Christmas Joys

 We were awoken this morning by a very happy little girl jumping up and down telling us that Santa had come and there were presents downstairs…joy #1. 

 The boy still hadn’t woke, so we sent her downstairs to get Grandpa moving…that didn’t even last 15 min when Little Ryan made it known that he was awake and had heard his very excited sister.  Up we got and headed downstairs to gather the old folks before Casey spontaneously combusted.

 As soon as we were all gathered we knelt to pray before we opened the gifts.  During the prayer we hear several single rippings of wrapping paper, Little Ryan couldn’t wait and was trying in his own way to be discreet…joy #2. 

 But, who could really blame him, Santa had brought him a gift that was almost as tall as he is!  As soon as the gifts were unwrapped, we went onto the job of getting the toys out of the packaging, which in reality takes a knife, scissors, and cursing.  Santa brought Casey the doodle bear she asked for, which is damn near glued in the box.  Ryan got this HUGE wheelies track thing, which requires an educated adult to assemble with a screwdriver and a whole lot of listening for snapping.  Next came the battery installation…apparently the elephant ball popper doesn’t work at all unless the batteries are brand new…insert my husband’s cursing. 

 Then came our turn to open our gifts…I was given a Nintendo 3DS, and my husband got the Kinect for his 360…joy #3.

 We had ham with mashed potatoes and gravy for lunch while sitting at a table with a tablecloth on it…shocking I know.  The ham was fantastic, which made even better gravy for the massive quantity of mashed potatoes that we made.  All of this was made even nicer by the fact that all the silverware and dishes matched and we had a centerpiece…joy #4.

 My mother-in-law arrived with massive quantities of clothes for the kids, as it is her opinion that they have more than enough toys, and not enough clothes.  After piling everything up and hauling it upstairs I determined that there had to be close to $600 in clothing that I was hanging in the closets.  My children have always been the best dressed kids around…especially with Gammi shopping for them!  She also bought them each an animal hood, like a Spirithood only not as expensive, and they are freakin’ adorable!  Casey got the Panda and Ryan got the Leopard, which he will not wear for anything at all!  Everyone in the house tried them on…joy #5.

 Later in the evening our good friend Matt arrived to get his Christmas present…we gave him a new PSP as his sprouted legs and walked away when someone else did.  He was a very happy boy, and swore that he was not allowing anyone to play with his toys again.  He brought me my Squinkie shelf that I had asked him to make…joy #6.

 My husband and I went to bed early and slept like babies…joy #7.

 Now the exhaustion sets in as the Christmas stress is over and done with…here’s to another successful holiday season, and onto “where are we gonna put this crap?” 

Wrapping Presents

 It is that time of year again…wrapping present time.  I hate wrapping presents…loathe entirely!  Upon cursing this horribleness while doing it last night I have made some very critical observations and come to some very obvious conclusions.

 1:  I spoil my children…rotten.  We have bought too many things for them, trust me, I just wrapped them all!  I am now convinced that this is why parents tell their children that they are poor and cannot afford very many gifts; so that they do not have to wrap that many!  I am beginning to believe in the idea that children should never have more than a couple of gifts per year, ‘cause holy crap, it takes like 2 hours just to wrap 10 gifts!  There are much better things that I could be doing with my time.

 2:  Toys should ALL come in boxes that don’t have holes in them!  They should have a display model in the store so that you can push all the buttons and what not, and then have them in a nice rectangular box that you take home.  I got one of my son’s gifts done last night and then went to pick it up, apparently I chose the wrong spot to grab it ‘cause the paper ripped into the “display hole” in the stupid box!  There was MUCH cursing in the land, and I almost resorted to the duck tape.  Dear toy packaging people, what the HELL!? 

 3:  All wrapping paper should come with those grid line things on the back; wow that is so helpful.  Scissors should be extendable, as we are not orangutans to be able to stretch our arm across that huge freaking roll of wrapping paper to finish cutting it off.  We have to crawl on top of the damn paper to reach across and therefore wrinkle the hell out of it and possibly rip it too.  Tape dispensers should be standard when paying that exorbitant price for tape around Christmas, because those plastic things are pathetic!  You spend the majority of your time trying to hold the paper and get some tape at the same time, all the while cursing about your lack of a 3^rd arm.

