diapers. Today, I bought two packs for what amounts to $1.75 each, after rebates and bonuses.

Awesome.

Having said that, I'm still not giving it up, because there are other reasons for using cloth. It's nicer and it's cuter and it's softer and it's better for the environment and it's better for her health and all those things. Etc. But it's pretty cool to not have the financial consideration when throwing the trashies away now. Oh, I really like the diapers from Walgreens. They're similar to Pampers, better than Huggies. I kinda wish they had Elmo on them.

In other news, yesterday was my annual Christmas shopping trip with my parents. Every year, we go and have a great time doing the bonding thing. The shopping is really secondary. We just have fun. Yesterday was also fun except Miss Dorko fell apart in the afternoon from the lack of nap (she woke up at 6:30, for some reason, which didn't help.) She took a little rest on Granny and then she ate and then perked up again for a ride through Target. I had to leave in order to pick up M at work at 6:15, and I am sorry to say that when he called at 6:15, I was still in Lexington. It was 6:40 before I picked him up. :( I felt really really bad, but a string of bad choices and unfortunate circumstances intervened. Of course it was mostly my fault for losing track of time, but then E refused to get into her car seat without nummy nummy and then I was stuck in traffic and then I got distracted by M being ticked off at me and I took the wrong exit. Well, right exit, but the wrong direction. Evelyn fell asleep in the car and we had some concerns about what would happen with that, but she woke up and cried through me changing her clothes and diaper as speedily as humanly possible and then we settled down on the couch for the normal bedtime routine, and she slept all through the night. She woke up at 5:30 this morning in a terrific mood. I actually did not mind in the least because (knowing that there was bound to be trouble) I was in bed by 9:45, so I actually got more sleep last night than usual. Woohoo! The day has felt long, though, I must say.

How's your Christmas shopping going? Are you done? Everything wrapped? I'm almost completely done, liking only one $15 gift for a male person (unspecified person, for a Yankee swap deal) and maybe a little something something for M. I have a bunch of wrapping left to do, but mainly because I am doing a little fun thing with my free junk. Anyone buy someone something really really good?

Yesterday morning, I wrote myself an explicit list for the week. It's the kind of list that breaks things down into small chunks so that there is instant gratification of marking things out. For example, on my normal list, I would write "wrap presents". But that would be so unsatisfying because all of the presents have not arrived yet, so I would be wrapping all week with no smaller goals, so I broke them into groups for location, and so a variation of "wrap" appears on this list seven times. Yes, I know, I need to cut it out with the lists* because this is clearly the work of someone who is insane. Anyway, I have been working my butt off these past two days, and I have somehow only managed to cross off five items. How is this possible? I am worn out. I specifically made this list so that I could cross things out often! My morale-improving to-do list is depressing me.

*I read once that list-makers have an increased risk of developing Alzheimers. As if a family history isn't enough! I'm so happy (sarcasm intended) that I read that because I just do not spend enough time worrying!

I baked cookies tonight for M's holiday lunch tomorrow. Do you even know how good real, homemade snickerdoodles are? They're so delicious! I sent them in with M at some point and they were devoured in no time, so I promised I'd send more eventually. Christmas makes me bakey anyway, so it was a good time for it.

It's really sad, but I have gotten a lot of joy out of taunting M today, telling him I know what he's getting for Christmas. I am really just 12 years old at heart.

p.s. This year, things have slipped up on me and I have not yet done any sort of holiday card preparations. If I normally send you a card, I didn't remove you from my list or anything, I just kinda suck.

Lessons learned this weekend include the fact that seven-month-olds are not as easy to keep still while doing timed family portraits as two-month-olds.

Merry Christmas anyway.

Home! I am so glad to be home! Little Miss Antisocial Raging Hormones wore herself out with three days of fun family togetherness, and then had to come home and weep piteously at nothing in particular. I seem to have entered the Moody segment of pregnancy--poor M! And, due to me not hearing him comfort me correctly, I came away from this with the understanding that occasionally crying is necessary so that porn is okay again. It was an odd conversation, I can tell you that much, and I said some completely ridiculous things because when one is crying at nothing in particular, one must make up reasons for being upset and they tend to be weird. But, you will be glad to know that the tears have been dried and porn is good once more. Theoretically. I must say that I am not really that much of a porn fan, but if I had been. I am actually happier with life than I've been in a long while, so it feels very strange to cry at the drop of a hat over nothing.

