Me Now

I’m not sure, especially since I had quite a few posts last week, but I feel as if I have not been sharing as much as I used to and I’m missing my repartee with all of my faithful readers…not sure how many there are but suffice it to say I appreciate you all and I’ve been a bit incognito of late, but now that I finally completed my graduate school application I’m back in the saddle! Right now I’m sitting in my easy chair as I click clack away on my keyboard thinking ‘will this rain ever end?’ Honestly between the rain, the colder weather, Thanksgiving, the imminent arrival of winter, Christmas and New Years I don’t know what happened to the summer. Yeah yeah I know what you’re thinking, ‘you’re late, real late talking about summer’, but I have to say there was no gradual ending to summer, it was abrupt and now even if I realllly try I can’t seem to stretch my ears and hear the strains of ‘Summertime’ by Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince even faintly. I’m discovering why the elderly say ‘eff this noise’ and pack their goods and head for  the Florida sunshine and if it wasn’t for the big ass mosquitoes down there I would do the same. Mosquitoes are an absolute deal-breaker so I would retire differently, I’d pack my goods and head west along the Oregon Trail, that may be really dumb as I have no idea if the Oregon Trail would end up dumping me in California but it sounded good and I don’t care to look up that information right now.

Back to now. Scene: purple chair and matching ottoman, laptop literally on my lap, left leg propped right foot on the ground, rain pounding away outside, fajita leftovers heating up on stove, cold beer awaiting me in the fridge. There, now that we’re caught up, I guess I’ll go ahead and embrace the season because Christmas is around the corner. Whatever Christmas means to you, whether it’s the birthday of the baby Jesus or simply time to over-consume both literally and figuratively, I do love this time of year. I’ve been avoiding jump-starting Christmas celebrations because I feel that I’ve been banged over the head with a Christmas shovel since Halloween, but thanks to a two week break since Thanksgiving I’m now ready to pull out my Christmas music and begin decorating and making cookies ( by the way, baking only happens on weekends, work then cookie making is a no-go).

Thankfully I don’t have a huge amount of shopping to do thanks to my brother Asa’s brilliant secret santa idea; when you have a family that consists of seven siblings that’s the sanest way to go about presents. Typing this is making me wonder, what should I get my secret santa…? Hmmmm…Well I’m going to get my pre-winter malaise under control with two things: Christmas movies and music. Give me a couple of days of immersion and I do believe I’ll be in the proper spirit to decorate, make cookies, and go shopping but not in a mall…I absolutely refuse to go to the mall until well after Christmas and probably only to see my sister-in-law/hair stylist Jade. This is where I insert my plug for shopping in small businesses, here goes: please oh please support your creative, talented, small business owners who have their shops for the pure love of what they’re doing. I understand if you simply can’t afford the sometimes higher costs of boutique stores, but I’ve been able to negotiate prices or get something really nice for free for spending a certain amount or simply chatting with the owner who will also most likely be in the shop. On top of helping funnel money into your local community, it really feels better to not hit every shop under one roof, to step outside into fresh air in-between shops and to not experience that hollow feeling that sometimes comes from over-exposure to being subliminally fed a bunch of sounds and images and going into sensory overload. I’m now off my soapbox. Good eve!