We have totally worn ourselves out this weekend. The girls and I cleaned and decorated and crafted with purpose. Phil is hunting.
We cleaned front and back porches, rearranged the outdoor furniture and dusted the taxidermy (a really irritating and dusty project). We cleaned things that I am not sure have ever been cleaned in the new house. We shopped hard for new chairs to go with our newly finished table – which was HARD. It is an antique table and nothing new matches it. We did end up finding some fantastic vintage red glitter plastic seated chrome chairs on the side of the road for $40, so we picked those up on our way to the ultimate chair source – Pottery Barn. So we have 10 new chairs. I am pretty sure Phil will hate the red chairs, but for $40, it was worth the risk.
Plus we made crafts from all kinds of things from my Dad’s house, and did about 20 loads of laundry, threw away an entire trashcan full of stuff, took a full truck load of donations to the Goodwill, and actually cleaned the girls rooms to a point I think they might stay that way (I know, I know, check with me in a week). The carpets got shampooed (by someone else) and I went through the things I bought last year on holiday clearance to make sure I didn’t forget what I bought, and then packaged up some of the things I got for people last year. I have no less than 25 packages in the back of my truck to mail tomorrow – some early holiday presents plus the continuing stream of things from my Dad’s going out to my mom, my sisters and my Dad’s sisters. I was going to wait for Christmas but decided against it in my euphoria of accomplishment.
So now I am too tired to even get up and get a drink (that’s pretty tired). So I am going though some of the things I marked in the Real Simple magazine gift list, and looking at the girls Christmas lists. Thank goodness a girl is never too tired to shop online!
So here is my final question of the weekend. What do I buy the girls for Christmas? Andra makes out a list each year but complains the whole time – “What’s the point of making a list when I never get what I what” she asks. You see, I always look at this time to make up for the sweet childhood I often wish they had, where Andra sees my gifts as exactly what she didn’t ask for. She asked for the Barbie computer two years ago and got a Leap Pad isntead, and has never recovered. She picks pie in the sky things, and I want to give her reasonable and educational and sweet. I want her to be my kind of 9, not the 2007 kind of 9. So this year, both girls want personal ATM machines. They look groovy, and do encourage saving money, so I am contemplating them, but I still think they won’t be that great and are a little excessive.
So help me out, since I think I am done thinking for tonight. Tell me the Christmas present you got when you were little that you remember more than the others. Maybe I can find a keeper….
We cleaned front and back porches, rearranged the outdoor furniture and dusted the taxidermy (a really irritating and dusty project). We cleaned things that I am not sure have ever been cleaned in the new house. We shopped hard for new chairs to go with our newly finished table – which was HARD. It is an antique table and nothing new matches it. We did end up finding some fantastic vintage red glitter plastic seated chrome chairs on the side of the road for $40, so we picked those up on our way to the ultimate chair source – Pottery Barn. So we have 10 new chairs. I am pretty sure Phil will hate the red chairs, but for $40, it was worth the risk.
Plus we made crafts from all kinds of things from my Dad’s house, and did about 20 loads of laundry, threw away an entire trashcan full of stuff, took a full truck load of donations to the Goodwill, and actually cleaned the girls rooms to a point I think they might stay that way (I know, I know, check with me in a week). The carpets got shampooed (by someone else) and I went through the things I bought last year on holiday clearance to make sure I didn’t forget what I bought, and then packaged up some of the things I got for people last year. I have no less than 25 packages in the back of my truck to mail tomorrow – some early holiday presents plus the continuing stream of things from my Dad’s going out to my mom, my sisters and my Dad’s sisters. I was going to wait for Christmas but decided against it in my euphoria of accomplishment.
So now I am too tired to even get up and get a drink (that’s pretty tired). So I am going though some of the things I marked in the Real Simple magazine gift list, and looking at the girls Christmas lists. Thank goodness a girl is never too tired to shop online!
So here is my final question of the weekend. What do I buy the girls for Christmas? Andra makes out a list each year but complains the whole time – “What’s the point of making a list when I never get what I what” she asks. You see, I always look at this time to make up for the sweet childhood I often wish they had, where Andra sees my gifts as exactly what she didn’t ask for. She asked for the Barbie computer two years ago and got a Leap Pad isntead, and has never recovered. She picks pie in the sky things, and I want to give her reasonable and educational and sweet. I want her to be my kind of 9, not the 2007 kind of 9. So this year, both girls want personal ATM machines. They look groovy, and do encourage saving money, so I am contemplating them, but I still think they won’t be that great and are a little excessive.
So help me out, since I think I am done thinking for tonight. Tell me the Christmas present you got when you were little that you remember more than the others. Maybe I can find a keeper….
mostlyjenine 
Your mom gave me some of my favorite gifts – an art set with colored pencils, markers, charcoals which I’ve probably used for 20-25 years and still have; the time trilogy by Madeleine l’Engle – some of my alltime favorite books.Of course, they didn’t have personal ATM’s back then. Who wouldn’t want that?
I JUST told Andra about 10 minutes ago about A Wrinkle in Time! EEErie.
My second reaction – MY mom? She gave you an art set? At the risk of hurting her feelings I have to note she was buying me personal griddles so I could make my own food and she was buying you art sets?