This, That, and the Other

Tomorrow's the day! I've known for a long time now that I will never have my own biological children, but when I went to my pre-op appointment on Monday and was signing all the consents, and the nurse said, now this was says that you know you'll never be able to have children again, it kind of hit a cord. I haven't been outwardly sad about this for years, but I wanted to cry when she said that. I mean, even if I don't have the surgery, I can't have kids; that's been established. But it made me sad all over again to hear someone else say it like this surgery is what will make it impossible to happen. Anyway, boohoo...remember, this surgery is a GOOD thing. No more god-awful cramps, no more vomiting, headaches, no more mess...that's the reason we're doing this!!

Moving on...it's COLD outside! My windows were so frosted I couldn't even scrape them this morning. What a waste of gas to have to have the defroster help me scrape the windows! And we don't even have any snow yet. I mean, all the ski mountains are opening up, but down here it's just dry, bleak, and cold...frozen. I miss living in snow country.

When I was a kid in the Ketchum-Sun Valley area in Idaho, we had TONS of snow. We have this picture of my brother and me inside a tunnel we'd dug from our front porch to the road. The snow was so deep, we could safely slide off our roof into the yard. My brothers would shovel the snow off the roof (to keep it from caving in) so we'd have huge piles of snow in front of the house.

One winter, we couldn't see out the front windows into the street, and I remember looking up at the top of the pile, and our dog, Pepsi (so named so my mom would let us keep him!) was standing up there throwing a frisbee high into the air with his mouth and catching it just to throw it up again. He looked as if he felt he were the king of the mountain. And I guess at the time, he was. What great memories snow has for me!

Well, before I go, I need to plug the Giving Tree. Go to my other blog, "Tales from the Angel Retreat" and use the donation button to give to the Giving Tree, a project to buy gifts for foster children. I'll try to get a donation button on this blog today so you can give here too. All donations to both sites from now until Christmas will go to the tree. Thank you for giving!!

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, and Season's Greetings to all!

The Holidays are in Full Swing Now!

Well, we survived Thanksgiving, only to have everyone in the house get sick for the weekend. It started with the baby. (He's almost 2.) He seems to be a carrier, cuz I never got sick as much as I have since he's been with us. He came to me when he was 8 months old. Last winter, I had a flu shot as usual, and I got some kind of stomach virus about 4 times. This year, I've had my flu shot again, and last weekend we all got some kind of stomach virus. Luckily, it was a 24-hour thing, but unfortunately, only one person got it at a time. So first it was him, then my 7 year old, then the 5 year old, then the 3 year old, then me and my mom. We washed more sheets last weekend than we normally wash in a week. (Some had to be washed more than once.) So our usual Christmas decorating fun was kind of hodge-podge. I pulled everything out of the garage Friday. I got the lights all up outside. Saturday evening we set up the tree and the kids decorated it in this year's colors, gold and silver. Most of the boxes were put back in the garage Sunday. My mom's part, the nick-knacks, were about half done yesterday, and a few more boxes put back in the garage. Great fun.

On another topic. I know I just started this blog, but I have to go away for a week. I'm having surgery in two days and will incapacitated for a week. I know you'll miss me. But it's finally time to face the truth, I'll never be able to have children of my own, and there's no use continuing on with the pain I go through each month, so it's all coming out. Thank God for my foster and adopted kiddos! They make facing this a little easier. Wish me luck! See ya later.

Oh, before I forget, go to my other blog "Tale from the Angel Retreat" and donate to the kids. Give it about 40 seconds to load (I can't figure out why it's so slow) and use the "Make a Donation" button. We're collecting gifts for foster kids in our area of Idaho, and your support could go a long way!! Thank you so much!!

OK Scrooges, Time to Shape Up the Attitude!

Something I've never really understood is bad attitudes about the Holidays. I realize there are certain factors that may make the Holidays hard, for SOME, but not for all. For instance, one of my best friends, who was my roommate for 5 years, always HATED Christmas. She'd get all mopey and depressed. BUT SHE HAD NO REASON TO DO SO. Nothing traumatic had happened in her life, nobody died during this time of year, or really ever. (She's one of those lucky people who hasn't had family members die tragically, or out of order.) Her family all celebrated Christmas with their own special traditions, and seemed to love the season. So why did she hate it? She couldn't tell you. She just acted depressed because it's become the trend. People think they are being SO cool by being scrooges, by acting depressed, just because it's Christmas. Get a life!

What is so uncool about loving traditions? About celebrating something? In my family, Christmas is all about the family, love, togetherness. We celebrate having one-another and loving and being loved. We have specific traditions we follow each year because we love them. I love taking my kids caroling in December, and they love it, and our neighbors love it. How wonderful it is to take them around the city to look at all the lights and decorations, to see their faces light up and the smiles on their faces. Our home is filled with joy that lingers most of the year because this is the time we come together and solidify that we are a family.

If loving this season makes me a geek, so be it. I'll take the label, I don't care. If you're going to get all pissed off because the stores are starting to sell stuff for the holiday before Thanksgiving, then obviously you have no real worries in your life, because, does it really hurt you or affect the rest of your life if you walk into a store and see holly and berries, wreaths, and hear jingle bells? Would you melt if you just let yourself enjoy life a little instead of constantly looking for things to complain about? Besides, with all the complaints about the holidays I've seen online, I've also noticed that a whole lot of you have already switched your blog templates to holiday themes...and it's not even Thanksgiving yet!

Be happy, Santa Claus is coming to town!!!

Getting it all Set Up!

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My First Post

Well, I decided to try putting up another site. The other one, Tales from the Angel Retreat (visit me at http://arstories.blogspot.com) is mostly just about my life as a foster parent. I think I wanted to try another one where I felt like I could just talk about other things that come to mind. We'll see how this goes.

But this being my first post and all, I thought I'd introduce myself a little more than I did on Tales. My name is Kelly. I live in Idaho, USA. My degree is in education, I work for a university, and I don't teach. However, I do have a bit of expertise in writing, so might spend some time on here once in a while talking about writing. I keep thinking about getting my master's, but tell me, am I the only person out there who is about middle-aged, has a degree, and still doesn't really know what I want to do when I grow up?

Ten years ago my mom had a bad accident, and can no longer work. I was living in New Mexico at the time, and loving it. But she couldn't live alone anymore, and I offered that she come live with me. We actually live together well. After a few years, she really wanted to come home to Idaho, and I conceded. I miss New Mexico A LOT, but I love my mom and family more than the state, so I'm OK being here. What is weird about living with her, though, is that I feel like a child most of the time. I can't seem to get past this. I look at friends of mine who have families and are living like 30 somethings, adults, and I feel like I haven't grown up. This is something I need to fix in my life. And it's all about me, nobody is making me feel this way, I just can't seem to make myself a full-fledged adult when I'm at home with my mom - and I have several children!

So this is me. Next time I'm going to talk about all you scrooges out there, cuz I think you need an attitude adjustment! It's no longer trendy to hate the holiday season!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!