fashion clothes

Ahhhh, Valentine's Day.

The day that we are told is filled with promises of exquisite jewelry, bouquets of extravagant flowers, wining and dining at the finest of restaurants.

That's what the commercials want us to believe, anyway.

In real life for us, it means lobster and steak cooked at home, eaten in a candlelit dining room after the kids have gone to bed as the dishwasher hums in the background.

There is no new jewelry, except perhaps the most recent bracelet crafted on the Rainbow Loom.

If there are flowers, they come directly from the grocery store, though in all likelihood, the flowers were skipped because we understand that the same flowers that were $10 yesterday and will be $10 tomorrow are $30 today. We've grown too practical to throw money away on frivolous things.

Besides, lobster was on sale, and we all know that is a better use of the money.

There might be a card, if we remember, though at some point we gave up on them too. Seeking out an overpriced piece of paper holding words that are only tangentially relevant to our love seems like a waste of time anymore. There isn't a card that fits us now. Perhaps there never really was, we just wanted to believe that we could fit into the tiny boxes society told us we were supposed to.

Love, real love, isn't about flowers or chocolate or jewelry or fancy dinners.

Real love is nights spent cuddled under blankets on the couch until you fall asleep.

Real love is a call on the way home to ask if you need anything at the store.

Real love is flowers on an ordinary Tuesday just because.

Real love is bringing you a roll of toilet paper when you are trapped in the bathroom.

Real love is asking if you are okay before laughing at how you got hurt.

Real love is shoveling the driveway.

Real love is letting her cry.

Real love is pacing in a waiting room.

Real love is being vulnerable again.

Real love is saying sorry.

Real love is second chances.

Real love is messy.

Real love is beautiful.

Real love is the everyday pieces of who we are, what we do for one another, the unspoken things woven in the tapestry of this connection between two people.

Real love isn't one day.

Real love isn't one moment.

Real love is the spaces in between.

Happy Valentine's Day, my friends.


Mr. Hive, I love you.

On the way here for Christmas, my brother and his family were in an accident.

me, Dad, Mom and my brother Ventura, CA Thanksgiving, 2009

My Mom and I had a complicated relationship.

That sentence may qualify as the understatement of the year.

Possibly even the decade.

She was a complicated person. I am a complicated person. Though we shared little else in common, we shared that. Over time, all of the things that made us each who we were and are became insurmountable obstacles. When she died just over two months ago now, I hadn't seen her in over a year. It was hard. It was all hard.

Her being here was difficult. Her being far away, impossible, but in different ways. There was little about our relationship that wasn't part of some intricate web, some labyrinth of differing perspectives, some convoluted story with a past you had to muddle though to get to now.

And now she is just gone.

I miss her.

I miss who she was.

She loved Christmas in an almost unnatural way. She was the polar opposite of me.

She could listen to Christmas music year round. I cringe at it when I am forced to listen. 

She could seek out the little Christmas boutiques in every city we ever visited and spend hours touching everything, find something she couldn't live without. I haven't bought a Christmas decoration in years. 

She bought and bought and bought and bought. I try to be frugal.

We couldn't have been more different, her and I, not if we tried.

The last few years have been exhausting. I won't even begin to sugarcoat any of it. Maybe someday I will write those stories, but for now, they reside in my head and my heart, confirmation that I did all that I could until I couldn't do it anymore, and then I did what I had to do, even if no one understands.

Last Christmas was painful. My Dad had been gone almost two years, it was the second round of holidays without him and she had gone back, moved away from here. Not because we wanted her to, but because I think in her heart she felt like it was the right thing to do. I don't know for sure why she did because she stopped really talking to me so long before then. I never will know what her motivations were for much of what happened those last few years. I sense that she may not have even really known. What I know for sure is that she packed up and left one day and whatever hope I had that things could be better between us someday was crammed into that truck with her belongings.

