Elisa’s Day

seems like i have had a trip into to town every day for the last 5 or 6…….but after chugging half a coffee this morning and running out the door as early as possible to beat the crowds, i believe i am now done !

quick trip to the mall for a few last minute things, doctors appointment, few more last minute things downtown, the dairy barn ( the local dairy here has a little drive through spot called the dairy barn )  and groceries. now my goal is to just relax, enjoy the holidays and not leave the house for 5 days. yay.

tomorrow my sister, aunt, cousins and grandma will all be coming to my mom’s for christmas eve festivities and homemade pizza, and for the first time i don’t have to leave super early to put the kids to bed……i can run next door, put them to bed and be right back…..nice……then it’s just christmas day and relaxing for a couple days until we venture off to ryan’s mom’s in ottawa on the 28th.

if my overall goal is to not leave the house for 5 days, then my mini goal is to get the house picked up and back into shape today, and start wading through the mountain of laundry, before company starts descending tomorrow. because right now it is a sad disaster. it seems i can not stay on top of it these days ( that applies to both laundry and the house cleaning ) so we’ll see how far i actually get today. one of these days i’d like to figure out just how many hours a week i spend doing laundry, including sorting, folding and putting away of course, because everyone knows the actual throwing it in the machine is the easy part. then again, maybe i don’t want to really know.

i hope everyone has a great and safe holiday !!

well, i guess my frantic cookie making all day yesterday was well worth it. it didn’t actually snow last night. when i woke up this morning at 6am, i said as much to ryan. so i was shocked when he came up at 6:15 ( but i don’t want to get up, is i believe, what i said when he came back ) to tell me the buses were cancelled and not to bother waking the girls up. i guess the whole, last day of school before christmas break thing, makes them a little free and loose with the bus cancelling. but then The Storm did actually roll in. at about 10am it started snowing, and it has been pretty much a  white out since then. a ridiculously windy, crazy ass cold, white out.

putting our nights plans of a nice grown up dinner with friends to bed, of course. ryan and i have bad luck with weather and plans. but such is life at the mercy of good old canadian winter. i hope it stops tonight, or we won’t be making the hour drive to my dad’s tomorrow either. on the bright side, i still get out of cooking dinner, we’ll be going to my mom’s for dinner instead, and hey,  we don’t even have to go outside to do so. nice.

well, yesterday was total chaos and i still only managed to get half of what i wanted to, done. but i did get some other things done, picked up the girls big “combo” gift, i suddenly got worried if i left it until next week it might be gone ( an easel and a bunch of art supplies, the lack of art done in school is pretty appalling, so we’ll be doing even more at home ). there is only one good, but small, toy store here in town, and driving around a few days before chritsmas trying to locate an easel if that one had sold, not so much fun. after getting home, late, from the christmas party at my mom’s school, i wrapped most of the presents in front of re-runs of survivor.

i only managed to get my squares made, so today is macaroons, sugar cookies and ginger snaps. and i need them done by 2:30. so yeah………there is much talk of big snow tonight, and a snow day tomorrow. so now i think handing out tins of cookies today is our best bet. of course, because having done that, there will be no snow day tomorrow in the end. but if i don’t do it there will be. of course.

so back to cookies it is.

okay….well…..here we are, and friday is the last day of school. so if i plan to get those tins of christmas cookies out for teachers, bus driver, and crossing guard, i better get on it. i didn’t want to start too early ( and yes, i know that you can freeze cookies, but i didn’t want to be handing out freezer burnt or stale cookies ) so i waited. today i did all  my shortbreads, and i will put them in the freezer  just so they stay real fresh, but only for two days. but tomorrow, when olivia and sidney are at school, hannah and i will be tackling two types of squares ( hello dollies and the peanut butter/butterscotch marshmallow deals ) macaroons, and ginger cookies. also, i will be making the dough for the sugar cookies which can then be refrigerated overnight. so thursday the girls and i will cut out and bake all the christmas tree shaped sugar cookies, and when sidney gets home from school we’ll decorate them all. some for the tins for gifts, but most for the girls class parties on friday. that is a lot of cookie madness.