So, Christmas! It was nice! My niece is now in a stage where she's hard to buy for, so for the last three Christmases, my parents have given her $50 to round out the dollar amounts with what they give M and me. My parents are very, very good at spending the same on all three of us. In 2004, we planned a little game where she chose an envelope from the tree that contained the money, and M and I just picked dummy envelopes with $1. (That one went over so well that we still have not told her that it was rigged.) Last year, they taped fifty one dollar bills together, end to end, and put them all in a regular box with a slot cut in the top, the edge of the first dollar taped on the top to get it started. So, she pulled it out, and kept pulling and pulling and pulling because it actually takes quite a while to pull fifty bills out of a box like that! We were all giggling like mad by the time she got it done.

This year, they orchestrated a Deal or No Deal game to give her the money. Deal or No Deal is a game show. There were fourteen "cases", aka envelopes, placed on the tree with numbers on them. There was a board with dollar amounts listed, and the envelopes all contained notes with corresponding dollar amounts. She chose her case to start out--she picked 11, which is her age--and then began choosing envelopes. M handled all photography, and Mom and I were the lady lovelies who opened the case. (I did not object to the stereotypical idea here, but M knew I was thinking it even though I said nothing, and that was enough.) Dad did all the commentating, which he was perfect for.The gist here is that what appears on the tree is NOT in her case, so she is eliminating the possibilities to find out how much she has. Periodically, the banker would call and "talk" to my dad, who has a long history of talking to Mr. Nobody on the phone. The banker would give her an offer to buy her case and end the game--she'd get the amount that the banker offered. We even had a small chest with NO DEAL written on the top, and DEAL written inside, so that she could slam the lid on the case in response to the banker. This was dreadfully confusing until you actually saw it in action, so I hope this makes sense. Anyway, it was really funny, and it turned out much, much better than M or I had anticipated. She immediately chose the cases with the highest amounts of money, though, which wasn't so great. At the end of the game, she was going to open a $20 case, but the banker called back with a last-minute offer to either take the $20 or open the mystery envelope, which had cash money inside--maybe one dollar, maybe a million. (She was skeptical of this last claim.) She wavered between the two, but in the end chose the mystery envelope and ended up with the correct prize. It was completely unrigged, except for the final offer to trade for the mystery envelope--none of us had any idea what dollar amounts were in what envelope. That made it a lot more fun for us to watch and participate in. It was a lot of fun. I wanted to do a scavenger hunt, with clues and small wrapped packages. Maybe next year!

We came home tonight and started putting stuff away before we took the obligatory pictures of our loot, which is disappointing. Highlights for me include an mp3 player, a pearl pendant (from M), a flash drive, seasons three and four of Friends and a little massaging gadget. Highlights for M include an mp3 player (which was a surprise for him), some CDs and a DVD, some tool-related items, and an oil pan. We do fun stockings full of small little gifts, and the oil pan was part of that one. We bought Whitley an mp3 player, too, which I think she really liked. I helped her put a few songs on it before she had to go home, but we don't have much time on Christmas Eve for playing with her, so hopefully we'll be able to work on that a little more later. My grandfather seemed to really, really like his bread machine.. he had the box opened and was peering inside for a long while before someone finally pointed out that perhaps he should work on the stack of presents growing at his feet instead of playing with the first one he opened. I got a second-hand lecture (from my cousin, who he had been talking to before we arrived today) about how we shouldn't be spending money on him like that when we have other expenses, but I must say that we both really, really enjoyed it. It feels nice to give people stuff that they like.

And then there is Ducky, who also received presents this year. :) Almost everyone bought Ducky a little bitty something, so we now have our very first baby-related items in the house. Strangely, most of these items had DUCKS on them. I can't imagine why. It was very touching, and more so because it didn't wig me out. There has been a serious anti-jinx ban on baby stuff until now. My parents even put together a few things in a stocking for the duckling. Ducky celebrated by dancing around all weekend long, and occasionally accommodating me by curling up in a ball so that s/he could be felt from the outside.

We did the Christmas dinner today, and it was delicious, as usual. I wanted to eat twice as much as I could hold. I admit to a bit of pre-meal sulking, when I realized that there was a shortage of frozen lemonade, and therefore, the cousin who was planning on making the punch was planning on just skipping it instead. "Christmas is RUINED," I whined melodramatically to M, who--oddly--laughed at me. How rude! But, we finally prevailed, and fetched the ingredients and I stirred it up after the blessing had been said, making me the last one to get a plate of food. It was still good (with a package of lemonade kool-aid substituted) so I was happy. I love punch. Christmas would just be wrong without it! I did feel the urge to reassure Cousin that I was just teasing her about ruining Christmas, as earlier, I might have called her a crack whore as well, and I decided that she might think I was being kind of a little bit bitchy, maybe. (In my defense--the crack whore comment was made totally out of LOVE, okay? But I was serious about the punch.)

Anyway, nice holiday. I'm glad to be home, though, because it is nice and quiet here and I don't have to wear clothes if I don't want to. That's pretty much my criteria for a good time--not so much the party animal, am I?

