hand eye crafts

For all of us:

Very blue today.  Not suicidal, just down.  Melancholy. Christmas was not one to remember.  In fact, it was probably my worst ever.  There were fights, things forgotten and overlooked, blaming and shaming, grim silences, and I was on the verge of tears for two days. Today is cold and rainy and I need to go to the grocery, but I am just sitting on the couch. I can lie on facebook, and here, and make things sound like they are normal or fine or even fun.  But lying is tiring.  I don't want to lie any more.  Which may send what few blog readers I have scurrying away, but I can't keep the stories up.  Honesty in 2014.   It might get ugly.

"M" is for "Mom." We all got Funko Pop figures.  These are Hannah's.  And that's my new Nativity scene;  gift from Hannah. She has always  been able to wear any  kind of hat. Finn was the first to show signs of weariness. Klunk, though, was set to battle for the covers. Then Hannah went down. The night ended, however, with brother/sister video game bonding.

The wonderful thing about having small children at Christmas is how early they wake up on Christmas morning, bursting with energy and excitement.  They cannot wait  to see what's been left under the tree.  The wonderful thing about having children in their 20s at Christmas is that they sleep in a little. The other thing about them being in their 20s is that they both have extremely strong opinions on, well, everything, and explosive , personal-attack-type fights can break out at any   time. In the rush before and the excitement of children returning home for the holidays, sometimes moms forget to take care of little details.  Like buying food.  There's plenty of milk, as Christmas tradition requires the baking of cookies, but not much of anything that a couple of picky eaters are interested in. It doesn't seem that "baking too many" chocolate chip cookies is possible. Thank goodness for Chinese restaurants.  And delivery. The older...

Some unpleasantness in the last couple of days which, hopefully, the magic of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day will erase. First, I went over to son's apartment last Friday for us to have lunch and play the "Walking Dead" video game.  Stepping in, I saw what was obviously my Christmas present on his coffee table.  He's making me something, and just hadn't thought to put it away before I arrived.  He was just about devastated.  This was the only gift this year, he told me, that he was sure about.  The only one that he'd put lots of time and heart into. What do you say?   Second, Daughter, who works at a Kohl's outside of Atlanta, had hoped to switch shifts with someone so that she could have Christmas Eve off.  All but one of our real Christmas traditions are on the 24th, and she wanted so badly for the holiday to be as much like always this year.  She has had a tumultuous and unhappy year.  But she has to work until 7 pm tomorrow ...

Again and again I say, though it's a grammatical mess, I have two Best Friends. I divide my Favorite Christmas Songs into "Traditional" ("O, Holy Night") and "Modern" ("Please Come Home for Christmas.") When you knit in the round, is the right side of your work on the inside or the outside? My favorite Christmas decorations are candles in the window and lights.

I have been binge watching "Alphas" --- a now-cancelled SyFy show.  I was going to be sitting for a while yesterday, and decided to watch something.  I think David Strathairn is a  remarkable actor, and he was the lead in the series.  Figured I'd give the show a try, if for no other reason than to watch him, and, of course, I got hooked.  I watched all of Season One yesterday, and am just about through with Season Two today. Have you ever done anything like that? Also, have you ever begun to think yourself rather clever?  You know, you come up with an idea or turn of phrase that you want to pat yourself on the back for.  Then you see things like this, and realize you aren't at all as slick as you had thought: [sigh] Feeling more and more Christmas-y around here, as all presents are wrapped and beginning, a few at a time, to appear under the tree.  It also dawned on me, after reading kmkat's blog entry today , that another reaso...