CHRISTMAS BREAK!

Woo hoo!  Christmas break!

We all need it.  I finally feel like we're getting our real lives back, and I feel calmer.  Life is feeling awesome again instead of just ... blah.  That's been how life has felt for weeks:  blah, blah, blah.  This is how my brain interprets stress, I guess, because as you will see, things haven't all been blah-ish around here.  Most of it's been pretty great!

The House

The home projects WORE US OUT.  When we were finished with them all, I thought we'd be like, "It's over, now let's move on to the next thing!"  Instead, we realized how freakin' exhausted we were and we slept and watched TV for weeks.  (Also I got a crummy cold and that didn't help at all.  Lots of sleeping going on.)

But I'll post pictures soon cause the house looks GREAT!  Now that I'm not so tired, I'm really happy with our house and how it turned out.  Next, the basement.  But we're not doing any of that.  (Says a silent prayer of gratitude.)

The Car

Bought a car the day after Turkey Day.  We like the car, but we don't like spending lots of money, so that threw me off for a few days.  We bought a 2014 Subaru Outback with a few thousand miles on it.  We've already put another thousand on it.

If you'd like to know what it looks like, you can Google Image Search it.  It's Cobalt Gray.  Just a dark gray color.  The car is not anything AMAZING.  It looks like every other small SUV/crossover on the market

It does have heated seats, though.  That's pretty amazing.

The Concerts

So many concerts!  Rob's brother and sister came down and we all performed a Christmas program for the ward.  I got to sing the alto part, and I got to perform a song in ASL!  It was awesome.  Then this week was crammed full of music:  piano recital, choir concert, and orchestra concert.  I like music, and I even like Christmas music (when it's December.  Seriously), but I'm kinda Christmas concert-ed out.  I'm opting out of singing with the Ward Choir during our church service Christmas thing and Rob was like, "But you'll miss it!"  I said, "I think you've grossly overestimated how much I like to sing."  Ha!

I would like to mention that we had some awesome friends show up and support us by singing some Christmas songs.  That's real friendship:  Showing up to a piano recital that doesn't involve your own children.  You guys are my heroes!

Work

My work changed policies and asked for a bunch of paperwork, all to be completed NOW!  I missed the deadline.  Like 3 weeks in a row.  One day I was at the office, and I was so stressed that I thought I might cry if one more thing happened, and explained in a panicky voice that I didn't have it all done, and I wouldn't for a while.  But patience pays off, cause it's all done!  I'm happy about that.

Though this was funny:  I needed a local background check, so I went and did that.  When I finally looked at the paper, all the information was correct except for my gender.  Umm, ... whatever.

Christmas

Next week is Christmas!  We haven't put up our tree yet (I know, I know) because I couldn't handle it.  Our house was out of place for a good 2 months, and when we finally put it back together, I ordered that the tree wasn't to be put up until much, much later.  We are borrowing a tiny porch Christmas tree, which is doing it for me but not for the kids.  So within the next few days, the Christmas tree will be up and the kids will be thrilled.

We're doing a homemade Christmas this year, so everyone decided months ago what they wanted to make, and we're all spent a good amount of time on it all.  It adds another layer of Christmas excitement.  I'm just as excited to see what everyone made as I am to give out what I made!  Hurray for creativity!!!


Life is good.