We are back in Texas, safe and sound after a good Christmas in Santa Fe.
On Monday night, Josh’s mother passed away– he was able to fly home Sunday night to be with her, but that doesn’t make it any easier.
She will be missed.
I’m quiet for now, but will write again soon.
Max just beat me at chess for the first time. I’m so proud! I did prompt him for the final move– “You can win with one move here. Can you see which move that is?” He saw it, though, and was happy to take the game.
We made it to New Mexico last night after a twelve-hour road trip and 10 potty stops.
The boys were so good– it’s like they *knew* Santa was keeping tabs on them. Don’t tell that to Max, though, as he’ll argue with you that Santa is dead. Long story. He’s still convinced that he’s going to wait up for Santa on Christmas Eve– he’s got some questions to ask the great jelly-bellied one.
Highlights of the long drive:
It’s awesome having little boys when it comes to road trips– it’s so easy! No restroom for 45 miles? No problem!
I spent several hours of the trip obsessing over Robert Duvall’s name, which I was driving myself insane trying to remember. I could see his face! I could replay all of his movies that I’ve seen! I had his first name, and knew there was an ‘L’ somewhere in his surname… but it was making me nuts that I couldn’t recall the whole name. It finally hit me somewhere outside of Tucumcari, I think. Sweet relief. Sometimes I think I might need mental meds.
It was soooooooooooooooo good to finally arrive in Santa Fe and give giant hugs to my family. The boys were thrilled to climb all over Gram and Grancher. :) Wait, did I say ‘were’? They’re still at it, and loving every second of it. Aunt Rachel and Uncle Steve are getting in some good jungle-gym time, too. If you get the chance, ask Aunt Rachel to do that special ‘T-Rex’ yoga pose that Max showed her. Good stuff, I tell ya!
I’m looking forward to picking Josh up in Albuquerque tomorrow night so we can all be together. I miss my sweet, silly man.
I’m happy. Life is just better when I’m with my family.
Amy, I thought of you when I saw this on Metafilter– 7 Drinks of Mankind: Coffee. “Coffee is the balm of recovery.” — I have to agree, even if I’m just recovering from a bad mood, coffee makes it better.
Today’s coffee? Cinnamon hazelnut, which is always at the top of my list. We recently bought some Sumatra and some Arabian Mocha Sanani to try out the less acidic varieties– they’re good, and the flavors are more complex then the usual coffee we buy.
In other news, as Josh was leaving yesterday I was inspired to let him open his Christmas present. He looked so nice in his grown-up clothes! I’d ordered him a black, wool mid-length coat, and thought it would be a good thing to take with him to Tulsa. Except that it didn’t fit. RAWR!!! I was so excited to have found a 2XLT– special emphasis on the T– and to have found one that I actually liked made it even more of a miraculous find. However, the people who made the coat are apparently large, tall people with VERY SHORT ARMS. He needs another six inches or so on each sleeve. I offered to sew some fur on there, but he refused. Soooo…. back to the internet I go, searching again, paying special attention to sleeve length this time.
It’s bathtime and I’m ready to get the kids to bed so I can re-tidy the house and finish up the last bit of packing. I made the mistake of picking up the house early in the day… HA! What am I, a rookie? I know better; in less than an hour, toys were strewn everywhere. See what I get for being focused on the packing?
Oh, one more thing– my boys are good veggie eaters. They have, in the past, chosen fresh baby spinach leaves over pasta. (!!!!) For lunch today they had brussels sprouts for the first time, and Max said, “HEY! These taste like little balls of spinach!” This is the same boy who refused a freshly-baked Christmas cookie because “sugar isn’t good for me and I’ve already had some sugar today.” I need to learn a few things from my four-year-old.
Josh told me yesterday that my superpower is my un-human stubbornness.
I’m still on the fence as to whether I’ll use my powers for good or evil…
Lunch is in the oven, and I’m glad to be able to pull the laptop into the kitchen since it’s the warmest room in the house.
The boys are wearing their warm and fuzzy jammies with feet still, and on top of those, they’ve put on their summer superhero jammies. So now we’ve got Warm Batman and Warm Spiderman– earlier they were hugging each other and professing their friendship as they went off to hurt all of the bad guys.
