I woke up the other morning with the words WISTERIA SNOW on my lips. If I was right, if my black hole of a brain had truly conjured up the family room paint color, long ago misplaced, in my sleep no less, it was to be a veritable miracle.
Last week was reminiscent of the winter of 2011. The whole city was covered by a thick layer of ice. Through the windows, the grass was a blanket of snow. But it only took one slippery step to realize there would be no snowballs nor snowmen. It was also made quite clear that we have no cold threshold and will freeze in Colorado.
School and work were cancelled and from Thursday evening through Monday evening, we were prisoners in our home.
Besides all the the extra bonding time,
the beauty of this circumstance was that Dan, the Great Entertainer, The Best Dad in the World, was home. He diligently played with the kids inside and out while I diligently cleaned out and sorted every item we own. By the end of our frosty captivity, I had filled our entire foyer with stuff we didn't need or want any longer. At the earliest thaw, we put our mountain of trash out for the next pickup and drove a van-full to the donation center. And when I shut the back hatch door that Tuesday, I felt as though I had just lost 30 pounds. Unfortunately, that was not true in the physical sense, though the relief of the mental weight was almost as good.
With the house empty of much of the excess, my mind couldn't ignore all the little things here and there in need of repair or fixing or cleaning. One of which was a short list of places that needed touch up paint. Most colors were easy to figure out because they were painted fairly recently. The family room, however, was done the first year we moved in.
But WISTERIA SNOW was right! It's a miracle! Really!
Also, let the record show that I fixed the shower faucet by myself! Another miracle!
We had our first appraisal today, which would have very nearly been a disaster without the generous and furious cleaning help offered by my mother.
We had hoped to get out to Colorado and pin down a house before Christmas but because of the option for a buy out of our current house, we have to get things squared away here by getting the company's guaranteed offer before we're free to offer on another. The first step is 2-3 appraisals. Then an inspection. The first appraisal is done and I wish beyond wishes that the other dudes would just come today, because my house is so clean. I want to check the whole family into the nearest hotel where they would be free to track in leaves and crunch up goldfish crackers and spit their toothpaste in the sinks. Cause it ain't happenin' here, folks!
Actually, I'm frowning right now because it is totally happening here and I can't do anything about it except plan to put in an indefinite number of very similar cleaning sessions.
Mom and Dad's mission call should have arrived in the mail on Monday. Or Tuesday. Or Wednesday. Or today. But it hasn't. We know they were assigned last week so it's only matter of mailing and receiving the letter. Can you tell we're all a little anxious about it? If it's not here tomorrow the mail man might get injured.
We put up our tree while we were iced in. We threw out our big, fake pre-lit one last year because it was no longer lit at all. While we toyed with the idea of getting a real tree this year, we settled on setting up only the small white tree. And I hated everything about putting it up because I felt like a cat having its fur pet in the wrong direction. Every thing inside me screamed, "NOOOOO!" After so much time spent purging and organizing, the act of pulling out boxes, umwrapping doodads, untangling lights, was just all so wrong. I'm gonna have to put all that crap away, you know. In like two weeks.
But it's for the kids. They deserve at least a little Christmas. If it was just me I would skip the whole thing all together and really embrace it next year. But we're trying to do just enough that it still feels like the holidays but not too much that when it's time to take it all down I don't have a conniption and throw it all on the front lawn.
Ava kept asking when Chippy (the elf) was going to show up.
You may remember 2 years ago, in desperation after my refusal for an Elf on the Shelf, she fashioned her own out of cardboard and colored pencils. Pippy was added to the family somewhere along the way.
And don't ask me how Ava whole-heartedly believes they are real even though she made them herself. You can't argue with magic! I loathe these characters. I can't keep up with them and their needs. They make me feel inadequate as a human mother because I can never remember to move them or make them do messy things. If you love your Elf on the Shelf, rest assured that I still love you. I planned to keep these guys on a shelf, alright. A really high shelf. In the back of a cabinet. Forever. But Dan fell victim to Ava's incessant questions and decided to get them down himself. He is so sweet. And when I drop into bed at night and remember,
Chippy! there is a great sense of... comfort? satisfaction? in rolling over and poking Dan in the back and whispering, "Go move, Chippy and Pippy!" and watching him stumble down in the dark to move those silly fellows to a new locale and write a handwritten response to the nightly notes Ava leaves them.
He is a good, good Daddy. Here is the video he requested me to make. Of course neither of us saw the fall coming at the end . And yes, when we get to Colorado we should probably invest in a proper sled.
Somewhat unrelated but equally deserving of blog time is,
Finn pulling up on furniture and even climbing two stairs today.
As well as pulling a curtain rod on his head. He
played with a rubber glove balloon while he waited for the ct scan. As suspected, it confirmed that he is totally fine, but afforded me the ability to sleep that night.
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