Finding Joy

 300/365

I'm really happy with this pink sweatshirt that I made at the beginning of the month. It's finally cool enough outside to wear it again.  "On Wednesdays, we wear pink." 

I needed to find some Joy today. 

I went over to Eric's Dad's to hang out with him while Mom ran for a haircut.  As soon as I arrived, Dad started to get worked up because of catheter trouble. As his bladder filled, he got more uncomfortable, and upset, and I couldn't do anything to help him.  Dad is the kind of guy who doesn't complain.  It's never been his nature, but prostate cancer has changed that.  Things are changing, and he doesn't like it. It was upsetting all around.  We didn't last 15 minutes on our own before we were planning a trip to the hospital.  And they weren't fast either, but don't get me started on that.  It was very PTSD for me of yelling at various doctors to "Fix The Baby!"  They didn't hop to "Fix Dad" either.  That upset me, and I try very hard to relieve Dad's stresses, not add to them. Mom got her haircut in record time and met us at the hospital.  Days like this I want to get up and go behind the counter, and fix things myself.  I don't have enough degrees to do that though.  Like I said, it was very frustrating. 

After a very stressful couple hours, Dad was ok, and got to come home. 

I got into the car, and just cried. 

A lot of stuff happened, and I cried all the way home. 

Normally, I can vent to Eric, but he was busy.  Buzzkill. 

At least the trees were pretty. 

It's probably our last beautiful day for a while.  It's supposed to rain the next couple days, then turn cold. I hope our Band contest this weekend doesn't get rained on. 

Meanwhile, Chris had the night off from band, and he was content to join Eric and I for an episode of Star Trek: Voyager.  I noticed as I was sitting there, how similar their focus faces are, the same slope of the forehead, and stern brow.  It's like they're related or something. :D 

They made me smile.  I'm so Blessed I have all my Boyz to make me smile, or I'd lose it entirely.

Finding Joy Wherever we Can

 308/366

The theme is 2 p.m. 

Christopher had a Therapy appointment, so I had to pick him up at school. 

 

A tree on Odell called to me. 

As I was driving, to pick up Christopher, I spied this bright beautiful tree.  

Of course, I was driving and it would be slightly illegal for me to pause on a busy street and take a picture of a tree. On the way back however, no one was coming, and I had the stretch of road to myself for a moment.  It was a sign.  So I leaned over Chris, and we both juggled the phone out the window, I tipped it until it looked right.  I needed that slight bit of sky with the gorgeous golden tree. 

It got warm today, quite warm this afternoon, in the high 60s.  So when I went to get Chris at school, I was able to put some sandals on.  It was not a sock day, even if it was November.  I didn't think these toes would see the light of day, however, the weather says otherwise.  

I had to dress in bright happy clothes today, and find the beauty and joy where I could. 

My heart hurts and is heavy for all my friends who are afraid of how the election is going. I'm afraid too, but for them.  I recognize my privilege.  I want to be an ally, a friend, and a support more. 

And no matter what the election results, I'm going to do that. 

Outside

6/366

The theme of the day was Outside.

What a Sunset! 

The kids last day of Winter Break was today, and they didn't want to do much.  

They wanted to play video games. 

I limited their screen time to 1 movie, and 1 1/2 hours of Video game time. 

That was reward for being amazing at the dentist's office in the morning. 

Then they had Kumon in the evening. 

When I returned from Kumon, Eric arrived home shortly thereafter, and he was chatting with me.  

In the middle of his sentence, I stopped.  I grabbed my phone and ran outside to snap these from the front porch.  

Not bad for no filter pic from my phone.  

Someday I want to learn how to paint.  Like Bob Ross or something, just park me with an easel and paints, and I'll make happy little trees. 

I'll paint sunsets like this one. 

Christmas at the Zoo

I told this boys this will be the last year we have a Zoo Membership.  I seem to be the only one interested in going.  It's an awfully expensive membership for us to maintain and not use.   I told them I wanted to go to ZooBoo.   They didn't.  Two days after the last opportunity to attend Zooboo, Sam came downstairs, crying, saying he wanted to go to ZooBoo.  Too late.
I told him, wait, and when I ask who wants to go to Christmas at the Zoo, say Yes.   Last night it was 50 something degrees outside, our plans got bumped from dinnertime to lunchtime, and we had the evening open.  So I asked.   Sam immediately said Yes.  Eric and Jacob said No.  (Free Will and all that.) And as I was backing out of the garage, Chris said Yes, and hopped in the car. 

So the three of us hit the Zoo, at 5 pm, to do the Christmas at the Zoo.  And we had a Wonderful time!

It felt a little strange only have two of my boys at the Zoo. 

I definitely missed Jacob.  

The only perk I could find was that I have enough hands to hold hands when there are only two.  

They had a tunnel of lights, blue and white, for us to walk through. 

It was a time warp.  

I bet Eric would've loved it. 

The boys didn't care much at first.  

But then later, they asked to go through again.  

So I think they did like it.  

I sure did.  

We opted not to visit Santa.  

But we did make it to Mrs. Claus's kitchen. 

Mommy's a sucker. 

I totally bought the kids cookies to decorate.  

The world's most expensive sugar cookie. 

Not at all surprising, but Sam chose to color his green.  

Lots of Green food coloring.

Chris desperately wanted to be able to decorate in his favorite color, blue. 

But they didn't have it.  

