Color Me Not

With the start of warm weather I have also seen the start of the sunless tanning commercials. I often joke about how pale I am. My skin does not tan. It will freckle, which is a huge warning sign that I need to avoid sun. It isn't just about keeping the premature aging away. For me, it is about keeping the cancer away. When I was a young teenager and got a sunburn, my father pointed out that I had just overcooked my skin. He said it as if I was treating my body like a Thanksgiving turkey. The image stuck with me. One teacher at my high school referred to tanning beds as the human microwave and wondered what it did to our insides while it was baking the outside. I've never been in a tanning bed (thank you, Mr.Scott).
I was secretly hoping, once the word at large started taking the issue of skin damage seriously, pale would become the trend. Instead, companies started coming up with new ways to make your skin appear darker. If anything, it has gotten worse. Now that a sun tan is something that can be sold in a spray can, every advertiser in America would have you believe that only poor, sick people refrain from covering up their natural skin pigment during warm weather. 
Over the years I have gone back and forth in the ways I have handled the pressure to be tan. In the past couple of years though, I have become more and more firm on the subject of remaining my natural color. The difference is my children. Nix is really fair, and JD is as ghostly white as I am, if not more so. I cover them up with SPF 5,000 to protect them, then I put it on me to show solidarity. If I truly believe that my children should be proud of who they are and the hand genetics dealt them, then I have to lead by example. We tell our daughters that they are beautiful just the way they are and to stay out of the sun and then we don't show our legs unless they are bronzed. Talk about your mixed messages.
This is basically my long winded way of warning you all that I will be sporting white legs and arms this year (again). I will not be getting any intentional sun, spraying a tan, or getting tinted lotion. I am a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant and that is not changing. I am accepting my color, or lack thereof, and choosing to be satisfied with what I have, or don't have, as the case may be. I'm writing it out here so that I can't chicken out and cave.

Six Degrees From Tiffany

After the game "Six Degrees From Kevin Bacon" came out, I remember learning that everyone in the United States was, on average, only 3 degrees of separation from anyone else within the country. This has always fascinated me, and I like to test it out from time to time. It wasn't as fun in Jackson because I was related to, went to school with, or had a work connection with the majority of the town. It has been a little more fun here and has helped us get to know a few people we might not have otherwise.
The invention of Facebook has made it easier to find out how you are connected to people who might have been total strangers yesterday. Today I noticed a certain cleaver quote popping up in status of seemingly unrelated people and I got curious. After tracing it back to the start I found Tiffany Underwood. Although she didn't post it, it was posted within the comments of her status, which lead to the spreading to various circles of my life. I realized that all 5 of my major circles of friends, at some point, overlap with hers. I'm pretty sure that she is my only non-relative that has accomplished this. She is now my personal Kevin Bacon. I'm going to start introducing myself to people as, "Hi. I'm Lynn. How do you know Tiffany?"
One benefit I have found of this is that it eases my social awkwardness to know that there will be at least one person I can have a conversation with in a large gathering. It is like when you go to a pot luck dinner and you recognize the casserole dish of someone who knows how to cook so you feel safe eating from that dish and know you won't starve that night. You are no longer playing Russian Roulette with your digestive system. You are setting down to dinner with friends, which is much less stressful. That's not just me, right?
Do you have a Kevin Bacon? A friend that overlaps into multiple circles of friends?

JD I Am

If you don't have children in the public school system then you may not know that this week is the annual celebration of that trippy writer, Dr. Suess. Children all across American gather together to read Dr. Suess books. In addition to a pajama day and a bring your favorite Suess book day, JD's class is having a dress like a Suess character day. I'm not sure if you are familiar with the fine illustrations of the Suess, but they aren't exactly what you would call normal. I can't get away with digging something out of the closet at the last minute like I did for Nix last year when she was Ann Frank, Nancy Drew, and Amelia Earhart. When Nix did the Suess thing I painted a red shirt to say "Thing 1" , but JD is never as easy. He has his own thoughts about what his costume should be and exactly what it should look like. I tried the Thing 2 idea out on him, but he was having none of it. The instructions said his favorite character, and by golly he was going to be his favorite.
He presented me with this

Then a couple of days and a trip to the fabric store later and I presented him with this.

