Christmas decorating

Our Christmas decor is contained 10.5 months of the year in the corner of the attic carefully packed into 8 Rubbermaid totes & 3 large boxes which are all guarded day & night by 2 reindeer & a flamingo in a Santa hat. If you think that's excessive, please visit my mother's home. 

I love Christmas. I love the time spent with family. I love the feelings of joy this time of year brings. I love the food. I love the decorations. I love it all. It makes me warm & tingly. Sometimes circumstances make it a little harder to get into the spirit. The loss of loved ones, missing those who can't spend the holidays with us, finances...there are different stressors for everyone & everyone has something that is making their life less than perfect. I do my very best to count my blessings & keep my Christmas spirit WAY UP! Like I'm in a holiday movie & Santa is depending on it.

OK, if you know me, you know I can only sing loud if the radio is louder...I do sing along to all the Christmas songs...with the radio up loud!

So every year I'm waiting to eat my turkey dinner on Thanksgiving because I f**king love turkey & Thanksgiving marks the date that it is socially acceptable to start decorating for Christmas. I can't wait to risk my life pulling those crates out of the attic & unwrapping each carefully wrapped & stored precious decoration. I'd say it is like Christmas, but I'm Christmas decorating so it's literally Christmas... 

This year I was responsible & called in back up to get all the crates down, same back up as last year. Thanks Tracy! You are one strong woman!! Then I started opening up crates & making a huge mess which is still not cleaned up. I'm working on it, OK! 

I decorated in phases. 

Phase 1: Everything I Can Get Done Before Tay Gets Here Dec. 5th. 

Phase 2: Getting the Tree & Everything I Can Get Done While Tay Is Here. 

Phase 3: Get The Outside Lights Done While Tay Is Here (This required a super hero's help & the outside lights were up on the house the night before we took Tay to the airport.)

Phase 4: Finish Decorating The House, Clean Up Mess, Finish Outside Lights.

Phase 1 & 2 complete.

Phase 4 is a work in progress. More decorating has been done. Some cleaning has been done. My house is not however what I would refer to as "guest ready" by any stretch. It is not dirty, but it is cluttered & stacked with empty boxes, crates & piles of packing materials. So we can only allow in the people who truly love us & won't judge this display. I really tried to capture the best angles for those pics...but if you look closely you might see a Dyson cord travelling under the tree. I told you I'm working on it folks!

 Tonight I attempted to finish the outside lights because I needed a boost that only Christmas decorating can give. I put on my boots & gloves, grabbed a couple thumb tacks just in case & headed out onto the front porch to really light this place up. Someone told me I will never be able to live up to the previous dwellers from our childhood days, but I still enjoy lining this house with tiny white lights & wrapping them around every railing. I wrapped & carefully secured ends to keep a continuous coil of twinkling lights around the deck railings. They were all aglow. I checked each strand to see that every light was lit before I started winding them around railings. I was going to attach separate cords to the timer that has several plugs (like a surge protector...well I guess it is a surge protector if we're getting technical) so they did not get overwhelmed. Next, GENIUS! I should "build" a couple of trees on the front porch with the extra lights. So in the house I go for tree form materials. 

Those filthy bastards waited for me to go into the house to grab something, then blew a fuse! Now I have, oh, 8 billion unlit Christmas lights on my house & I am feeling like only Clark Griswold can understand my pain... Breakers, cords & light switches checked. I have to wait for daylight before I check every fuse on every strand. I won't travel up the ladder without someone very strong to catch me should I fall. Which means "I sure hope the blown fuse on those rotten sneaks isn't hanging from one of the gutters!!" 

I won't lie to you. This made me really want to cry. My hands were so cold my touchscreen wouldn't acknowledge them when I went to text my woes to my supportive friends & family. Settle down...I only whined to 3 via text & 1 in person...you're still getting the scoop while it is breaking news! (Unless you read this after December 17th & then, well, you might be behind the times...) So my cold, defeated, pity party throwing self came in for the night. Ooooh wait, I came in for the night after checking everything & then thinking "I'll get the reindeer out!" NOPE. That poor eating doe will look headless from the street! So I gave up. I'm not even trying to plug in Rudolph & see if he's still in tact. There are unlit lights adorning my house, an eating doe without any lights outlining her head, extensions cords & piles of lights littering the front porch AND I'M DONE! Until tomorrow. 

Hopefully tomorrow I will find the blown fuse, get the lights plugged into the proper outlets & the timer set...all without that beastly little kitten escaping to taunt me as I chase her around my driveway & yard hoping she won't dart out into the street to be flattened by a car. Did I mention she got out twice today? Well, she did! AND come to think of it there's a good chance the doe is headless because she too has been terrorized by the kitten. I found her laying on her side in the living room the other night after being awakened by a loud crash. When I righted her the kitten quickly jumped on her back to take her down again!

