That's the downside of being on-task and productive.
Nothing very interesting happens, and your brain gets consumed with "the list", instead of thinking interesting, bloggable thoughts. (But I have managed 20-30 minutes of yoga 3 times in the last week!)
My apartment is as sustainably clean as it's ever been (except the hopeless computer desk). And as boring as it sounds I do feel good about it.
Good, but fragmented.
- I haven't gotten any good mail all week. Not even catalogues. Thank heavens for blogland.
- Williams Sonoma has their mulling spice mix in; every year I'm so tempted. But it definitely falls under "want" instead of "need." And I never actually buy it.
- Our plans for (sparse-ish) Christmas gifts are complete, now I just have a lot of homemade work to do.
- Mr Renn's dad (who has a frustrating habit of nearly always being right) forwarded this thoughtful (if slightly angry) article to us. The statistics blew me away.
- Mr Renn also informed me that the City of Philadelphia has so few tax-paying residents (welfare capital of the nation, remember), that the city has had to close libraries, recreation centers, and start selling fire equiptment to make ends meet. Wow. Sad. Especially considering the sheer volume of people drinking on their front porch that Mr Renn drives by every morning, who are still there (and still drinking) when he drives home.
- Nie is awake, which makes me happy. But she's got so many things to wrap her brain around that it's a melancholy kind of happy.
- I'm grappling with what is probably a pride issue. I like giving good gifts. I like the idea of people seeing that they have a gift from me and automatically being excited because it's bound to be good. I'm learning that such good gifts require an abundance of one of three things: Money, Energy, or Time. Guess what I haven't had in abundance for almost two-and-a-half years? Hence the bar seems to be continually lowered, and it makes me sad.
- The belly monster is as active as his brother was in utero, if not moreso. While we are having no luck "preparing" Sir O for a baby brother, I still suspect these two are going to be great friends. I also suspect my innards of being slightly bruised.
- Due to the craziness anticipated in having a baby due so shortly after Christmas, I'm planning to get everything done early this year. Making Christmas baking lists makes me happy. But don't worry, I won't start before Thanksgiving.
- The exception to the above is that we're skipping Christmas Cards this year. Or rather, we are combining Christmas Cards, Baby Announcements, and Valentine Cards all into one mailing. You can totally understand why, right? If you want to make sure you're on the mailing list, let me know.
- It's been so depressingly dark and gloomy lately that I'm filled with dread, remembering how much I dislike Winter in PA. I've already started leaving lights on all over the house because it makes me sad to turn them off. This drives Mr Renn crazy.
- Coat weather has arrived (at least temporarily). I hear people in Utah complaining about how it's snowing already, and I want to holler at them. At least Utah snow has the saving grace of being pretty after it has fallen. I rather miss the dry, fluffy, pretty stuff. Here we just get buckets of muddy slush that freeze into solid ice on the ground. Haven't gotten it yet, but when we do it won't be pretty.
- I miss living where we knew of a million things to do and see around the Holidays. There's plenty to do here, but I miss the familiarity of doing things that had already become a tradition. Forging new traditions in a new place, far from family, can be daunting.
- I'm beginning to ramble, plus I'm angering the anti-Christmas-thoughts-in-November folks. So I'll curb myself. Ciao.
5 comments:
Em, thanks for the good read. I just read the baby-boomer article (ok, only like the first 7 paragraphs...) and it gave me motivation to get off my butt and go get to work. Cleaning my house, so I can welcome Josh home like a wonderful 50's wife would have. haha.
I suspect Oliver is going to surprise you with being a good gentle brother once baby monster arrives. (Oh, I can't wait to see pics!) I bet you'll be surprised. I sincerely HOPE you'll be surprised! haha.
The mulling cider looked gooood!
Thanks for another refreshing read!
I love your list of thoughts, I enjoyed every reading moment.
Question-- When I was in primary there was a Gospel Art Kit in the primary closet. I just sorted through my personal GAK and found I have doubles of several pictures. I'm wondering if back in the day I unintentionally stole several pictures from the primary GAK. Are you by any missing #'s 114, 208, 240, 403, & 520? I'd be happy to mail them to you if you are.
I give you props for doing yoga 3 times a week! If only I had the motivation.
even your self-described "un-profound" thoughts make for wonderful posts.
and, i'd like to be on the card list, if possible. : )
I enjoy reading your lists. From my recent experience going from one child to two...I am not sure if you can ever fully prepare a child for a sibling, but don't stop trying. It was hard for a while and I thought I would go crazy. But for me it got better (we still have moments, sometimes long ones). The consolation is that there is nothing sweeter than the way that Kyle lights up when he sees Ryan.
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