I am relieved to announce that I have completed my Christmas shopping with one semi-exception (picking up a gift card, which hardly counts, since the decision has been made.) I have to start again with the wrapping now, but that's a manageable task now that I know what I have left to wrap. I've even done my master Christmas list with amounts and totals of what I've spent. Last year, I never got around to finishing up the last bits of it, and it stayed on my to-do list until late summer, when I realized that I was never going to finish it and let's move on already. We were home before lunch, even! I was afraid we would end up driving aimlessly around Lexington all day, trying to figure out what to buy. I am not so pleased to announce that we totally went over budget.. in one notable case, we spent more than double what we should have when we bought a bread machine for my grandfather. It was sweet, though, because it was M who insisted that we buy it. It's easier for him to have the final say on doubling the budget for someone in my family, and I think it's sweet that he likes my grandfather enough to want to do special stuff for him. My grandfather, by the way, is becoming more and more anti-preservatives healthy living (with a bit of semi-quackery thrown in for good measure) in the last few years, so he's expressed interest several times in our bread machine And really, the budget is less important than picking out the Right Gift, as opposed to finding the first crappy thing that comes along at the right price. So I guess what I am saying is that ironically, I believe that spending more on one present is less about the commercialization of the holidays than spending less. That makes absolutely no sense.

We had friends over last night and had a very nice time. We ate a Mexican restaraunt with a waiter that defies description, but he and I apparently had a serious language barrier because I made a total dork of myself by not understanding a single word he said. The evening's highlight was a little boy, perhaps five, who stopped at our table, did a little dance and then topped it off by singing, "I like to move it, move it!" I think maybe you would have had to be there but it was really funny. Also funny was the following exchange, just as they walked in the front door. (Please note that while we haven't seen them since their wedding in May, the two men, J and M, have exchanged several emails in that time.)

L enters the house, with a significant but unexpected pregnant belly.

J: Oh, I guess I didn't tell you. She's pregnant!

M: Yeah. I didn't mention it either, but so is she!

MEN!

Speaking of the whole pregnancy deal.. I'm now officially seventeen weeks along. That sounds like a lot! He's had a pretty active week. I have a tendency to sit so that my keyboard tray is pressed against my belly.. not hard, just a bit of pressure. Ducky apparently does not care for this. I also have lovely stretch marks popping out. My mom asked me if I had been putting anything on them to keep them from showing. Is it that horrible that I can't really work up the energy to care about stretch marks? I might even like the things. As it turns out, my body can do cool stuff! I guess maybe I will regret this attitude later on, but I've always been pretty skeptical that you really have any control over this anyway. My next appointment is Tuesday, and I think that the one after that is the one with the big ultrasound. My mom keeps asking me when it'll be. I think she's afraid that I won't tell her about it. I don't know why because I did tell her that she could come to that one. I wasn't too keen on having an audience with the first one we had, but this one should be okay. Hopefully. I'm pretty excited to find out if it's a he or a she because this alternating days is getting very hard to keep straight. Also, I'd like to buy things. AND MAKE LISTS. I don't really need to know if it's a boy or a girl to make lists, but I scheduled "thinking about things to do and things to buy" for after Christmas. I guess maybe scheduling things to think about is kind of weird but that's how I am.

Anyway, I guess it's time to go find something productive to do. We ran around cleaning all day yesterday (the house looks fantastic) and then we were up early this morning to go shopping. Now it feels hard to settle into doing nothing, which is why I started writing this in the first place. I might as well take advantage of that while it lasts, though, and go wrap something.

I am really disappointed because I am home from my super-serious Christmas shopping trip, and I accomplished almost nothing. I bought my mom something that she picked out, so I am done with her now. That's worth a lot--I can get everyone else taken care of at WalMart if absolutely necessary, but I wanted to make big progress. We got started a little late, we went to some stores that we probably should have skipped for today, and Macy's did not have a real sale going on.. but for some reason we got stuck in there anyway, buying almost nothing (relatively speaking.) By the time M got there to pick me up after he got off work, I was worn out exhausted tired beyond description. So, I was a little upset about that.. but at least I got something important done. Spent more than I meant to, but my immediate family is taken care of.

That's pretty much all I have for today. It was all about the shopping. We did have a nice time, at least, if not a productive one. My husband is making a ferocious amount of violent noise behind me, which is distubing because he is taking apart his computer. I always tease him that he breaks stuff so I will have to buy him a replacement part (and naturally, a BETTER one) so maybe that's his plan.. angling for a new graphics card for Christmas or something.

Really, I got nothing, except perhaps the urge for a snickerdoodle. Better go take care of that. For Ducky, of course.