oh, and also tomorrow, while hannah is napping, i have to pull out the comforter covers i made for the girls and try and figure out how i’m going to close them. i have them all sewed, but still open at the end. i have the velcro, i just have to get them finished, because it will be awfully hard to do next week when they are home all the time. and i should make hannah’s pillow. i didn’t make hannah a cover, because she isn’t in a full sized bed yet, or have a real comforter. so i decided to make her a soft fuzzy pillow with the left over fabric.

so….yeah……tomorrow……..a little crazy

but i am excited, it’s getting close. so much fun. tomorrow night is the yearly christmas party at the highschool where my mom teaches, for the children and grandchildren of staff, and the girls love it. then dinner with friends on friday night, kid free ( whoo hoo ) and then chirstmas at my dad’s place on sat. then it’s some days around the house, filled with more baking and lots of christmas crafts and such. i love the holidays.

well, hannah’s fever never did go away, and so mixed with her various other symptoms, none of which really fit together, i was waffling between, putting her to bed early and calling our family doctor first thing in the am ( oh hi, right answer, why so hard to see last night? ) or taking her to the ER. in the end i called the stupid telehealth line, which is always useless it seems, and she thought i did indeed need to go to emergency. so i bundled hannah up, tried to prepare myself mentally to spend the next 6 hours waiting to see someone ( oh hi, socialized medical system, just kidding, really, i love you ) and off we went. maybe the thing i hate most of all about the ER is the “trick” to make it look less busy, or maybe to make people more comfortable ( yeah right ) but they call you right in after you register, and you might be fooled and think “god damn, i’m gonna be the first person in ontario in the last decade to get through emergency in under an hour ” but you’d be wrong. then they put you in a little room all alone, where you then wait out the rest of your 3 + hour adventure, with no other annoyed people to complain with, or hopelessly outdated magazines to read, to at least help pass the time. i spent my three hours trying to remind myself i could be leaving with a big fat bill i’d have no real way to pay, so it could be worse, and trying to keep hannah both amused and quiet. of course after all of our waiting and a trip to xray, turns out, it really was nothing, much like i had originally thought. ahhh hindsight. how much you suck. but i guess 3 hours in the ER for nothing, is better then putting her to bed and finding out the next morning she had a ruptured apppendix.

tomorrow i have the pleasure of getting up at 5:30, so i can be in town to pick up my friend by 6:30, so we can go wait in line in the dark and hopefully not too sub-zero temperatures, to sign the kids up for their next swimming session. we want a saturday class this time, which fill up fast, so we really have to get there early. on saturdays, the class sidney will be in and the class livie will be in, run back to back. one less weekly trip to town in crappy weather, i’m on board for, even if i have to freeze my ass off for half an hour. then it’s a trip to peterborough to do a favour for my step brother. ryan’s going to take his car in for an oil change, and i get to do some christmas shopping, so that’s fun i’m looking forward to.

the one thing i could do without. so many “obligations” and guilt can come with the holidays. and i know that ryan and i are all grown up and adult like now, but somewhere in there still lives the rebel. you know, the smoking, class skipping, leather wearing, hair dying, piercing and tattoo getting one, the one that says, YOU CAN’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO ( but with more curse words ) no matter how much you think you should be able to. so just because we “should” do something doesn’t always mean we will i guess.