I didn't understand it then, I don't understand it now, but rationality and reason haven't suited me well when it comes to her. They never have, so I don't know why I would think that anything would suddenly make sense now.

I think perhaps it is because I crave it so desperately. I want to believe that there is a linear time frame, that cause and effect exists, that things happened the way they did because there was no other way for them to. That, at the core of it all, was some rhyme or reason. Or maybe I'm just trying to convince myself.

All I know is that I feel a bit lost sometimes.

This navigation of the world without parents is bizarre, to say the least.

It's something I tried to prepare myself for, something that I thought I was prepared for, and yet here I am, struggling anyway.

She wasn't very maternal those last few years, that's for sure. Our relationship had flipped and I was the one trying desperately to take care of her, even if she fought me the whole time she was here then shut me out when she was gone. She wasn't always kind and loving, not anymore, not with me anyway. She wasn't my safe place, she wasn't the place that I needed her to be. She wasn't very much like a mother at all, certainly not when I could have used one, and hadn't been for a long time.

But she was mine.

And I miss her.

I've realized so much about my relationship, not just with her, but with my father as well, in these past few years, but I have learned even more in these two months. I've learned things I never wanted to learn.

The hardest lesson of them all is that even if what she and I had was broken and damaged and flawed and dysfunctional, it was all I ever knew.

And now it's gone.

Sometimes it still doesn't seem real.

Christmas has not passed without a hole in my heart in a very long time. Most years were occupied with a constant nagging, a feeling of being pulled somewhere else, dreading the inevitable, trying to squeeze every ounce of the bittersweet taste out of each moment. Even back before all that, it wasn't nearly as idyllic as I thought it was, I just had no idea. Maybe it was better that way.

Delusion can be magnificent when you don't realize you're in it.

Those days are over, though, and I'm here now. Eyes wide open, missing both of my parents. Wishing that I could have just one of those moments in the past back, knowing that it can never be, understanding that there is no utility in entertaining such fantasies.

I live, irretrievably, in reality.

Uncomfortably.

Reluctantly.

This Christmas, I'm going to try. I'm really going to try. I want to live in the moment, remember the good times, shake the bad ones off quickly. I want to make new memories.

I need to make new memories.

I need to recapture myself this Christmas, whoever it is that I am now floating around this world without a mother or a father. I need to find my joy again, figure out who I am without them.

I need to remember how much my Mom loved Christmas and figure out how to do it myself.

I know deep down in my heart that she'd want that.

When we put out the decorations this year, a box of hers came up from the basement too. One that she'd left here, filled with Nutcrackers she bought in a frenzied insistence that she needed.them.all. They drove me crazy at the time she bought them, because they said so much about the chaos going on right at that moment. Now, they are bittersweet reminders. Pieces of her left behind that I still don't understand. That I'll never understand. That I've learned I must stop trying to understand.


On my cabinets now, the Believe sign she agonized over in the store one day, tracing the letters of the word she clung to when Dad was dying. Behind the sign, all the Nutcrackers. These little wooden statues are safely in a place where they will watch over her six grandchildren open gifts on Christmas morning, precisely where she would have wanted them to be, precisely where she would have wanted to be if she was still here, even if it had never been possible.

I'm trying, Mom. I am.

I miss you both so much.

Give Dad a kiss for me.

Merry Christmas.

I dread writing Christmas cards for a few reasons. It seems like every year I send out more and receive fewer. It's one of the things that I hang on to, a bit like the rusty and antiquated dinosaur I am.

I'm a walking contradiction sometimes. I know this. I write online. I have an entire virtual persona. I blog and admin a page on Facebook and some of my best friends are the people who only reside in my computer, and yet I crave the direct human connection. I need it. I require things I can see and feel and touch.

I still write all the important stuff down.

I like lists. They make me happy.

I resist ebooks, even though I've been a part of one that was published this year.

I like paper.

I like pens.

Get off my lawn.

