Everything is ready for Christmas at last. I spent the afternoon making cannoli cake. It’ll be hard to top salted caramel apple pie cheesecake, but I’m going to try. We had our traditional dinner of cold cut sandwiches and that was good as usual. Right before we go to bed on Christmas Eve always feels like the quietest moment of the whole year. I find it almost as hard to sleep as the kids do.
Tag: lights
-
December 22
It was back to work today and I got more done in one day than I have done in entire weeks at other times of the year. It felt good to be this productive. Christina baked a bunch of Christmas cookies all by herself, which is also awesome. Robin smiled at dinner and said words out loud, which always makes me happy. All in all, not a bad day.
-
December 15
I opted not to go out for this morning’s run due to the cold temperatures and high wind, and I’m glad. Instead I spent the day working on next year’s family calendar – an annual tradition since 2008! I also managed to go food shopping, do laundry, and make meatball subs for dinner. We’ll get the rest of our Christmas lights up at some point. Maybe.
-
December 7
We got our biggest Christmas tree ever today, literally the first one we saw. It touches the ceiling, but it’s nice because there was actually room for all our ornaments. Only one broke this year… seems every year we lose at least one. Now it feels like Christmas.
-
November 8
Billy and I went to a history storytelling show by the person who leads the podcast, “History That Doesn’t Suck.” It was pretty good. He talked about American history from the formation of the United States through the end of the Civil War. Hearing about both stories as part of the same story really shows how we have grappled with the same issues literally for centuries. Today we don’t call it slavery, but it’s the same fight between the same people. It was really interesting and I enjoyed it. I thought for sure that Billy and I would be the youngest people there by far, but there were a lot of younger people there. It’s heartening to know there are younger people still interested in history. All I can hope is that we can all learn something from it.
-
November 1
I did the 5k run at Ed Austin Park this morning and finished with my best time yet. I stopped once near the end to walk for about a minute. I probably could have made it the whole way, but I kept speeding up without realizing it until I couldn’t handle it anymore. I felt great about it, though. The rest of the day was low-key. Finished the last octopus and bought supplies to make 50 more. Took Christina to dance. Caught up on my running log. Went for a short walk with Robin in absolutely beautiful weather. And made Pinot wear these tacky light-up glasses that Robin got in her trick or treat bag last night.
-
October 29
I ended up taking a sick day from work today because I couldn’t keep my eyes open or my brain focused enough to do anything this morning. I went to the couch to lie down and woke up at 12:30, ate lunch, and went back to sleep until 2:45. It’s unfair that I go through this almost every month. The pharmacy is always out of the medication I need, and it takes days to come in. And since it’s a controlled substance, I can only order it one day before I run out, and I can’t transfer it to another location. Every fucking month. Some months are worse than others… this was one of the worst. I finally woke up enough to go out for hibachi with Billy and Robin (Christina was at dance). And now it’s 9:30 and I am so ready for bed. Thank god the medication finally came in tonight, so I’ll have it tomorrow. This is miserable!
-
May 18
I took the girls to the mall today, and we spent WAY too much money, but had a ball doing it. It was a great day all around because after we got back, we met up with Rosina and Dion for dinner at European Street. It was nice catching up with them. The weekends never feel long enough, but the weeks are getting shorter now that we’re done with cheer and down to our last week of dance. I’m trying my best to keep the load as light as possible this summer. We need to catch our breath after the last ten months.
-
January 31
Time for another cheer competition! This weekend we’re in Orlando. I spent the extra $30 to stay at a hotel with a “balcony” overlooking the pool. The balcony fits the three of us standing up side by side. I’m thrilled we don’t have to wake up at 4:45am. Others are not so lucky.
-
December 30
We played Trivial Pursuit tonight. Billy won, but Christina finished the game in a foul mood, promising never to play with me ever again. She got a lot of hard questions and I got a lot of easy ones, and I guess she didn’t see the difference. But then we played That Escalated Quickly, and we’re getting better at that game too. Some of the things we come up with – no, some of the things CHRISTINA comes up with – are incredibly entertaining. I’m glad we got so many games for Christmas. This kind of family time makes me so happy.
-
December 27
We’ve been enjoying all the games we got for Christmas this year. A particular favorite has been Uno No Mercy, which really is brutal, but enormously fun in its extremism. We have a bunch more games to try out, and luckily no classes or practices to get in the way for at least a week.
-
December 24
We did a lot to celebrate Christmas Eve, but we forgot to read T’was the Night Before Christmas! Seems like everything worked out just fine all the same.
-
December 16
Now that I finished knitting Pinot’s sweater, I need a new project, so I started a pair of socks using some yarn I got last Christmas. Christina thinks I’m going to give them to her when I’m done. We’ll see.
Year in Photos 