One yellow t-shirt, some funky yellow fleece, and a little red flannel. The upside is that if he ever wants to be Fred Flintstone I have a head start! While I was buying the fabric I was chatting with the lady cutting for me. I mentioned what I was making and joked about how many costumes I have had to throw together for school. She replied that it was all worth it if the kids learned something. I thought for a moment and realized that what my children have learned is that their mom will drop everything to whip up a new outfit with only a couple of days warning.

Oh, and because I can't quit while I'm ahead, since Sam had 2 different signs with his name, our sign has 2 different sides. Here is the alternate view.

I will not be winning any seamstress awards with this one. In fact, I'm sure if someone who really sews looked at how I did this, they would cry. It only has to last through one day, so it should be okay. I was feeling pretty smug about my mom skills right up until I realized that I had not gotten anything ready for dinner tonight. Oops, looks like a good night for brinner.

Crafty Time!

Many months ago one of my favorite bloggers was redoing her office and posted about her wall art on EPBOT. One of the things she had done was frame some really cute note cards, but with a twist. I stuck the idea somewhere in the back of my brain and left it there until a friend of Nix's sent her this thank you card.

It is from the Bella Pilar line that Papyrus carries. I knew right away this would be the perfect test case for framing.

I found an inexpensive, shallow shadow box with a plain black frame. After the sale, a coupon, and a small gift card I had, it costs me a total of 99 cents for a 3 pack. (Score!) I went through my stash of card stock, and found a lovely peacock blue to use as the backdrop. I cut it down to 8 x 10 so it would fit the frame exactly. I also had to cut the card down the fold so that it would lay right.

Next came mounting the card. After I lined up the centers of the background and the card, I used adhesive mounting squares that can be found with scrapbook supplies or with craft tape. I wanted the card to "float" a little higher, so I doubled up on the squares to give it a good depth.

The whole project took me about 10 minutes and cost me $0.33.

I really wish you could see the dimension on this. It looks awesome! I may have to see if I can find the companion card that is in yellow and orange.

Everything is okay, but...

Any time something has gone wrong in our family, but no one is mortally wounded we get a phone call that starts, "Everything is okay, but..." followed by the story of what happened. The idea is that if you let people know out of the gate that everything is now shiny the bad story that follows will not be so bad.
Everything is okay, but as you know, this is the week of Valentine's so something unforeseen and stressful had to have happened to us. I've been keeping a lid on this year's excitement until I knew the outcome.
This morning I went for my first mammogram followed by an ultrasound. Remember, everything is fine. It seems that my body likes to form lots of harmless, yet very scary, cysts all over that area of my body. I found one and then noticed another, and another, and so last Friday I went to the doctor. She felt what I felt and set up the tests. She was a little more freaked out about them than I would have liked, and was certain at least one biopsy was called for. I have never been so happy to have a doctor be wrong in all my life. The test showed several points of concern, but all of them showed up as obvious cysts on the ultrasound. Those are annoying, but cause no real problems.
Please forgive me if I was a tad preoccupied, gruff, or just plain not around since the 11th. I had a few things on my mind and wasn't sleeping very well. Now I have 364 days to enjoy before Feb. 14th comes around again. Next year is going to have to work hard to top this one, but then again that is what I said last year after Rocky's wreck. Maybe I should start praying now.

