5 Things

Following Ville’s lead (although it was my idea in the first place and I want to have some fun), I have decided to list 5 Things That Make Me Be Weird:

1. Hair anywhere in the bathroom, but especially in the shower drain.
2. Accidentally stepping on a snail, even with shoes on.
3. Okra.
4. Turning across a station showing a woman giving birth. Do we really need to see that? Is nothing private anymore?
5. When you get a book from the library and there’s something sticky on one page that might be a booger.

Want to play?

The Best Christmas Ever

Between the snow days and holidays, it has been a regular winter vacation around the Waller/Erwin homestead. Everyone was home from work and school on Thursday and Friday due to the snow, so Nettl made Christmas cookies on Friday evening as we put on the holiday music, poured the Schnogloggers (our name for rum and eggnog) and got to work decorating the house. What a great time! Even the cat got into the holiday spirit.

With the snow still on the ground outside, it feels like a White Christmas–the first we’ve had in a number of years. Until Joel shoveled the front walk, it was as high as 2 feet out there. And it still isn’t melting, except only slowly on the roads and trees.

My plans this week are to send out cards, drum up a little work so that we’ll have gift money, and work on other projects in the hope of raising the old bank account for the holidays. THOUGHTS BECOME THINGS! That’s an immutable law of physics. I have a fake $5000 bill taped to my monitor to remind me that our needs are only a thought away! Of course, we don’t need $5000, but when you throw a ball into the air, the law of gravity doesn’t care how big or small it is, or who threw it; it just makes it happen. Therefore, I’m thinking BIG.
Meantime, we’re all enjoying our family. Lauren is a little sad because this will be her last Christmas in this house, but I want her to know that everything she loves about Christmas here will go with us wherever we go. It’ll be there in Vienna, or wherever we spend the holidays as a family in the future, because all of the things she loves are intangibles; the love, the joy, the laughter. They don’t stay with the house, it’s just a thing. Those things that make a home happy go with each member of the family, only to reunite wherever we get together.

Have a happy Monday!

Our back yard

(Photo by Micah Atwell)

Over Too Soon

We were socked in all day yesterday in the Blizzard That Ate Oklahoma. Expecting from 4 to 6 inches, we were stunned when we opened the patio door around dinner time to see drifts that were nearly as tall as our fence–more like 4 to 5 feet! It was the first blizzard warning the National Weather Service has ever issued for this state; I felt like I was back in Denver.

This morning we have clear, blue skies and sunshine, although it’s only 10 degrees. Don’t think I’ll be going out anytime soon. Nettl and the girls are enjoying their second snow day.

I love snow. I always wait in anticipation of its coming and I’m always sad to see it go. Even in Denver, where I had to commute all the way across the city to go to work, I loved the snow.

That’s it, really. I haven’t had any coffee yet, so that’s all my brain can fire for now.