Holiday Recap Part One

I feel like the month of December picked me up by the seat of my pants, threw me into the eye of a hurricane, and has finally set me down safe and warm in my living room. I think this whole holiday thing needs to be rethunked. Or maybe we just need to do a better job deciding what's important and what we can politely decline. Nevertheless, every day and evening of the past month was filled to the brim with holiday get togethers, work deadlines, meetings, trying to get ready for Christmas, cooking, you name it. It got to a point the week before Christmas that I had to make a list of things that had to get done each day. If it wasn't on the list, it didn't get done and was saved for after Christmas. It didn't help that I had numerous deadlines at work that week. But we harriedly survived it. It was busy, frantic, exhausting at times. And it was wonderful. I decided to do a big recap blog post of the holidays and then start anew with blogging in 2010. I'm going to have to do it in more than one installment.





This is my latest attempt to embarass my husband. Here we are going to the Lee County Bar Association christmas party. We have a small bar and about 30 of us show up to imbibe and tell war stories. Just the day before I came across this fabulous hair in my attic and decided it deserved to be worn. Drew very tactfully attempted to talk me out of it. The goal was to attempt to have my colleagues believe I had actually done this to my hair. It only worked on one person, who was suprised to see me the following Monday morning as a brunette. Drew finally came around when the general consensus was that the hair was a good look and needed to be worn to court. Like a superhero. I could put on my wig right in the elevator right before stepping into the courtroom and sweep in to fight the evil of oppressive governmental interference. Before leaving I would stand up on the defense table and shout, "Justice for all!!!!" I could have a sidekick who carried a gilded scroll of the Constitution with which he would thump those who sought to undermine the protections so briliantly afforded to us by our forefathers. He could wear a wig too, a powdered one. I think this will be my business plan for 2010.





We were forced to do some yard work one Saturday in early December. It's dark by the time we get home from work and so weekends must bear the burden of raking up leaves. Do you recall that it rained almost every weekend the whole month November? I won't even get into the disaster of when I tried to pay a 12 year old to rake up our yard (an acre). It didn't so much work out, but he cashed in anyway. On Saturday morning it decided for once not to rain but was freezing cold, hence the snowsuit. We raked the leaves onto the blue plastic tarp and we put Joseph in the middle of the pile and Drew would drag it down the driveway to the road. A poor man's Disneyworld. At one point I decided to "ride" with him. However, my rear end is quite a bit heavier than little Joseph's and sunk to the bottom of the leaves, resting directly on the tarp. So the ride starts and we're having fun, when all the sudden my rear end starts to feel hot, then hotter, then "Oh! Oh! Stop!" The weight of my hind end had caused a hole to wear in the tarp as it dragged across the driveway. The hole did not stop with the tarp. My favorite black work out pants were ruined and the unfortunate situation did not stop there. I'd be willing to bet my house, law practice and maybe my dog that no one else who has walked the earth has ever chaffed their behind by sitting in leaves on a plastic tarp as it's being drug up the driveway.


Here's me and my best little friend before church. I think this was taken the day after the tarp incident. (Although this is mere speculation, as I appear to be sitting comfortably). Note the bruise on Joseph's forehead. There is almost always a little bruise on that same exact spot. About once a week I get an "incident report" from daycare, always along these lines, "Joseph fell and bumped his head on a toy . . . Joseph was pushed into the wall by another child and bumped his head . . . Joseph fell into the toy shelf and bumped his head . . . Joseph was running and tripped. He bumped his head on the floor." The wierd thing is that its always the exact same spot. He has been bruiseless recently, leaving me to wonder who this strange child is wandering through my house.