a.rose

I always feel like the holiday season starts with Halloween, probably because if you go to the stores the day before Halloween they are pushing the remaining candy bags closer together and beginning to make room for the Christmas decorations. That's what my grocery store was doing, anyway. And my girls start to get so excited, and they make me recite over and over every day the list of exciting things that are soon to happen.  The list goes like this: Halloween Thanksgiving Christmas New Year's Hallie's Birthday Hanna's Birthday Hazel comes Heather's Birthday All that, in just a couple months, and it is no wonder the girls think this time of year is the best. Except, that they also ask me every day when it will be warm enough to go swimming again. But they mostly like it. Here we are, decorating the house on the day after Thanksgiving as is our custom, to make all things look merry and bright.  Except me, I sat on the couch and watched my family...

I took dictations from the family on their experience this year.  I took some liberties with Heather's, seeing as how a . she is asleep right now, and b . she doesn't really, you know, reliably speak in intelligible sentences. Hallie: It was cold.  And fun.  I ran fast.  And I beat Hanna and Daddy to the coats.  I had two jackets on.  It was the funnest Turkey Run, ever.  Heather rode in a stroller. Hanna:  I ran faster than Mommy and Heather.  Then Daddy ran with me on his back. Heather: I just wanted them to take my gloves and jacket off, but no one would.  I cried when mommy tried to put a blanket on me.  I had a lot of fun. Devin: This was our coldest Turkey Run yet.  Builds character. Amy: This was definitely our coldest day yet, it was four degrees below freezing with a nasty biting wind. We didn't stay long.  The girls did a mile, with Devin carrying one of them for a lap each.  But it felt good to g...

 We finally got Hallie's school pictures, only a month and half later than everyone else got theirs. And only after several phone calls and emails and many disgruntled statements that I made to Devin about my dissatisfaction with Life Touch. "I'm never going to order school photos again, ever, for any of our kids." "I think this is the worst company of all time, how can they not get us her picture?  It's the only thing they do as a company!" "This time when I call, I'm going to tell them that I have plenty of photos of my daughter and I don't want to keep waiting for them to figure it out, and could they just refund my money." To these hyperbolic statements, Devin responded very calmly. "Of course we're going to keep having school pictures taken." "It's a big company, and it probably just got lost somehow.  Just call them again, they'll figure it out." "You aren't going t...

Thank you so much for your responses that you have sent me in email, or Facebook, or in the comments.  You will all get an honorable mention in my book, I promise.  I'm so excited!  If you'd still like to give your input, feel free to, that post is here . Last month my girl Al came to visit me.  The thing about Al is that she is really talented.  I've decided that this is one area in life that I really excel at.  I just feel like my talent is making friends with exceptionally talented people. Since you're reading my blog, you can call yourself my friend, and so that should make you feel really good about yourself. Al has lots of talents, but the one that came into play on this particular trip was painting. She got me all hyped up, the way she does, into thinking that maybe I could paint too. So we sat there with our paints and our brushes and our canvasses, and the lighting and her easel, which was Heather's high chair, and it was all very artis...

People ask me, "So, how's the story coming along?" And I say, "Oh, it's coming!  I think it's... yeah, it's coming! It'll probably be great.  You know, we'll see, but it is coming along." In fact, if you your very own lucky self would like to be involved in helping move the story along, you could help me by answering the following question. Are you more afraid of physical pain, or emotional pain? Your answer should be in one of the three following formats: I am more afraid of physical pain. I am more afraid of emotional pain. Pain does not scare me at all. And then, if you want really bonus extra points from me, you can tell me why you chose the response you did. So!  Email, facebook, comment here on the blog, call me, send me a letter in the mail with a stamp on it, whatever you're into. Except Twitter, because I still haven't figured that out yet. And now, for some pictures of other things I have done, mostly ...