Although all the lights in that room were pink, so he picked up a very dark bottle.  We thought it could be blue, but later as he was using it, it was very clear, it was black. 

Chris made a penguin face with black, white, and orange icing. 

Sam made a green ornament with chocolate jimmies. 

We even got a quick picture with Mrs. Claus. 

She was as nice as she could be. 

Maybe I can be Mrs. Clause when I grow up. 

I wonder if Eric would be my Santa. 

I'm going to have some rocking white hair here in a few years.... hmmm.

Then we stopped to eat our cookies. 

So Much Food Coloring. 

Chris's face turned black. 

I took this picture, and he didn't believe me.  

But it was black, I couldn't even see his braces. 

Can you?

Then I drank our cocoa. 

It was HOT!  

And the kids ate their cookies, with so much food coloring, their teeth were grossing me out. 

They thought that maybe drinking the cocoa would 'rinse the food coloring away'. 

Is that what we call it now?  Rinsing cocoa?  Nope.  

But it was so hot, I opened it up to cool, and we split it.  

We got the expensive cup of cheer (aka cocoa) to share, and we were allowed to get free refills for it. I got a total of three 'cups of cheer' by stopping all over the place. 

It was so hot though, at one stop we asked for ice.  That worked wonderfully! 

Did you know reindeer and caribou are the same? 

Yeah, they are the same species!  

It's just that caribou aren't domesticated, and reindeer are, and have been for the last 2000 years or so, so they are smaller.  Though there are some groups of reindeer that have gone wild, much like the wild horses in America.  

Woohoo! 

We made it to the Zoo and actually saw an animal. 

I was worried we wouldn't. 

But reindeer are surprisingly sweet. 

I mean, who wouldn't love those flews! 

I heard  a joke today that I'll share along these lines.  

Apparently, the male reindeer antlers fall off every season.  The females don't.  

So that would mean that in all the pictures of Santa pulling reindeer, they are all female.  No wonder they are strong enough to pull a fat man on a sleigh around the world in one night and not get lost. ;)

Meanwhile, these males were completely enchanting. 

So I bought cookies and cocoa, and shared them, and they didn't go bonkers.  

I thought the dolphin lights were pretty neat. 

They were even having dolphin shows at 7 pm at night, I don't think so. 

It seems awfully dark and late to work, if I was a dolphin. 

OK, this cracked me up.  

The flamingos were a. Out!  2. Wide Awake. d. Surrounded by pink lights.

We three trees. 

The kids got a kick out of these trees labeled, we three trees. 

3 trees coordinated to music.  

I think the dancing music light shows are their favorite parts.  

Another real life animal. 

An orangutan was out, and he was very interested in all the kids watching him. 

It was like he was in there watching us, more than we watched him, he was moving around trying to get a better view at us, more than vice versa.  Also very sweet.  

Some days orangutans seem sweeter than these monkeys. 

My favorite tree. 

I loved this green, white, and blue lit tree. 

It came off turquoise. I loved it! 

The boys and the last tree as we headed home. 

We were only there for 2 hours.  And that was fine. 

That's why I enjoy having the Zoo Membership.  

I've decided to take a few years off from having it.  I think I'll miss it. 

My sweet boys.

This tree was swarming with people, so this was as close as I could get to a photo with just them. 

I would've waited a bit longer, but they were Ready to Go. 

I didn't even have to fight them. 

They loved these spinning snowflake projections. 

Every time we saw them, rather than just notice the beauty, they had to stand on them, run with them, dance with them. 

That was kind of beautiful in and of itself. 

I stopped for one last cocoa too. ;)

But since they were sugared up, we got to do one last walk through the Tunnel for the road. 

I love their dancing. 

They said it reminded them of a time warp, or warp drive.  

So clearly, we were going to arrive in another time once we were through.

Sweet little silly geese. 

And that was the Perfect note to end on. 

Trees

Something I learned about Trish when she was visiting, she loves trees, and every night she feels Called to go out and watch the sunset.  

Now that Thanksgiving is over, it's time for us to gear up for Christmas. 

But God has sent us some beautiful weather this week, and beautiful sunsets. 

I like watching the sun set from my front porch. 

Meanwhile, inside, Eric got the big family tree up and lit this past weekend. 

But it's a little hard to get the kids all together, and behaving enough to put on the ornaments. 

So Mommy gets to play with her phone, with bokeh, background lights.  

I'm happy to break out the big guns this holiday. 

I love my Christmas Spirit, it's a wonderful combination of Orange, Cinnamon, and Black Spruce. 

Yum!

This is my new favorite picture from this week. 

My phone wasn't focusing on the Christmas tree, so I got a screen full of bokeh lights, and I hit Snap, and got this beautiful shot!  I have no idea how it happened.  But I like it!

I did get the upstairs snowflake tree decorated today. 

I was rather proud of myself, since I had a bunch of other kid drama (one kid to orthodontist, and the other requires daily visits to the school to give him eye drops.) I haven't been able to get much done this week.  Still, I love this blue and silver tree. 

And I unpacked our Disney tree decorations after Eric set it up. 

It seems to me, there could be more room on this tree for Disney ornaments. 

On this day, in 2009, we took the kids on their first trip to Walt Disney World, to celebrate all Christopher's tube and ostomy triumphs. It doesn't seem like it's been 8 years, but it has. 

It must be time to go back.