Five on Friday #11/Little Notes #7

UNO

Dear Christmas,

I didn't tell anyone this until today when I finally came clean to Teh Bear, but I wasn't really feelin' you this year.  I was going through the motions hoping that I'd have a Christmas Spirit infusion from fakin' it till you make it, but it never really happened.  My favorite part of Christmas is everyone's reaction over what I got for them.  It's truly about giving for me.  When Teh Bear became absorbed in setting up his PS3 on Christmas day, I was completely ok with that because it meant that I had "done good."  Christmas wasn't rushed this year, so it wasn't that.  It was just.. me.  I heard that Teh Stepsister didn't like her MRE that I got her, but apparently that was a too soon for her since she's deploying soon.  Oops.  My sister thought her MRE was funny and I made sure to get her a no-meat one since she's crazy a no-meat-eater.  Despite being medically seperated from the Army in November, she thought the MRE was at least minimally amusing. 

Every year I tell myself I'm going to buy less and make more and every year I get caught up in buying all the things and fail.  There's just something overwhelming and scary about making something homemade in the kitchen and the mess it makes and knowing that someone doesn't really need 3 types of cookies and a container of peanut butter balls (which are apparently called buckeyes?) and whatever else.  But food keeps giving, you have people help you eat it because you know you already gained at least 5 pounds because of holiday eating (especially when your significant other declares that candy in the stocking is a tradition).

It wasn't until after I read Jamie's post that I realized that not being in the Christmas spirit is a thing, and its even acceptable.  Honestly, I was ready to take down the tree and put everything away before January 1st, but Teh Bear was still diggin' it so I didn't make that suggestion, and we were having a gathering on NYE, so I left well enough alone.

This morning we de-Christmas-ed the house.  The feeling of it all coming down and the house being normal again was a relief.  I'm not sure why.  Thursday night we actually removed all the ornaments from the tree and I wanted to take off the lights and garland and move the tree outside, but Teh Bear said no.  I was happy to vacuum up all the needles that were knocked off the tree during its expedition outside.  I did tell Teh Bear that if we had put the tree out last night, we could have put it in the middle of the front yard and it would have gotten snow on it and looked beautiful.  His loss.

Trees in the upstairs room on Christmas Eve

DOS

Dear snow,

I should have been more excited about you.  Really.  I'm sorry I wasn't.  This was probably my one opportunity of the year and I let it pass.  After all the disappointment of Pax River "snow", I've had to stop getting my hopes up and this is what happens, I just can't appreciate what I do get.  It probably goes hand in hand with that Christmas funk.  I should be all like, "WOOOO!!! 2014 and REAL snow on the 2nd day!"  But instead, I'm all like, "Rah, still have to go to work, ugh." 

I guess there was a piece of me that was excited this morning when I woke up.  I had forgotten to shut off my early alarm so it went off at 0619 and I called the base line to see if the base was open, was disappointed, and had to make the decision to go back to sleep or get up and check out the snow situation.  I checked out the snow situation and went back to bed.  I knew that if I didn't at least see all the undisturbed snow before the neighborhood kids treked through it, I'd be diappointed. 

In a state of rebellious dangerousness, I didn't even brush the snow off Yurtle when I drove into work.  I'm such a rebel.  It was such a pretty powder cloud behind me as I drove down the road, although I'm not sure the car behind me appreciated it much.  Meh.

TRES

Dear normal work week,

I'm not looking forward to you.  My hours have been minimal during the holiday stand down period (for the non-military a stand down is when there is a very significant lack of normal operations, for us it meant no flying for a period that included the holidays).  I kinda screwed myself by taking the afternoon shift the last 2 days because I had to work longer hours than I would have if I had just taken the morning shift, but I did get to sleep in, which was nice and this morning I didn't have to battle whatever road/driveway/traffic conditions that existed.  Also, there was productivity both mornings.  Thursday morning we went to the Amish Market in Annapolis (something I would never do before work again due to distance and traffic and UGH MD) and this morning we cleaned house. 

QUATRO

Dear "spring" cleaning,

I think we're getting a head start on you, which doesn't bother me one bit.  When I left for work Teh Bear was going through boxes in the spare room, which was a task that needed attention.  Hopefully by our powers combined, and with minimal resistance from my bad attitude, we can get that room sorted out and have more space for the rowing machine and other stuffs (like the 2 dining room chairs that are in the guest room).  If I was more trusting of the outside storage room's lack of critters and it wasn't already crammed full of crap, making it mostly useless except for the first 3 feet where the weedeater, rake, poop shovel, and Phil's swimming pool are, I'd put more boxes outside.  I do have some of the plastic foot lockers so maybe those can go outside?  Space saving is hard work.

CINCO

Dear Teh Blog,

Sorry I neglect you.  I started this post on Friday and then work got crazy and then I went home and my OCD cleaning took over and I rearranged everything in the guest room and spare room to make more space to put away the Christmas decorations.  Now I just need to get a ladder so Teh Bear can put the empty boxes in the attic (or in the unorganized storage outside (which will remain that way until its at least above 50° outside)).  Yay for a surprise Saturday post instead?

Phil approves.