Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Hard on the Back, Good for the Soul


This month I am staying in my pajamas until noon in a different time zone. We were planning to spend Christmas with our kids in Utah, but I ended up flying out several weeks early to help my daughter-in-law who broke her foot. I have been sharing a room and a blow-up mattress with an almost-three-year-old.

I am here to help with housework and keep the little one entertained and occupied so that her mother can stay off her foot. Little Lucy and I have been making cookies, wrapping Christmas presents, and today we made snow angels, something I haven't done for at least a couple of decades. I decided that making snow angels is hard on the back but good for the soul. That's my pink ski jacket that I promised Thom I would take to the Deseret Industries this trip. He says it looks like something from the 1980s. Duh! It was the 1980s when I moved to Florida, and then to Hawaii. It is hard to wear out a jacket you wear one week every year or two. I bought Lucy some pink "snowman pants" so we would look styling out making snow angels in the front yard. Would someone local please tell me what kind of ski jackets are in so I can pick up something that doesn't embarrass my husband?

I spent this past weekend with Becky and Josh and little Ellie. I think Ellie still remembers me from her recent visit to Hawaii. She has taken her first few steps. Becky and I attempted to put together the bookcase Santa and Grandma are giving to Ellie, but after all our hard work, we realized that what we thought was the front was the back, which meant that all the shelves were in backwards. At that point, we decided to let Josh take it from there, giving him the opportunity to showcase his superior skills and fix what we started. I was going to impress my son-in-law with my assembly skills, but perhaps I have some other talent with which I can dazzle him. My motto in this area is "If you can't learn to do something well, learn to enjoy doing it poorly."

I let son Scott take me to see The Dark Knight. He has seen it fifteen or so times, and I've now seen it once, which was enough. I don't really want to spent too much time inside the mind of a psychopath. Being inside my own head is enough of a challenge for me. We had a good time over a couple of gourmet burgers pre-movie, however. I told him I was going to stand up at the end of the movie and ask if there were any single girls there who had seen the movie multiple times on purpose and make short work of their courtship, but he continues to believe this mate selection stuff is his responsibility, so I will back off. Spending time with my son is worth sitting through a movie that is somewhat far-removed from my taste.


My husband flies in on the 23rd. We will miss being together on December 21st, our eighth anniversary. I am shipping off a stuffed dog that sings and dances to Elvis's rendition of Blue Christmas to remind him how much I miss him. It should arrive in Seattle about the same time he does.

On December 31, stepson Shawn and fiancee Rachel will be married in the Logan Temple. They will have a party day as an anniversary. The reception will be the day before, something that I think makes sense anyway. That way after the exhausting day of pulling together the reception, they part ways, our boys have a bachelor party-lite for their brother, and then the next day they get married, have a luncheon, and they are home free while they still have some energy and check into the hotel at 2:00 p.m. instead of 2:00 a.m. I think it is an idea whose time has come.

I think little Lucy is asleep now, so I can go join her before she hogs all the warm blankets.


Merry Christmas to all!