It's been a long, challenging day here. Tomorrow will be better. Tomorrow is a new day, a fresh start & one day closer to Christmas...so those lights have to work!!! Otherwise they are staying up til the end of January so I can get my full enjoyment out of them. Ha. Who are we kidding?! They will probably be up well into January either way!

Please cross your fingers that the blown fuse is not only accessible from a ladder!

I know what you are thinking..."she looks like a very sweet kitten sleeping among the Christmas crates." You have been fooled by her beastly kitten ways. This is how she looks after she breaks things & climbs bare legs with her razor claws.

Daddy Dearest

Today my heart is heavy. This Friday the 13th marks 6 years since we lost my dad. It doesn't seem like 6 years. I can still hear his voice in my head when I think of the silly things he used to say or how he'd call me "Ja" or "Bubba"...I'm still pretty sure he wanted some boys. Amber & I were his boys...he taught us to fish, not just to catch em, but to bait the hook, cast the rod & then patiently wait for the bite. I love to fish. I could do it everyday. I love to fight in a fish & see just how big it turns out to be, but just being out there on the water is like being with him again. He taught us to camp. We've camped in tents, the back of trucks & before he left this Earth he built a cabin that has turned us into spoiled campers. 

This is where we camp now. If you look closely you can see his 2 oldest granddaughters on the front porch. Every time I visit the cabin, the first time I walk through the door, I can still smell him. I hope that never goes away. It isn't a huge cabin, but Sissy & I can fit our families in there very cozily. That's what it is for. He wanted to retire there. He would have been happy to live there forever, but he settled for almost every weekend. 

Every Sunday that he drove home from there he would call to catch up with me. Usually "Hey Ja, what's going on? Girlfriend & I are headed back from the cabin..." He called his grandbabies Girlfriend among other things, like Princess Thunderbottom. Isis spent almost every weekend down there with him. She was his right hand girl. 

The day he told me he was sick was on a drive home from the cabin call. It started out like all the others in his fun way that he had. I suppose that makes it easier to tell your daughter her days with you are numbered. I can't imagine how I would approach a conversation like that. He started with "I've got good news, the doctors finally figured out what is wrong..." I was all excited to hear that everything was going to be better because it was late August & he'd been feeling less than 100% since he got diagnosed with Pancreatitis in January...no cancer then. But now it is August & they've figured out what is wrong, which he went on to tell me was a tumor & that a tumor on your pancreas is very likely cancer. Then he kept on with "we have been researching alternative treatments & I'm not doing chemo because the odds aren't worth losing my quality of life..." So we finished our talk while I sat in the touchless carwash with my daughter & my friend's daughter in the backseat. Then I texted my friend so she knew why I was bringing the kids back so soon.

This day changed it all. Everything went into fast forward. I lost some of my mind. I got a smartphone to keep track of basically every single thing I had to do. September 14, 2007 they gave him 3-6 months. He passed on December 13, 2007. I have never in my life experienced a shorter 3 months. I am grateful that we were able to say goodbye. Not everyone gets that. I have the comfort of knowing I was there to hold his hand at the end.

           Now, 6 years later, I have over 27 years of memories of this amazing man. I see his smile on my face everyday. Sometimes he comes to visit in my dreams & I'm pretty angry when I wake up from those dreams too soon, but I'm glad that I have them & that I wake up everyday. I still want to tell him my triumphs & cry to him when times get hard. I've picked up the phone a few times & had his number pulled up in my dialer before I realized it isn't going to reach him anymore. It doesn't get easier with time. A good friend told me, in the midst of the craziness of his last 3 months, that the reason it was so hard is because he was such a good daddy. They were right!

I know many who have suffered the loss of a parent, including my own daughter. It is unimaginable pain. There are some who would let this pain so close to the holidays ruin this time of year for them, but I know that would only make him sad. He never wanted to see us hurting. This has always been my favorite time of the year because no matter how far away we lived, this time of the year always meant we would be with our family. So I will continue our traditions & I will make more memories, new traditions with the family & friends that we still have with us. I will be grateful that they are still here & grateful for the time I did have with him. I will love silly things like leg lamps & flamingos with Santa hats on because they remind me of him. Sometimes I will be sad to think of things he should be here for. I know he's watching, but I'd sure prefer him in the flesh. I do believe that sometimes he's there in others. For those in my life that never met him, but somehow say something he always said to me without knowing...I am extremely thankful. Those moments can change everything. They turn a whole day around. They mean the world.

So my Christmas wish for you is love. Love to you & yours. Make sure you let them know how much you treasure them & that you wouldn't be the same without them. Hug them tight. Our days here are numbered. Cherish the tiny things that make you smile. Watch your favorite Christmas movie everyday if you want...sing along to every Christmas song. For my grinchy friends, thanks for tolerating my holiday cheer. You know I need it to get past the hard parts of the holiday season. Much love.