Out of the Mouth of Babes

JD has been on a roll lately. I wanted to type out a list of a few of his more recent gems so that I would have a record of them.
*JD wants a hermit crab for his birthday. "They will teach me a little responsibility, and since they don't have fur, Dad won't be allergic." We couldn't argue with that, so next month we will be adding a crab to the family.
*He came home from school last week all smiles. He told me that he got to see the girl he has had a crush on since kindergarten. "That is why I have invisible hearts over my head."
*At bed time he waved his hand in front of me and said in a calm even tone, "You don't need to put me to bed until 9 o'clock." I replied, "Your Jedi mind tricks have no power over me."
*After he pulled his first tooth I asked if he wanted to put it under his pillow. "We both know there is no such thing as fairies so just give me the money now." This one threw me a little.
*JD went through a phase of asking who he was and wasn't allowed to marry. After being told his Aunt Becca was already married he asked, "If Uncle Bo dies then can I marry Aunt Becca?" Technically the answer to that is yes, but...
*We sent him to get his pajamas on, which is usually a quick task for him. After some groaning he came down with just the bottoms on and the top in hand saying, "This shirt is mocking me!" One of the sleeves was turned in on itself. While I was fixing it, Nix came down and pointed out that JD was shirtless. He replied, "It's okay. It is manly! I have a handsome tummy."

He makes life fun!

Holy Socks and Pretty Pajamas

Over Christmas I started to notice that my socks were starting to wear out and even found one with a hole in it. It has been awhile since I last bought myself socks. Since I mostly wear tennis shoes I tend towards the white cotton socks that come 12 to a bag at Walmart. I've been to Walmart a lot since I first noticed I needed new socks, I even went today, but did I buy socks? No, of course not. And, why? Because I'm the mom and whites are the thing I neglect.
I have noticed that most moms have one thing they neglect and one thing that is important to them to kind of splurge on. The thing you neglect is going to be the one thing in the house that you would never dream of letting your spouse or children go without, but for some unknown reason you forget to provide for yourself. For me it is socks and underwear, for others it might be good shoes, or a mom favorite, pajamas. I have only recently realized that you can in fact buy socks and underwear by the pair instead of by the dozen. It rocked my world.
This brings us to the splurge. Mine is pajamas. I use to be an old t-shirt and boxers kind of girl until I had my daughter. It struck me how much time I was spending dressed like a hag looking ratty and it depressed me. I didn't want to walk around the house caring for my child looking like I had been at a frat party the night before. So, I got a set of pajamas. It wasn't expense, but it was matching and did qualify as sleepwear. Now it is a standing request on my gift list. Each Christmas I love getting a new set of flannel pajamas. The kids have a lot of fun picking them out. My all time favorites are pink with penguins wearing purple party hats, or maybe the ones with the lawn gnomes. They are fun and they brighten things up, especially when I'm sick and don't feel like putting on real clothes. I think at most they run about $20, but to a mom like me, it is a luxury.
Now if you'll excuse me, I am going to go put socks on my grocery list.
I am very curious to know what everyone else's items of neglect and splurge are. Please share!

The Office

I'm so excited to have a new before and after to share! The office was a huge challenge for me in more ways than one. There were so many piles and so many drawers. I had gotten into a bad cycle of using what storage there was to just stuff and pile with no real system. There was a closet that you couldn't really get into because of all the stuff. Because I put a little of everything in there, nothing could be found.

Here are those horribly embrassing before pictures. I'm sorry if they are a little fuzzy. I was trying out the camera on my iPod with mixed results.

The first thing I did was empty the storage drawers I have and label each drawer.

After 8 trash bags, and two very large boxes to donate we now have

It isn't perfect, and I'd love to take a trip to Ikea to do it up right, but it is SO much better that I am content to just let the diaper box of gift bags be for now. Not only can I open the closet, but low and behold, it is the walk-in it was always meant to be. When we don't have extra guests I can roll up the air mattress and set up a fold away craft table that I've never had room for in this house before. This is going to make Rocky working from home a lot easier.

