Wordless Wednesday

 

Christmas Card Conundrum

Is it bad that my Christmas cards are a bit impersonal and have no handwriting on them anywhere?

Let me give you my background on Christmas card-age.  My mom never sent out Christmas cards when I was growing up.  That’s not to say that she didn’t enjoy receiving them from other people.  In fact she still has all the cards that people have sent her from the last several years.  (I’m not sure which I find more amusing, the fact that the queen of no clutter and throwing things away has actually kept several years worth of Christmas cards, or that she keeps them in a tacky, clearly out of date plastic canvas Santa holder.) 

I decided several years ago, that I should break my family’s non-card sending tradition, I figured people might want to see a picture of my children.  So I went to the store and got those cards that you just stick a picture in.  Then I realized that I actually had to write in all of them!  I don’t have the best handwriting in the world, so between trying to keep it legible and trying to think of something somewhat witty and person appropriate, I just about gave up on the whole institution. 

Then I discovered a beautiful little thing called photo cards.  I had Hubby create one from scratch one year, but then had difficulties finding a place to print it for me at card rates instead of picture rates (card rates are cheaper!)  So I found a lovely online place that has lots of templates and you just drop the picture in, click order and they magically appear in your mailbox about 4 days later.  I was happy with these, people saw how much my kids have grown, I don’t have to write on each one, but I still hand addressed the envelopes, so they still had a bit of a personal touch.

This year I decided to involve Hubby.  I had him sit down with me last night to address the envelopes.  Now if you know my hubby, you know that if he’s involved, so is the computer.  I read off addresses, he typed them into the computer so we could print them off, which I was actually okay with, because it sure made getting them addressed snappy!  Then as I was stuffing the cards in, I thought, “Umm, there’s no handwriting on here anywhere, some people might perceive these as a tad impersonal.”  So my conundrum is, do I care?  I know that I will be receiving beautiful, handmade cards from all my sisters in law, but at this point, I don’t think I care how impersonal mine are.  I think I’m just going to be happy that I can check that task off my list and call it good!  I guess conundrum solved, right?  Right!  (at least that’s what I’m trying to convince myself!)

Random Friday

I posted yesterday some of the things I didn’t like about winter.  Well, here is one thing that I do!  My car.  I love my car in the winter.  I have an Explorer with 4 wheel drive and tires that are bigger than the standard ones, so I have a bit extra clearance also.  (Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have huge, mongo, montster truck, I’m going to run over all the smaller cars, tires,  they are very tasteful.)  I have found that I can get through pretty much anything.  That being said, when I finally get stuck one of these days (you never know, it might happen), I’m sure that I will be stuck good!   I’m also sure that hubby won’t be able to pull me out with his little Mustang!  Let’s just hope it never happens so I won’t have to worry about it!

Have I mentioned that it has been cold and snowy?  If I haven’t, it has been cold and snowy around here lately.  I’m talking highs in the teens and lows in the low single digits.  Today it is supposed to warm up to 25(!), so I decided to get out for the first time this week and go for a run.  (When I went it was still 17, but that’s almost a heat wave!)  It wasn’t too bad, I put on 3 layers, and did my usual loop.  The only problem was that some sidewalks weren’t shoveled, so I either had to go out into the street, or run very lightly over them so I didn’t fall. 

Running in the winter almost makes me wish I had a treadmill.  Almost.  I hate treadmills because I get sooo bored.  As soon as I’m out of breath I’m done, which would mean that I’m on there for a total of 2 minutes.  When I’m running outside, I’m half a mile from home when I’m tired and want to be done, but I have to get home, so I have to suck it up and finish.

Hubby and I are going on our annual date/shopping night, tonight.  We take the kids to my parent’s, then we go Christmas shopping and go out to eat.  I love it.  I kind of  have to take Hubby shopping with me now, because he knows which Lego set is better and what the boys would think is cool better than I do.  I’m the better clothes shopper, he is the better toy shopper.  We usually eat when we’re done shopping, then I get to enter my version of nirvana, and sit at the table with my notebook and write down everything that we bought and make a list for each of the kids to make sure that they are equal.  Aaahhh!!  I love lists and organization!  It almost makes me giddy just thinking about it!  The best part is, the kids are spending the night there (the princess has been wanting to spend the night at grandma’s for some time now) so we don’t have to hurry and can take our time to find everything that we need.  (I’m one of those crazy people that doesn’t want to take advantage of my parents or have my kids overstay their welcome, so I start getting nervous to pick them up after a couple of hours.)

