Still here

We have had a busy week and if the frequency of everyone else's blog posts are any indication, we are not the only ones!

Bryn had a snow day on Tuesday (so did Aaron) so we all got to hang out together at home all day. Bryn's Christmas program was also this week and she and I went to see a Kansas Nutcracker last night. And we are all sick - Aaron is at the tail end of a cold, Grant is in the middle of one and Bryn and I just got it. Fun stuff!

I am finally truly finished with my Christmas shopping (at least I think I am!), but haven't managed to get a single Christmas card sent. Looks like I may send New Year's cards this year as I still have to finish decorating and cleaning before everyone comes to visit. We are staying home this year and Aaron's parents and brother will be here Tuesday and my mom and John and grandparents will be arriving on Christmas Eve and will be staying through the weekend. It should be a lot of fun!

Winter weather has swooped in full force - the high tomorrow is supposed to be 8 degrees. I just hope the precipitation waits until Christmas day to fall so all of our guests can get here safe and sound!

And some fabulous holiday news...Mema's most recent scan showed the cancer is not growing - hooray!

One dog family...

A few weeks ago we told Bryn that we would think about getting another dog next Christmas if she did all of her chores and showed maturity and responsibility in the meantime. So tonight when she didn't pick her dinner dishes up when she was excused from the table I reminded her that she needed to put the dishes in the dishwasher. Her response "I have decided I am happy with one dog..."

Back Home

I made it home and am now frantically trying to get caught up...Not looking like that is going to happen any time soon so I guess I better just tackle the pile from right where I am hoping to one day dig myself out. I found Aaron, the kids and the house all in one piece when I got back - I am thinking of hiring Aaron to be the full time nanny...

On the road again...

Well, actually in the air! I am heading to Chicago to see my grandparents. It will be a quick trip but it will be nice to see them and catch up with my cousin Julie who will also be there. Aaron is staying home with the kids and the pets - he gets to play Mr. Mom for a few days and sit on the couch watching soap operas and eating bon bons like I do every day...

A little bit overwhelmed...

It is some thing about this time of year that always makes me feel a bit frantic even when I try to keep things on my calendar and my to-do lists to a minimum. Maybe it is the shorter days, the madness of the crowds everywhere I go, the fact that it is the end of the year and there are things left undone...I don't know, but it seems that in December I consistently want to grab a bottle of wine, the TV remote, a warm pair of jammies and head to bed until January! Never seems to happen, though!

I think I am also fighting some mental anxiety about a number of things going on with family and friends, mostly health related. As a serious control freak, I find it difficult to deal with the fact that things are going to sometimes go wrong whether I want them to or not and I can't do a darn thing about it. At the top of my anxiety inducing list at the moment is a life-long friend who I can see slipping back into the grip of depression (and potentially self-destructive behaviors) after a pretty stable year. She lives far away and even though I know I couldn't fix it if I was there it still adds to the feeling of helplessness I have about it.

But for each negative there is a positive, and the fact that my FIL came through his prostate surgery with flying colors is a true blessing! Additionally, we have been pretty healthy so far this cold season here at the Reed house and Grant is turning into a truly fabulous sleeper! And thinking about the fact that this time last year I had a puppy peeing all over my house all the time and now there hasn't been an accident (knock on wood) in months makes me do a little happy dance!

(I just realized I put a successful surgery and a housebroken dog in the same list of blessings - obviously one is a little bit bigger of a deal than the other but I'm thankful for all I can get!)

So I suppose that simply putting one foot in front of the other will get me through it all - good and bad, positive and negative, easy and difficult. And I am so thankful for every day that I have my family and my health and there is no better time to remember that than during this month when we celebrate the true meaning of Christmas...

Back to normal...

I guess it is time to settle back into the routine after a week of holiday fun! We had a nice Thanksgiving with Aaron's parents (although the fact that we forgot to set up a place to kennel the dog cut the trip a little shorter than we would have liked!). We had a great weekend, too...some friends and their two kids were here for a couple of days. I got a lot of Christmas shopping done (I love online shopping!) and we got our first snow of the season, so it is feeling a lot like the holiday season. Now if I can convince myself to get the Christmas decorations up...