4:  Stores should have a service to do this crappy job for you, because we don’t all like doing it.  I know that there are some people out there that just love wrapping gifts…well have I got a job for you!  Then you can do all that fancy bow and ribbon crap that looks all pretty and whatnot…us regular people will pay you to do just that so that our children are actually convinced that elves really did care about their gifts, rather than the gift wrapped up looking like Dr. Frankenstein worked on it. 

 Overall, I still hate wrapping presents, and really wish there was a way around doing it!  I tend to get lazy and waste a whole lot of paper because I don’t like cutting it.  And I start putting gifts together so that I don’t have to wrap as many of them.  After I have been doing it for 15 min or so my wrapping jobs start to get really messy, and instead of folding the paper I start mashing it down and using more tape.  Only Santa Claus has the privilege of having stuck on mashed looking bows on his gifts…I save them for just this occasion!  As far as ribbon goes…I use that to strangle myself before I give it up and go to bed.  I try very hard to make it a pleasant experience, but no matter how much Christmas music I put on it is still like the Chinese water torture to me.  Here’s to having to do things that we hate for the love of our children! 

Stinky Sox

 In June around Father’s Day my sister brought my Dad a kitten.  He was tiny and adorable and not asked for, but was received anyway.  My husband who has been fighting severe allergies was sent over the deep end, and his pills stopped working.  The kitten was an un-neutered male…full of hormone filled dander!  It was decided that we would do everything in our power to keep the cat downstairs for as long as possible while my husband prepared for allergy shots.  About a month and a half later the cat was neutered which improved the situation, and then shortly before my husband was to get his first shot young Stinky Sox jumped the upstairs wall.  We gave in and just kept our bedroom door closed most of the time.  After a month and a half worth of shots my husband doesn’t run from him and he even played with him the other night.  He is now a welcome addition to our little family.

 I suppose that I should explain his name, Stinky Sox…Casey named him.  There was much argument between her and Grandpa, but in the end Casey won out, I think it was the blue eyes!  Grandpa was of the opinion that his name should be just plain Sox, as it appears that he has white socks on his paws.  Casey was unwavering in her insistence that he was to be called Stinky Sox, one day she even told me “it’s Stinky Sox, that’s it, no more names!”.  From that day forward he has been Stinky Sox.

 Stinky Sox is a most unusual kitty; he doesn’t run from loud sounds, like the vacuum or the toilet flushing, instead he runs toward them.  He loves the children, especially the girl, but the boy is the one who picks him up and totes him around and takes him to Grandpa.  He plays with Mr Barkley…all the time!  He is almost delighted when Barkley runs by and he jumps out from wherever he is to attack his butt, then the inevitable chase starts.  Barkley’s wagging tail is completely irresistible for him.  His favorite day of the week is Monday when I clean the kid’s rooms and vacuum, because he follows me and the boy around getting into whatever it is that I have just cleaned or put away.  When I did the boy’s room this morning he was under the crib very fascinated by my changing of the sheet.  I opened one of his dresser drawers to put some clothes away and in he climbed and disappeared.  I left the drawer open, vacuumed and then did the loft…I came back and asked Barkley if he was still in the dresser.  Barkley stuck his head in the drawer to sniff and out came little black and white paws swiping at his ears…Barkley looked at me as if to say “yes mom, he is still in there”. 

 Recently Casey has been expressing that she is lonely when going to sleep at night, so we have been borrowing Stinky Sox to keep her company while she goes to sleep, then I let him out when I check on her before I go to bed.  He is a very social kitty and really doesn’t like to be left alone either, so it works out.  He also catches and kills lizards, a really helpful thing to do when you live in the desert.  As a matter of fact that is how he won me over; he rescued me from a lizard in the garage when no one else would.  Men are absolutely useless when it comes to this; they stand there and say “it’s only an itty bitty lizard, what is the problem?” and then they walk off and leave you alone to fight the beast by yourself.  I went and got the cat and he saved me!

 Young Stinky joins us when we bathe; he circles the edge of the tub while I wash the kids.  He also likes to sit in the window over my tub while I lay and read or get warm.  I have even rubbed him down with warm wet hands and he still comes back for more.  I think he loves my garden tub almost as much as I do!  As I got out last night my husband got out the blow dryer to play with the boy and he blew it at Stinky and all he did was sniff at the air.