I hand write the envelopes for my Christmas cards, even if I stopped writing the update letter years ago when life started to get complicated. I figure that the people who actually care either talk to me or read this and they should have a fairly good idea about what is going on. No one else cares enough, and that's fine too.

Handwriting the cards is one of those things I force myself to do even if it's outdated and old fashioned and absolute proof of my crotchety old age.

It's also one of those things that I absolutely dread doing every year, but I force myself to do it anyway.

This is why.


This address book. It's the one that I have had for every one of the fifteen years that I have been married.

I love this address book.

I hate this address book.

Every year I vow that this is going to be the year that I get a new one. My husband laughs at me and asks, every year, why I don't just keep all this information in some electronic format, you know now that we live in the digital age and all.

I shrug my shoulders, open the address book, and flinch every few pages.

This book isn't just a book of numbers and letters. No.

It's my past.

The good, the bad and the ugly.

Fifteen years of friendships that faded away. Fifteen years of people who hurt me. Fifteen years of addresses that I used to hand write envelopes to.  Fifteen years of little stars and asterisks and dots beside the names of those who received a card in the mail that year.

Fifteen years of the names of people who aren't here anymore.

Fifteen years of the ghosts of Christmas past.

This year, an address underneath my Mom's name that didn't get a star next to it.

I know that I should get rid of this address book. I do.

I also know that I won't.

I know that this time next year, I will reluctantly open it up again, and I'll remember.

I was five when my Pap, my Mom's father, died. He had a massive heart attack and died the following day. I remember everything about those moments with such strange clarity. I remember how we had to leave suddenly to go there and how my brother and I were dropped off with our other set of grandparents. I remember my parents not really telling us anything, but having that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach like something was very wrong. It all happened so fast.

My grandparents had a living room that was hardly ever used. The floor would shake if you walked in just the right spots, and as kids we used to jump there on purpose. It was one of those rooms, you know the kind, the nice rooms with the nice furniture and the nice lamps that matched and the fancy drapes. It was the room where the tree was put up every Christmas, which was one of the only times we were every really in that room.

The other rooms of the house, the little den with the television, the giant rec room with the pool table and the bar, the teeny tiny dining room and kitchen, that's where we usually were. This room was different. Formal. Special.

The style was straight out of a 60s/70s home decor magazine. I could probably still describe everything about that room. My favorite thing about it was the gigantic plate glass window that overlooked the patio outside.

My parents came back from wherever it was they had gone and left us, and they took us into that room. It wasn't Christmas. There wasn't a wedding. The whole family wasn't there.

We weren't supposed to be in that room.

They both sat on the floor and put us in their laps. I can't for the life of me remember what they said or how they said it, just that they did. He was gone. They tried to explain death the best way they could to two little kids, they tried to contain their own grief and shock. They tried.

They went to the funeral a few days later, leaving us again with someone else. I don't remember who we were with, just that we weren't there. I wanted to be, I wasn't allowed. They thought for sure that they were making the best decision, that they were doing the right thing by us. I can't say what would have happened had I gone to the funeral, had I been given a proper chance to say goodbye. I don't know. I'll never know.

I know that his death affected me for a long, long time.

Only a few weeks later, Christmas arrived. The adults were not in the mood to celebrate, they were all still reeling from the sudden loss. I know that feeling all too well myself. I push it away the best I can, but it still lurks in the shadows, the reminders of who isn't here anymore, of how unfair it all is.

That Christmas morning, with tears in their eyes, my Grandma, my Mom and my Dad watched as I unwrapped one special gift.

The fancy anniversary clock that sat on the console table spun, the chimes rang. Everyone was looking at me, waiting. For a moment time stood still. I had no idea what it was, this gift, but everyone else seemed to know. Their anticipation, the emotions on their faces told me that whatever it was must be important.

It was a tiny pink clock. On the face, a little girl holding a raccoon. It was the kind that you wind by hand on the back and could set an alarm where it would ring the bells on top. I was confused. Why was this clock such a big deal?


