Friday Randomness

Shopping sucks the life out of me...I do my best to keep my experiences to a party of two, me and Amazon, but sometimes I don't plan ahead or someone springs something on me, and I'm forced to venture out into the wild and wooly world of consumerism.  Turns me into a cranky, thirsty person in no time and at roughly the 45-minute mark I get an urgency to get OUT of there.

Thank you, Mr. UPS Man, for facilitating my online shopping!  And Amazon?  You already know how I feel about you.

I am AMAZED at all you Elf on the Shelf people.  Just thinking about the amount of creativity and forethought and daily follow-through required gets me feeling anxious.  I will never be mistaken for a "fun" mom.

The vet called because they were running a special on the shots Trot is due for.  She said, How IS Trot doing?  I said, Well...he's a pain.  She gave a haha laugh and said, Ah, well, they all are, but we love them anyway.  No, we don't.

THIS.  This snow.  This cold.  This is why I cannot  join in with people's love of autumn.  Fall is deceitful.  It comes in all cute and cuddly with its pretty colors, warm sweaters and spicy pumpkin-ness.  We get smattering of 60 degree, colorful days before winter settles in.

If you took a poll and asked which is the busiest month of the year, I think most would say "December".  I feel like, in addition to Christmas "stuff", we've often had another layer of something else going on.

For years it was the end-of-semester crunch and finals for me.  Yes, it took me twelve years to finish college, and I am not a doctor of any sort.  Or the year I was a regional branch manager for a bank and one of my branches got robbed, twice it was first trimester exhaustion, another year it was a newborn.  Then I've been crazy sick, or been going through intensive foster care training 30 minutes away.

You know what?  All of these things add up to life, and I've always bemoaned to myself that I never seemed to have time to curl up by the fire with a mug of hot chocolate to watch my top ten favorite Christmas movies.

But this year?  All is calm and bright in our lives (thank you, Lord!), but I still haven't done the Christmas movie thing.  And I just realized....its because I don't want to.  It is not relaxing to me to sit in front of the TV while the time goes by, Christmas movie or no.  And so, I will always find something else to do before sitting and watching a show/movie makes the list.

I have no idea if that makes any sense, but it was a revelation to me.  I haven't been too busy all these years, I've just chosen to not make it a part of the season.

Our first round of Christmas begins tomorrow with Shaun's family.  I'm SO excited for all the festivities to begin.  The kids are nearly out of their Advent chocolate, so we MUST be getting close!!