 Stinky Sox has become a part of our daily routine and lives, and I would dare to say that we would all miss him if he were gone.  He comes to Casey’s room at night and I don’t even have to go find him anymore, if he isn’t there when I get into the tub I wonder where he has gone to, and my dear Mr B wouldn’t ever eat again without him around.  You see, Barkley won’t eat his food until Stinky has eaten his fill first.  He has become a necessity now that he has crawled into our hearts and lives; even my husband who acts so tough would be distraught without him around, no matter what he says.

 Here’s to you Stinky!  May you live long and eat many lizards…just don’t bring them in my house!

Un-Greeting Cards

My mother, in fear that without use I would lose my talent for art, gave me a package of plain greeting cards back in April of this year.  She had decided that I could draw the front of a greeting card in a relatively short time, given my lack of time because of the children…and so would retain my ability to create art.  I soon came to discover that there were like 20 cards in that stupid bag…irritation soon ensued.  After I got done with about 5 to 7 of them I showed my mother…she then told me that the envelope also had to be decorated, I almost chucked the whole bag at her!

While muttering a lot in the process, I have finally finished the bag.  I told my mother this and she very happily disappeared into the other room…when she returned she was carrying like 3 more bags!  I told her NO!  The other day she gave me a bag that only had a few in them, arguing the whole time that she was “helping” me.  I took the bag and went upstairs muttering things to myself.

Before I put them up here I need to warn you that I am not an artist fit for putting on greeting cards…most of my art is anything but positive.  What I have now is a bag of cards not fit for greeting anyone…so I shall call them un-greeting cards.  Some of them have quotes in them; I heard them in various places and thought that they fit.  A great many of them come from Criminal Minds, as I watched the whole show on DVD this summer.  I will try to offer what explanation I have with each one; my art very much reflects my own life in a way, and if you know me well enough you can easily see it…if not it would appear that I am a dark and tortured soul, and in a lot of ways I am, I just hide it well.

ONWARD!  #1 “Spillage”:  I was under an extraordinary amount of stress and it had begun to spill out of me, affecting my health.

#2 “Watery Relief”:  In the midst of this spilling I sought relief in my bath tub…I do this quite often actually…everything just seems to melt away when you are in a hot tub listening to music.

#3 “Chained” inside “The creative woman is a force to be reckoned with!”:  I often feel censored and I don’t much like it.

#4 “Expectation”:  What every woman feels…torn between the expected image and the real image.

#5 “Silence”…inside “Find a place inside where there’s joy and the joy will bring out the pain” –Joseph Campbell:  That place is only found once the outside has been cut off and it’s only you and your thoughts…I do this through music.

#6 “Pain”:  I had a headache.

#7 “Robot”:  There are days when as a home-maker you feel as if you are a robot who does the same thing every day.

#8 “Numb”:  I had surgery over a year ago…not cool.  I also have very little feeling in my upper arms for some odd reason…hmmm.

#9 “Monster”:  *insert smile here*

#10 “Love”…inside “There is no safe investment, to love at all is to be vulnerable” –C. S. Lewis

#11 “Heartbreak”:  I can’t speak of this one here.

#12 “Break”…inside “Creative minds have always been known to survive any kind of bad training” –Anna Freud:  Have you ever been at that point where you are sure that you are going to start ripping your hair out of your head?

#13 “Stew”:  I would never cook my children, but sometimes they can sure drive you nuts!

#14 “Helpless”…inside “When other helpers fail and comforts flee, help of the helpless, oh, abide with me.” –Hymn #166:  There are times when all you want is to feel the loving arms of your savior as you cry.

#15 “Scar”…inside “Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars” –Kahlil Gibran:  We all carry scars, and sometimes they hurt bad.

#16 “Change”:  For Mickey.

#17 “Pretend”:  We all have masks, and we all use them.

#18 “Shape”:  This one is going to have a quote from a Sting song, but I haven’t gotten that far; it is called “Shape of My Heart”.

#19 “Sick”:  I got sick recently and lived on my couch with my ipod and book.

#20 “Tattoo”:  And the book I read was “Girl with a Dragon Tattoo”.

Here’s to un-greeting cards (expletive deleted), and off I go to complete the others…and NOT tell my mother!