I came to consciousness this morning as the dog was outside, scratching on the door to be let back in the house. I slowly opened my eyes and saw through a crack in the curtains a very pink sky. Somehow I really needed to see this sky. I took my phone off the nightstand and turned it on, got out of our warm bed, and padded out to the porch to look at it.

Our house faces the rising sun and it’s something I am most thankful for. As I turned to go back inside I noticed the sunrise had been painted across the glass windows.

I went back to bed and fell asleep for two more hours. When I got up I sat in the chair in front of the fire to finish my book and drink coffee. Brittnee came down all dressed and pretty. “I just woke up,” I said. She said she knew because Seth knocked on her door to tell her “‘Sarah won’t let me use her charger and I’m at 2% and she’s at 50’. So I knew you weren’t up yet.” Somehow that really made me laugh and be happy, my children left me alone so I could sleep! Brittnee is a great “second mom” around here…….

Life is good. I have much of the preparations for Christmas Day complete, however I don’t feel like baking cookies. Like, at all.

I have most of the presents wrapped, but I’m not bothering to hide them and they stay in the corner of my room in a pile. If they want to snoop, oh well.

We bought an artificial tree this year, Rich has always admired the white flocked trees. Again; I just don’t care anymore……I used to say “Never! I want a real tree & a real tree ONLY!” I was so uppity about it. I wonder if this “getting older” thing is a blessing in disguise. I find myself letting go of things I clutched so dearly in the past. Our artificial tree looks beautiful, doesn’t shed needles, is prelit with flickering warm lights, and I don’t have to worry about watering it. It can stay up as long as we wish and won’t change from fresh and green to crisp and green.

Ethan and I bought a train to go around the tree, a Harry Potter train set from Costco. It makes me twitchy though because it sounds just like the robot vacuum cleaner that we have. Whenever the vacuum is running I have to be hyper vigilant about keeping the basement door shut. Consequently, whenever the train is running I keep running to shut the basement door. 🙂

Parker showed me how to get a small bit of bacon from Brittnee. Just stand and stare.

Brittnee and I play rummy constantly, sometimes with Jacob or Ethan, rarely with Rich, but the two of us play almost daily. She consistently wins, so that on a rare day that I win, it’s extra exciting for me. Today it was “rummy during breakfast”. She was depressed at the time because not only did she crack one of her egg yolks but we are also out of ketchup. Oh the horror.

Seth went around asking everyone how many mozzarella sticks they wanted for lunch and then after he put them in the oven, he went downstairs to play Rocket League, forgetting all about them. I ended up taking them out of the oven myself, while David ran down to yell to Seth that ” Your cheese sticks were ON FIRE you DUMMY!!!” Seth came running upstairs smiling because he (naturally) didn’t believe David. Caleb observed, “There’s NOTHING in these anymore!” and I said, “Your older siblings called these ‘exploding cheese'”, (eat them anyway). And they did. Even Rich had one, saying dryly, “I just love it when my cheese stick turns into a cheese cracker”.

You know, just family life stuff. It’s busy and fun, and I have time in the afternoons when it’s quiet and calm. The children can all fend for themselves. I tuck into the corner of the couch and read, drinking coffee and tea, with a cat purring on my lap. I’ve been sewing when I feel like it and realized again how calming it is, even if threading a needle is a lot harder than it used to be. I need glasses. I made a potholder and am now making a small wall hanging which I secretly think looks like a slice of ham from a distance.

Ethan gets home from Fed Ex at around 10:30am and he blames his job as a manager in a warehouse for the way he stomps around the kitchen making himself lunch as soon as he arrives. He’s the one who noticed that there were a lot of cups missing. “Where are all the cups? There are literally no cups, where did all the cups go? I don’t understand it. There are no cups.” So……..I stepped in and asked David to “Go around the whole house and find dirty dishes.” He appeared from the basement with this entire box full. He saw me take the photo and asked “Where is that going?” “To social media, tagged with your name!” “You’re low-key proud of this, aren’t you?”

I wouldn’t say proud, but “determined to laugh”, yes.

Brittnee and I realized we prefer Alexa to play “Jazz Christmas music” more than any other genre. But David likes Justin Bieber. He was flat out re-amazed at his talent, he says “bruh!” at every talented note sequence. Everyone’s “Bruh” to him now, and I’m sick of being called Bruh. “No one should call their darling MOTHER Bruh,” is what I say.

Reminds me……a couple weeks ago he was in my room sitting on the bed and I didn’t know it. I ran in to change my pants and as I pulled the old ones off all the way down to the floor I heard someone behind me saying “BRUH!” like his eyes were on fire, and it was David…..I was horrified, “David, David! Run into the bathroom, don’t look, get out!” He was so dry and calm about it, “It’s not like it even matters now Mom,” “I don’t care!!! get out!”

Back to music, there are certain songs I cannot listen to anymore including but not limited to “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire”, “The 12 Days of Christmas”, “Baby it’s Cold Outside”, and “All I want for Christmas is You”. I can’t, I just can’t.

Sherlock as taken to sleeping in this deep basket, which I think is the cutest thing in the world. You can’t see him unless you are purposely looking in, and it’s so funny the way Penny the kitten stands up with her front paws on the rim, to look down and see if he’s there.

Rich and I were talking about McRibs a week or so ago and when we googled we saw that they were returning….so today when I dropped David off at work (he’s a cashier at the grocery store, and so awesome at it) I swung around the drive through to get three; one for me, one for Rich, and one for Caleb. Ethan has Crohns now and can’t eat them. The McRibs were very messy with all that sauce, but tasty.

What else? It’s pretty cold outside and today was the first day since the temps dropped into the 30s that I went out for my walk. It was very nice to get some fresh air, I gulped and gulped.

I had the piano tuned yesterday and the old-man piano tuner was very interested in my bird feeders outside the window. He didn’t even know what a blue jay was. Maybe he will go home and put a bird feeder up. It’s never too late to add a small joy to living.

Tomorrow Sarah has a check up and is nervous about shots. Oh, speaking of Sarah, she asks me daily if we can make cookies, including the last time…… which was about 2 hours ago. It sincerely pains me to say no to her, but it would pain me even more to make them (I can’t seem to muster up any desire) so I said, “no”. To which she replied, “I’m so bored……what will I doooooooo”, and wandered away.

Half an hour later I noticed her outside by herself, sitting on a sled sliding down the hill in the cold fading sunshine.

It was the cutest thing I had seen all day. She had figured out what to do.