there's no place like gnome.

Do you ever cause your own self to stress?

Christmas cards have been stressing me out.  Christmas cards, people.

Now, I love Christmas cards.  I love sending them.  I love addressing the envelopes and the pure satisfaction when they’re stacked in the mailbox.  I love paper.  I love mail.  Perfect combination.

I had grand Christmas card plans this year.  I ordered notecards and envelopes from my favorite paper place – Paper Source – and ohh’ed and aww’ed over them when they arrived.  I pet them.  Such pretty, pretty paper.

The plan was to sew stars on them.  They would have been pretty; I’m sure of it.  But time started to wear thin.  It didn’t help that Thanksgiving was so late and then I went home for a long birthday weekend.  It didn’t help either that I got home from work at 9 last night, and it was 9 again tonight.  They’ve been at the top of my at-home to-do list and they just haven’t been getting done.  And it’s been stressing me out, more than Christmas cards ever should.

Finally, in the car yesterday, I let myself let them go.  I allowed myself to come to terms with the fact that it’s okay if I don’t send out Christmas cards this year.  I told myself that it wasn’t worth the stress.  I knew it was the right decision when I literally felt better.  No Christmas cards is okay.  The self-imposed stress of homemade, pretty paper Christmas cards was not worth it.  Stupid holding myself to standards that are impossible in one of the busiest time of the year work-wise.

HOWEVER, I was at a store today.  And their boxed Christmas cards were on clearance already. So I bought them.  They won’t be sewn.  They won’t be on my favorite kind of paper.  They won’t be handmade.  But the act of greeting the people I love via USPS this holiday season is the important part. That can most certainly be done with cards purchased at the store.  And I’m not super stressed about it anymore.  [Though if you normally receive a card from me, expect that it may be late.  I’m still running short on time!]

Another great stress reliever?  Confirmation.  Did you hear that?  Confirmation as a stress reliever.  We rang bells at HyVee tonight for the Salvation Army and then had ice cream at Culvers.  It was fun.  The kids said they had a blast.  And, plus, they made friends with the workers at HyVee and learned how to make the automatic doors close on themselves.  #awesome

of Pastor Lindsay.

Do you ever wonder what in the world I do in the course of a work day?  Honestly, some days I wonder too.  I’ll share what I did today because it was not completely typical but not totally unusual either.

9:30  Arrive at office.  [I could say that my late arrival was due to still catching up on sleep from last weekend’s lock-in.  I could say that and maybe people would believe it.  But, truth is, that’s just what time I go to work practically every day.  I have a hard time getting out of bed before 8.  True story.]

9:30-10:30  Catch up on business/news/weekend events with Marilyn.  Let’s call it staff development.

10:30 – 12:30  Office work.  Today this included phone calls, writing thank you notes, bulletins, and cleaning up after a crazy lock-in.

12:30  Let Mabel out.  Lunch of an english muffin and pretzels.  [I was in a hurry.]

1:00  Drive to Albert Lea on crappy roads for scheduled visits.  Arrive early.  Make phone calls in car.

2:00 – 3:30  Visit number one.  This visit includes one couple and one woman who live in the same apartment building.  Don’t you know, today was the apartment’s party for December birthdays and anniversaries [The couple I was visiting was one of the couples celebrating an anniversary – 64 years together!] so we had communion in their apartment and then went to the party.  We listened to a harp player and ate cake.  It’s here I learned what a chivaree was.  This couple was indeed chivareed in a fun sense of the word.

4:00 – 5:00  Drive to a different care center in Albert Lea for another visit.  This woman is one of my favorites.  She says really silly things [Example: She takes a long moment to transition from her bed to her wheelchair.  As she sits, she proclaims, I have landed!] and always has Dr. Oz on in the background.  It is important for later to note that out of the corner of my eye I saw the Kmart Joe Boxer commercial with men in boxer shorts and jingle bells for the first time during this visit.

5:30 – 7:30  Drive to Austin.  Third visit of the day.  This time with a woman who is absolutely delightful and in the middle of making caramels.  She had lunch ready for my arrival – cheese, crackers, sausage, chex mix [which she calls nuts and bolts], and fudge.  She made two different types of fudge this year; she made me conduct a taste test.  I didn’t protest too loudly.  It was here that she shared how absolutely appalled she is at the Kmart Joe Boxer commercial – the one I first saw earlier.   She also told me about the different entrees one can order at Dairy Queen.  I love that she used that word – entree.  Yes, I’ll have the chicken strip entree.

7:30 – 9:00  Drive back towards church to pop in at one last house.  This wasn’t necessarily a pastoral visit but – long story short – to promote a November food drive, I promised I would wrap the Christmas gifts of the name we drew from the box which people entered when they brought food items.  [Confused?  It’s okay.  There were other prize options too but this man wasn’t interested in throwing a pie in my face.]  Well, this particular gentleman and his wife no longer give gifts that require wrapping but, much like my Grandpa Sid was, give envelopes of money.  And thus I had a date to go to their house and write the proper names on the proper envelopes.  That took about five minutes.  But then there was the house history & tour, the accordion playing, and the chit-chatting.  They are wonderful people.  He calls me hon.  Thanks, hon.

To summarize: I listened to a harp player and an accordion player.  I ate cake and fudge.  I ran out of communion wafers in my communion kit and I am one exhausted introvert.  It starts all over tomorrow morning with a breakfast invitation to a WELCA meeting.  At 9.  In Austin.  The usual 8am wake-up time won’t work tomorrow.

Shucks.

I turned 30.

That’s where I’ve been.

I joked with some people that turning 30 was a third-life crisis for me.  Not a mid-life, not a quarter-life. Third-life.  30.  No husband, no kids, and student loans.  Crisis.  Never could I have imagined – nor would I have wanted to imagine – that life would be like this at 30.  Enter third-life crisis.

