Suggestions

What on earth should I do with this space that currently houses a few sad pictures and my dust garden?

Friends

Today I am thankful for friends.  You see, today I had lunch with one of my oldest friends.  Now, when I say oldest I don't mean that she is old (unless you consider myself to be old, which I am now starting to do), I mean that she has known me for a very long time.  We have been through a lot together.  Good, bad, ugly, and even a bit of the illegal.  I love this friend.  I love that we can just be ourselves, in all of our good and bad glory, and that we can still be friends.  The fact that we had lunch together today is really not important or unusual, it's just that the conversation was extra fun today and it was the conversation that got me thinking about this friend of mine and friendship in general.  I am very thankful for the friends of mine who have lasted the test of time.  I am quite a bit to take and because of that friends come and friends go and I am thankful to have friends who have stuck around.  Today's friend is not the only enduring one that I have, I have quite a few of them all over the country, and I am thankful for each and everyone of them.  They have each come into my life at different times and places and the beauty of these friends is that I don't have to talk to them all the time or see them on a regular basis, but I know that they are there when I need them and I am here for them as well.  So, here's to you my friends, Merry Christmas!!

Some Little Known Facts

1.  I am always cold.  Always.  Even in the summer, because everywhere I go people have their air conditioners cranked up, which makes me cold.

2.  After years of keeping my house at the very efficient and respectable 68 degrees (during the day), I have decided that I am sick and tired of being cold in my own home and since winter is really quite rough for me as it is, I am throwing efficiency to the wind and cranking my heat up.  Yes I am, and no one can stop me.  This winter I am going to bask in the glory of 70-72 degrees (but only during the day because I am all about it being nice and cold at night so that I can snuggle deeply into my down comforter).  However, if you find that my house is too warm when you visit, then I suggest you wear a t-shirt to my house, because I probably have to wear a sweater to your house in the summer.

3.  I am not sending out Christmas cards this year.  I love you all, but I just can't bring myself to do it, and besides, I don't really have anything exciting to report anyway.  Instead, let's all cross our fingers that at some point during this next year I get to send out change of address cards instead.

4.  I think that I have eaten my weight in cookies over the past week.

A Conversation

Tiger:  What is a dinosaur?  (silly boy is always asking questions to which he already knows the answers)

Me:  A giant prehistoric lizard

Me:  What's a Tigersaurus?

Tiger:  He eats Paleontologists . . . . . . and apples.

A holiday love affair

He is now one happy boy.

An argument and a resolution

After missing in action for a few months, we recently found the beloved Lego Indiana Jones underneath our couch on our less than dusted floor.  This of course has made Tiger's day and has also enabled us to have the following argument (again).

Me:  Oh look, we found Indiana.
Tiger:  Indian
Me:  What?  His name is Indiana.
Tiger:  No, his name is Indian.
Me:  Indiana
Tiger:  Indian
Me:  Indiana
Tiger:  Indian
Me:  Indiana
Tiger:  No, his name is actually Junior.

And the personas continue

Allow me to introduce Dr. Jones.  As you all know, Indiana Jones has a beard (or really, just stubble), and when he is a professor, his hair is slicked over to the side.  The hair style was requested before we left for church and was much more slicked down before he started messing it up.  Then, when we got to church he asked for some stickers.  Of course I gave them to him and he sat quietly beside me for quite some time.  Finally, during the rest hymn, I looked down at him and this is what I saw.  Dr. Jones with a beard.  What a goofy kid. 

One thing I love about this girl

Really, there are so very many things that I love about this girl.  I could just go on and on, but lucky for all of you my head hurts far too bad to sit here and type all of them out.  I recently had my parent/teacher conference with this girl's teacher.  Aside from her notorious disaster of a desk (so bad in fact that her teacher will occasionally email pictures of her desk to me), the report was positively glowing.  You know the whole, she's a total delight and a wonderful student blah, blah, blah.  What really made me proud was the fact that this sweet girl has taken it upon herself to become a special helper and friend to a girl in her class who has Down Syndrome.  I have heard KK talk about this girl on several occasions, but I didn't realize the depth to which their friendship ran.  I believe that KK truly loves this girl and as a result of that she is able to reach her on more of  peer level that her teacher and assistants are unable to reach her.  In fact, KK can get this girl to do many things that her teacher and assistants are unable to get her to do and KK has done this all out of friendship.  My girl has no prejudices and has the ability to see the good in everyone.  She also lacks a lot of the drama that seems to come with girls.  You know, the whole backbiting, mean spirited kind of friends with you one day, but hate you the next day kind of stuff.  She is perfectly content to be herself and also to be by herself.  Her happiness is not tied into who she is or isn't friends with.  It is these qualities that make her a great friend and a great person and it will serve her well as she grows up.  Sheesh, I just love this girl.

Another thing I love about this boy

There is no such thing as a simple explanation with this kid.  Credit his scientific mind, but the kid can't just say, "Oh man, I fell down."  Instead, he would say something to the effect of, "I was running and due to my increasing speed, a rock leaped off of the road and when my foot hit the jagged side of the rock, the trajectory in which it threw me to the ground caused my knee to be violently wrenched to the side so that when I slammed down on the pavement my knee became bruised in several locations."  Oh, and he might be a bit dramatic as well.

Up next, what I love about my girl.

The word "need" is subjective

Tiger:  Momma, I neeeed you!
Me:  What?  What is it that you need?
Tiger:  Food.

Side note:  Do you know how hard it is to feed a boy who is going through a growth spurt and who, for the past two days, seems to be constantly hungry, but who eats virtually nothing and so after the third "I'm hungry" all of the usual options have been exhausted and he doesn't want anything that he has already eaten nor does he want any of the new suggestions that are being offered?  Do you?