Being Real

 I had grand expectations of coming home from our trip in November and getting right back "into the swing of things" with life.   I'd quickly reestablish my exercise and scripture study routine.  I'd get the house all decked out for Christmas.  I'd jump right on Christmas shopping and getting our cards designed and out the door. I'd leave my vacation eating habits in the dust and happily start cooking well-rounded meals again.  Heck, I'd probably even get a few books read, some neighbor gifts made, and some blogging done too.  😂

Lucie reacts to my grand dreams of productivity...

  I'm not quite sure why I thought that coming straight off a trip and directly into the holidays would be conducive to getting back to it,  but fast forward a month and I'm here to say that I am nowhere near the swing of things.  In fact, I am pretty sure my brain might still be in the middle of the Sahara desert somewhere.  Probably being chewed on by a camel, based on how I'm functioning currently.  

Not only do I keep catching random bugs (3 in 6 weeks, 2 of them directly from Lucie) keeping me on the tired and rundown side,

but our dishwasher is broken (dishes by hand are not my favorite chore), our car is unreliable (see this post for the story), my phone had to be repaired, I missed my flight home from Alabama (thanks to super long security lines), my house still hasn't recovered from  our weeks away, the Christmas decorations look like I had 4 people randomly throw them up onto the shelves (probably because that's exactly what I did),   I am stress eating like I haven't done in years, I'm still not exercising regularly, and I've barely even made a dent on Christmas shopping.   

On the bright side, though, I did finally start getting our Christmas cards out the door today.  #priorities

Oh, and we  hosted the missionaries (who still wanted to come despite Glen and I both being sick),

rented a car and picked up Ellie from Rexburg who is off-track for winter semester...

and sent off Adam's Christmas package (it was due on the 15th, so this was verrrrrrrry last minute)... 

-- all that within 24 hours of me returning home from Alabama a day later than expected and still being sick.  So, yay me. 

I think I've gotten to the point now that  I just have to accept that this will be a Christmas where I just need to prioritize sleep ( so I can stop getting sick) and taking care my mental health (which always suffers during the wintertime).  The state of the house will be what it will be and everyone will have Christmas presents of some sort or another.   It will be far from perfect, but we will have 3 of our 5 kids here,  and it will  all be good!  

Speaking of mental health, every time I start to get a little discouraged about yet another load of dishes to do by hand or by the number of things on my to-do list, I look back at these photos from my week plus an extra day in Alabama (December 2-10) and it's hard not to smile.    Lucie may have given me her cold, but it was worth it for the snuggles, storytimes, giggles, and time with her Mommy and Daddy too. 

 

I LOVE being a Gigi!

Next time I see them, they'll have a new little one to snuggle too.   I can't wait. 

Merry Christmas! 
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