and family is funny, and complicated. i’m very close to my family, especially on my mom’s side. i can conjure pleasant memories of every single aunt, uncle, cousin, grandparent etc. my family has always made real effort to stay close. even when distance was against us. there were long drives and kid exchanges, so we always had time with our cousins. there were always big family get togethers, with waffles and pictionary…..or turkey and presents……or coffee and cards and puzzles…..or cinnamon toast and board games. weekends at the cottage. weeks at my grandma’s in the summer. weekends in toronto. and it all continues. the get togethers just get bigger. i was told that four of my younger cousins only spent 2 weeks of the entire summer apart this year, with switching back between each others houses or all staying at the cottage together. so i guess when all that effort is put forth, and that long term bond is there, it makes it easier to make the effort on your part. plus, every one of them would do what ever they could to help you out, if you needed it, always ready to lend a hand, or offer a favour. that’s just what i have always known family to be.

but i know it isn’t always like that, some family want to only do the easy, high profile part of being “family” and none of the nitty gritty, so inevitably there are always the odd places your expected to go on the holidays that you wish you could get out of, only going to because you feel you should. and it is a major cause of stress. and there is nothing holidays need any more of, then sources of stress. so ryan and i decided a long time ago, that we were in control of our holidays. we do what we want to do, with our kids, and not what anyone thinks we should, or wants us to do. it really makes things much simpler. but once in a while it also causes friction. but i guess that is just another part of the holidays.

as for this weekend, big plans, play centre tomorrow for the morning, then an afternoon of christmas cookie planning, so we have a full list of ingredients needed, and hopefully on sunday i’ll get all the girls in their christmas dresses and get a picture for cards. it’s always a crap shoot. if we get a good one, i’ll do cards. if we don’t, i wont. the older they get, the easier it is to bribe them into sitting still and smiling for 10 minutes, but hannah is running a fever, so who’s to say how she’ll be by then.

and for me tonight, it’s labeling files for my dad in front of the tv. i managed to type and print a lot of labels this afternoon, while poor miss hannah had her 4 hour nap ! you know your toddler is running a fever when……..

well, december is finally upon us. we have spent the weekend picking away at the decorations. i guess i have a lot of decorations. i don’t know. i don’t feel like it’s tons compared to….say…..my mother. but compared to most people, i guess it’s a lot. so i have to give myself several days to get it done, a bit at a time. so far i’ve gotten all the garlands decorated, and little bits and pieces put out. the kids decorated their tree ( i am more then slightly compulsive about my perfectly decorated, red and silver tree, with many, one of a kind, sentimental decorations, and hey, i know that’s no fun for kids, so they also get their own small tree with blinking multicoloured lights and their very own decorations )  and i am enjoying unpacking everything even more as they years go by.

i have been collecting some of this stuff for a long time. as is evident by the bag all the strings of beads were in,  from the good old superfresh mart. that’s a “corner store” that was across from one of our apartments in toronto. you know, one of those awesome city corner stores. that is really a small grocery, convenience store, deli and farmers market all in one. that bag is from some time in the late 90’s. ryan and i had a good laugh last night when i pointed it out.

all that’s really left is the tree. my lights were probably that old as well, i think they were also in a superfresh mart bag, until last year. one string is toast. which leaves me one string short of a lit tree. so annoying.

so i abandoned the tree for now, and filled the advent calender instead. since i know there will be eager girls off the school bus tonight looking for their december one treat. once, i bought sidney the cardboard deal, with the little doors and the “chocolate” that is clearly only a few ingredients off of full on wax. because i think it’s fun and a nice tradition, the two things christmas should be about. but ewwwww. i ate one of those chocolates and never bought one again.

then a couple years ago, my mom gave us a big fabric one, with little pouches you fill yourself. perfect! so now it’s one of my favorite parts, i go out and scour the dollar stores and bulk store for little surprises small enough for the pouches, and we can mix it up so it’s not all candy, i also found stickers and christmas erasers and pencils and a few other little things. and candy….duh.

this year i also want the big bowl of mixed nuts, and a nutcracker. i always remember as a kid, having those, and clementines too. and my grandparents with their big bowl of ribbon candy. it’s those little things that are only around at christmas that really make it special, and i want the kids to remember those things too.

hannah will be awake soon, to meet my nap time goal of cleaning the kitchen as well as getting the calender done, i must now leave the internet.