Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Post-Game

There has been so much this past couple of weeks... and we've had such a broad spectrum of interesting this holiday season... that I'm having a bit of trouble narrowing down how to start.  So here's where I am.

I barely found time to write over the past couple of weeks.  As in I think I published twice over the last two, maybe three weeks.  The desire is there.  There just has barely been a moment when I felt I could pull out the computer and put it to words.

For years now, I've operated on the basis of "if I really want to, I will".  And when people asked me how in the world I had time to write, I just smiled.  Such an odd question.  If I replied with words at all, they came in the form of, "I just do" or something like that.

That's a bunch of hooey.

I wanted to write, I wanted to read about five different books I've been meaning to read.  I wanted to go to a movie with my husband.  There were times I just wanted to sleep.  There were times I wanted to sit down.  And every time I thought about opening this screen to start to organize a thought, something else came up.

I can tell you that we had an amazing couple of weeks.  It wasn't easy, and most of it was certainly not relaxing.  But it was amazing.  It was full.  It was truly life more abundant.

Some things went according to plan, and some things came from out of nowhere.  There were a bunch of pretty big balls I dropped to ear-splitting crashes, and there were some that I gracefully placed in their proper baskets.  There were things I meant to do that would have made things better, mostly for Ryan, but I completely just did not get them done.

As we went into this Christmas season, my greatest hope was that I would have an attitude of gratefulness and a heart of gratitude.  That I'd not take the smallest candy cane for granted, and yet be able to let go of the biggest plan without being frustrated.  To grab the moments, hug them, then release them to memory, not crushing them with disappointment that they had to end.  And, sitting here on January 8 with the laundry going and the kids watching a non-Christmas movie, I have to look back and say that by all worldly standards, I blew it.

I lost my cool at times when I should have kept it.

I forgot to put together the thing that was supposed to be a big surprise Christmas morning, forcing us to wake at 6:00 to make sure it was together.

My buttercream came out weird this year, and I couldn't seem to fix it.

I made some egregious gift mistakes, mostly because I had way too much on my plate.

I didn't get out my beloved Nanny china, simply because I was too tired to wash it.  We had Christmas dinner on my cobalt Fiesta.

The plastic kiddie tablecloth with snowmen all over it remains on her beautiful table, too.  I never once got out the deep red one that she made especially for it.

The ingredients for candy houses remain in the plastic sack in the pantry.  Like I said, buttercream fail.

Far from your hand-crafted, pinteresty Christmas, right?

But I tell you, it was Christmas magic.  Truly wonderful.  So much stuff that I couldn't find time to sit with the computer.  So cool, in fact, that I decided to tell you a little backwards.  I'm starting with the result, which was leaving Christmas break behind with a few regrets, but a much better sense of not being immortal.  And my Christmas present to you?  More bite-sized chunks of material to read.  And this.



Pretty much sums up the whole two weeks.  All we gave to the kids, and they gave this right back... and we're not talking toys. No, that was before the toys.  This was a gift from my children.  Completely unposed.  I walked in after putting the bathroom together after their bathtime, and this is what I found.

My three kids, together, happy, full of wonder.

Tomorrow, the unboxing of all the rest.

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