He bought it for me, my Pap, just before he died. He had intended to give it to me that day himself, but didn't make it that far. When they told me who it was from, I cried. Really cried. I didn't really know what to do with all the emotions then. I hardly know what to do with them now.

That clock still sits on my dresser today. Aside from photographs of my children, it is the one thing I would save in a fire. It has traveled with me, it has gone to college. When we moved here, it was one of the items that was packed in the car, not on the moving truck, just in case.

In my basement right now, there is a box. A box that has been sitting there for a few years. My Mom bought it. My Mom bought things. Lots of things. Too many things.

The year before my father died was such a chaotic one. There was so much going on, she was buying so much that she lost track of it all, just having it all shipped here. It was out of control, for lack of a better phrase. This box came in with so many others, and was put with the rest to go through before the holiday.

The box was put too far aside unintentionally. Misplaced.

The following year, Dad had died and she moved here. I meant to remember to tell her about the box. That it had been put underneath other things accidentally and the kids hadn't been given what was inside. I meant to. Then so much else happened and I forgot.

I forgot.

I found it last year in the basement again and cried. She had moved back and we were here and I didn't know what to do with it anymore. It didn't feel right to give the items inside to the kids on her behalf without her here. It was all so complicated. They had the gifts she intended for them to have last year to open, and by then she'd forgotten about the box too. If I'm being completely honest, I'm not even sure she remembered ordering it. She ordered so much, and it had been over two years.

Then she was gone. It's been a month and a half now. I went down to the basement a few days ago and saw the box again. I knew it was time. The items in the box will be wrapped and placed beneath the tree this year, one for each of my children. They will be wrapped elaborately the way she loved and the tags will read, "from Grandma Judy".

What will be inside isn't anything fancy or extravagant. Neither was the clock I received. They may not figure out right away why I'll have tears in my eyes when they open these gifts.

They each will get a little trinket box, bought three years ago now, with their names on them, from her. Three years passed with this box sitting there, three years of it being misplaced, of being forgotten, of waiting. Three years of it never being the right moment.

It is time.

I'm sorry, Mom. I'm sorry that I misplaced it the first year, that I forgot the second year, that you weren't here the third year. I'm sorry.

I'm going to do my best to make this right.  I hope the kids will take ownership of this last best gift from you, that it will be the one that matters the most, that it will be the one they hold dear, that it will be the one they take to college someday, that it will sit on their dressers thirty years from now.

Looking back now, maybe there is a reason that this box in my basement waited. These last gifts from you.

Maybe it wasn't accidental at all.

Maybe, just maybe, this is how it was supposed to be all along.

I love you, Mom.

It is time.

The annual Christmas list.

I do this every year.

Because I am 5.

I don't actually sit on Santa's lap anymore. Well, not the cheesy mall Santa, anyway.

If you're interested to know what I've asked for in the past, here are the lists from prior years.

2012
2011
2010
2009

I will premise this with the following: many of these are totally unrealistic fantasy things. I know that. But I'm 5. AND I WANT THEM.

1. I want my van cleaned. Like every nook and cranny. Occasionally it smells like something died in there, which is not necessarily an improvement when compared with the shoes the tweens leave in there accidentally at times.

2. I want people to be nicer. If you wouldn't have the balls to say something to my face, don't say it online. That goes for the people I know in real life and all the ones I don't actually know. (it's been a long week)

3. I want to not feel like a failure when it comes to my kids. We all have issues, some of us more than others. In the process of dealing with those issues, I really don't want to create new ones. I'm trying. Honest.

4. I want a glitter cannon. A real one. Of course, it would have to come with someone who has to clean up every single speck of glitter because you know that that shit gets everywhere. It truly is the herpes of the craft world.

5. I want the greenway along the river fixed. I want the parks rebuilt. I know it will all get fixed eventually, but I'm impatient.