Josh’s mom is in the hospital again– acute renal failure. I’m so very worried about her… send good thoughts that way, if you would. Of course this makes it even harder for Josh to be away right now since he is so scared for her. Knowing him, though, it’s better for him to have something that he has to do– waiting around, not able to do anything, worrying– that would eat him up. At least he can hop on a plane and be home fairly quickly if necessary; it’s only an hour’s flight. It just makes my heart heavy– I want so much for her to be all right.
There’s still much packing and straightening to be done, but it seems less important now. I just want to sit and hug on my kids for a while.
Though I’m trying hard not to freak out about all of the things to be done before Wednesday, I think the stress is manifesting in other ways: my eye is twitching just the tiniest bit, and it won’t stop. Now, I not only feel crazy, but I *look* crazy, too!
It looks like Josh will not be going with us to New Mexico since he’s got to fly to Tulsa… he’ll join us on Friday night, instead. The road trip with the kids is going to be a little more complicated, but we’ll be all right. I’m so glad to have the DVD player so that the boys will have something to distract them from constantly yelling are we there yet and he’s breathing on me.
Laundry, packing, cleaning, errands– it doesn’t seem like all that much on paper. It’s just when I start thinking about all of the details that I start getting overwhelmed. I’ll be glad for Wednesday to get here so I can get in the car and driiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive away from all of it. I can’t wait to see my family.
Unrelated: When alone with chocolate, I am not to be trusted. Consider yourself warned. I have zero chocolate willpower, and beyond that, I’m not even trying to restrain myself. Muahahaa! When my clothes don’t fit next month, point me right back here.
Apparently my brain-fog is thicker than previously thought: I just realized this morning that we’re supposed to leave for Santa Fe on Wednesday morning. That leaves me three days, including today, to get ready. I’m going to need a lot of coffee…
I always try to get the house cleaned before we leave for a trip– coming back to a mess makes returning home that much harder. Am I the only one who does this? I’m never ready to leave my family when the time comes, but it’s worse when I know there’s a dirty house awaiting me.
Josh is spending the day in Arlington with his mommy, who’s sick again. I worry about her– moreso about her spirits than anything, because if she decides to give up, things will go downhill quickly.
I’m missing friends a lot lately. It doesn’t seem so long ago that we had time to just hang out and be… when did we grow up? And when did we get so busy? Please enlighten me (over a coffee date, preferably).
I braved the weekend-before-Christmas crowds today and went shopping for stocking stuffers. It was much worse than I expected, and I’m SO thankful that I don’t have anything left to buy. My car almost got hit more times than I care to keep track of, and that’s no exaggeration. In searching for one more small gift for Josh, I attempted to go to the mall (I’d already been to two other stores with no success). I drove around for over ten minutes looking for a parking space and couldn’t find one. Even the spaces in BFE were filled. At that point I decided to give up and go home– you gotta know when to fold ‘em, yeah? I did get some really cool things for the boys’ stockings, so Santa totally owes me one.
Slowly, slowly, I’m burning through the to-do list of doom. The calendar is finally done and ready to print– that’s what I’ll be doing tomorrow when I’m not cooking, cleaning, packing, or making cookies with Max & Khai. I’m also working on my brother’s wedding invitations… so there’s no shortage of things with which to occupy myself.
For over two months now, I’ve been trying to read The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. OMG. I don’t know why I haven’t given up already– I have this sick stubbornness that keeps me from abandoning it. I’m just over halfway through, though I’ve read three or four other books in the meantime, most of which I breezed through in a matter of hours. I think I’m going to have to just send the book away. Begone with you, Pulpy!* This is my public admittance of failure and intent to deep-six this book… but hey, I’ve got a great stack of books waiting for me.
I got part of the laundry put away… somebody hand me a cookie.
*Artie, again. I know, I know.
I’m trying to make WordPress play happily with LiveJournal. I post a lot more on pixellaneous, and feel like I’m losing touch with a lot of LJ people– many of whom are IRL and local friends.
Have I mentioned the itching??? It’s maddening. I’ve done so well, though– no scratching! I’m ready for it to be all healed, mostly because I want to see what the tattoo will look like. I’m still *so* happy with it.
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