A New Year's Meme

This is a New Year's meme I picked up from... I'm so embarassed - I can't remember where. Last week, before Christmas, I found this and I thought it was cool, so I took note of it, but now I can't remember from whence it came. Aren't I terrible?

This is the first sentence of my first post of every month this year. I started my blog in April, so here it goes...

1 - April - My kids are watching Saturday morning cartoons.

2 - May - Soccer season has begun.

3 - June - Main Man has been freelancing at home for the last couple of years.

4 - July - I bought "light BUTTER" microwave popcorn the other day.

5 - August - I've always had a place in my heart that hates the month of August.

6 - September - I am a clutter queen.

7 - October - The subtitle of this book could be "Everything Your Child Didn't Realize He Didn't Know about Money and Didn't Think to Ask".

8 - November - I know it's Thursday.

9 - December - I cannot believe that it's been over a week since I posted.

Actually, when you put them all together, they look rather comical. Hope you enjoyed them...

And may 2007 be your best one yet!

And the Happiest of Holidays to All of You

School is out. Now I can do my shopping.

That isn't really true. I've done quite a bit already, but now the power shopping begins!

I was determined to take it easy this season - to take more pause to truly enjoy the holiday. And I did.

I haven't sent any Christmas cards yet (they will have to be holiday cards next week).

I bought my baking at a bake sale.

I put blogging on hold for a short while.

And I did have a chance to take pleasure in the little things: enjoying the children's smiles and antics at the Christmas concerts, making harried store clerks smile as I joked with them, smiling at strangers as I moseyed through the stores (I'm sure many of them were wondering what I was up to!).

I hope you all will have the opportunity during this busy time to marvel at the magic of the season.

I will be around to many of your sites to wish you blessings and joy, but, on the off chance that I have some readers of whom I am unaware, I wish all of you the pure joy that one feels upon seeing a child gaze in wonder at the gifts beneath the tree, or a senior beam at being surrounded by family and friends, or a couple share a tender moment under the mistletoe.

May the magic of Christmas surround you in a blanket of comfort, joy, and love.

Christmas Cards

I usually love getting Christmas cards.

Reading about people's goings-on, seeing photos of their children as they grow a year taller, knowing that our friends are thinking of us, all of that makes opening the mailbox on my way home from work at this time of year a little more exciting.

Main Man gets corporate and political cards full of generic wishes. I'm not big on those. But they do add colour and visual interest to our card display.

Yesterday, though, we got a Christmas greeting that made me shake my head. It was from a family who used to be our neighbours. Their children attended the same daycare as ours, and we occasionally visited back and forth when they lived in our neighbourhood. Four or five years ago, they moved on to greener pastures, also known as that area of the city with huge new houses dwarfing tiny trees. We've basically lost touch. I often muse that they feel that they have "outgrown" us.

The card - and I use the term loosely - consisted of a photo of their family on what appears to be a private yacht in some tropical clime. There was no letter, no greeting even, just a signature on the photo.....

The Johnson's

(real name withheld to protect the innocent)

Even a "Merry Christmas" would have been nice.

Under the Mistletoe

My fifth grade class is performing "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" for our Christmas concert next week. We are having a blast getting it ready!

In addition to singing the song, we have a bit of air band and some dancing in the show.

I've paired up four "couples" in the class to do a bit of a swing dance during an instrumental bit in the middle. They are adorable as they jive and twirl. Of course, they are in Grade Five, so they are awkward and self-conscious, but that just makes it all the cuter.

One of the jiving boys is the son of our kindergarten teacher here at the school. She said to me at lunch today, "So, I heard last night all about your little dancing performance."

I asked how he was feeling about it.

She replied that he seemed pretty nervous.

With a smile, I told her that I had purposely paired him with one of the cutest girls in the class.

"That's the problem, " was the response. "He thinks so too!"

Double the Fun

We will be travelling to my father's farm on Christmas Eve, and we will stay there for two or three days. We will be staying there alone, but family will be just a short drive away. We will all have Christmas dinner together at my niece's house.

The boys are quite anxious that we have a tree at the farm. My first inclination was that we would cope without one; why put up a tree for just two or three days?