6. I want people in my house to clean up after themselves. (pipe dream, I know)

7. I want three additional hours each night after the kids go to bed so that I can go on Netflix benders and catch up on all the shows I need to watch.

8. I want a new tattoo. Three actually. Maybe more. I know that it's going to take a while to get them all, and I know that they will make me want more and more and more. I know this.

9. I want more corsets. Because boobs.

10. I want phone chargers that actually charge my phone. If they could do it faster, that would be awesome. I can never find a charger when I need one. Ever.

11. Speaking of phones, I want a phone that isn't a moody bitch. My current phone needs to be pressed up against my body at all times. It doesn't like to be cold, so it lives in my bra. Not because I want to store it there, though it is a good place to hold things...but because it literally will not work unless I keep it body temp at all times.

12. I want a cat that I'm not allergic to, that isn't an asshole, that doesn't insist on escaping from the house and doesn't bring me dead things. Even though George was all of those things, I miss that little jerkoff.

13. I want thigh high red patent leather custom made boots to go with my Wonder Woman Costume. Strike that. I need them.

14. I want a giant box of camera accessories that I can't afford.

15. I still want that totally irrational thing that I wished for last year and that hasn't happened.

16. I want to get one of my books finished and published in the next year. For reals.

17. I want to meet some of my blogger friends.

18. I want to tell my Mom that I've been hanging on to something she ordered for the kids, and that I'm giving it to them for Christmas this year just like she held on to something for me from my Pap the year he died. I hope that they will cherish it the way I have.

19. I want world peace, an end to hunger and illness and all the other things responsible adults are supposed to wish for.

20. I  want a brand new crossbow with Daryl Dixon attached to it sitting under my tree.


C'mon, Santa. I've been a good girl. ;)

One thing that I've said too many times this year and listened to too many people around me say is this:

It is what it is.

And it is. 

Life isn't always pretty.

Life isn't always fair.

Life isn't always easy.

Life isn't always fun.

As much as life can test us, as much as it can put us through, as hard as it is, as cruel as it is, it is always something else too. 

It is always beautiful.

Take a minute to look at the people around you today, to just watch them be.  Watch them laugh, watch them smile.  Give them your undivided attention.  Give them your time.  Give them your love. 

Forgive them.

Share stories and share memories.

Cherish every second that you are given. 

Be grateful.

Embrace the moment.

Time is fleeting, time is short, so make the best of what you have.

Life is what it is, and it is beautiful.

Happy Thanksgiving.

------------------------------
This post first ran here last December.

My name is Kelly, and I am addicted to Halloween. This is my most favorite day, so forgive me if I squeeeeee publicly.

I have gathered here for you some of the scariest, coolest, weirdest things about Halloween. I'll also be adding some of my favorite Halloween recipes at the end.

HAVE FUN TODAY.

By order of the queen.

All of us this year at the parade

The Oldest as the 11th Doctor

Do you love horror movies?  Did you know that they aren't all fictional? In fact, many of them are based on true stories. Here are 13 of the scariest.

If you love movies of any kind, did you know that there are stories about some of them being cursed? About tragic deaths that happened either on the set or shortly after the film wrapped? This list includes some of them, but doesn't even include Poltergeist - one of the most notorious movies of them all. Several of the cast members of that series met untimely deaths, some violently, others by mysterious illnesses.

Not every scary story is made into a movie though, and some of the strangest unsolved crimes will make your skin crawl. Maybe literally. You can read about them here.

If that isn't enough, there are some places that will just scare the crap out of you. Here's a list of 10 of them, but I'm going to tell you another story.  When I was in college, my roommate and I decided to go check out the haunted house on the Queen Mary.


Seemed like a good idea.

We got there and paid too much money to go on a fairly lame tour of the ship. There were a few places that we screamed when some scary character jumped out at us, but we weren't impressed really...until we somehow got separated from the rest of the group and ended up in the engine room.

