A Fire and Ice Christmas

So I was at my annual checkup last week…no not the one with stirrups, the one where the HVAC guys check out the furnace. Anyway, heat exchanger something blah blah something something was cracked and now we’re out 12 grand.

So my gift is shiny and expensive, but not in the same way a piece of fine jewelry would be. When I told the kids we were getting a new furnace and air conditioner, Jake said, “Well, I guess we won't be getting new windows...and Europe’s definitely out.”

Smart Kid.

May your holidays be a little more bling and a little less cha-ching.

Bloggy Holiday Card Exchange, OR Have I Just Ruined My Husband's Career?

I am participating in Tuesday's Bloggy Holiday Card Exchange. It's a way to share your card or photos with blog friends.

Thought I'd get mine up early so you would know that Scary On-Line Guy didn't do me in.


Our card has two pictures on it. This one:

(As you already know from reading this blog, Tom is a saint. He went along with the whole Snuggie thing with nary a peep. Question: Do we send this photo to his work colleagues???)

And here's my fave:

As you can see, we're keeping warm this winter at the See house. I hope you have a cozy Christmas too!

Famous Last Words

In an effort to not turn into Fred Sanford, I put some of my grandpa’s old furniture online to sell. Imagine my delight when my first customer pulled up today, reeking of smoke. I guess my point about the furniture having always been in a smoke-free home wasn’t what reeled him in.

He was a creepy, thin, middle aged white man, with glasses and a quiet demeanor. Why didn’t I just suggest a serial killer on my posting? I kept mentioning how the furnace guy was on his way and how Shadow had a very aggressive streak (as she tried to lick his face).

On a positive note, he had a pick-up truck, not a panel truck, and he didn't tell me I looked like I had soft skin. Anyway, he left and will decide later today whether he wants the furniture (which I’m pretty much giving away). In the event that I am not heard from again, please tell Tom that this guy’s cell phone # is in our phone, I have an email trail, and it’s been a really wonderful life.

Thank you.

Because I'm Selfless That Way

So, my Christmas plans have been a total disaster. The tree sits undecorated in the family room, my tiny trees on the front stoop blew a fuse and now the outlet won’t work, and the white candles in the windows are ancient history. Within 7 minutes of suction cupping (?) them to the windows around the house, they came crashing to the floor. “Bam!” From Molly’s room. “Smash!” from the kitchen. Nine broken bulbs in a row. Not remotely like Kristallnacht, but you get the picture.

Speaking of pictures, I’ve been desperate to take a family Christmas picture. We usually do it over Thanksgiving when my sister can take it (see red plaid family on red couch above). This year we wanted Shadow in the picture, so we had to do it at home.

Determined to check one measly thing off the to-do list, I roped in my 9 year old neighbor. She thought she was on an innocent play date with Molly until I handed her the camera and told her to start shooting. She got some good ones, but kept cutting off Tom’s head. He comes in at a towering 5’8" in shoes, which to a 4th grader must seem gigantic.

Anyway, getting 4 people and a dog to look good at one time proved a challenge, which leads me to today. I had to select which one would be our card photo. The power! The responsibility! There were two in which I looked pretty fabulous, but Tom was headless and the dog looked possessed by demons. The kids? Well this never was about the kids, was it?

We order our cards from Cost.co, where they are inexpensive and I can order a ton. But who wants a ton when you don’t look good? Hence my leeetle moral dilemma. Should I throw the rest of the family under the bus so I could look good? I blame my best friend for all of this. Years ago she told me how irritated she got when her married friends would send photos of just the kids. She wanted to see how her friends looked, too.

Well, I promised her Tom and I would be in the photos from then on. Nothing like giving everyone a yearly documentation of wrinkle encroachment. My friend is married with a child now, and let me tell you if I get a photo of just her daughter in the mail this year, she is cruising for a bruising.

So, I’m curious: WWBD (What Would Blogland Do)? Would you choose the fabulous picture of yourself, or would you sacrifice yourself for the greater good? I mean isn’t Mom the one doing the decorating, cleaning, shopping and wrapping? What about the mailing, schlepping and thank you note-ing? Shouldn’t she be the one who shines in the Christmas card photo?

Being the selfless person I am, I chose one where we only lost the very top of Tom’s hair, the kids looks great, and I look…meh. My nose veers off unbecomingly to the corner of the picture and my face is a fleshy orb. You may be wondering if you’ll see it. Oh yes you will-- early next week.

This blog is no stranger to unflattering pictures of me, and this one isn't terrible, just not my fave. It also has a twist that I hope you’ll see as kitschy and ironic. If not, you’ll just realize, if you haven't already, that we’re really big dorks. Until then, I’ll leave you with this from Awkward Family Photos. Enjoy!

2 Dollar Chair Revisited

Remember the $2.00 chair I got at the thrift shop, despite the fact that I have chairs coming out of my ears over here? Well, I liked the pretty blue color, but the fabric was badly stained and covered with cat hair. I was a little nervous about re-covering it because I've only done chair bottoms, not tops and bottoms.

When I took off the fabric, finding a gazillion staples in the process, I got a little nervous. I considered keeping the bright aqua vinyl I found underneath, but alas, it had rips in it, so I knew I must plunge forward.




With Tom's assistance and Molly's encouragement, I started folding, cutting, and stapling. There is no sewing in this household. I just kind of made a hospital bedsheet fold in the back, with lots of extra fabric, and stapled it all underneath the chair.



