“Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow.” - Mary Anne Radmacher

If I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain;

If I can ease one life the aching,

Or cool one pain,

Or help one fainting robin

Unto his nest again,

I shall not live in vain.

-- Emily Dickinson

This has been a super productive weekend. My brother Joe asked me if he could pick Isaac up from school which was fine with me. When I came home he was doing my dishes and entertaining Isaac. What a welcome! We ended up getting in my car to head to Lowe's to pick up a few more strands of lights. When we were there we saw they had decent sized Christmas trees for only 19 bucks so we decided to get one too. We had taken my car instead of Joe's truck, but we managed to cram it in the trunk and then just drive along really slowly with the trunk door bouncing up and down. Fortunately, I live pretty close to Lowe's and we made it with no trouble. Joe put up the Isaac lights along my garage and above the front door. It looks great. He also helped me get the tree on the stand and put the lights on it. I will try to post some pictures soon. Isaac and I decorated it today and so far so good with the cats. They like to sleep underneath it on the soft velvety tree skirt but no attempts to climb it or take the ornaments off so far this year. I just have to figure out how to set timers on everything and then I'm set. Today we slept in (sort of, Isaac is never one for staying in bed for long) and lazed around for a while. We ran some errands, I met up with my mom for a bit and went to a Party-Lite party hosted by a coworker while I dropped Isaac to be babysat by my fabulous single mom pal. When I came to pick him up she had made me my very own pie pan full of fruit crisp. It is amazing and I have already eaten quite a bit of it. Once we were home we settled in and watched movies all day long while trimming the tree, cleaning, organizing, catching up on laundry, addressing Christmas cards, etc. I also finished about ten of these: My mom and I working on them together as an easy Christmas gift for all of the teachers, day care people, etc. who we want to remember for the holidays. I'm still debating putting Christmas fabric on the tops, but I feel like it might push it too far into the holly hobby relief society craft day look that I try to avoid. My house is still not entirely in order but it is getting there and I did cross off some household chores/projects that I have been putting off for a while. It feels good! On the dating front, I didn't blog about it much, but I dated a guy this summer. I wasn't sure where it would go, but it didn't end up lasting past the back-to-school/wedding fiasco that was late August. He said he just wasn't ready for a relationship with anyone (You know how it goes. Say it with me now : "it's not you, it's me, for real", [except he would never say for real]). Anyways, I confirmed, via internet stalking of course, that he is now "in a relationship" with a 20 year old undergrad of a local college. I'm not going to lie, it stung a little, but I supposed it's for the best. He never came out and said it ever, but I'm a girl with a bit of intimidating baggage who is looking to settle down, which I get is a lot to handle. If he isn't ready for that, then perhaps an adoring college coed in a completely opposite point in her life would be a better fit. At 29, I can't imagine dating someone who was still in middle school when I was graduating college who couldn't even go to a 21 and up concert with me, but hey, whatever floats your boat. In other news, we are having interesting discussions about Santa around here. I am fully preparing to be flamed but.....

I never told Isaac there was a real Santa or encouraged him to believe.

I still remember how betrayed I felt when I found out as a kid. When I thought about pushing Santa on Isaac, it just felt like lying. Sorry if that makes me the grinch but I can't tell my kid with a straight face that a man in a flying sleigh somehow made his way into our chimney-less house and filled his stocking. Anyways, we have talked about how Santa is a Christmas tradition and how some kids believe and other kids don't and that's okay. He has always been fine with that. Until this year, when he has taken it upon himself to adamantly believe despite what I say. When we were hanging up our stockings he wanted his to be closer to the door so Santa would fill it first. I reminded him that it is isn't Santa who fills the stockings, but he said "just in case.". Okay, I also reminded him that we would not even be home on Christmas Eve, that we took our stocking with us when we sleep over at grandma's. He has informed me several times since then that there is a Santa because all of the kids at school say there is and since I don't believe I will get no presents. I'm just leaving it alone for now. It is innocent and sweet and I don't want to entirely deprive him of suddenly wants to believe in so badly, even if it is a bit off putting to me.