From Out of Nowhere

Editor's note: I wrote this for myself as a release. Now that I've had a few days and all is back to normal, I thought I'd post it. I know I'm not alone in these moments and I want to make sure others know they are not alone either.
I'm in the middle of cleaning out and redoing a room in the house that has gathered a lot of memories over the years. I really thought it would be a simple matter of throwing stuff away and organizing other things, but I hit a girly snag today. I found a stack of pictures. You can't exactly pick up a stack of photographs and not look through them. I've got a nice storage box set aside for them to go in now, but I still can't stop myself from looking at each and everyone of them before they go in that box. Up until today, all the pictures have brought back smiles and warm fuzzy feelings. After all, what idiot would take pictures of unpleasant memories? The trouble comes with hind sight.
I was making great progress this afternoon. I'm up to filling trash bag number 6 and the donation pile has really grown. Then I pick up a picture of the house we built 7 years ago and out of nowhere came a flood of emotions I usually keep boxed up and filed away in the very back of my brain. You see, that house is a standing monument to every stupid and short sighted decision we made for 3 years, and I find myself holding not 1, but an entire stack of pictures chronically the process of building it. I really wish that when something was going to hit you like a metaphorical ton of bricks that there was some sort of warning sound that went off first like it does in cartoons. That would at least give me time to get to a tissue box, find some chocolate, or maybe remove myself from whatever is bringing on the bricks. Instead I end up sitting the middle of the room, bursting into tears because of something that was over and done with 5 years ago. It is like an emotional grenade was hiding in my basket of stuff just waiting for the day when I would try to clean. Is it any wonder I put these things off?
I always hope for a time when those memories will have no power over me, but I don't know that that will ever come. Moving from that house was like a death in many ways. I knew it was time to go, we are in a better place now, but still the feeling of loss dwells somewhere deep inside me waiting for days when life has me venerable. I guess today was one of those days. On the upside, they are getting fewer and farther between, and knowing that makes it much easier.

Paying Attention

All four of us made it to and through a church service today. That might not seem special, but given the past 2...no, 3 months, this is a family victory. The church we attended this week had a guest speaker, which in the past has not been a positive, but today was actually pretty great. He is a professor at a seminary in town to work with the church's youth weekend. I gathered that it was one of those weekends where teens are called to a closer relationship with God through being deprived of sleep and showers (I'm joking, I'm sure it was fun and educational).
My kids were especially hyped about this week because we had promised that we would sit in the balcony. As it turns out, balcony seating is a huge plus in the kid's book. Usually we sit so that our son is sandwiched between both parents to allow for tag team parenting, but somehow he ended up on the end next to Rocky. When he isn't next to me I can never be sure if he is paying attention. This week I know he was for two reasons.
I'll get to those in a minute, but first you need to understand that the sermon was on marriage. It was one of the best hours I have heard on marriage in a long time. It was good enough that I am giving the man a pass for telling us how he was like Ricky Bobby, using the term "mad skillz", and having his notes on an iPad. He also sang a line of "When a Man Loves a Woman" crediting Percy Sledge and gave a shout out to marital fruit, but I'm pretty sure those are both biblically sound. (Yes, he really did all of these thing, and yes I am having a little fun with it.)
Now you are ready for how I know my son was listening.
1. When the preacher mentioned bird poop, he laughed loud enough that the people in front of us turned to look and got tickled at his laughter
2. The preacher reminded men that it was important to show your wife that you are thinking of her by writing a note or even texting her "I love you" during the middle of the day and doing it regularly. Right after that I got a note on the back of a bulletin handed to me. It said "I love you very much! Love, Rocy" My son is trying to look innocent, but has that special grin for when he is up to something. After church he wanted to know how I knew he wrote it and not his dad. I told him my first clue was that "Rocky" has a "k" in it, but I loved it just the same. How cute is he?

What the kids don't know is that Rocky and I have twitter account that we have blocked all followers from except each other just so we can cyber flirt with each other.

Anyone else care to share ways to flirt with your other? We could all use fresh ideas.