Oldest Daughter

There is this girl, well she's a woman now. She's my oldest daughter. I didn't give birth to her, but she's mine anyway. She came into my life when she was 15. Next month she will be 21. You do the math...I wasn't getting knocked up at 12 or having babies at 13. Here's how she became mine. Once upon a time, I dated her dad. That didn't last long. It wasn't meant to be. In the beginning he & I really liked each other. She wanted nothing to do with me. In fact, as 15 year old girls are prone to do, she would purposely ignore/exclude me. Then her dad started a new job, he was gone fishing for days at a time. I checked in on her, then when tested I set boundaries...yep, I made rules for this girl who was not my own & instead of hating me she respected me, then she loved me. I loved her. She was my scary movie girl. We braved Black Friday together. Her dad & I stopped dating. I was devastated. I kept in touch with her. When prom rolled around I picked out her shoes to go with her dress & helped her get ready. This became our thing. When she needed mom time I was there. I became her Oregon mama. I got to do all of those things that mamas & teenage daughters do with her because her mama was in California & she couldn't be here for all of that. I finally got to meet her mama at her high school graduation. A few months after she graduated, 6 if we're keeping track, she moved to California to be near her mom & all of her siblings...she has 4 sisters, 2 brothers & then Ky...so make that 5 sisters. That move was 2 years ago. Two. Long. Years.

Last week on Thursday we picked my girl up from the airport. We saw her face to face for the first time in 2 years. I counted down the days, then hours, then minutes til her arrival. I schemed up a vacation agenda that of course had more action than hours in the day. So we got her from the airport, grabbed our half of a smoked turkey at Gartner's in Portland, ate some Burgerville goodness for lunch...with peppermint chocolate shakes of course & headed for Redmond.










We were scheduled for 3 nights in Redmond. Coming in Thursday night, leaving Sunday morning. I brought the girls' stockings & our new Christmas jammies. This is a tradition. They know we will have coordinating jammies every year. So we got in Thursday night, opened up the presents, got in our cozy new jammies, relaxed & watched movies. Oh & attempted to do our holiday nail art which we found on Google images & Pintrest. We also threw my agenda out the window & decided to just RELAX!!!

Friday morning we woke up to SNOW!!! Apparently so did most of Oregon so we would have had it at home, but Redmond snow is better than Astoria snow so I'm glad we were there. Ky woke up at 7 or something awful like that. She had the good sense not to wake me until about 10. Even at 10 I was so sleepy it took me a minute to get my bearings & realize that we were on vacation in Redmond! Hallelujah!! After a big breakfast...at 2pm, we did a tiny amount of sledding then ventured to Bend for a trip to Bath & Body Works (3 wick candles were on sale OK! 2 for $22 & then I had a coupon for a free one if we spent $20 so 3 for $22!!) and some delicious BBQ at Baldy's. We also did some parking lot "skating", Tay kissed a buffalo in the Old Mill District, the girls picked icicles off random people's cars. Yes I was mortified, but that didn't stop them! They live to terrify me...

Saturday we had a much needed lazy day. Our big adventure was to Starbucks & the grocery store...we couldn't have turkey without cranberry sauce & Tay was on the fast track to earn her Starbucks gold card. That is a very high privilege! Never fear. SHE GOT IT! Then we had to start earning mine, still working on it. I think our Starbucks trips were the biggest expenditure on this trip. 

Back to terrifying me....Sunday, after yet another "separate transactions please" trip to Starbucks, we decided to make the most of this snow on our final day in Redmond. Oh yeah, we decided to stay Sunday as well for two reasons: 1. We needed another day of snow & lounging. 2. We thought it would warm up & our drive home would be safer.                                                  You know, like 98% option 1 & 2% option 2...

The girls walked on the ice on the pond by the resort restaurants & store. The pond with the signs that said "Please stay out of the pond." Then they posed on the ice because they assured me the sign was a liar & it was not thin ice. Next at the fountain where we turned to go to our house, Tay was very fond of this fountain & thought she needed to see how it was doing with the below zero temperatures, so the girls went out on the ice again. They were well aware of my fear that they would end up in the freezing cold 

water with an instant case of hypothermia, but this did not slow them down. I mean they'd already walked into one pond advertising thin ice, survived to tell about it, then ripped some giant icicles off of a bush outside the store...I was sure we would be asked never to return to Eagle Crest. Thankfully we were not. After surviving all this fun, we went night sledding on the golf course. Turns out after some legwork on all our parts, the best hill was the one in