Anyways, that's all for now. Enjoy your weekend.

Uhhh....

Isaac (after barging in on me in the bathroom): Mom, what are you doing? Me: I'm shaving my legs. Isaac: Ooooh, so women shave their legs and men shave their backs?

Everything but the kitchen sink

Thanksgiving was lowkey and relaxing. Isaac and I went to my parents and my one brother joined us. I got two random "Happy Thanksgiving!" texts from phone numbers I didn't recognize. Wasn't sure what to do with that. Isaac had his heart set on playing football but it was very cold and rainy so we had to settle for indoor activities. Dinner was delicious. We played some gin rummy and then we sacked out on the couch for a while wasting away in front of the TV. My dad and I watched the Zumba infomercial for like 20 minutes. I think he secretly wants to do it. Which he totally should. It's so fun!We drove home around eight and Isaac was snoring within minutes of pulling away. He woke up when he got home long enough to ask for some dessert and to declare "I wish we could live at Grandma's forever!"

Black Friday I went out in the city with some girlfriends, which was supposed to be a late birthday celebration for me. (Oh yeah, my birthday was the 17th, but I have been celebrating for pretty much the whole month of November. 29 is great so far). We went to Tria and I had my favorite thing on their menu (after dinner, of course): Nutella Panini. If I had to only choose one food to eat for the rest of my life, it would be Nutella Panini. I was about halfway done with it when the waitress came over, and stuck a candle in the remnant of my sandwich, which was cute.

Most of the talk that evening centered around my one girlfriend who has recently gotten very serious with the guy she is dating. They are talking marriage and she is about to buy a house and officially move in with him (she's not LDS, fyi).... AND his twin ten year olds. Although she adores the two kids (a boy and a girl) she shared some of the issues they are encountering as she essentially takes on the role of step mom in a household where the kids are pretty much running the show. I mostly sided with her (ten year olds with ten thirty bedtimes? I don't think so). I found myself biting my lip on some topics though. There are some things about having kids that you just don't understand if you don't have kids yourself (example-- she was repulsed by the fact that he let his son sleep in his bed all day when he was home from school sick. It made total sense to me. Isaac often sleeps in my bed when he is not feeling well too. I think it's comfort thing).

It was interesting to imagine being in that situation though. I would certainly want my partner to feel comfortable dealing with (minor-type) discipline issues and I recognize how important that would be in a blended family or step parent situation. But if I had to be totally honest, I think I think a little part of me would balk a little bit. Even now I feel defensive if one of my brothers disciplines Isaac. It would be a hard thing. I am interested to see how it all plays out for her.

Anyways, before dinner we also oogled clothes and household items we can't really afford went shopping at Anthropologie. My friend briefly contemplated an 18 dollar hot pad. I told her I could make her one FOR FREE and she agreed. I went home and made these in about an hour with some scraps I had from other fall projects. If you remember, I have LOTS of heat resistant batting from another potholder project, so everything was ready to roll.

I also decided to make a matching hot mitt. I didn't take a picture of it, but it turned out pretty cute. The potholders I just sort of did myself but the oven mitt I followed this tutorial.

It was very clear and should have been easy to follow, but it my eagerness to finish, I would forge ahead after only skimming and then discover I had made a mistake and then would have to go back and start over. Totally reminded me of that saying "haste makes waste". I gave them to her today and she could not believe I made them myself. I think she really liked them. Maybe there is a hope for this undomestic goddess after all. Saturday my friends (a girl I work with and her husband) invited me over for dinner and a game night. Backstory: In October they had taken me and another friend to a Halloween party where I briefly met another one of their friends. I will refer to him as FOF (Friend of a Friend). Afterwards apparently FOF got in touch with my coworker and asked about me. So anyways, when she invited me over Saturday she said she was having some people over and that FOF would be there. Okay, whatever. Of course, I show up and it is just FOF. No other people. HELLO awkward setup. We drove to Chile's and there was this moment of hesitation as we approached the booth. She even joked about should I sit with her or with FOF? I ended up sitting with FOF. And he ordered the exact same thing as me: chicken club tacos without the bacon. He was a nice enough guy, he really was. And our evening was enjoyable. Dinner was good and we played all kinds of fun games. However, to my friends' dismay, FOF is not the guy for me. I hope this doesn't sound snotty, but I will explain why.

