Its the most wonderful time of the year

Today I helped a friend decorate the church for Christmas. This friend is very good at decorating and I have been wanting to "help" him decorate for a while, except he never lets anyone. Today, though, was my lucky day. I love Christmas...the cheesy Christmas movies, the cold weather, peppermint flavored everything, the smell of rosemary...but what I love the most is community. During the Christmas season, people live in community with one another. They help each other, they talk to each other, they shop together, they eat together. We all get to know each other better. Today was community at its best. Christmas decorating, arguing over which ornaments go where, too many ornaments, too few ornaments, the revealing of secrets, making fun of each other and getting scratched arms from the fake Christmas tree. All good stuff...its the most wonderful time of the year! And I'm thankful its here. Does anyone want to decorate my house now? I'm all decorated out :)

Its a stretch

Today I am having to dig deep for something to be thankful for...because I am sick. What could it be? I know definitely what it is not. I am not thankful for feeling awful, not being able to do anything fun while everyone else does fun stuff, getting behind on housework or having to function even when you don't feel like it. The only upside to being sick is that while I can't move off of the couch, Jack snuggles with me (and he's not much of a snuggler) and I can catch up on all of my tv watching. Its not much...what I have to be thankful for...but its something. Here's hoping that I am a little sunnier tomorrow!

My Nana

I have two grandmothers still living...I'm lucky. Nana is my grandmother who will bake you a cake in the shape of Strawberry Shortcake if that's your favorite cartoon character. Every summer I would stay with her for a week and we would sew barbie cloths, crochet long chains because that's all I could do, eat tacos from Taco Bell, pick pecans, shell purple hull peas, and at the end of the week my Papa would set up the Slip and Slide out in the yard. We were also BIG game players. Everytime I saw her we would play dominoes and I would tell her that I was gonna "beat the socks off of her"...and she would let me maybe once or twice...but not everytime (which I appreciate). One time, I convinced her to let me do her hair...I must have used a whole bottle of hair spray. It took an hour. She wouldn't leave the house after that. I wonder why :)She is the best crafter. She has been crafting for as long as I can remember. And she still crafts. I love that I got a love of crafts from her. While I'm still not as good of a sewer or crocheter as she is...and I don't know how to do ceramics at all like she can...I still love to be inspired to make ordinary things into something else completely. She taught me that. She could turn a pair of pantyhose into a potato. She turns rocks into painted animals. Nothing is safe from being turned into a craft when she's around. Broken table...now its a flower arrangement. I am thankful that I got to spend a lot of time with her and I'm thankful that she took time to teach me things that she knew. All of those things that she taught me make up who I am today.

Letting It Go

The alarm clock goes off. I negotiate thirty extra minutes with the snooze button (side note...I can never make sense of the way snooze is spelled between 6 and 6:30. I always think it looks funny.) Get up, let dog out, wash hair, put on make up, let dog in, dry hair, chi hair, find an outfit, iron outfit, run out door, drive through Sonic for a diet coke, clock in work, work, clock out of work, and then depending on what day it is, go to some evening activity. Get home at 9 or 9:30 and do it all again tomorrow. I love all of my evening activities...hate the schedule. When I get home at night, choices have to be made. Clothes have to be washed, lunch needs to be made for the week, jack needs to be fed and walked, floors need to be cleaned, and blogging needs to be done. Not to mention, that I need some time at the end of the night to wind down and read or watch tv. IF I did all of that...not only would I not need get to go to bed at any decent hour, but I would be a very grouchy person. So I don't do all of that. Sometimes I don't have lunch for the week made. Sometimes I'm wearing an outfit that I don't particularly care for because its the last clean thing in my closet. Some nights, instead of walking Jack, we run a few circles around the yard. And, sadly, I have learned that I can't blog everyday. I just can't. Some weeks I can. I look forward to those weeks. Those weeks I'm a little but lighter because I did something creative and I like the way my mind feels when I'm creative. (When my mind is in creative mood, instead of a sock, I see sock vase.) Even though it makes me sad not to blog everyday, sad is better than the crazy I would feel if I forced myself to do something I just can't do. I am thankful that I know how far I can push myself, and I'm thankful that I can let the rest go.

A crafty fall project

I am the type of person that can get really excited about a good craft. I saw some great instuctions for an easy craft on designsponge.com and decided to try it. Its an argyle sock stretched over a vase that I already had. Just pick a sock (it doesn't even have to be argyle), do some simple sewing and you have an argyle sock vase! It looks great on my mantle with some fall leaves!

Its officially an unofficial junk food week.

I guess starting Sunday off with junk tv has transferred on over to my diet. As I was ordering my taco bell tonight (with diet coke of course!), I started thinking about all the junk I've eaten today and yesterday and.....oh darn on Monday too. I don't mean to be one of those girls who list everything they have eaten like they are manically tracking every morsel that goes into their mouth and adding the calories up on their mental calculator. But, when I started manically tracking every morsel that has gone in my mouth this week....homemade sticky buns, taco bell, possum pie, pizza, taco villa, pickle flavored pringles.....I realized I may be a tad bit out of control. Its Wednesday so I have two options, feel guilty and try to recover the rest of the week, OR enjoy it declare it junk food week! I choose junk food week. And THAT is what I'm thankful for today. Bring on the fried chinese food!

Fresh Baked Bread

Yummmmmm!