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Monday, January 7, 2013

oh january

Hi friends.  I'm still trying to snap out of these blahs.  This weekend helped and hurt all at the same time.  Spending time as a family is always good, and we did take a little trip onto Brian's base all together.  We helped him clean his office up for an inspection.  Thank God I didn't get "inspections" when I was working.  My desk was never, um, organized.  We braved the P/X on the first Saturday after payday, too.  If you aren't military, that means nothing to you, but think braving the mall or Target on a Saturday and you get gist.  But then we came back home and spent the rest of the weekend taking down Christmas.  That always makes me sad.  And cranky.  And I was pretty extra cranky thinking I'd be doing the bulk of it, but Brian really stepped up and pitched in so much.  He's a keeper.  And every year I think the same thing: Why, oh WHY do I put so much up??  And then every year Christmas rolls around and I get into the spirit and over decorate all over again.  It's a vicious cycle.  A vicious Christmas cycle.

I inherited it from my mother, who had to deal with taking down an immense amount of Christmas decor after the holidays WHILE going back to work.  So that meant that Christmas lingered a lot longer at our home.  But I just can't let it linger.  I have to cut all ties at once, or it will drive me up the wall.  So yes.  Most of the weekend was spent taking it all down at once.  The littles watched, and asked a lot of questions, and worried about taking down the little trees in their rooms.  Brian took down some garland we had in Rowan's room.  She looked at him with big, watery eyes, and pleaded, "Don't take down my garland.  It's my very very favorite."  So he put it back up.  Sucker.  We found it in an open box of decorations later.  So she had decided it was time all on her own.  The girl likes to operate life on her own terms, trust me.

We got *most* of it packed away.  There are still a couple things here and there, but it looks pretty normal here.  I promised Rowan some Valentine's decorations, so that's what I'll be working on this week.  Brian took out the tree and burned it in the bonfire.  I missed it, but he said the flames shot up about 30 feet in the air.  Whoa.  I wanted to take pictures, but missed out.  That thing was dry, dry, dry. It took me a while vacuuming up the needles that got left behind.
And that's our weekend!  I'm trying to find the joys in our day to day to cheer me up, and watching Downton Abbey last night went a far way to cheer me right up!  Also catching up on blogs this morning has been fun.  Especially my friend, Karen's blog.  She's been documenting her pregnancy, birth, and baby boy for over a year now.  And today's post was so super brave, regarding post partum.  I'm so proud of her, and of what a great mama she is.  I have a lot of fun things to look forward to coming up this winter and spring, so I'm going to focus on that and forge ahead.

How do you combat those winter blahs?

7 comments:

  1. Oh, sweet Ruthie! Thanks for the shout-out! I really felt the need to "bare all" as one last attempt at self-therapy and getting onto my New Year's goals of letting go/moving on and becoming a better version of myself. Also, there are still people whom I love that haven't seen Jackie since he's been born, and I needed to communicate openly so that there were no hurt feelings or jumping to conclusions. I am so thankful for you as a friend, I cannot tell you how much you've meant to me my entire life. I would definitely not be the person I am today without your influence, inspiration, and friendship. Love you, friend!!!! May you be successful in combatting those winter blahs. I wish I were there to lend a hand.

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  2. I'm not un-decorating until Steve sends me his Christmas decorations back. Which I realize might be mid-February. Oh well! I am not tired of the Christmas cards or nativity yet! (That was mostly the extent of my decorating. I could stand a few lessons from you!)

    Love that Rowan. Too funny!

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  3. Here's hoping you shake the post holiday blahs as easily as your tree shook its needles! We had everything packed away the weekend before New Years with the exception of one lone wreath on the basement door {it has a glass ornament of Santa on a rocket ship...I can't bring myself to put it away} and the Ho Ho Ho painting Thing 3 created...we are actively thinking of projects to do to replace the painting, but I don't know if I'll have the heart to put away space Santa!

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  4. Sorry to hear you are still feeling blah. Hmmm...I just keep drinking tea usually, eating chocolate and watching nice shows (like Downton Abbey) until I get out of a funk. (That's in the few moments between regular duties of course). Sending you good thoughts...


    We still haven't taken our tree down. I spent 3 hours cleaning and organizing my son's room on the weekend, and I'm like, guess what, the tree can stay until next weekend. What turns me off is the lack of enough storage boxes and the mess that is our basement storage room.

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  5. Ha! I love that you seem to be passing down the Christmas Decorating gene to your daughter. And I really, really, really like colored lights - I would hesitate taking that colorful tree down too.

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  6. I don't put up that much for Christmas, and even so I would be sunk taking it all down if James didn't do the bulk of it. Vacuuming pine needled just kills me for some reason. I'm delighted to have it all gone and more space and light, we've swapped blahs :)

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  7. Three cheers to the sweetest of friends, Karen! I'm so grateful to be mother-ing along with the both of you. And I'm probably going to leave 3 small x-mas trees up and just find hearts to go on them for Valentine's Day - so I'm that girl.

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your comments are the peanut butter to my jelly!