Just Expressive

So it’s resolution day and I am cleaning the house to prepare for game night and guests. I have a headache (STILL. GAH) so the going is slow and I figured a break might do me some good.

Here they are:

1) Use my passport. I want to travel out of the country at least once this year, hopefully more and if at all possible drag Sprog along. Ideally I want to go to this fantastic resort in Patagonia that Anthony Bourdain went to or Italy or Scotland but we’ll see what we can swing.

2) Get back to working out. My Wii has been languishing since the tummy issues and I’d like to get back to it already, I miss feeling strong in my own skin.

3) Dress like I mean it. I am so hugely excited about writing for Style Lush, y’all just don’t know and I really do take it very seriously. I would love for people to not be surprised that someone picked me for a style site when they meet me in person.

4) Go back to work. I’m not thrilled about this one, but it is what it is. Hopefully I will be able to find something that helps with our bottom line without me having to sacrifice the comfort that Sprog has in having me home every afternoon.

5) Continue to work on my photography. I really love my art and I want to improve in it. I look up to Emily and Ashley so much for pursuing their dreams in their careers and if I could get just a small bit of that? I’d be happy.

6) Find people of worth. I have a lot of people in my life that use me. They contact me when they need me for something and otherwise I don’t hear from them and it makes me sad. I would really like to foster real friendships in the future.

7) Travel to see friends that are far flung. I value my blog friends and my IRL friends that live far away, I want to see them.

8) Clear the clutter from my life. The hubs and I are both bad about holding onto crap that we don’t need. Stuff needs to go. I’d like to have a garage that can be parked in, organized closets and more pantry space in the kitchen.

9) Get Sprog to volunteer at least once. I want him to truly understand the value of helping others.

10) Be better about correspondence. I rely to heavily on e-mail and online communication. I still have a small stack of CHRISTMAS CARDS waiting to go out for Christ’s sake. GAH!

11) Take advantage of new insurance to get shit sorted That means dentist (you don’t even want to know how many years it’s been) and eye doctor (stop wearing glasses two scrips back) and get Sprog in as well.

12) Read more I watch way too much tv.

13) Play more games as a family Sprog’s behavior is so much better when we are consistent with this.

14) Institute a once monthly game night with friends. This would also be a good way to try out new dishes from my cook books.

15) Find a decent thrift store. I have been looking at some amazing fashion blogs the past couple of days and the amount of fabulous vintage floors me. The ones closest to me have nothing of the sort.

16) Meditate I have not been centered or grounded in quite some time. Things have been shaking me harder than I want them too, affecting me more deeply and hurting me more. I want to be able to shake them off or be better prepared, calmer.

17) Addendum to the above: Grow a thicker skin I have had my feelings hurt A LOT this past year and um, I don’t like it.

Edited to add:

18) Finally get a proper address book This might help with that pesky correspondence problem.

It’s rainy, cold and gross outside today and I am feeling achy and miserable. (Headachy not flu achy) So I found this punch little number and figured it was just the thing to combat this dreary day. How about this for a spring bag?

Poppy Fields in Nylon from Kate Spade

I know, I am such a freaking grinchy debbie downer about Christmas but the Drama Llama made its required visit 2 days prior and really made everything not happy, so I have a reason for it at least. I also still do the decorating, shopping, fancy wrapping, baking and stuffing my face, so I could be a whole lot worse.

Some fave pics

Sprog and Mayday Christmas morning.

Luke being put in his Christmas jammies before they left Mom’s on Christmas Eve.

Candy and Connor checking out the scrapbook pages I made for them this year.

Kayla and Kendal in Paw-Paw’s recliner

Landen coloring on his new scribble sounds thingo. (I bought it and can’t remember what the heck it’s called)

Kendal and her daddy.

and finally

Sprog posing with me for The Working Closet. LOOK AT HIM GROW!

I joined twitter this morning.

I have absolutely no idea what I am doing, so help a girl out.

User name is the same as this blog.

I am up long before anyone in the house and scurrying already. I hope everyone finds at least one moment in their Christmas, drama-free and happy and yes I mean that sincerely so now you understand why I am always a grinch at Christmas time.

My Sprog is an awesome sprog. Friday, after his last final, I picked him up from school and we headed to the mall to do some Christmas shopping for his step-dad. He actually had an idea for him all on his own. (y’all this is rare and immediately supported, encouraged and acted upon) So while we were at the mall, I headed to Hot Topic to pick up some gifts for a friend of mine (and no blue twilight crew it was not ANYTHING twilight or new moon related) and a merchandiser made sure to inform me that all Nightmare Before Christmas items were 50% off.

BALLS! I am not supposed to be shopping for myself. But. There is one hoodie left…that I like…in my size. Hemming and hawing commenced. And then, my Sprog asks, “How much will it be after the discount?” And I answer. And then, “And there is only one left in your size?” And I respond. “I have that much in chore money, buy it, from me.” Doesn’t he just rock?

Y’all. There are moments where I just pause and marvel at the coolness of my own kid. Times when he does things like that or when he has ideas for presents for people on his own. When he gets excited about doing the Christmas lights and decides how they should be done, staying outside in the dark and cold to set it up, or the fact that he has Christmas lights and ornaments hanging from beneath his loft bed at this very moment. When he dances with me in the car while we run errands. When he pops up from the floor, during a movie or show we are watching, to make a face at me or make eye contact with me while he laughs at something. When he knows I am in a bugger mood and he makes the dorkiest faces just to try and make me laugh or when he tries like hell to imitate the evil eye I am famous for and fails miserably.

