Fa La La La La

Oh 'tis the season to be jolly. And jolly I can only hope to be. I'm trying. I'm really trying. But sometimes there just seems to be something evil lurking just around the corner to ZAP whatever joy you might have. Such was the case this week. Take Monday for instance.

With sick children out of school all month, in and out of doctor's offices, blah blah blah, it's been hard to do any real Christmas shopping....with real shopping carts as opposed to the ones that appear in the upper right hand corner of your laptop screen. So on Monday, Mimi graciously offered to drive all the way over here and keep the baby while the older two were at school so I could get some shopping done. Running late as usual, frazzled as usual, and trying to function on less sleep than the terrorists being held at Gitmo, I grabbed my shopping list with 42 stops to make in the less than 4 hours I had to get everything done, herded the cats, er, kids, into the van, started the ignition and barreled out of the carport straight into the side Mimi's car.

"OH SHI.............TAKE MUSHROOMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I yelled as William and Catherine just look wide eyed and stunned.

Nothing like crashing into your mother-in-law's car to get you in the holiday spirit. That was Monday. On the bright side though, things could only get better.

On Tuesday I took the kids to storytime with Santa at the library. I took ALL the kids to storytime. By myself. Not real sure what I was thinking with that one. It was cute, and fun, and quaint. Santa read a book, posed for pictures, and was actually a dude this time. What more could you ask for. Catherine was terrified once again, but she really wanted a candy cane so she sent me up there to get her one. I had to cut in front of 20 anxious kids and their angry mothers to swipe some candy out of Santa's stocking. How embarrassing. But not nearly as embarrassing as crashing into your mother-in-law's car.

So then Wednesday was the kids' last day at school and their cute little Christmas concert. If I can ever figure out how to post a video, you'll see it here first. The concert was precious. So sweet I actually had tears running down my face. Then again it could have been because it was the last day of school for three weeks. Or because I had crashed into my mother-in-law's car two days earlier. At any rate, I was emotional.

So today, Thursday, I was looking forward to a day with no agenda, nowhere to go, and no reason to even get out of our pajamas if we didn't want to. It was a raining, icky day, perfect pajama day weather. Then about 9:00 Andy asked if I could throw together an hors d'oeuvres for his office party. Today. AT NOON. Here's a news bulletin that might come as a shocker to some folks....but I am NOT Martha friggin' Stewart!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I opened the fridge to see what I might be able to put together, and offered to assemble a lovely platter of Gogurts and string cheese. It was the best I could do with what I had. If he didn't like it, too bad. There are worse things.

Like crashing into your mother-in-law's car. La la, la, la.