Trying to Hold Out

 This year I broke out the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack far earlier than I intended.  My only defense is that it was a stormy, cold day, Aaron worked from home that morning and built a fire and it just felt kind of right.  The other day though, Aaron gently suggested to me that I should give it a rest so we're not tired of it by Christmas.  My cousin Kayleigh is flying out to spend Thanksgiving with me(commence squealing and rolling around on the floor, which is what I do when overwhelmed by unspeakable joy) so I have resolved not to play any more Charlie Brown Christmas until she's here and we're making pumpkin pie. 

 As you can see, we have plenty of Fall decorations up: our leaf garland and lights on the fireplace, some leaf prints the boys and I made on fabric on the dining room wall, candles and pumpkins on the dining room table and a Platter of Nature with a candle on the coffee table.  The other thing you can see is that I don't dust.  Ssh.

Despite my resolve, I couldn't resist these beautiful sprigs of holly.  They were just right there in my back yard, beckoning, and they look so pretty against my white curtains and gray walls.  I have all kinds of plans to do a proper Advent this year, starting with actually completing a set of Jesse Tree ornaments.  The boys have been super into painting lately, so I want to get a bunch of tiny square canvases and have them paint all the symbols for our Jesse Tree. 

Other things that have happened: Matteas got some really terrible blisters after he got water in his boots at the beach the other day.  The blisters became swollen, bulging orbs of puss surrounded by angry red halos of infection.  I lanced them and soaked his feet in warm salt water with tea tree oil several times a day, with bandaids and Neosporin in between soaks and the angry red halos have receded, the puss is no more.  I feel like a shaman.  Or just a really bad-ass mama. 

I finally caught one of the colds that the boys have been circulating for the past six weeks.  No joke, someone has had some kind of cold symptom for the entire month of October through the present day.  Aaron still has a cough, the boys both have runny noses and for the past two days I've had a nasty sore throat.  Aaron brought me pho for dinner last night and I've been drinking gallons of tea, as well as mugs of hot water with fresh ginger, lemon, honey and cayenne.  It's actually quite tasty and I'm feeling a little better today despite waking up at 7:30.  I got in bed with some tea and the laptop last night and watched an episode of Desperate Housewives, but since I never watch the show I had no idea what was going on.  It seemed a lot like the only other episode of that show I've ever seen, only this time someone else was dead and someone else has an alcohol problem.  I think that show's motto is "What goes around comes around."  It was less than compelling, but I kind of enjoyed the voyeurism.