From tree, to wreckage to calm.

 From the beauty of a tree that took me 12 hours to decorate.

 To cards that came in the mail.

To legs of the man I married, pulling boxes down from the attic with K.

To the wreckage taking shape.

To the remaining gifts yet to be distributed.  Those are going out today.

To the old late 1800's trunk I have to contain most it all.  Well, the ornaments that is.

To my baby who said, "Mom, is it okay for me to write out my thank you's?"  Um, yes!  I love that I didn't have to ask or even remind.  :)

Stripped of the ornaments.

 All the while watching a Gilmore Girls marathon.

Picks from the tree and birthday gifts.

A thankful child all while we're keeping it real with the mess she is working around.

Tucked in tight for another year.

The man in action of de-lighting the tree.

Who says that a fake tree doesn't shed?  Hubs insists that it is because I put so much stuff on it.  I think it is that and that the tree has had it's 16th year of use.

Ah, calm restored.

 And the kitty in the window, just as it should be.

Christmas 2014

The week started out a bit rough.  K came down with a nasty cold the day after her birthday.  We were to go to church on Sunday, but before Hubs left for work, he came to tell me that K was feeling a bit funky.

I looked at the child and knew.

We stayed home and by the time we would have been getting out of church, she started running a fever.  Glad we skipped sharing that with the masses.

She was in bed for 2 1/2 days, drinking unlimited amounts of 7-Up, since no food sounded good and at least something was going in.  Hubs stayed with her as I went to work.  Thank goodness for remaining vacation days.

We were going to go Monday to celebrate Happy Home Day, but K was still far too ill.  We moved it to Tuesday.  Santa gave me a little jingle to tell me that Buddy, our Elf on the Shelf, could make the car trip.  We've never gone on a field trip with Buddy, but he was so concerned about K and her illness that Santa decided that a trip would be fine.  Hubs strapped him in with the elfin' car seat that K made.  I mean, how fun is it to see lights and not be able to see them?  She didn't touch Buddy, but he did get a box and boxes to keep him right where he needed to be.

We drove past a house with 2 million lights.  Y'all, that was more lights than I've ever seen.  Ever.  You'd think it would be tacky, but they were all standard lights, not varying sizes, no blow-ups or anything like that.  Everything was of a similar light theme and their displays were concentrated together in theme with ground lights (Christmas lights creating defined areas) bringing it all together. If ever you are out that way, it was in Salem, Ohio on Quaker Lane.  11 acres.  2 million lights.  A must-see.

I only worked until 3 PM on Christmas Eve, so I ran out to the pharmacy real quick on my way home.  Forgot to do it sooner and I was so thankful that they were still opened.  K had to get her science fair project started, so our plan was to bust that out before we left for the evening.  (She's growing green bean seeds in different growing mediums/lights to see what does better.)  Science Fair is January 24 and we would have had this started earlier, but her teacher didn't give them the information until right before break and K's cold/flu/virus held our plans off for a few days.  We got it handled, cole slaw made and we were all out the door by 5:45 PM to get to my parent's house for Christmas Eve dinner.

I lost the Chia pet in the White Elephant.  Drat it all.  It got snitched a few times.  We did get the gloves and earrings for K, along with a bag of holiday wearables.  The Chia pet was Uncle Si and since I've never watched DD, I could care less.  I've secretly dreamed of growing a Chia pet since I was a kid.  Perhaps I should just bite the bullet and Chia in the garden window . . .

Hubs didn't sleep Christmas Eve.  I woke up at 6 with him walking up and down the hall.  He decided to move Leia's stocking off the hook and with he rest of them, but didn't realize that there was an ornament on her hook and it came crashing down.  I got up.  "What did you just break?"  It was a metal elf ornament, so all was well.  He told me later that he was "being very quiet."  Um, no.  He had his slippers on and they were so loud.  We have the 7 AM rule on Christmas and Easter and somehow Hubs didn't wake her up with all of the racket, but he decided to come lay down at 6:45 AM with just 15 minutes to rest.  Nice.

My tree is not leaning.  I think I may have been leaning when I took the photo.

K enjoyed her things.  As a reminder, we subscribe to the 3 gifts from Santa rule.  Santa brought her a reading lamp (he told me he paid $15 for it), a set of Dork Diary books (he went to the Scholastic Book Fair and put in some sweat equity hours in trade) and the Our Generation RV.  I bought K a soft and smooshy gray leopard robe and some lovely raccoon slippers.  Hubs bought K a remote control truck.  The cat loves it.