• Strike one: over dinner passionately talked about his love of black metal music for about 20 minutes and various experiences seeing bands with names like Dying Fetus in concert.
• Strike two: at some point it came out that although he is no longer collecting unemployment while working at Gamestop, he still lives in his grandmother's attic. Seriously? SERIOUSLY?! I don't want to sound like it's all about money or anything like that, but by mid thirties you had better be in your own place paying the bills.
• Strike three: Okay, this is the one that I feel really mean revealing. But here goes: We were playing Scattergories and he hardly ever came up with anything for any category, any round. I mean, "name something in the room that starts with c"? "name a four letter word that starts with a"? Nothing... It was a little alarming. I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, but then we moved onto Uno. He had no frame of reference for the game Uno, which I just found to be frankly, odd. After we explained the game and started playing he still couldn't get the concept and was just throwing out cards randomly. We would have to stop and explain it to him again. I mean, really, the premise of the game is just matching colors and numbers. I will let you draw your own conclusions to avoid spelling out what I feel is too mean to outright say.

So anyways, it was an enjoyable night, but I don't see much of a future with FOF. It has been quite a while since I was blindsided with an unexpected set up though, so I give them props for that.

We've started decorating the house for Christmas. I dug out the huge two tubs of Christmas stuff but I haven't unloaded them all the way yet. One is pretty much all Christmas ornaments and I'm still not sure what to do about a Christmas tree. Last year my brother loaned me a tiny fake one. It was supposed to be three feet tall but it was actually more like eighteen inches. The cats had a field day with it, knocking it over and batting the ornaments all over the house. I want a real one this year, but only if the cats can behave. Anyone have any tips for cat-proofing the tree? My brother is supposed to make an appearance this week to help us put some lights up outside, so I'm looking forward to that.

Tomorrow is back to school officially, although I was in for several hours today. I felt unprepared to start the week, and it was a good thing I went in. The more I started to do, the more I discovered needed to be done. (Hello IEP meeting after school tomorrow. Didn't remember you were there!) I have been feeling a ton of anxiety about the month of December. It's such a crazy time at school, with so many things that need to be crammed in before break. There is also so much going on outside of work: parties, get togethers, plays, family commitments, stores, crowds, things to be bought, wrapped, mailed and of course money stretched thin. All of it good stuff but it is a little overwhelming to coordinate it all.

Anyways, I should go. Feel free to leave comments and have a lovely week!

I highly recommend...

....having a brother who is a mechanic and maintains and fixes your car under the table and on his own time on the cheap (even if you do have to endure a semi-annual lecture about how hard you are on brakes). ...having a sister who is an awesome nurse and who fields countless phone calls when you have convinced yourself you have some kind of life threatening disease.

....having a brother in law who teaches your son to ride a two wheeler with no training wheels by running up and down the streets of Ocean City on a rainy day. .... having a brother who is handy with household repairs (and painting) (and putting up Christmas lights) (and hanging artwork and picture frames). My siblings are all so talented and hardworking and I am blessed that they are so willing to share their talents to help me.

I pretty much have the best siblings ever.

(aww.. I'm warm and fuzzy all over now... doesn't this post just make you want to go out and buy a baby bunny?)

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas

So we got out some of our Christmas decorations this weekend. Isaac loved this Santa potholder and ran off to find it a suitable spot. I had to chuckle later on when I discovered it precariously positioned on this (very frequently used) light switch.