My kids are off from school the whole week of Christmas. I’m trying to think of some fun, maybe crafty things to do with them while they are home.  Any ideas?  I don’t want to make a tons of treats that will be calling my name.  If I come up with something good I’ll post some pictures!  We’ll see what happens.

Winter idiotsyncrasies

I’ve discovered that I have a few odd idiosyncrasies, or as I like to call them, idiotsyncrasies about winter.  I don’t like the sound of snow crunching under my feet.  For some reason it gives me the willeys.  It’s almost like I can feel it crunch through my whole body, and I just don’t like it.  It’s the same thing when I’m driving over crunchy snow, it just kind of icks me out.

I also don’t like frozen, matted down tire tracks of snow in my driveway.  I like it to be completely clear and free of snow.  We live in a south facing house, so usually the sun takes care of any tire tracks we might drag in from the street, but the last few days have been so exceptionally cold that the sun hasn’t been able to do it’s job!  It’s been kind of bugging me lately that there are still tire tracks, but I’m trying to ignore it and let it go… probably unsuccessfully.  I’m sure I’ll be out there scraping them away as soon as I pick up the princess from school.  I know, it’s silly, but I don’t care, I’ll feel much better when it’s clear.  And double bonus!  I won’t have to listen to my tires crunch over it anymore!  (shudder!!)

Wordless Wednesday

It just dawned on me that it is Wednesday, how sad is that?  So here’s one to make us think of warmer days!

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree!

 

Putting up the Christmas tree, a yearly family tradition, right?  Well, not in my house!  Hubby puts it up for me, (we went to pre-lit artificial several years ago, he got tired of stringing the lights)  then no one gets to touch it but me!  Yes, that’s right, I and I alone decorate the tree.  I take decorating the tree very seriously, and it has to look right.  All of my ornaments have to be in the color scheme that I have (this year gold or silver) and they have to be put up in the right place.

I know, it should be a fun family tradition to decorate the Christmas tree together, but not for me.  I got my kids their own little trees that they have in their rooms that they can decorate however they want, so long as they don’t touch my tree!  I don’t care how lopsided and thrown together their trees look, no one sees them but them!

I’m not really sure when I became so OCD about my tree.  I think maybe one year I got it just right (when my kids were still to young to want to help) and from then on I realized that tree perfection had to come from me and me alone. 

Let’s all enjoy this holiday season and enjoy the time we have to spend with our family and loved ones, just please…                           

DON’T TOUCH MY TREE!!!!!!

Thanksgiving pics

When I pulled the pictures from Thanksgiving weekend off my camera, I realized that I didn’t get any pictures from the actual big day.  Which is pretty typical for me.  I never do, and I don’t really know why.  I see my sister’s in law getting out their camera’s, but I guess I don’t feel the need for more pictures that I’m not going to do anything with.  (I think I’ve pretty much given up on the whole scrapbooking thing, except for the 2 times a year that I go and scrapbook with my SIL’s and let me tell you, I don’t get much done then.)

This year, we decided that we wanted to do a little bit of the touristy stuff because TRMinator wanted to go to M&M World.

 

Just as a side note, we hadn’t been to the strip for years, holy cow, I forgot how R- rated it can be!!

The one thing the boys wanted to know about when Hubby and I went to New York last year was the Statue of Liberty, so I had to take a picture of TRMinator in front of the Las Vegas version.

On Saturday, while everyone else went riding motorcycles and four wheelers, we took the two younger ones to a children’s museum.

They had an exhibit called Grossology, which was a bunch of things about how the body works.  Of course they loved it.  That is a big piece of skin that they are climbing.

This was a big bubble station.  It was pretty cool.

We had lots of fun, and it was good to see everyone.  Till next year!!