I can't really describe what it felt like in there, but I can tell you that we definitely weren't alone. When we finally found a way out, we both breathed a huge sigh of relief, then promised we were never going to do that again.

Found out afterwards that there is supposedly a ghost in there. Many decades ago, when the ship was still sailing, a young sailor was killed in that room. Might have been good to know that before...

Speaking of ghosts, here is a collection of the best pictures ever taken of ghosts.

Here are a couple of my favorite Halloween recipes. You can check out this link on my other blog for all kinds of Halloween themed ideas as well. There are recipes for child and adult versions of witch's brew there.


Mummy dogs - the recipe is linked here.


Shrunken heads - the instructions are linked here.


Leave your body at the door. Leave your body and soul at the door.

Since Comic Con was last week in San Diego, and we dressed up for the one here in Denver, I thought I would write a little about our family cosplay.

Also, I need to write this so that I will get on costume planning for the year because it takes months to assemble it all. MONTHS.

We start planning a year in advance.

And no, I'm not kidding.

I have had children for 12 years, and for half that time, I have done themed group costumes with the kids. It started out innocent enough, dressing just the girls alike for a few years, first as dueling Tinkerbelles, then witches, then bees. I laughed when people finally got the play on our last name, which is pronounced "da-bee".

The boys were forced to play along in 2008 for the first time, as cowboys and cowgirls.

Then I got serious.

2009 will go down as the year the crazy began. The Wizard of Oz is one of my all time favorite movies, and the kids love it too. I mentioned something about how it might be fun to dress like the characters for Halloween one night, and our fate was sealed.

The Scarecrow, Dorothy and Toto, The Tin Man, The Cowardly Lion and a Flying Monkey. The Wicked Witch took the picture.

Buzz, Barbie, LGM, Little Bo Peep

2011 was another movie themed year, this time with Alice in Wonderland. It got interesting when Freckles broke her foot, but we just worked the cast into the theme.

Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum

The Queen's cast

The White Rabbit, Alice, Mad Hatter, Queen of Hearts

Last year, tired of me dressing him like a flying monkey and Tweedle Dum, my husband took over planning. (and she rubbed her hands together laughing manically). He wanted superheroes, specifically DC superheroes. So this happened.

Superman, Wonder Woman, Robin, Catwoman, Batman and Batgirl

It's to the point now where we have a reputation to uphold. No one is told of our costume plans before we reveal them at the school party the Friday night before Halloween. It seems like every year we step up our game even more, and every year I think we'll never top this theme.

At Comic Con this year, most of our family dressed up again.

My Clark Kent and tiny Batman

He made this one himself.

Wonder Woman and Supergirl

You'll just have to wait to see what we dress as this year. It's going to be good....and super geeky, that much I can promise you.

There may even be some steampunk crossover, possibly even a corset. ;)

What I'm thinking about this morning is way too profound and deep, too thought provoking and life altering.  About how much life can change in an instant, and how rarely we are ever in control of those moments.  Big stuff.

Be grateful that someone gave me a topic to write about already, and I'm not writing about any of that nonsense.

My friend Ginger over at Spicey Mom wants me to take on Easter, which could very well be her least favorite holiday...which makes sense if you know that she's an atheist.

Her beef with the holiday is that, like everything else it seems these days, it gets bigger and bigger, more and more commercialized, filled with more expectations and demands every year.

Gone are the days when the "bunny" drops off a modest basket with a few bucks worth of candy and calls it good. Now, baskets are huge and toy filled, kids make requests for what they want, and start asking to go see the bunny to make good with the big guy.

Aren't baskets supposed to only have actual eggs in them anyway, if we're being technical?

If the bunny has failed to meet expectations, you're sure to hear about it within a few days after the kids go back to school, because there is some kid who inevitably got a bike or a scooter or an actual rabbit for Easter.