But eh.  So far it’s okay.  I mean, I have a new tea towel from Crate & Barrel.  What more does a person need?

I turned 30 whilst in Chicago.  Chilly, chilly Chicago.  Mama Leanne, Sister Emma, Aunt Sarah, Aunt Kari, Cousin Molly and I hopped on the early train from Harvard, IL bound for the windy city.  We met up with Cousin Connor [my birthday buddy – I turned 30 and he turned 21] and the walking, shivering, and over-abundance of crowds began.

We ditched our luggage at the hotel, saw Connor’s apartment at Roosevelt University, and decided not to wait the 2.5 hour wait to eat lunch at The Cheesecake Factory.  I bought new bowls at Anthropologie and winter coffee mugs at Crate & Barrel.  [I needed none of it but it was birthday.  I was turning 30. The pretty bowls made me feel better.  Leave me alone.]  We drank warm spiced wine in commemorative mugs at Christkindlemarket, a Christmas German festival at which we also shared a giant pretzel and carmel cashews.

We ate a late dinner at the pub attached to our hotel.  The Elephant & Castle.  Molly, Emma, and I spent the better part of the meal wondering what the meaning of the name of the restaurant was.  Were we in the castle?  Was it all an illusion?  Were we to let down our hair from the castle?  What happens when the elephant dies?  Believe me, it doesn’t seem so now, but it was super engaging.  For the three of us.  Everyone else at the table just thought we were weird.

We left Chicago mid-morning the following day.  I had to get back to attend to a couple kiddos needing to be baptized [One of them HATED me for it.  Seriously.  Yelled at me.  And another grabbed my boob.  He’s 11 months.  We’ll excuse it.] and dinner out with Mama Leanne, her boyfriend Jeff, and brother Matt.  I drank two Spotted Cows.  When in Rome.  And it was my birthday.

[It is my birthday was pretty much my excuse for everything that weekend.]

So that’s that.  I am now 30 and the world continues to turn.  I’m still single, childless, and making monthly payments to student loans but so it goes.  I plan to make 30 a fun, adventure-filled year and I’ll take you along for the ride.  What does that mean exactly?  Stay tuned.  There are still 363 days before 31.

The view from Connor’s apartment.

Playing a little chess at Roosevelt.

Connor and I met Cam from Modern Family. Well, a cardboard cutout of him anyways.

I want to someday recreate this chair. Connor helped me save the idea.

Christkindlemarket.

Cheers!

I was going to take a photo of the trees and the booths and the people … and then Connor stepped in.

GIANT pretzel to share.

Fast-forward to the baptism/birthday party I attended for children of my high school best friends. There was a penguin theme so Hebert Butterfield, my penguin, was invited … and promptly beat up by small children.

I didn’t realize how fun birds could be until they became my friends.

I began feeding the birds this summer.  I have two suet cakes that hang from two separate trees in my backyard.  In the summer, I didn’t notice the birds so much but now that it is winter, I notice them everywhere.

To the extent that I consider them my friends.  I come downstairs in the morning and to the kitchen I go to make coffee and breakfast.  As I go about my routine, my eyes wander to the backyard.  Are the birds eating breakfast too? I wonder.  They usually are.  It’s become nearly automatic; if I enter the kitchen at any point, I look to the backyard and wonder what my bird friends are up to.

Sometimes Mabel and I sit by the patio door and watch the birds.   Sometimes I work from home too, like I am this afternoon, and I watch the birds from my desk view.  Yesterday, as I refilled the suet cakes, I sang them a song.  Come and eat, birdies, come and eat.  I just saw this on pinterest – directions to make a popcorn cranberry holiday wreath for the birds.  I think I might.

Should you be concerned for my well-being as I consider birds my friends?  Nah.  However, if they start mending my dresses and assisting me in getting ready for the day, then be worried.  But we’re not there.

Yet.

Family, friends, turkey.  It’s all happening in one week on Thanksgiving day.  I’ll hop in the car on Wednesday and be home for the festivities; it’s the one major holiday of which I can spend the whole day at home.

And it’s an important one because this is also the holiday which features the Thanksgiving Day Bake-Off.  Very important.  Critical.  Crucial.  This is serious stuff, dudes.

This year will mark – gosh – the seventh annual bake-off?  [We took a year off last year because Connor was in Ghana.  A good enough excuse, I suppose.]  This year we’re back.  The theme?   A dessert from another country.

Game on.  However, there may be some contestants who have a leg up in this competition.  Connor, a student at Roosevelt in Chicago, is bringing home some international friends from Brazil this Thanksgiving.  They’ll be joining our family in celebrating and will also be entering desserts.  Connor says they’ve been practicing. Oh, dear.  Competition is stiff this year.  Stiff.

I know what I’m going to make.  I know that it has to travel well, as mine will have to be made here before I travel home.  Also know that my dessert will nod to the other holiday celebrated this Thanksgiving – a holiday celebrated by our Jewish friends.  It will also be delicious.  That’s a guarantee.

Who will get their name on the coveted Thanksgiving Bake-Off apron?  Goodness, the anticipation!  I’ll keep you posted.

[Just as a slight aside: I love this shit.  I love crazy, random traditions.  I was ready to facebook Connor and call it off this year; I don’t have a whole lot of extra time in the coming week.  But, no.  It’s a tradition and it’s fun and a little bit crazy.  My grandma will unpack the apron and hang it on display.  We’ll make it a big to-do and it’s fun.  Love it.  You can bet that when/if I have a family of my own, our holidays will be filled with crazy, random shit like this.  Like this – Dinovember.  Those parents are my heros.]