So, last Friday I was working at my computer desk, intent on my Internet job, when Chestnut the Cat wandered close to me and meowed.  I said, “Do you want to go into the boys’ room?” and I got up, walked across the room and opened the door to the boys’ room, which leads to the laundry room which holds the cat food, water, litter box, washing machine and dryer and the big freezer where I keep extra food. The cat looked at me and, instead of going into the boys’ room, ducked under a coffee table.  Dumb cat.  I closed the door and returned to my desk.

A bit later, back at my desk, I heard a rustling sound.  I figured that Smokey the Cat was cavorting with the Costco-sized box of Cup o’ Noodles.  When the noise continued, I decided to check it out and rescue the noodles.  I’ve had to throw away some of the styrofoam cups before when the cats got a little too friendly with them and left toothmarks.  I didn’t want that to happen.  How tragic to waste any of those cheap noodly cups, right?

I entered the room in time to see Chestnut scurry away from a pile of poo.  IN THE DINING ROOM (which we filled with bookcases and store extra things like cups of noodles and bags of potatoes.)

“NO!  NO!  NO!”  I waved my arms at the cats and they eyed me as if I’d lost my mind.  I may have even stomped my feet.  This out of bounds pooping behavior is uncommon in our cats and I figured it was because their litter box was disgusting and needed to be cleaned–which I had told my boys the day before.  However, they disregarded my request to clean the litter box, so this pile of poo was the result.

I scooped it up with a handful of tissues and headed through the boys’ room to the bathroom adjoining the laundry room to dispose of it in the toilet.  Then, because I had nothing else to do (besides my job which I am being paid to do, hello?), I decided to just clean that stupid litter box myself so the cats wouldn’t resort to pooping on the carpet.  As I leaned over to scoop, I inexplicably turned my head to look at the freezer.

I don’t know why.  It was right next to my shoulder and maybe I felt a breeze.  All I know is that the freezer door was cracked open.

I abandoned the litter box and yanked open the freezer door to find most everything in it completely thawed.  This included a twenty pound turkey, a lot of beef that I purchased last summer from a farmer, leftover Jenny Craig food from last year when my husband “did” Jenny Craig, vegetables and did I mention the beef?

I hollered random non-curse curse-words and called for my boys to bring me trash bags.  I wept, I wailed, I gnashed my teeth.  Then I began to sort through the mess, discarding meat that was not only thawed but also room temperature.  As I worked my way down the shelves, I found that the uppermost shelves were the most thawed while the lowest shelf still held some frozen items.  Everything else was somewhere in between. Once I finished my salvage operation, I just closed the freezer again because I didn’t have time to defrost the whole thing.

Seriously.

I gave my neighbor the steaks.  (Four packages, including some cube steaks which I really have no idea how to cook in the first place.)

That night I cooked four pounds of ground beef.

Saturday, I cooked a twenty-pound turkey and a roast.

Sunday, marinaded flank steak.

None of that, however, was as upsetting as today when I left my desk (while still working) to pick up the kids from school.  It’s my carpool day.  I drove twenty minutes to the middle school and waited five minutes but my kids never appeared.  I finally called the other carpool mom and she answered the phone with, “Melodee, I’m so sorry!  I have the boys!”  My carpool day was switched back to Thursday but she forgot to mention it to me.

I believe I have now reached my monthly quota of frustration and alarm.  DO YOU HEAR ME, UNIVERSE?

In other news, I self-diagnosed myself with multiple sclerosis yesterday, just for fun, based on a comment someone left on my Facebook status after I mentioned how I occasionally (too frequently) fall UP stairs.  Dr. Google is a very scary practitioner indeed.

How was that for a post chock-full of unrelated information?

You’re welcome.

(Also?  I am mailing my last twenty-four Christmas-New-Year’s-Valentine’s-Day letters tomorrow.)

Last night I was up until 2:00 a.m. working on my “Christmas Letter.”

Yes, I am deeply aware that today is January 7.  I don’t know what happened.  Well, I do know what happened.  My husband didn’t harass me about writing the Christmas letter until after Christmas.  And even then it wasn’t harassment as much as wondering when I was going to get it done.  I am in need of harassment, I guess, to get things done.

But hello?  I had to shop and wrap and decorate and cook and clean and . . . oh, do I sound like a whiner?  A complainer?  Because I am not whining nor complaining but merely explaining.

I was busy.

