My Photo
Name:
Location: Northern California

Monday, December 12, 2005

 

Santa Claus, Christmas cards, and the room of despair

It's been a busy couple of weeks here at our house. First, we enjoyed a visit from my mother-in-law Tutu Jewel, then we enjoyed a visit from my mom Grammie Martha, then we celebrated Thomas's first birthday, and now here I am, trying to get back into my normal routine. The house is quiet. Except for the usual screaming and yelling and shouts of childish delight, that is.

Tonight I'm taking Emily with me to the monthly meeting of my Mothers Club. Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus will be there and it will be the first time Emily's met them. We haven't done much Santa Claus hyping so I'm not sure what she'll think of him. I expect she'll be scared to death of the big hairy man and his equally giant wife; I'm not getting my hopes up on a picture perfect moment.

In other Holiday photo news, my sister-in-law and brother-in-law were kind enough to take our Holiday photo on Thanksgiving. The taking of the Holiday photo is a blog entry unto itself. Let me just say that 83 shots later we decided that 3 out of 4 people smiling was good enough and we declared it done.

Because I am one of those people, I send out Christmas cards every year. It's my way of saying, "Hi, friend! Even though I never call or write you an email, here's a picture of me and my darling family. Try not to puke." This year I bought my Christmas cards early at the TJ Maxx sale table, but I discovered when we got our photos back from Shutterfly that two of the three designs I got didn't work with the photo. Don't ask. Then I found the perfect card that did work at the decidedly non-sale table at Flax Art Store in San Francisco. Lesson learned: Shop for cards with photo in hand and get the Crane's; they're worth the money.

In an effort to tell you way too much information about my internal anal nature, I just want you to know that I'm giving myself a personal deadline of December 15th to get the cards out. Are you scared yet?

Now that the fact that I'm an anal perfectionist is out of the bag, I will also tell you that I have taken on a new house project. I have decided that I can live no longer with the room of despair. The room of despair is also known as Mike's office. We also sometimes refer to it as the junk room.

Yesterday, I opened a bottle of champagne (all by myself! A personal I am woman, hear me roar milestone!), poured myself a flute, then opened the door to the room of despair. Three hours later, I was able to see the carpet. I want to tell you about the things my husband owns and how I'm planning to conquer 17 years of memorabilia that he's been collecting since college, but I can't do that justice in one paragraph.

And that's what's new over in this small square of the Blogosphere. I'd better sign off now and get started on dinner: pasta with butter and parmesan for the kids; mixed greens with roasted tri tip, artichoke hearts, tomato and feta cheese for the adults. I haven't decided yet if I'm a kid or an adult; tonight I may be a little of both.