A few days ago, though, I finally figured out why it was so important to them. #3 especially is very worried that, if we don't have a tree, Santa will have no place to leave presents.

So yes - definitely - we will have a tree.

Last night as we sat at the kitchen table - me marking Spelling books and #3 colouring Christmas pictures - I think he reached the height of Christmas greediness, as all children are apt to do this time of year.

"Mom," he asked offhandedly,"if we have a tree at home and another one at Grandpa's, will Santa leave me two presents?"

Hey - it's worth a try!

Back from the Dead

This will be a rather mundane post after such a dramatic title.

I'm just fine. I'm sorry if I worried any of you.

We are in the midst of a veritable hurricane of holiday plans, home renovations and - oh right - day to day life (ie: teaching, laundry, homework, guitar practice, Cubs, Beavers, blah, blah, blah...).

I think causing the biggest turmoil in my life right now is the upheaval of home renovations. It's killing me that we're already into the double digits of December and I have no Christmas decorations up. There was really no point, though, before we got the hardwood refinished (finally finished this past weekend).

Therefore, now that the wood is finished and we can gradually put the furniture back in place, now I can begin to decorate.... But I can't tonight, because I have marking to catch up on.... And I can't tomorrow night because it's the boys' school Christmas concert... And I can't the next night because......

See?

Still, it's a different kind of busy from report cards and parent-teacher interviews. This is candy cane - pine tree - Christmas bells - surrounded by family kinda busy - the best kind, as far as I'm concerned.

I'm hoping this entry finds all of you in the same frame of mind.

Busted!

Main Man and I went out to our favourite Irish pub last night. I am so enjoying having a life once again.

Anyway, we ran into a girl who grew up in my hometown and used to attend my dad's church. She's attending a residential private school here in our city now.

I had had a couple of glasses of wine when I went over to talk to her.

She is still in high school.

I figure she and I were probably thinking much the same thing as we were chatting.

She was probably thinking, "Please don't let it get back to my parents that I was at a bar!"

I was thinking, "Please don't let it get back to my dad that I was (just a little) drunk!"

Earning Tranquility

I cannot believe that it's been over a week since I posted.

And what a week it was!

I spent the vast majority of last weekend completing my report cards. I had to make sure that each i was dotted and every t crossed. One of my most looming fears is that I will spell something wrong on a report card, especially on a comment informing parents that their son or daughter should take more care in their daily written work!

Then the school week began.

In addition to Monday's report cards and Wednesday's and Thursday's parent-teacher conferences, there was also Monday to Thursday's Book Fair. I hadn't written much about the book fair ahead of time because I wasn't anticipating it being a stressor - not relatively speaking, anyway.

And it wasn't really a huge stressor; but it was a definite time-stealer.

Book Fair is basically a book sale, set up in the library and - pretty much goes without saying - run by the librarian and her assistant, AKA Library Mama and her trusty sidekick.

A company (in this case Scholastic Canada) sends piles and cartons and mountains of new books to us, we arrange it attractively in the library, and we sell them to the students and their parents. Oh - and they also send junky things like cutesy troll pencils and erasers that resemble licorice sticks, and we also sell those, lots and lots and lots of those.

Anyway, a schedule is created and each class attends the book fair and browses or shops. Book fair is also open before school and during recess breaks. Parents come and shop when their children's class attends or during the breaks or when they are at the school in the evening for their parent-teacher conference. Oh - did I forget to mention that the book fair is open in the evenings as well?

In amongst all of this, I also taught regular classes.

And winter arrived this week. We have experienced temperatures in the -20s (Celsius) and we've received over 15 cm of snow (that's over 6 inches for my American friends).

This morning I am sitting at my sorely neglected computer in my plaid pyjama bottoms and souvenir T-shirt from a trip to California we took almost 10 years ago, savouring a cup of strong coffee. The drone of cartoons is in the background, and the little boys are curled up in the livingroom, enjoying their own teachers' professional development day. Main Man has left for work, and #1 is still fast asleep.

Today we plan to have a snowball fight and decorate a gingerbread house.

I think I've earned it.