That letter is my 19th annual letter.  I started writing letters after we moved (for the fifth time in three years) in 1990.  It’s weird, completely weird, and perhaps people are just lying to me, but throughout the year, people tell me they are looking forward to my Christmas letter.  Then when Christmas cards and letters begin to arrive, they have handwritten notes on them:  “Can’t wait for your Christmas letter.”  This year, on New Year’s Day, one of my husband’s long-time friends (from junior high!) called to ask, “Where is my Christmas letter?”

The pressure!  So, I wrote a Christmas letter a few days before Christmas.  Then it took me a few more days to edit it.  Another week passed before I got pictures done to tuck into the card.  And this week, I finally started printing letters and labels (you cannot even imagine how I struggled with that task).  Last night, I began to sign letters, fold them, shove them into envelopes with a picture–and that’s when I saw that the 20 cards (with slots for pictures) didn’t really fit into their envelopes.  So I trimmed each card.  What a delight.  Who sells a box of cards with ill-fitting envelopes?!

I had to handwrite some addresses and stuck labels to other envelopes.

(THIS IS SO BORING.  I’ll wrap it up quickly now.)

At any rate, it was 2 a.m. when I finally turned off the computer and printer and went to bed.  I took my daughter to school and went back to bed from 9 a.m. to 11 am. . . . bringing my grand total of sleep for the night to about eight hours.  Then I got ready and rushed to the post office so I could buy 90 one cent stamps to supplement my old postage stamps.  I bought a roll of new stamps.  (I cannot believe a first-class stamp is 44 cents.  I remember when they were ten cents.)

I still have twenty-four letters to either photocopy or print out.  Then more labels to slap on more envelopes before stamping them all and dropping them into the mailbox.  I only hope I manage this before Valentine’s Day so I don’t seem like an even bigger loser than I already do.

And that was my grand accomplishment for the day:  Bringing Christmas cheer to friends and family in January.  Because I’m tardy for the party.

(Better late than never.)

I have no patience for January.  Even though it’s my birthday month (forty-five coming up on the 28th–mark your calendars), I have never been particularly fond of this month.  After the Christmas decorations are put away, I want spring to spring forth and cheer me up with daffodils.  I don’t want to live through the grim gray days of rain.

But what choice is there?  You can’t wish away a whole month, nor a season.  I’ve never found a way to leap over an unpleasant monotony.  You just have to become conscious and walk through the day, sometimes inch by inch.  Whatever it takes.

I wish I were more of a cheery type, the kind of woman who bursts with optimism and celebrates the little moments.  That’s the person I expected to be when I read all those parenting books before I had kids.  I’d have a meticulous house with a calendar chock-full of events and activities and happenings.  And I’d wear a flouncy apron.

As it turns out, though, I’m kind of glum, especially during January.  Christmas is over and I start worrying about taxes and birthdays (three of my kids have upcoming birthdays) and remaking myself into the image of the Person I Ought To Be.  (That always involves exercise and often features self-deprivation.)  I dream of reading more, paying attention better and getting more done.

But really?  I’m just waiting for daffodils.

(Note to self:  Please get your Christmas New Year’s Valentine’s Day letter in the mail today.)

I have made resolutions.  I’ll let you know in a year if I succeeded in keeping them.

What about you?  Resolutions?  Or just hope in the general direction of better health and success in all things that matter to you?

Seven-year old Grace and I were returning from the grocery store.

“Hey!  My shirt says ‘live in peace.'”  She paused.  “Like that will happen.”

“Why?  Don’t you think it’s possible to live in peace, Grace?”  I was shocked by her cynicism.

“No.”

“Why not?”  I was suddenly consumed by dismay.  My child was born after 9/11–our country’s been at war her entire life.  Many of her friends have military parents.  Has my child become disillusioned by life at the tender age of seven?  Does she really believe that peace is impossible, that we are doomed to a world full of endless war?  “Why can’t you live in peace, Grace?”

She sighed, one of those “my-mom-is-so-dense” sighs, then spit out one word:  “ZACH!”

I burst into laughter.  She cannot live in peace because she and her 11-year old brother, Zach, are locked in constant battle.  I couldn’t stop laughing which made her giggle which made me laugh until I had to wipe my eyes.

As if a girl could live in peace when she has a brother to torment her.  Duh.

My husband and I were half-watching football tonight.  Then the gray-bearded face of Bret Farve appeared on the screen and I said, “Look at that gray in his beard!”

And my husband shrugged and said, “He’s old.  He’s your age.”

Well.

Okay then.

(Forty-four, almost forty-five and I promise you I do not look a day over sixty-two.)

