All the Thanks and Givings

[Written Monday night around midnight before I realized I never uploaded Thanksgiving pictures from my phone to my computer and couldn't handle the task at 11:58. Last night involved margaritas and a tree lighting ceremony and I just couldn't do it then either. So the journey to actually publishing this post most reflects much of the post itself.]

I have an alarming-feeling amount of things to do. I was at joint witness interview with the FBI today where I'm not allowed to take notes and since I get fidgety when I can't move my hands I listened while writing out personal and work to do lists. I used multiple pages of my notebook. After missing a week of work for Disney and then having a partial week for Thanksgiving (including a day lost to another witness interview; a helpful interview, but a full day out of the office nonetheless), and then being sick at home on Friday, I have SO MUCH TO DO AT WORK. So much. I have eight cases right now. The all need something. Like my children, but there are 8 of them and I'm a single parent without childcare. I'm taking testimony in one next week and I need like four weeks to prepare for it. So there's that.

On the personal side I decided I should make photo books of our Disney trip because I have 500 pictures (culled down from the original 1200; the Disney Memory Maker pass is worth all the dollars) and it was a unique and special week in our lives and I think the kids would enjoy it. But they're huge projects. After 3 sick days on the couch post-Thanksgiving, I've made Landon's, am working on Claire's, and still need to start on Cora's. As long as I'm doing this nonsense I want them to be able to open them by Christmas and we leave for Colorado on the 23rd. I was also feeling stressed about using Cyber Monday to finish my Christmas shopping, but I just did that now. It's 10:30 p.m. and I haven't done anything else with my post-kids-in-bed-free-time, but my Christmas shopping is 95% complete for all the people in my life and that feels good.

And I decorated the house for Christmas this weekend. Since I didn't leave the house for 3 days, I wanted it to be festive. And I like to enjoy it as much as possible before we head out of town for the actual holiday. Cora calls it "our Christmas house" and it's delightful.

I ordered our Christmas cards on Saturday and updated our Christmas address labels yesterday, so that's just a shipping notice and one family project night away from completion.

I actually feel calmer for having typed that. Holidays-wise we're in a good place. Work-wise I remain overwhelmed. I did buy something for our group's white elephant party, so I can check that off. Basically, if I can do it via Amazon, I'm on it. If it requires reviewing 10,000 documents and preparing an outline, I'm going to have to get back to you after a few more pointless stress dreams.

I also very much want to finish my Disney recaps. I don't know if anyone is still reading along about our endless trip (we just did so! much! every! day!) but I adored that trip and know I will want to rehash it one day when I can't sleep at 2 a.m. I also have a draft "Disney Thoughts" post with just random things I was surprised by, planned for, didn't plan for, recommend, don't recommend. Totally not a true and detailed planning post (go talk to our amazing and free Disney planner for that), but more for packing, general planning, etc., that I need to finish because it's what I will send friends when they ask me about this later. And I just have thoughts and clearly enjoy typing them out and sharing them with the world.

But then Thanksgiving happened and we hosted my parents and brother and that was very fun and busy- I worked until Wednesday afternoon, cooked up a meal on Thursday, and then they left early Friday morning and I decided to get sick and wore the same sweat pants for 3 days while feverishly (literally) photo booking and not ever wearing a bra. It was a glamorous time. Cora did her usual morning, "Mommy you're so beautiful" and by Sunday morning I had to admit to myself it was a lie.

But Thanksgiving was fun!

My parents are still dealing with Harvey clean-up and rebuilding. So much has happened since then it's hard to remember that Houston is still struggling. People are still not in their homes. My mom's school situation is still terrible. The house now has walls, as of this week it has floors, the builder is working to match the missing lower cabinets to the still-in-place upper ones. There will be painting. Eventually it will look as it did early this year when they so proudly showed it off to us, but right now they're still in their 1-bedroom apartment, going to work and stopping by the house every evening to make decisions and check on the progress. It's still hard. It's still financially draining. It's still a lot. The holidays are not helping. They're good sports about it, but we were supposed to spend Thanksgiving there and after moving last Christmas, they were supposed to be hosting all of us for Christmas this year but instead we'll all be heading to Colorado to borrow a friend's generously loaned-out vacation home. So as with all of this, they're lucky in so many ways, but it still sucks and it's still hard and the overwhelming days of late August are not just washed away.

But Thanksgiving was fun. My children completely exhausted my brother by making him play tag and four-square and more tag and basketball and scootering and I don't even know what else because I was cooking.

He's fit, but he's not 3-kids-fit. I told him it's the latest workout craze. He fell asleep at noon on the couch.

Our meal was good, though I was dissatisfied with my turkey.

I was not dissatisfied with the homemade chex mix I made 3 times in 2 days (and then again on Sunday). I'm completely obsessed and can't believe I'd never made it before.

My parents are not loungers, so post-dinner found us playing hop scotch (after googling the rules) and basketball and probably more tag after dinner.

We decorated the tree later that night. They won't be putting up a tree this year, so I wanted to include them. Plus I just love looking at a sparkling tree.

The kids got their new Christmas pj's, another tradition I started by accident a few years ago and now the kids 100% love and expect.

Here, Claire and Cora had just told Landon he could be their dog.

Girls run the world and also this house.

Oh we also joined the 20th century and bought a 2nd TV to put in the main room of our house! I'd been flirting with the idea and decided to buy one when I was shopping with my mom on Wednesday night (TV's are SO much cheaper than they were when we bought our other one in 2007; like 1/4 as much, it's crazy) to give my dad and brother a project to mount and wire it on Thursday morning. They always need a project and I thought it would take some time but they had it done in like 20 minutes.

I have mixed feelings about it. I have no interest in changing our "no TV during the week" rule for the kids, but it's nice to be able to cozy up to a Christmas movie on a lazy Sunday afternoon and still be in the center of the house to do kitchen things (like sneak more chex mix) without feeling like I'm as far from the kids as possible. Plus they're really bad at filling me in on missed plot lines.

Getting a second TV also reminded us we've been meaning to cancel cable because we never watch it. So in one day we both embraced TV and rejected it and then didn't turn on either TV for the next two days because my Cyber Monday shopping required so much concentration.

In other areas, I'm delighted by Prince Harry's engagement to Meghan Markle. The Go Fug Yourself Royals Roundup is the best part of my Friday (besides the fact it's a Friday) and I feel like all my Regency Romance novel reading has made me an expert in all things royal. I enjoy the heck out of all of it.

I ordered three pairs of new snow boots and hope that one will fit. It's my early Christmas gift from myself and I'm very excited. The ones I purchased at Wal-mart for $15 in Steamboat Springs 3 years ago made my feet freeze into tiny blocks of ice when we went skiing in January, so I'm upping my game. We go to Colorado a lot, it occasionally snows in Dallas, I should have snow shoes. Or so I told myself as I pressed checkout.

I also need a new hair straightener. I hate my current one but used it for 3 years anyway because I felt bad about spending $80. I'm willing to spend another $80-100 but I would like to have one that seriously straightens curly/frizzy hair and that also won't explode in fire like the 3 reviews in a row I read for one of the Chis sold at Ulta. I welcome your recommendations.

Disney posts coming up as soon as I finish our Disney photo books. And sleep a little. It's midnight and I still need to read a bit. I hope you all had wonderful Thanksgivings, or at least some really good wine and snacks!