Hubs gave me an Ice-T list of things he wanted.  I was able to tackle most of the list.  He told me to go through Half.com and Amazon.  He said that he didn't care if it was new or used.  (Neither one of us care, actually.)  I only ran into one shipping problem with Half.com, but I contacted the individual after 2 previous attempts.  I had to threaten negative feedback and filing a claim.  Surprisingly, she got back to me within the 24 hour period I gave, she gave a refund, sent the item out priority mail and apologized profusely.  Since that happened, I had more money I could spend, so I was able to buy him another item on his list.  He loved his stack o' loot and was thrilled that I bought him something that he didn't know even existed.

As for me, my people spoiled me.  K bought me a beautiful purple scarf and the Mother Love Bone Record Store Day vinyl release of Hold Your Head Up.

Hubs bought me Into the Wild and the soundtrack, along with Water on the Road.  The second package I opened, because we all do the three item rule, I opened the Ten vinyl reissue box set. (It was a resale item, but had absolutely all of the extras in the box.)  It was at that point that I figured that package number three had to be A TURNTABLE! (It was an open box score.  Turns out that the people couldn't get it to turn and all they needed to do was to read the instructions and attach the belt. Hubs got it for half off because of it and that is GREAT!)

Hubs even built a shelf for it yesterday.  We don't have an entertainment center and I'm not a big fan of getting one anyhow.  Our TV is old and 180 pounds, so what we have it sitting on is about all that will hold it.

We had a nice holiday.  Yesterday was spent at home, hanging out together.  Because my brother's dog ate his Christmas cookies, I did run the extras to him and some thumbprints to my mom (missed an entire pan of cookies when I was putting them together.)  We sat together and watched Into the Wild together.

Hubs is back to work today and I have the smell of brownies filling the house, as I've prepared to go visit with a friend this afternoon.

I hope that this holiday season finds you well and able to spend some time together with family and friends.

We don't know why . . .

K fell asleep with her head inside of the Our Generation RV that Santa brought her.  We do know that she is enjoying it. 

The cat wasn't bothered by it. 

She decided that K looked like a comfortable place to stop and take a rest.  After all, isn't that what cats labeled as "wild/feral" do?  :S

Perhaps I'll just be like my human and take a nap. Christmas is exhausting, you know.  :)

A Merry Christmas to all of you!

Since I work holiday retail, I always sit on Christmas Eve as a pile of tired.  This year, there is a family thing going on and it seems to have sucked the life out of all of us.  Compound the new family funk added on top of existing family strife.  That has made this holiday even tougher.

It's sad.  I'm a peace loving middle child, after all.

Despite all of that, we have celebrated K's 11th birthday Friday and Saturday.  (One day wasn't enough!)  She had a great time on Friday with her cousins and a couple of friends, we went to the planetarium show on Sunday (her request) and were able to spend a nice day together.  Sunday morning was to be a church day, but K woke up feeling a might funky.  She had one of THE virus' running around and it laid her flat in bed for 2 1/2 days.  She got better in time for Christmas Eve!  So, her illness probably hasn't helped my slump this evening.

Buddy the Elf has gone back to the North Pole this evening.  When we left for family Christmas Eve, he left K a letter and a snow globe, then away he went.  She's left cookies and tea for Santa and a carrot for the reindeer.

Christmas Eve brought my cousin giving me a copy of the cook book that she created from recipes from her mom.  Her mama was my Godmother.  My Aunt Carol died 5 years ago from brain cancer and I was very close to her.  When the recipe book came up in the White Elephant and they were reading from it, I sat there in tears.  Oh, how I miss Aunt Carol.

This year we don't have my sister's Happy Birthday Jesus cake, though.  That makes my heart sad.  :(

My kiddo is on the mend.

My gifts are wrapped and some of those have been delivered by either USPS or by hand.

Cookies have been distributed.

We have a home and family and heat, water and essentials that so many others don't.

We have so many things to be thankful for.  Though my holidays seem to be awash of bad decisions made by people who know better and are bumming me out, I have so many other wonderful things to be thankful for.  I don't want the bad choices of a few to override the joy of many.

We celebrate Christ's birthday.  That is far more important than any peripheral garbage going on in my life.

We might not have a Jesus' birthday cake, but we have Jesus and that is far more important than a piece of cake any day.

Merry Christmas to all.

It's like Willy Wonka's teacher is the one teaching K.

I swear, this year has been a pain in ALL of our sides.  For the record, I'm being nice right now.  Boy, it has just not been pleasant.

Remember the teacher from Willy Wonka?  He was talking to the kids about test schedules changing and about how now the test would be on Monday on the material before they learned it?  :hand raised high:  We are in the School of Willy Wonka Learning.

There are no fun chocolates or Umpa Loompas to craft the chocolate.

K had a math test today.  She was told about it YESTERDAY.  Her teacher had originally planned for Thursday, but since he'd be out he decided he'd do it today.

