Three days all rolled into one blog~

Doesn’t it seem like the days of December pass much more quickly than those of other months?

It is now December 14th and it seems like I blinked on the 12th and here I am on the 14th…the very tail end of it at that!

We froze our little keisters off up in the barn during our Theme Thursday on the 14th. Thank you to all of you who came out to see us and froze yours off as well! We love the company and at one point my partner Chris said to me, “We must be really passionate about what we do here to work in an ice cold barn for hours.” It took me the evening to thaw out and then I woke up and it was the 13th…Friday the 13th. 

A couple of months prior, part of our daughter’s ceiling fell down due to unseen leaks coming in through the chimney. Old houses have a way of sneakily falling apart over the years and then letting you know their state in one fail swoop, or in this case, one “fall” swoop. When Kelsey was complaining about her windowless basement bedroom during her semester abroad, I cheered her up by sending her this picture…that was in Septmeber. I have no idea why construction projects always come down to the wire, but they do and this one was no different. So…Friday the 13th was the mad dash day to get the almost finished bedroom put back together before the aforementioned daughter returned home from her semester the next day. There was a lot of pressure here due to the many dropped comments about so looking forward to being back in her bedroom. “Mom, I can’t WAIT to sleep in my own bed!”

I have a knack of thinking I can get 140 things done in one day…don’t we all? Well I think I did today and none of them were centered on Christmas…at least not overtly. A myriad of other occurrences happened during the day that kept pulling me away from my task at hand and made me doubt my lack of believing in “Friday the 13th.” When my husband called later in the day to tell me that he thought he heard gushing water out by the chicken coop when he had left earlier that morning and could I check it for it might be a burst pipe, I am sure that the manic laughter that he heard on my end might have alarmed him.

Midway through putting the room back together, the hay delivery showed up. Shoot…did I schedule that for today? What the heck was I thinking? After tucking two hundred and thirty bales of hay safely under the eaves with the help of my strapping son Christopher, it was time to pick up two other sons. Sometimes don’t you wish school ended at 6? Only sometimes? 

Just enough time to put a few more things back in the room, jump in the shower and stick some chicken nuggets and fries in the oven before my husband and I got in the car and drove up to my husband’s home town to visit his childhood friend who had just lost his father suddenly. Talk about a dose of reality and beauty at the same time to bring home the point that family and friends ARE everything. As we watched this family along with close friends support each other, celebrate their dad’s life and mourn his passing, it made all the little annoyances of the day fade and brought home, yet again, the fragility of all of our lives. 

Back home we drove to awaken the next morning and pull it all together. As we awaited the anticipated snow and our daughter’s flight, we all pitched in and got it all done. The bedroom, the removal of everything that is not going back in, the stacking of the wood to keep the fire burning, a homemade dinner and notes to their returning sister. 

Since it was Candy Cane Day, they laughed at their prior candy cane works of art

enjoyed Trader Joes’ Joe- Joe’s, their favorite 

and we topped it all of with a full family viewing of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. That has not happened in years and I think they all realized that you are never to old…

for a lot of things!

As we all fell asleep under one roof again…I know that I was smiling for 

“Life truly is good.”