Tuesday, December 19, 2023

Christmas is Coming, the Goose is Getting Fat

Fact #1: In two weeks, I’ll turn 40. I think I’m experiencing some signs. First, I’m starting to fall asleep in places I never would have fallen asleep before, and I snore myself awake. Eventually, I’m sure I’ll start sleeping through my snores, and it will be really embarrassing because I’ll be falling asleep in public places. 

Fact #2: Then… earlier this week, I got sore from walking. I went on the same walk I’ve been going on three times a week for about seven years. Same time. Same (flat) route. And my legs burned the whole time, and I came home with a sore back and had to lay on a heating pad.

Fact #3: Speaking of walking, since we haven’t had any snow, there is a lot of “fall residue” on the sidewalks. On our walking route, there are a bunch of leaves and berries that have piled up on the ground. My shoes are covered in them! 

It looks like poo! And these are brand new shoes. So I cleaned them up (a scrub brush didn’t work, so I had to dig all the berries out with a fork), and now I’m going to designate an old pair of shoes as my “berry shoes” until the fall residue goes away (which completely defeats the purpose of buying new walking shoes).

Fact #5: Some updates from previous posts…

I’ve received a lot of feedback (mostly private) on my post about the temple. Thank you to those who have shared your experiences and feelings with me this week. I’ve received several texts and emails and had some enlightening in-person conversations about it. As I suspected, there are many active and faithful endowed Saints who have anxiety about the temple - men and women - and they are quiet about it. We are in good company.

Fact #6: After I posted the list of books I’ve read this year, two people asked me how I can read six different books at a time. I don’t usually have that many going at once. I usually stick to three - an audiobook, an e-book, and a paperback. But I have this habit of misplacing my paperbacks, so I occasionally start another one while one is lost. Then there’s the matter of having books come due at the library - perhaps I can renew Book A but not Book B, but I haven’t started Book B, so I set Book A aside to read Book B “real quick,” leaving Book A still “in progress.” Are you with me here? 

So it begs the question… can I keep six books straight? Maybe. If the books are all different, I can. But if any of them are similar in setting or genre (two WWII books, for example), or if they have characters with the same name (it happens more than one might think), things can get a little muddled. In that case, I’ll set one aside for later. 

Fact #7: I admit, my reading retention isn’t great, and I lose focus constantly (especially with audiobooks), but I read anyway.

Fact #8: Zoe and Eva are giving us a run for our money this holiday season. They fight endlessly and throw mega tantrums. 

In this episode, the child was asked to carry her laundry downstairs, and she dumped it on herself and yelled and screamed that she was buried alive and going to die. This went on for about 35 minutes before school this morning. Then she screamed, “Why do you hate me so much? You want me to DIE???” because I refused to rescue her from her laundry pile (She didn’t die).

They’ll fight about anything. Yesterday I had to break up a fight over who is worse at pronouncing the ‘R’ sound, and then again over the color of the nighttime sky (they wanted me to Google to determine if it was navy blue or midnight blue - as if the entire existence of Crayola depended on it). They yell at each other constantly. I feel like our home is toxic.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to prevent the holiday meltdowns. I tried really hard this year, but I can’t keep them in check. 

Fact #9: Several years ago, Zoe had a weird obsession with stuffing one-piece pajamas with blankets so they would look like bodies. Then she would carry them around the house and treat them like friends and sometimes leave them laying around to scare me to death. 

She still does it from time to time, so this was my house the other day:



Fact #10: Yesterday I came home from the store when I was supposed to be the only person in the house, and as I rounded the corner into the living room, I saw this:


It scared me so bad, I immediately unstuffed it.

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