They hadn't covered all of the chapter and it was dividing major numbers into decimals and estimating hundredths and whatnot.

Plainly and politely, the chapter sucked without this challenge.

Needless to say, K didn't do super swell on it.  She was bummed, but we explained to her that regardless to the fact that her grade was not stellar, she did as we asked.  She did the very best she could do.  She said that she used 5 pieces of scrap paper to work the problems out.  (It's on computer.)

Since we know that not all of the material had been covered and that apparently that was a bit of a verbal altercation between him and another one of the 5th grade teachers about it, I will be asking for a copy of this computer test.  He hasn't been able to generate one for me in the past, but I'm certain that someone on the school grounds will be able to.  We need to see if she was tested on the materials that were not covered.

When we met with him last Thursday for the parent-teacher conference we were kind, polite and understanding.  After all, that's what Christians do.  He went over the MAP test scores and told us that K moved up an entire grade in reading just from the September to December test.  "However," he said, "she did move down a point in math."  "Mr. H, it is no secret that my child sucks in math.  I consider it a great feat that she only lost one point."  Math has ALWAYS been a challenge for her.  That's okay.  I'm not so hot at it myself.  He mentioned something about how he is dyslexic and can't spell.

That explains more than I can possibly tell you.

If he doesn't understand something, he still assigns it as homework but they don't get any instruction with it.  :tipped head:  He has NEVER taught anything at all with Health.  He just hands them a new set of worksheets to have done for the next Thursday.

"Work in groups" is the theme of the 5th grade.  I hate that, too.  They'll hand stuff out and tell the kids to work in groups.  They won't explain it. They'll just hand it out.

We're already flailing as it is.  Two of the three 5th grade teachers are retiring in early spring.  If the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing WITH full time teachers on staff, will super subs be able to pick up the slack where the others were only punching the clock?  If Mr. H is meant to lead the sub team, all is going to hell in a hand basket.

The city wide science and math celebration is coming up as a Science Fair in January.  He asked his students about a month or more ago if anyone was interested.  K was and so were a few others.  He dropped it and never mentioned it again.  I asked at open house.  "Well, I asked again and no one seemed interested, so I dropped it."  "Well, K and at least I know of C who did want to do it."  He scrounged for the paperwork & sent a copy home with K.  It is about an inch thick and made for 5th-12th graders to use.  :rolling eyes at the public school for their lack on that one:  She called me, "Mom, I have to have my science fair project picked out by tomorrow."  "Tomorrow?"  Yes, it was "tomorrow" because he found that the deadline was 12/16 for the children to participate.  He registered them online, which was kind of him.  Since we didn't have any parameters with which to work, we weren't able to craft an idea that was beyond K experimenting with beans, growing medium and manipulating light.  She would have loved to research, but she wasn't given the opportunity.

The science fair kids are to stay behind on Tuesdays and Thursdays after school for a half hour to work on their projects.  K called her grandmother to tell her to get her a half hour late.  I decided to double check with him yesterday morning just to be sure.  "No.  We aren't meeting.  I have a staff meeting that I forgot about."  "Um, I'm glad I asked.  I didn't have transportation arrangements for K until 3.  You may want to tell the other kids."  He tipped his head in confusion.

5 more months.

It's not going to kill us, is it?

A day fit for wrapping and folding.

I decided that after all of the continual running I've been doing, we deserved a day at home to wrap up some details of Christmas.

Last Saturday, we had Santa Shop.  Now, I ended up helping with Santa Shop purchasing/set-up until about 11:15 PM last Friday night.  K and I had to be back up to the school on Saturday morning to start the coffee, get the hot dogs cooking (yes, we sell hot dogs right from the start) and to get the 5th grade concessions all set.  We were there until 2:15 PM.

This is where I should add a photo of my child's Lego contest submission, but I failed to get one.  I will tell you that it had Santa's sleigh with a motorized propeller with a "push here" button, Lego peeps all dressed up in Hershey Kiss wrapper dresses and some lovely Christmas trees.  Baby girl won!  Hooray!  Mama should have taken a photo.

We had the family house cleaning session that evening.  Yes, our house is cleaned and picked up, but when you are having 12 people over to your house, you make sure the corners are free of cobwebs and that you've wiped all of the hand prints off of the light switches, walls, doors and woodwork that you normally don't see.  We worked together and got things all set.

I might add that at this point I was beat and Hubs even asked why I over schedule myself.

The tea was lovely and the desserts were delicious.  (I ask my guests to bring a dessert to share since I'm cooking everything else.)  The variety was wonderful!

I had enough soup leftover to give Julia some for her birthday on Monday and Matt enjoyed it for lunch for his birthday on Tuesday.  (Coworkers.)  I had it Sun-Tues.  It was delightful, but I could not finish the rest.  Too much soup.