I wanted a funkier fabric, but settled on this brocade pattern because the price was right. Here is Tom pretending we're going to use duct tape on the chair. Well, we might have used a smidge, but it's not where you can see it!




Here's how we ended up:










Could someone please reach up into the above picture for me and move my coffee table over about 6 inches? Thanks.

Cost:

Chair: 2.00
Heirloom White spray paint: 3.00
Black and White fabric: 15.00
Total: $20




And for those of you who are worried that I'll get buried under a pile of chairs and be featured on "Hoarders," I did put 4 chairs on Craigslist last week. Still waiting for takers.

This post is also featured at Shanty to Chic.

Two Trees or One?

We haven’t bought our fresh Christmas tree yet. And now, with a beautiful snow falling outside, I think we’ll stay hunkered down and put off going to the tree lot until tomorrow.

A few days ago, Molly and I put up the Kids’ Tree. What started out as an homage to the tiny, magical tree my sister and I had on a table between our twin beds growing up, has turned into a 7 foot high artificial tree covered with the kids’ treasured ornaments.

I know the subject of a “Kids’ Tree” can spark serious and heated debate. I mean, is it to showcase their special things, or is it just a ploy by a control freak mom to keep pipe cleaner and felt creations off of the real, fancy tree? I would say for us, it’s a bit of both.

My mom was a florist and a great home decorator. When we kids finished trimming the tree and wandered off to do other things, Mom would get to work. She wouldn’t undo what we had done, but she would tie it all together. Strands of fake pearls or silver beads, white birds with ribbons in their mouths, tons of gold balls—she would find one way to unify the tree each year and make it the Best Tree Ever. Our kiddie creations were more than welcome there, but our trees always looked classy.

I mimicked her decorating style as an adult, and each year I’d have plenty of gold or silver balls, and as one boyfriend called them, “necklaces” on my trees. I was good at it, remembering to hang ornaments deep within the branches and never to skimp on the white lights.

What I hadn’t counted on was the sheer VOLUME of ornaments my kids would make and receive each year. My mother in law is a prolific supporter of Hallmark, so collectible ornaments abound. Combined with classroom crafts and our church’s Advent ornament workshop, the kids were hauling in about a ten new ornaments each per year. Do the math. My own contributions were personalized ornaments for each. Because I was traumatized as a kid when I couldn’t find anything with the name “Anna” on it (how times have changed!), I just can’t pass a “Molly” or “Jake” ornament up.

So, now we have the Kids’ Tree in the upstairs hallway, and the “Real” tree in the family room. I love how the upstairs tree is right in front of a window. In my book, that gets me off the hook for hanging exterior lights. The downstairs tree is more subdued with a lot of white, silver, and my decorative touches while the one upstairs is a riot of color.

I love the upstairs tree because I don’t try to control or “fix” it. I don’t move ornaments around. I don’t mind if there are New York Yankees ornaments, or Santas in Hawaiian shirts. We love going through the ornaments, remembering where each came from. A clothespin reindeer with one googly eye, a wooden apple from when I was a kid, Tom’s collection of Little Drummer Boys, Molly’s dough stars, and Jake’s golden macaroni picture frame. The tree itself is a little smooshed in the middle, or at least it appears so in this picture.

Some of the kids’ creations are on the tree downstairs, too. The most treasured are the Names of Jesus ornaments each child made in second grade. They are made out of paper, red yarn, and glitter, and they remind us why we are putting up the trees in the first place.

So, while our two trees sprang up out of the need for space for all these ornaments, they also allow me to keep some semblance of control over our home’s décor. This might not seem like a lot, but I feel as if I have so little control over the paper and clutter and dog hair that come into the house. It’s nice to have one tree look the way I’d like, and the kids love having a tree just for them

The staid silver balls and tasteful ribbons help ME enjoy our trees more, but it’s the quirky, one-of-a-kind ornaments that hold the most special memories for ALL of us. Nothing gets left out.

But those two molded plastic Mark McGuire ornaments my MIL got us in the 90’s? Whoopsie. I just couldn’t seem to locate them this year.

What's-Up Pre-Nup?

Without saying anything more about the whole scandal, I would like to mention that Tiger and Elin Woods are currently reviewing their pre-nup. Tom and I do not have a pre-nup because with my teaching school and his being in grad school, there wasn’t a whole lot to consider, finance-wise, and we figured, correctly, that we'd never be rich and famous. We did, however, go to a few hours of pre-marital counseling to discuss our wants/needs in marriage.

You may remember from an earlier post, that Tom’s primary need in our marriage was “Clean Counters.”

I must say that I have done swimmingly on this front. While they are sometimes cluttered , our counters are almost always clean. I wield my Method spray bottle as a woman on a mission to make the house smell like cucumber-melon and to keep my husband satisfied.

As he approaches his 40th birthday, Tom has begun to wonder if he really chose the best “Need” to head up his marriage list. He claims he didn't really understand the question. This morning he asked me if we could re-negotiate in light of this confusion and his upcoming milestone birthday.

I believe he was alluding to a different kind of need, perhaps in the Lovin’ department. Maybe he wanted to address frequency, such as amending it with, “on the occasion of a full lunar eclipse, not just a solar one.” Perhaps clean counters do not provide him the kind of satisfaction he once envisioned.

So I ask you, should I hold him to the original 1996 agreement of “Clean Counters,” or should I take pity on the guy and re-negotiate? Is this like being granted 3 wishes and then using one wish to ask for 3 more? Because I never really thought that was kosher.