Various Thoughts

My conversations should begin with a warning label right now

WARNING: This woman is alone with children most of the day so when she begins talking to you (an adult) she will not be able to shut up for a really long time so don't talk to her unless you have several hours free. Also, she mostly wants to talk about trying to sell her house.

• Can antibiotic make you hyper? I am on a sulfa antibiotic trying to kill the never ending sinus infection; since I took it yesterday I have felt completely energized for the first time in a month.

• Buddy the Christmas Elf showed up at our house this morning. Do you know how hard it is not to point out that he is sitting right there on a shelf staring at the kids all the while knowing I cannot see him first or the older kids will get suspicious? E finally spotted him and all the kids yelled hello (yelling helps inanimate objects hear don't ya know). Now to remember to move the little devil every night. Last year with D and I both working on it he only got moved every second or third night.

• Christmas lights. If a little is good than more is better, right?

• House hunting. You know those impossible spoiled brats on the HGTV show House Hunters? Yeah, that's me. Problems looking for a house are many. Did you know that basic architectural style of eastern US homes is different than western US homes? East (or maybe just Richmond) has a ton of colonial homes---dime a dozen, no literally in this housing market you can get a dozen homes for a dime. Washington State has a huge number of arts and crafts/craftsman style homes. And I love this style. You can get a home entirely in brick there (D's dream) and here no brick(earthquakes, siding gives). So looking at homes last week began hard and then got harder because I felt sicker (is that a word?) with each day and more tired from not sleeping worrying about the housing junk. Walking through homes all I could see was the work and updates they would need. It made me tired to even look. Yes, I am a spoiled brat. I took D back to a couple and he had the same problem. Also, inside projects are more daunting to me than outside projects. Changing fixtures in a bathroom or painting inside=nightmare. Creating/rehabbing landscape beds and planting=FUN! We are working on it.

• When G was in preschool he brought home this cute paper chain that you take off a link each day until Christmas as a countdown; cute idea--already stolen for my teaching files. This year when M brought home the same countdown chain I smiled until I saw......on each link they had glued a 'getting ready for Christmas' activity. Most are cute and simple, but M began his chain with "Bake Christmas cookies" and he has a thing about doing everything for school just right. Guess what I get to make today? A positive spin for it, I did clean out the rest of my molasses supply by making gingerbread. I am trying to get rid of anything that could freeze in the moving truck during a winter move--everything froze when we moved here (soap, honey,canned frosting,snow globe collection).

love and hugs, B