not calm, not bright, not yet

It's a marathon, people, and we are in the final miles.

It looks like tonight will be the Christmas All-Nighter '09! Some year, I'd love to do it without an all-nighter. But I really can't see how.

I'm not a long-range planner. I always crammed the night before my exams. Wrote my papers in final draft just hours before they were due. And now I am cramming a whole lot of Christmas preparation into these last 30 hours.

I have presents to wrap. A photo album to make. And 6-year check up for my er... almost 7-year old. Christmas Eve. WHAT was I thinking when I made that appointment? Do I make him get flu shots on Christmas Eve? Because seriously, since I am 360 days late for his 6-year check up, what are the odds that I'm actually going to come back for flu shots? Then, I have a grocery store run to make. Appetizer to assemble. Kids to dress. Church to attend. Family function to celebrate. Tree to stuff presents under. Stockings to fill.

And then... and then...

Ahhhh.... a steaming hot pot of coffee to make up for the fact that I haven't slept in 2 days.

Hope you are all hanging in there.

(photo from Country Living)

well-timed

It was really quite lovely. The news that a snowstorm was coming forced me to prune my extensive To Do list to the bare minimum and declare that my Christmas shopping was ALL DONE.

My cards arrived in the mail on Friday so I had something to keep me busy. I had already loaded up on groceries so we had plenty of milk, bread and toilet paper.

And then the snow fell. And fell. And fell. 20 inches in all, which is A LOT OF SNOW for us.

The kids went sledding, throwing snowballs, building forts. Hung in front of the fire at a friend's house. I wrote cards. Baked cookies. Called family. Wrapped a few gifts.

It was like a giant semicolon in place of the most insane weekend of the year.

A neighbor hosted a Fishes and Loaves party - bring what you have and hopefully it will be enough food. And there was PLENTY OF FOOD. And seriously? The things people have in their house during a snowstorm? Rack of lamb. Shrimp cocktail. I had butternut squash, so that's what I brought. And wine. There was lots of wine, so it was all good. I even got to have a conversation lasting longer than 45 seconds with Thrift Store Mama, because our kids were fairly contained and there were no large bodies of water nearby.

School is cancelled for today, and tomorrow is the last day before break, so I'm wondering if they will even bother. And I learned that I actually DO have some more Christmas shopping to do. (But the illusion of being done was nice while it lasted.)

I don't have any great photos, sadly, because I managed to leave my baby camera at Shout's preschool on Friday. I've gone to visit it from the nearest window, but the doors are locked and I can't get in to rescue it.

is it just me or is EVERYONE running around like a chicken with its head cut off?

Anyone busy out there?

Lordy!

Every day, I get in the car with a 40-foot long list of places I have to go. Insanity. And I keep a pencil behind my ear at all times because I am forgetting everything.

Teacher gifts? Oh crap.

Stocking stuffers, oy!

Shout? Argh. I got her a few things, but I sorta totally forgot to buy, you know, TOYS for her.

Of course, it didn't help that Cheer and Bounce were in a Christmas concert last night and had to wear "Christmas clothes." And by "Christmas clothes" Bounce means "cocktail party dress" and by "Christmas clothes," I mean, "fur trimmed, red velvet and plaid."

Apparently we are at the awkward in-between stage where pretty Christmas dresses are patently uncool, and your mother will not let you buy a cocktail party dress. Because she doesn't even have one.

I purchased no less than 5 different options (only because I totally screwed this up last year and felt guilty). None of them were satisfactory. I met up with a friend in the grocery store parking lot who brought all options from her daughter's closet. (It was like a secret spy-Christmas-dress-dead-drop-type-thing. It was so covert, my friend actually drove home from the grocery store WITHOUT putting her groceries in the car. Way to lose any tails!)

In the end, she wore the very first thing I bought, which was only marginally acceptable. And she stood in the back row where you couldn't see anything below her chin. (Gah.)

(Then my list for today included returning all the crap she DIDN'T wear. Except for the dress from the thrift store that I was able to pawn off on a neighbor.)

Today's list also included returning a coat for Tide to Marshalls. Because apparently coats are VERY DORKY. And a hoodie sweat shirt, although completely inadequate for keeping a person warm in 30 degree weather, is FAR cooler. And the only possible coat that MIGHT be considered cool would say Washington Capitals on it. Except the ENTIRE INTERNET is sold out of such a coat. And one from Marshalls with the same colors IS TOTALLY NOT THE SAME. (Gah.) And the one that's on it's way from Land's End is also TOTALLY NOT THE SAME.

Thank God, I got an email late last night that the internet elves have sewn ONE size medium Washington Capitals coat and it is allegedly on it's way here.

Too bad it's supposed to snow 12 inches tomorrow. That hoodie-sweatshirt-wearing kid is going to be mighty cold.

I ran myself ragged last week at the mall. I wanted to get Shout a fun and cool outfit. She's intrigued by the more teenagery stores like Aeropostale and Abercrombie. So I ventured in.

