life – Laugh.Cry.Giggle.Smile.

I’m Back!

Sitting at my desk at work, listening to “Silver and Gold” on pandora radio. I dabbled in Christmas music last week, but my office mates weren’t keen on it. They are Thanksgiving purists.

It was a h-e- double hockey sticks of a fall. I was sick for half of October and all of November. One IV dose and three oral antibiotics later and I’m feeling like a functional adult again! Meanwhile, I still have two kids, a job, and volunteer responsibilities. As is typical for me, I overdid life and my body rebelled. Memory and thoughts got fuzzy, hand and face were numb, you know all those weird MS things. My NP just hugged me while I cried at my last visit.

Time to look at life priorities again. Illness makes it obvious that something has to change. After five days of difficult conversations with my husband, we are back on the same page. No plan, but at least we are talking in the same direction about the load on my plate.

I’m not one to dwell on negative things. On to looking forward to Christmas! On Thanksgiving Day, since we previously celebrated with both sides of the family, the kids and I put up Christmas decorations. They ate nachos and wore Santa hats. It was glorious! We battled our unlit, pre-lit but not working artificial tree and then the 90% working set of white Christmas lights. I let my daughter put up the Nativity, but then reorganized it. She refused to place any people or animals off the creche. That was one crowded party!

Today after school, we begin work on the church Christmas program. Thank goodness this one calls for a whole jumble of angels. All the little girls want to be angels! Last year we had to pull out fairy wings from the dress-up box at the house to equip everybody.

Winter is (mostly) here! Although it is sunny and 48 degrees F now, this is what it looked like last week. I enjoy a good white winter!

Happy December 3rd!

Much love — Jen

I don’t remember as a child making a judgement on shorts and jeans based on if I could do cartwheels in them. I was and am still quite decent at cartwheels, round-offs, and handsprings. However, I don’t remember deliberately making fashion choices hinging on those activities.

For the past month, everything my 6yr old wears has to pass “the cartwheel test.” This means she literally does a dress rehearsal of the outfit- every single day- with cartwheels across the living room.

You’d be shocked at how many outfits don’t pass the test! This means she repeats the whole process over until the fashion matches the function.

This morning, she wasn’t feeling the cartwheel approved outfit we chose last night, so the outfit was reworked. She settled on turquoise converse shoes, black and turquoise athletic pants, and a flowered pearl snap blouse.

I’m quite positive I wouldn’t have chosen this combo, but she’s rocking it with a strawberry colored, non-brushed messy bun. Honestly, she’s pulling it off in impressive style.

Wouldn’t it be great to take a page from her book on fashion and confidence? I’ll add this to the growing list of things my daughter has taught me.

Tag: life

I’m Back with Christmas Music

On the topic of cartwheels