The fact that my friend had her birthday brunch this weekend and asked that he join because she enjoys his company instead of preferring he be left at home since he’s just a dumb teenager. I love that he’s getting his scrawny little butt back on a skateboard and that he totally gets why I subjected him to Eddie Izzard’s skit about puberty instead of being mortified or not thinking it was funny. We all laugh about his voice cracking and the fact that his horrible hippie of a mother is stunting his growth by keeping him in organic foods and dairy products and how he dreams of genetically altered foods like the rest of his friends.

My kid is the bomb is what I am saying and I wish that y’all could spend some time with him when he’s tossin down his sweet dance moves. There is seriously nothing better, in this world, for a bad mood.

A little less than a month from today, I will turn 35 and I thought it might be cool to celebrate my birthday with a scarf exchange. Now is a great time to get lovely scarves for discounted prices and who wouldn’t want to get a package after Christmas?

Thinking about a bunch of people getting little packages of cozy joy on (or technically around) my birthday? kinda makes me giddy, I must admit. So, I really hope that y’all will play and a lot of people will comment and maybe you will share this with your friends and it will spread. A girl can dream, right?

Here’s the deal.

Respond to this post by New Year’s Day, that’s January 1st. Include your e-mail so that I can contact you with your match.

You will receive an e-mail from me with who you are paired up with by Jan 4th.

You have 10 days to get their scarf in the post. That’s Jan 14th also known as my birthday.

Cost for scarf should be no more than $20-$25 and realistically, if y’all think we should go lower, that is totally cool, I just set it at that because I saw some really awesome ones on Etsy recently.

Try as I might, no words could be uttered, instead it was just a steady chorus of Mmmmm. Oooooo. Ohhhh. Meanwhile from the seat next to me, “Oh My God, Oh My God“. Had there been a man within earshot of my car? He surely would’ve been needing to disguise something in his jeans or paying us a lot of money to keep doing whatever in the hell we were doing. What exactly was it that we were doing? Besides moaning and randomly gasping in blasphemous outbursts? Eating chocolate. That’s right. Only the best chocolate, nay THING, I have ever eaten in my life.

This chocolate could make you tear up. It could make you clutch your chest in wonder. It could make you want to suck your teeth so as not to lose a precious bit of it’s creamy deliciousness. Just breathing after having a single piece is a treat.

It was a whim, the purchase of said chocolate while wandering the aisles of World Market and I could not be prepared for my response! I don’t even really like milk chocolate, favoring the complexities of the less sweet dark chocolate instead, but the Swiss really know their stuff. I’ve even had Belgian chocolate, which is supposed to be some of the finest in the world but I am telling you, this beat that, EASILY.

The bar that prevented all manner of words (for both of us, we each tried both kinds to check our reactions) is a creamy bar that is spiced with cinnamon and cardamom and the bar that caused the gasping outbursts-is packed with little crunchy gingerbread bits.

Now. I should be fair and mention that my husband tried a piece of each after hearing all about it and well his reaction left A LOT to be desired (no chocolate for you!) so either this affects women only or D and I are just hella crazy. YMMV. Either way, that just means more for us and I’m okay with that…my pants might not be.

The Burberry Prorsum Tiered Trench (Robyn wore this in stone on Monday’s HIMYM) redonkulously expensive and available in extremely limited sizes, still, WANT.

Pleated Bloom Skirt by Forever 21 in their Twelve by Twelve line. Cost $29.50

Pleated Sweater Dress by Forever 21. Cost $19.50

The Winter Escape by Philosophy @ Sephora. Cost $19

Plaid chain necklace @ Gap. Cost $39.50

Rugby striped shawl collar sweater @ Gap. Cost $54.50

Tonight 5 of us loaded up in the be-flamed PT and headed to College Station in an attempt to behold the wonder of Santa’s Wonderland, a drive through light display complete with Santa town that includes Christmas movies, fireplaces, Santa and a mechanical bull. Unfortunately for us, apparently the rest of Texas had the same idea. The line was inordinately long and so we decided to pass it up on the way and head to dinner instead. Our first choice of dinner? Packed. Our second choice of dinner? Packed. We ended up at the fourth choice.

After all the driving around, eating and grabbing some after dinner coffee, we hoped we had wasted enough time and maybe had culled some of the herd, we were dead wrong. 1 hour in line? Just to get past an overpass in line. We gave up. No wonder for any of us.

People will do odd things when locked in a car for that period of time. D really wanted to stick her foot in a hole (oh nooooo. did ah do that?) Sprog and I had a conversation about Santa and LYING TO YOUR CHILDREN OH MY GOD. Which. No. He went into this whole diatribe about letting your child believe the lie of a big fat man on a roof, who can get to all those houses in one single night, with nuclear sludge affected reindeer pulling him along. Of course, I balked because I never said a damn thing about nuclear sludge? WTF?!? Plus, I happen to think the whole Santa thing is a right of passage and when he actually found out about Santa? He wasn’t upset. He said that he thought Santa was more of an idea than a person anyway and was about the spirit of the season and he would always believe in that, so now that he’s all conspiracy theory boy, he doesn’t get to rewrite history to suit him.

D had a bad experience with her own mother in how she found out so she doesn’t think that parents should lie to their kids about Santa. *shrug* I think it’s all in how you handle it. We always only gave Sprog ONE gift from Santa and the rest came from us. I felt that was really important so that when he did have that moment of transition it wouldn’t be that big of a deal.

What about y’all? How are you handling the Santa thing? Do you think it’s this huge betrayal or like a right of passage that we all experience and grow through?