Merry Christmas!  I started writing a post earlier and abandoned it completely to finish making Christmas dinner.  I didn’t remember that I’d even started it until I was sitting in the movie theater, waiting for my movie to begin.  (I saw “Up in the Air.”  I liked it.)

Tomorrow, I’m heading to Seattle with my daughter for our annual Christmas outing to see a performance of the Nutcracker Ballet.  I’m looking forward to it.

I’ll tell you all about it later!

My kids are giddy with excitement. How will they ever wait until Christmas Day?  Oh, the anticipation!

I’m less giddy.  In fact, I’d have to say I’m mostly weary.  I don’t feel any Christmas magic, no holiday glow.  That’s how it is when you’re the mom, the Man Behind the Curtain who makes all the magic happen.

Plus, my house is an absolute wreck because all the kids have been home wreaking havoc while I’m sitting at my desk working.  (But I have two whole days off, following by the weekend, so I must admit to feeling giddy about that).  Tomorrow, everyone will be helping clean up.  Merry Christmas Eve, kids!

Last year at this time snow covered everything and we were essentially housebound.  This year we’re going to the Christmas Eve service at Mars Hill where Grace will be performing Christmas carols with a children’s choir.  I am looking forward to that.  She can’t wait to wear her beautiful dress and her shiny black shoes with heels.  To finally have a child who loves shoes is a delight.

I have managed to get all the gifts wrapped and the stocking stuffers organized.  I baked a batch of cookies but took them all to a Christmas party, so I might bake tomorrow.  I’m not sure.  I don’t want to be totally stressed out in the kitchen all day.  I think tidying up is more important.

But not as important as sleeping in.  After so many years of being woken early by children I have fully embraced the luxury of sleeping in again.  Also?  I’m reading Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle and all I really want to do is finish reading it.  It would probably be irresponsible of me to sleep in and then read instead of springing out of bed like an industrious homemaker and baking a few batches of cookies.  I’ll let you know who wins:  The Industrious Homemaker or the Slothful Sleepy Reader.

Last night I wrote my Christmas letter.  I finished it at almost 3 a.m., but it needs revision and sprucing up.  It’ll be sent out by Valentine’s Day at the very latest.  Well, perhaps St. Patrick’s Day.  Let’s not rush into these things.  If you send your letter out really late, you discover who is only sending you a card because you sent one first.  So there’s that.

I’ve been writing annual Christmas letters since 1991–I have a file of them (I’m missing one year, the year Grace was born).  I read through them all last night (seeking inspiration).  It’s such an odd thing to read a year-by-year summary of life, all the way from being a childless couple to being the parents of four kids, including two that are almost 17.  It’s almost as strange as reading Christmas letters from friends who include photographs of their children GETTING MARRIED, especially when you knew the friends before they even gave birth to those particular kids.

It’s all proof of one thing.  We are getting old.  As if the mirror hadn’t mentioned that fact to me already.

Merry Christmas Eve!  May you experience Christmas peace and perhaps the joy of doing what you want at some point over the next four days.  Even the Man Behind the Curtain deserves a break from time to time.

I have yet to write my much-acclaimed Christmas letter.  (Do not snicker.  It is much-acclaimed and causes me a mild panic every year when I contemplate writing another one.)

I haven’t baked a single Christmas cookie, nor wrapped a gift.

I can’t even remember where I put the kids’ Christmas lists.

Bah-humbug.

Send eggnog.  Wait.  Send a million dollars and a maid.  And a therapist.

Thank you and good-night.

Eleven-year old Zach has been doing a snow ritual to summon snow.  I don’t know exactly what this ritual involves–other than an ice cube–but apparently it worked for this afternoon, while driving home from church, I spotted the first tiny snowflakes whizzing across the freeway.  Soon the children noticed, too.

When we pulled into the driveway, the snowflakes had grown bigger.  They stuck to our clothes.  Showing admirable restraint, they stayed indoors for awhile to give the snow time to “pile up.”  When a half inch had fallen, they donned snowsuits, boots, mittens and frolicked in the back yard.

Awhile later, Zach went to the neighbor’s house to “sled” down the slope in their back yard.  (The back yard is smallish, just like ours.  They must have very slippery grass.)

But now, the snow has stopped.  The deck is covered by a white blanket, but such a pitiful and thin white blanket.

I don’t have the heart to tell Zach that his snow ritual isn’t working because of me.  After all, I’m the one who finally purchased snow shovels after living here for eleven years.

And two full-sized snow shovels squash even the most fervent child’s snow ritual.

Promise you won’t mention this to him.