But I Like Church

Warning: the following post contains my opinion. I know that many, many people have the exact opposite opinion. I mean no disrespect to anyone. I just thought the other half might like to see for a moment where I am coming from.
I was born into attending church. Sunday morning was the highlight of my week. It was the one day a week where I happily shed my tree climbing tomboy ways for a dress and lady like manners. I knew all the words to all the hymns we sang, and I sang them with great enthusiasm. Even now that I am an adult I love church. I have never understood people who have trouble staying awake or think that the old Fannie Crosby hymns are dull.
One day someone had an idea that the people who most needed to attend church were the ones who hated the way church was done. So, they started the unchurchy church. You wear the same type clothes that you would wear Saturday night. Instead of a choir you have a rock band that has "Jesus is great!" themed lyrics. The preacher is considered long winded if his sermon lasts a full half hour. The unchurchy church grew like wildfire, which is great. People who have issues with a regular church setting should have a place they feel comfortable.
Remember New Coke? Back in the 80's someone, who I can only assume must have hated Coke, decided that the classic American beverage needed a new formula. They wanted to expand their market to include the ones who had stopped drinking Coke or who had jumped on the Pepsi bandwagon. I'm sure there are people who really liked New Coke, but many of us just sat around wondering why you would let someone who hated Coke have anything to do with "improving" it.
To me, the unchurchy church is New Coke, and I am on a quest to find a Coke Classic.

What's in a Word

Sometimes when the kids ask me what a word means I like to look it up with them. This helps them learn how to find things for themselves, and prevents me from looking stupid if I have a momentary lapse in my vocabulary. When the Epic Mickey game came out JD wanted to know what "epic" meant. After a few explanations from me, we looked it up for better synonyms to help him understand. The one that clicked with him was "heroic". Then he started noticing how often people contort that word, and it seemed to bother him.
Sometimes when we look up a word it gives new insight. One of my all time favorite examples of this comes from my mom looking up "patience" and finding "waiting without complaint" For some reason, that painted just the right word picture for me.
Today I was looking to defend the continued existence of handwritten letters. The best word I could think of to describe how I felt was "romance", but I wanted to convey that I didn't mean that in a hearts and flowers kind of way. After looking up the definition I have a whole new outlook on what it means to be romantic. It is really an act so impractical that the sheer act of doing it expresses love. That is EXACTLY what a handwritten letter is. For years my husband has been asking what I think makes something romantic, and I finally have an answer and can explain why romance doesn't have to cost a dime.
I really love the English language!
Do you have a favorite word meaning?

The Year of Clean

Last year I started on a journey to clean my house and keep it clean. I thought you might be interested in what has worked.
My common rooms have stayed much cleaner. It isn't that we don't still make a mess, but now it takes 10 minutes to clean it, not a weekend.
Here are my favorite changes:
1. Put a trash can in every room that has a tissue box in it, this is the smartest thing I did.
2. Putting a tablecloth on the kitchen table. The family still respects the cloth and the table stays much cleaner. Aside from a couple of time my son came close to a bad comedy routine dragging it off the table, it has been great
3. Don't store boxes. Taking foods like granola bars out of their box and toilet paper out of the bag the day I buy it has helped on may levels. I no longer have to shake boxes to see what we are running out of, there is more room in the closets, and I get all of my boxes broken down and in the trash at one time.
4. Coat hooks by the back door. We are lazy coat hanger so the hooks have been perfect. The addition of a glove basket has kept us all from losing gloves.
5. Moving my shredder to where I stand when I sort the mail. If you have kids with fingers small enough to fit in a shredder this might not be a good idea, but my kids are old enough to leave it alone.
I really knew the process had worked when Halloween was here. We have an open house kind of party every year and every year I end up filling a "sort later" box that never gets sorted. This year, I didn't need the box. That is huge for me.
I did really well through the downstairs and a couple of rooms upstairs and then I hit my 11 year old daughter's room. It broke me. She was actually really receptive to the changes and love the rearranging of the furniture. Her room is a lot cleaner, but for the first time in this process I ended up with boxes of stuff I didn't know what to do with. They are sitting in our playroom to this day. I just lacked the energy to move on. I am determined to get back on track, because there is really only one room in the house left. It is the smallest room, but is the office/ music/ craft/ extra guest room, so it won't be easy. I'll try to get back to posting pictures then, too.
Speaking of pictures, here is one I just took to prove at least part of it all stuck.

