Tis the Season

I admit I am having a super-de-duper rough time getting in the mood for Christmas this year. We had our Thanksgiving trip last week, and it went fairly well, if you don't count the fact that anything and everything (and nothing) was causing me to burst into spontaneous tears every five minutes. The cousins had a great time and the Hogs won the football game (sorry, honey.). On Sunday we checked out of the condo and Hubby took the 5 youngest kids home. Big Kid and I stayed in Hot Springs to hang out for the day, and embark on a couple of campus tours before heading home.

The big news is it SNOWED while we were there! Yeah, real snow! If you count "melting as soon as it touches anything" as "real", anyway. We were in a coffee shop across from the National Park and I swear almost every adult in there went outside at least once to wave their hands in the air, take pictures and stand with their face pointed up, mouth open to catch a flake.

So, long story short, we hung out on Sunday, toured a campus in Arkansas on Monday, and one in Louisiana on Tuesday. We think he made a firm choice for the LA one, but he wasn't ready to commit to me buying the "Campus Mom" coffee mug, so that will have to wait! it was FUN hanging out with him, talking about stuff (topics ranged from politics to religion to music to "nothing") and just enjoying spending time with this beautiful person God gave me to raise.

We got home and I went back into my funk. Everything reminds me of Mom, from the music to the decorations to the food. It seems like every adult woman in town is out shopping with their mother. I'm supposed to locate the stockings and the Advent calendar today at the very least. I am not in the mood to decorate and there is a lot less time left because of the late Thanksgiving. Yes, I know I need to pull myself together for the kids, and I am trying, and in the end I will. But it's HARD, dammit! Will it be easier in January? I sure hope so.

Ending this on a better note: I discovered the "Cake Wrecks" blog about a month ago and it has been my daily smile. I was feeling particularly down this morning (rain and PMS don't help when you already feel like crap!) and I was laughing my head off after reading today's entry. Now maybe I am ready to face the attic and get going on my junk. Hope you enjoy!

Here is Actual Snow, Southern Style :P



On Monday night, we witnessed the "frowny face moon". We were out in the absolute pitch-blackest middle of nowhere, so I stopped to try to get a picture even though I didn't think it would take. But look!!

This is the original, untouched shot:


And here it is, cropped and flipped into a face:


Super cool! :)