I AM NOT READY FOR THIS.

Those stores are dark. And smell like Axe. And are staffed by surly teenagers with their hair hanging in their eyes. And all the clothes are sweats. Overpriced sweats. And Bounce, who is a skinny 9-year old, would be a size MEDIUM. Which is crazy, right? I mean, what is a normal sized 15 year old on that scale? XXXL. Nice message we are sending there.

I have to admit, I had a panic attack.

I rushed back into the mall and went straight to The Children's Place. Where I stood, petting the fleece footy pajamas and muttering, "There's no place like home. There's no place like home."

I hope Bounce doesn't think she's too old for footie pajamas.

(photo NOT MY HOUSE from Country Living)

scratch

Long before this blog existed, when we only had 3 kids, Laundry Dad and I privately called them Itchy, Bitchy and Twitchy. I won't say who was whom. When Shout came along, we couldn't think of a rhyming name. We knew she would be small, so we called her Wee. Itchy, Bitchy, Twitchy and Wee.

We have to change Wee's name.

She's still small, but now she is SO. VERY. ITCHY.

A few weeks ago, a rug that I had been coveting at Target went on sale. The rug at the end of my bed was disintegrating and I bought this white, shag, fluffy area rug to replace it.

Shout came home from school and ran across it in her bare feet to admire it.

Three minutes later she was covered in hives.

I'll spare you the gory details. My gorgeous rug is gone, the floors have been vacuumed and mopped. Clothes and bedding and people have been washed. And the hives just keep on coming.

It's like her histimines are on a hair-trigger. We've gone through a bottle and a half of Benedryl. We've seen two doctors. We're trying Zyrtec now. And still, she wakes up in the middle of the night, scratching herself bloody.

Itchy, Itchy, Bitchy and Twitchy.

I miss Wee.

what is the opposite of metrosexual?

So internet, what do you do when you have a husband who works in a very casual office environment (I'm talking a step above pajamas here) and needs to attend a semi-formal function with very little notice?

For example, suppose your husband and his co-workers were in the right place at the right time and did something that SAVED SOMEONE'S LIFE? Doing what hopefully anyone would have done, but they just happened to be the ones who did it. (If you are going to die suddenly, you might actually want to be in a roomful of engineers. They may have social issues, but they do know how to problem solve.)

And what if, perchance, the administrator of the VERY LARGE GOVERNMENT AGENCY your husband works for hears the story and wants to give your husband an Award of Bravery? And what if they are flying very important people from this large agency in from around the country to attend the awards ceremony?

So the usual office attire of Levis and Nikes is not going to cut it.

And then, imagine if pretty much everything else in your husband's closet either has the name of a college emblazoned across it, or has a Dockers tag. (Except for that suit he bought 10 years ago for a wedding that has now been devoured by moths because it hasn't been worn in, oh, say 10 years.)


Go Flyers!

And did I mention, we had about 2 days to find suitable clothes for this event? So ordering online was pretty much out of the question. Because I would normally go to Land's End or L.L. Bean.

Fashion emergency!

Where is Carson Kressley when I need him?


credit

What is a guy to do? Not that much, actually, because his wife is in charge of fashion.

If a woman had this problem, she could pull a Sharon Stone and wear a Gap t-shirt and maybe pair it with a really striking statement necklace. Or, in a pinch, she could pull something semi-fabulous together from the aisles of Target.


credit

The statement necklace really wasn't going to work in this situation. (And would probably be obscured by those geeky security badges said husband has to wear.) And I tried Target. It's not nearly as fun in the men's section as it is in the ladies' section.

Here is what we did (should you ever find yourself in such a situation).

Shop the closet.

We actually found, DEEP in the closet, a pair of pants that, although they were Dockers, were part of a nicer line than your typical khakis. I can't find them online (they are probably 10 years old too) but they are charcoal grey, cuffed and look like wool (but are actually cotton).


credit


Go with a sport coat.

I looked online for a sport coat that would work with the pants. It had to have a pattern because it would never actually match the pants. I was searching for something tweed-ish, but no leather patches on the elbows. Something like this


credit

I found a few. Our local mall is extremely limited (no Eddie Bauer, Joseph A. Bank, Banana Republic or J. Crew) and we didn't really have time to go anywhere else. So we were basically looking at J.C. Penney and Macy's.

I found exactly what I was looking for on J.C. Penney website. And I could even check the inventory at my local store. Unfortunately, they didn't have his size. But a quick scan of the sale rack at Macy's found exactly what we needed. And on sale! Which is good, because this blazer will probably get eaten by moths before it's worn again too.

Or at least, I kind of hope so, because the only other thing I can think of that he might need it for is a funeral. So the moths can have it!

(Speaking of funerals... let's avoid them by CHECKING YOUR SMOKE DETECTOR BATTERIES! Did you do it yet? I'm serious!)