Christmas Ugly

Because of the sickness that has run back and forth through our house since the week before Thanksgiving, I had to put off a lot of my Christmas shopping until today. I had 4 hours to cover 7 people. I was so happy to have everyone well and be out of the house on a sunny day that I was able to do it all with a smile on my face. I always hate to see people running through Walmart with frowns on their faces and a cart full of presents. It is suppose to be better to give than receive so, in theory, our faces should be as bright buying the presents as they are when opening them. For me, the trouble comes when I have the perfect gift picked out for someone and something is standing between me and that gift. I came very close to that today. I knew exactly what the kids were going to get Rocky. I went to Walmart and it had even been marked down $10. Naturally, they were sold out. The very nice clerk checked around for me and found that the Windward Parkway store had 12 left. I drove all the way to Alpharetta and practically had to mug a clerk to get them to get it out of the magic case for me. Then I noticed it was still listed at the regular price. I asked if maybe the sign had just not changed. The clerk casually informs me that sometimes one store will have a sale they don't and oh yeah, they won't price match another Walmart. I'm pretty sure my eye started twitching at this point. I realized I'd be getting no where with this clerk so I went ahead to the check out readying my argument and threats. I could feel the ugly rising up inside me. Maybe the new clerk saw it too because he hit the scanner really quickly and seemed very relieved to see it ring up at the sales price. I am very happy to say that I never once got rude and didn't even say anything sarcastic, but certainly not because of my own power. So, today I am thankful that I have been able to avoid the Christmas ugly.
Are you maintaining a merry and bright demeanor while shopping this year or has something ugly gotten in your way?

1 in 150

Did you know that your odds of having a child with autism are 1 in 150? That is a pretty shocking number. Do you know how I learned this? A t-shirt from Band of Angels. They also taught me that your odds for Down Syndrome is 1 in 800.

I really think this is one of the smartest designs for an awareness shirt I have seen, and today, thanks to Band of Angels and my friend Tiffany, we all have a chance to win one. Just head on over to her blog and find out how.

Band of Angels is an amazing organization dedicated to being an advocate for children with Down Syndrome, autism, and other disabilities. It is a really uplifting site meant to encourage parents and shines a brilliant light on a subject that a lot of people fear.

Why I'm Exhausted

I'm having trouble keeping my eyes open today thanks to some vivid, wacky dreaming again. Since I wasn't animate or an alien with a robot arm, this isn't even close to my strangest dream. I'm glad I didn't live in the 1690's or I'd have to hide my overactive dream life for fear of being burned at the stake.

Last night's dream was a lot like a bad Lifetime movie. There was a wealthy couple with two sons who were in the 8 to 12 age range. The couple decided that they really wanted to try to have a baby girl, but because of their age they needed a surrogate mother to carry the child. While the woman was carrying the child the wife died leaving the father to care for the sons and unborn child. The surrogate ended up becoming a sort of nanny. The people in their social circle spent a great deal of time gossiping about the situation. In the end it comes to light that the mother had realized she was dying and had picked the woman to be a surrogate in more than one way. The birth of the baby, which is a girl, bonds them all together and they live happily ever after. Que the crying. The weird twist in all of this is that my role in the dream was that of the dead wife.

I'm pretty sure if I saw a preview of this as a made for tv movie that I'd roll my eyes and wonder who comes up with this stuff. If anyone decides to use this idea, I expect to see my name in the credits, a good character named after me, and 25% of the royalties.