Your kid is pissed, wonders why they didn't get anything cool like their friends did from the bunny, ponders the unfairness of the magic world of the seasonal gift-givers.  As a parent, you just feel like you're a failure.  Like no matter what you do, it's not going to be good enough.  Some other parent is always going to get their kid something more awesome.

Here's my take on it.

Ready?

Stop caring.

Seriously.

I've never worried too much about what other people get their kids, whether it's Christmas, birthdays or random Tuesdays.  My children's basic needs are met, they are well fed, there is a roof over their head, and they've acquired enough crap already to basically be hoarders.  If they don't get a basket full of stuff they're only going to play with for five minutes, it's no one's loss and it saves me money.

Besides, I've never done the traditional baskets.  I'm cheap and practical, and my kids know that.

I get them a seasonal toy like sidewalk chalk or a butterfly net or a kite, but most of what is in the basket is even more practical.  Like a new swimsuit and a pair of sandals, which they get every year.

Don't worry, I buy them a package of Peeps and a chocolate bunny too.  They aren't completely deprived, but they'll get even less candy this year than usual because of the little boy and his sugar issues.

Sometimes we go see the bunny, some years we don't.  I happen to think a six foot tall rabbit is terrifying, and don't blame the kids when they hesitate.

Occasionally, the kids will mention something about someone getting something better than they did, and I just tell them that life's not fair.  Because it's not.

I'm not going to try and compete with other parents.  Even if I wanted to, I don't have the financial means to do it.

Why?

Because life's not fair.

^^^see what I just did right there?

I tend to think that we aren't doing anyone any favors by perpetuating the idea of keeping up with the Joneses, even when the Joneses are wearing bunny ears and poofy tails.

St. Patrick's Day is a bigger deal around here anyway.

What about you?  Is Easter a big deal for you?  Do you celebrate only the religious aspects, or does the bunny come to visit?

I promise I am writing about the rest of my islands for tomorrow, but I figured that since today is the last day of 2012 and all, I should write something about closure and endings and those sorts of things.

This will be my last post before Christmas.  I still have a lot to get done, and am running out of time.

Isn't that always the story of the holidays?

The rushing, the worrying about getting it all done, the squeezing pennies until they bleed to make the magic happen?

Holidays are stressful.

Christmas is the worst.

And yet, when I tear up on Christmas morning drinking in the moment with my babies, it's somehow worth it.

I cry every year on Christmas.  It's just part of who I am.

Last year, for me, was full of anger and frustration.  Of questions unanswered, of wanting so desperately for things to be different.

My father was gone, my mother was lost, my husband was too, and Christmas still came.  The kids, blissfully unaware of how much my heart hurt, opened their gifts and squealed with glee, and the tears that always fell changed from tears of anger and sadness to tears of joy.

Of being just there, in the moment.

If this last year hasn't taught me anything else, it's that.

We only have this, right now.

Live.

What happened before, we cannot change. We cannot fix.  We cannot have back.  The people who are gone, are gone forever.  The moments of what if have passed. We can choose to sit in the past and stew and rage.  We can stay there and ask why.  We can hurt.  Or we can accept.

Accept that the past is the past, and that all we truly have is right now.

Live in the moment.

Take it in.

Watch others find their joy.

Appreciate what you have.

Burn those images into your mind.

We get one shot at this life.  One spin on the merry-go-round.

Do you want to be wondering when it will end, or why your stomach is queasy, or what that guy over there is doing or do you want to strap yourself to that horse, throw your hands in the air and ride?

Here's my wish for you all this year.


Join me on the couch Christmas morning.

Grab a cup of coffee and your camera.

Forget about the fight you had with your spouse a few days ago.  Forget about the kids driving you insane.  Forget about who is arguing about where to have dinner.  Forget about the family drama queen.  Forget about the disappointment you feel for the bad choices others have made.  Forget about the laundry and the dirty dishes.  Forget about it all.

Let it go, if not for good, at least for long enough to truly live in the moment.

Peace.  Joy.  Happy tears.

Merry Christmas.

xo