 our backyard. The girls had to take a break at the 10th hole before we could walk back to the house. They also took a step into a sandtrap. Couldn't tell the snow was waist deep there until they were in snow up to their waists!!! It was -3 outside while we enjoyed sledding on the golf course...at about 5:30pm. Thanks to my mama we had all the snow gear we needed & were toasty warm. Actually they were sweating & wanted the windows rolled down so they could hang out in the below zero air while we drove in search of bigger hills on the golf course. We found none that didn't end in trees or water. So to Starbucks we went. I needed to get a move on if I wanted to earn my gold card & we needed the caffeine boost to get everything packed for our 8am departure Monday morning. We left at 8:45am because I overslept...because I was up til 2:30 packing the car... We didn't want to come home. It was so pretty all covered in white, but we had a Christmas tree to get still & lights to put on the house. Tay still needed to eat at Urban Cafe & Fultano's before she could go back to Cali. We had to return to Astoria for at least a night...we came home for 2 nights. We did 

stop along the way...halfway between the equator & the North Pole. Seemed fitting on our Christmas vacation! Kylie didn't think so when I flipped a U turn (we love those) to take the pic. But Tay & I had majority vote, that happens a lot, so she got out & took our picture grumbling all the while. There was also a trip to Vancouver Mall & Cinetopia for Frozen in 3D! Yep we needed more snow in our lives.                                                           We made it safely home. My new studless snow tires really rocked. I asked the girls if they felt their lives were in danger at all during the 4 days of driving on packed snow & ice covered roads. The answer was "NOPE!" Woohoo! I still drove very carefully. I had precious cargo.                                                            Home to Astoria & the closer we got, the faster I heard the minutes tick by. It was like in Redmond time stood still for us. We relaxed, slept in, ate breakfast in the afternoon & had not a care in the world. I knew it couldn't last forever, but I sure wanted it to. We came home. Time started to fast forward. Tay took me to Urban Cafe for dinner while Ky babysat. Ky got another snow day so we got our tree & decorated it. For the first time ever all I did was the lights, garland & tree topper. The girls did all the rest. We ordered Fultano's & convinced my new super hero (who will remain anonymous because you don't go around revealing super heroes' identities) to come over & climb the steep ladder to hang our outside lights. Our Christmas Vacation checklist was complete. 

This morning I awoke before dawn, got the call that there was a 2 hour delay for Astoria schools. told the girls to sleep another hour so we would have better roads, got another call...make that a 3 hour delay. Ky is going to the airport with us. Hit Warrenton Starbucks to get 7 more stars...yep, 7 separate transactions. It makes me very nervous, but apparently we are not the only people behaving like assholes so whatev's. Drove to Portland to have lunch with Tay's dad. Took the girls downtown for a little shopping, then Starbucks & to the airport. Here's where things get ugly. 

Now we know Alaska has a strict 40 minute cut-off. If you're not checked in 40 minutes before your plane is scheduled to take off they will not let you even attempt to brave security & get to your gate. Yep the combination of rush hour traffic & 2 agents working the entire Alaska desk meant that when we finally got to the counter there were 30-35 minutes before take off & they would not let her on that flight. Her dad had to bail us out by purchasing a ticket from Southwest to get her home tonight. There were tears...more than the anticipated goodbye tears. She made it home, about 4 hours later than planned, but she is safely home in Cali. I did my best not to cry. I hate crying. I especially hate crying in public. The most hated crying for me however is crying in front of Ky. I don't want to make her sad too.

Ooooh look...a frozen fountain & more icicles!!!!

I will miss my girl. I'm so proud of the woman she is becoming. I love that she calls Ky out on silly things & that Ky doesn't get all bent out of shape over it. We laughed so hard during this trip. I wish I had both my girls all the time. The combination makes the world a better place. I can't believe how grown up they are. They still have lots of life ahead of them, more growing to do, but they have both changed so much in the past 5 years & I'm so overjoyed to see the ladies they are becoming. (Not the most lady-like of all ladies, but as Tay says "just be yourself...if they don't like it too bad!') We decided that this should be our new Christmas tradition. Another reason that she is my oldest daughter...she loves Christmas like I love Christmas. So from now on she'll need to be here the week after Black Friday (she works retail so no vacationing that day) to get the tree, play in the snow & get our house ready for the Christmas season! I really can't think of a better way to start out the month of December than with snow, decorating & my two absolutely gorgeous girls! And Christmas movies...we watched every one that we own this week!!!

 

                                   ****Disclaimer****                                              
                                                                                                             Tay enjoys abbreviating every word. Please don't be angry or too annoyed when you hear me speaking Tay. If you see me looking a little sad, maybe throw out some Tay for me. Here are a few to get you started:                                                           perf = perfect                                                                                         Fult's = Fultano's                                                                                   amaz = amazing (duh)                                                                            gorge = gorgeous                                                                                      

And if you really want to help...SING! My girls were singing & dancing all week long. Especially Tay who knows every word to every song, even the Christmas ones. If it's instrumental she fills in the words.

LOVE THEM!!!!!!