JD's Words of Wisdom

JD is always full of great comments. He is a very entertaining kids, especially to only be 6. I have a couple of gems that are too big for a status line.
Nix, being the proper big sister she is, was giving a lecture about picking up and keeping track of your own toys. JD looks at her and says, "Nix, all I heard from that is, JD blah blah blah blah toys".  After we all laughed a good laugh I made sure he knew that if he pulled that with an adult then he was risking serious punishment. But, that is the really great thing about JD, he seems to know when it is okay to joke around like that and when not to. He is very respectful, except to Nix.
This morning I asked JD to plug in the lights on the Christmas tree. I guess at some point we went overboard on the "don't stick stuff in the outlets" speech because he looks at me very seriously and says, "I don't think I'm old enough to plug them in yet. I'm not ready for my life to end." I tried showing him the right way to pull things in, but the light plugs that allow you to plug into the back really threw him. He decided it was best to wait until he gets a little older.
I was a little worried (okay, I was really stressed) that JD would not take his school work seriously. Getting him to do homework and study spelling is impossible. Early on in the school year I told him that if he didn't get serious then he wouldn't make good grades and be able to go to the second grade. He looked at me like I had lost my mind and said, "Mom, I'm only crazy at home. I'm serious at school." And so he is. I checked with his teacher. She found it hard to believe that he is so goofy at home. She says she has to reminder herself that he isn't just a really small man because he is so serious. I still find that hard to believe.

Christmas Carol Gone Wrong

Late last night I heard a Christmas song that I had never heard before, and I knew I had to post it today. It is a song written about something that really happened in 1915 during World War I. As with all great songs about legendary historic events, the writer took a few liberties with the truth, but the core of the story does seem to be true. The British and the German troops were entrenched close to each other when Christmas came. The British heard the Germans singing a song they recognized as "Silent Night" in German. They responded by singing their own carol. After some back and forth, both sides emerged from their fox holes and had a small celebration together in the area deemed "no man's land", which also included playing a little football. The event didn't last long as commanders called their troops back to the reality of the situation.
Much like the officers of these men, the writers of this song decide to call us all back to the reality of war in the last verse. I had no idea there was a Christmas song about killing Germans mixed with words from "Silent Night". It was like that scene in every John Woo movie where there is a gun battle with "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" playing over the action. The song had started by warming my heart and then slammed me back to the cold harsh war.  Why don't you just tell me the Christmas Shoes woman died!
I hope you find you find this as oddly interesting as I did.


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The song is sung by the group Cletic Thunder who had a Christmas special on PBS last night.

Christmas Music

It is December 1st which means it is officially socially acceptable to listen to Christmas music again. Woohoo! A friend is posting a Christmas song a day on her blog and I thought I'd join in the fun. I kind of doubt I'll do one every day. It will all depend on what I can find.
Today's selection comes from the movie Toys. It is weird little movie and makes almost no sense, but Hans Zimmer did the music for it. At the end of the movie there is a song called "At the Closing of the Year" sung by Wendy and Lisa with a special Seal kicker. I know it is an odd choice, but I like it and wanted to start out with the unexpected . Enjoy!

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Christmas Lights and Senseless Crimes

This afternoon I took my first step towards decorating for Christmas by stringing outside lights. Rocky is against the idea of making any permanent alterations to the house to allow for decoration, meaning no nails, staples, or hooks. When you combine that with my how miser like I get this time of year to ensure Christmas bills don't become New Years bills, we put up very few lights. I have two sets of netting lights and 2 more regular strands plus a wreath. It took me all of ten minutes. As with many holiday rituals, it brings childhood memories to the front.
When I was little we didn't do the outside light thing. One year my mom decided to replace all of our old multi colored tree lights with the clear kind. My brother and I ganged up and convinced her to let us use the old lights to decorate outside. We did all the work ourselves other than the wiring it took to plug them into an outlet. I was so proud of those lights. The second day when we plugged them in we noticed a very odd change. All of our pretty multi colored lights were now clear. We had been the victim of a completely senseless crime! Who would take off one set of lights and replace them with others that are exactly the same except for the color? At some point deductive reasoning kicked in and we figured out that what had actually happened was that our old light set was not meant to use outside. The color had been painted on, and when a little rain shower came through in the night, it had washed all the paint off.
I still get tickled thinking about those few confusing minutes it took us to catch on to what happened. I also can't help but wonder how long it was before my mother realized that she could have just washed the lights to start with instead of buying new clear ones. I'm glad she didn't know before hand because then I wouldn't have one of my favorite Christmas memories.