What kind of soup was it? It was Butter Bean, Bacon and Button Mushroom soup.  (My coworker made it for us to have for dinner on a late decorating night.)  It was broth based with Worcester sauce and brown sugar in the broth and that was it.  For the crowd I had, the soup recipe I made was:

Toni's Butter Bean, Bacon and Button Mushroom Soup

3 x 6 oz packages of little button mushrooms
7 cans butter beans WITH the bean water
1 pound sliced, cooked & cooled bacon (I drained it twice and blotted it twice.)
About 10 shakes of Worcester Sauce
About 1/2 cup brown sugar

Clean your mushrooms.  Cook up your bacon.  Put those into a crock-pot along with all beans WITH bean water. Throw in some Worcester Sauce (to taste) and brown sugar.  Cook on low until done.  My coworker said NOT to add more water, but I did a little.  I also added some shredded carrots for color.

Delicious!

K played in her first harp "recital" the other day.  She was upset that she missed a few notes.  She told me that the camera flashes distracted her.  I told her that it was her first experience ever in doing such a thing and that I thought she did a fantastic job.  I might add that I didn't even notice the missing few notes.

The harp students then joined the rest of the 5th grade for a recorder concert.  It sounds pretty cheesy, but the kiddos did a good job!  They are working hard to learn songs to play with the symphony at a local theater here in the spring.

So it brings me to today.  This past week was busy, as usual and I needed to stop and take care of some Christmas things.  We've been wrapping and taking inventory.  I had to make sure I had everything for everyone.  I have one giant bag packed for my mom's house.  (Christmas for 4 families and Christmas Eve.)  I also have make-up birthday gifts in there for any birthdays that may not have been celebrated in mass this year.

Whew.

I also picked up a few extra names for the Christmas Eve exchange at my mom's house.  Thankfully, the shelf extras I had filled those in nicely.

I  have clothes.  They are clean.  They are on deck for folding after the extravaganza of wrapping is complete.  My folding this week kind of flew out the door.  My people have been hunter-gatherer in clean laundry baskets for the last two days.  I really must fix that.

I suppose that I should probably figure out what will be for dinner.  A nice slow roasted chicken might be in order.  I can tell you, though-- I'm not leaving the house.  We'll work with what we have here.  The one of two times of year I wear sweat pants happens to be today along with a holiday fleece sweatshirt.  I'm toasty, but I look like I fell off of the back of a pumpkin truck.  My hair is wound up into a ball on the back of my head and I have no make-up on.  I'm not going forth to share this look with anyone.

What would 5th grade be without another story?

K called me on my cell the other day.  I was at work and she typically doesn't phone.  I stepped outside to see what was up.

"Mom, Mr. H moved a few seats around today."

"Let me guess.  You are sitting next to Z."

"Yes.  He only moved about 5 kids around and he was put in front of me."

"I'll write a note tomorrow to Mr. H to ask that you be moved."

"Oh, thank you!"

You know, I am to the point where I encourage K advocating for herself.  I always have, but I really have tried to take the training wheels off.  It has been up to K to talk to her teacher about different issues she has had.

This one was a bit bigger issue than what she could handle on her own.

You see, Z is the MOST distracting child in the ENTIRE 5th grade.  I'm not exaggerating.  Truly, I'm being honest.  Imagine Pig-Pen.  Add that Pig-Pen whirling dervish of garbage, underpit smell and ADHD.  Now, I am an ADD/ADHD chick myself.  I've got it and understand that you tend to be obnoxious and don't really mean to.  However, he is uber obnoxious and he thinks it is cute.

Graphic from Peanuts Wiki.

Not cool.

I emailed her teacher to ask that she please be moved.  I said that from previous experience, we know how this will play out.  I said that Z is "distracting in a multitude of ways" and to please, please help.

He keeps poking K.  K finally got sick of it yesterday and kept getting out of her seat to step away from it.  (I told her that she needs to not do that.)  The teacher did see it and told Z that he WILL be moved.  Any day would be most excellent.  Mr. H is definitely not the most motivated teacher that K has ever had.  None of the 5th grade staff are.

Z never comes to school prepared, so the children around him are forced to share their learning materials with him because he has forgotten his book . . .  The children around him are expected to tutor him in whatever subject that he doesn't understand.  He is so busy trying to be football player/wrestler cool all combined with the ADHD that he doesn't understand most of what is given.  (I hesitate to say "taught" since teaching isn't so much what appears to be done there.)

I told Mr. H that K is having a difficult enough time in 5th grade and that this is not going to help.

Rrr.  I'm hoping that wherever 6th grade is, that it will be better than 5th.  5th is just sucking the life out of us this year.  It has been one thing after another and it is just exhausting.