Christmas ornaments

I want to share a tradition that I made up for my kids, that seems to continue to resonate with them, and one that I think they will do with their kids.

Each year Santa brings each child an ornament that is found on the Christmas tree Christmas morning.  The ornament is of Santa himself, and each has the kid's name and the year sharpied somewhere on the back.  

So, every Christmas since they were born, they have received an ornament; at this point my eldest is 26 so she has her 26th ornament coming this year. 

Needless to say, our tree has become a Santa themed tree just due to the shear numbers of Santa ornaments there are, (we have three kids) and it is amazing that no two are alike. When the kids were small the ornaments were soft, unbreakable Santa's, and as they grew and became involved with activities Santa would reflect their current passion; dancing or wearing a soccer kit, or drinking from a stein...  To this day, they are excited to see their past Santa's on the tree and hunt for the new ones, first thing Christmas morning.  

If you decide to do something like this with your family you will find it amazing that some year's you can't find Santa ornaments:   snowmen are in, or cardinals.... and so then you start the hunt earlier in the year to be on the safe side.  Also, due to this on going need, you visit Christmas stores on your vacations in foreign lands ( Montreal, Canada was ours) looking for unique Santa's, and  "the hunt" becomes very pleasurable if you do it early.  If you wait until now and start looking, that will be the year there are none to be found and you will be panicking!  

I know people who have taken this idea and done snowmen, or birds (not limited to cardinals) or snowflakes... whatever you decide be sure you can create one in the event of a barren year at the stores....

When the girls have a home of their own and feel they are ready, I will give them their special tub of ornaments so they have a start on their tree decorating, and I will have to be sure to get a smaller tree, until I start collecting Santa's for myself.

Hot, chic window treatments- paper shades- really!

We have been renovating our 1920's craftsman house for awhile now, and as we work on a room we take everything out.  But  it feels very naked and exposed working in there with the windows just bare and yet, we don't want to put up anything that will get ruined... the perfect answer?  Paper shades.

For about $3 you can get paper shades from Home Depot or Lowe's and cut them to the size of your window, regular scissors do it.  They come with a very sticky top band that you literally press onto the wood trim and voila! Instant privacy.  They are accordion style and actually look nice from the outside- they also come with 2 clips that you can use to "open " the shades.  My favorite is when you put one clip in the center having folded the shade about 1/3 of the way up, and it makes a pretty fan look.

My daughter came home and said one of her friends who has a very nice home in Oyster Bay, LI uses these on all his windows- and has them set up in the fan look!  Haha!

So when you are driving about looking at homes, know that some of those pretty window treatments are really just paper folded in a clever way.  

Tip:  IKEA has them that are actually something a bit nicer for $4- live it up!

Making your gifts

For this Holiday Season our family decided we would all make our gifts to each other.Homemade gifts, sincere movement?  maybe... anyway:
Some rules:
it can't be a regift of a bought item
it can be something new that you create on, modify and make into something else
it should be something the person might actually want ( I added that rule)

We have had a tradition for years of making a "family gift" each year that we produced ourselves, and gave to the extended family.  When the kids were small we did a lot of painting of items like umbrellas, t-shirts, sweatshirts, etc.  But we also created works of art culminating in a mosaic yard glass ball" for each family from old bowling balls.  It was a great family project each year, even when we were crazy busy, we all would look forward to it, and create something for about 25 people.
When my oldest went off to college we decided it was just too hard when she got home on the 23rd of December, to continue the practice, but we all loved the experience and talk about the various gifts often, especially this time of year.

Since this year some of us are not making much money,  we decided making homemade gifts was a good alternative.  What I have discovered is that Pinterest is an amazing place to find great ideas- some even have instructions of how to do things, and I have actually seen some of the items we did listed as cool christmas gifts!  So, I think the trend to make christmas gifts is a national movement, and if any of you are also making some, if not all of your gifts, let me know.

I am excited about the gifts I have decided to make, I just wish I had another month!  I will take pictures when they are complete and maybe put them on pinterest too!   ( although I am not quite sure how to do that...)  Here's to the Homemade craft movement!

House Paint buying

So, we have been redoing our home of 28 years- many of the rooms never got finished as we were living in it with 3 daughters, 2 or more animals,  and working full time.  But now, we are insulating, having the floors redone and I am in charge of painting/wall papering/decorating the various rooms .

Now , we don't live in a mansion, but we have 11 small rooms and a hallway to deal with.  Over the 2013 winter between cardiac arrests and trips to Africa, we got 4 of those rooms done.  During the summer months we did a lot of work on the outside, restoring decks, and painting the trim, redoing the front windows that were installed wrong a year ago (don't get me started!), had our laundry room rebuilt literally from the ground up, and somewhere in there insulating the attic and basement!  whew!  This fall, besides siding around the now correctly installed windows (pretty much, don't get me started!) we have finished the laundry room- it is almost complete, we still have to put in a cabinet but just haven't picked it out yet, and we are redoing the three rooms in the front- the Library, the front entrance foyer and the playroom.

Which brings me to this:  have you been to Home Depot's paint area lately?  They have this amazing machine that can make any color.  I mean, really, any color.  You bring it in and they will match it.  They have hundreds of paint samples with great names, but really, if you come back 6 months later they won't know that name... they have moved on to the next trending colors. .. You can bring in a chip of the paint you know fondly as Fawn, but soooooo much better is the code that is printed on the sticker on the top of each can they give you.

Tip:  as soon as you buy a paint, take a picture of that label with your phone.  Then, when 6 months- 2 years from now when you want that same ceiling color, and they don't recognize Fawn, and of course, the label has paint drippings right were their code used to be; you can find the photo in your phone and they can punch in the numbers...Because frankly, it is all about the numbers, not the cute name.

The one downside to being able to create any color is they have so many colors to look at- there must be 70 whites!  And each is ever so slightly different, and so the challenge of finding the perfect one, the one meant for your space, is a daunting one.  I kinda wish in my heart there were only 50 colors total. You then would make do with one of them and be done so much quicker.  But I suspect there is no reversing this trend, so we forge ahead, in search of the perfect room colors, and hope we love what we wind up with....So far we have been happy so, yay for us!

November seems like February

Soooooo, we have had cold like February for awhile now, Buffalo is getting hammered with 7 ft. of snow, we have had flurries in the air for days, and its November 21st?  Really????  Yes, this isn't all that unusual, but this year, uncharacteristically, the trees hadn't dropped their leaves before we left for California on November 4th, and when we got back,  it had already snowed and all the leaves were buried underneath.  Now normally I would just say, that is fine, I will consider it mulch for the plants, but somehow this is not how I feel this year.  I feel like I want to get the leaves up off the grass, put it on the gardens for the mulching effect, and haul the rest to the towns leaf disposal pile.  But I can't.  They say it will be 60 on Monday- that should melt the snow and reveal the leaves, but they are also saying rain and frankly, I don't feel like trying to get sopping wet leaves off the ground and over to the Town leaf pile.  So I suspect I will have to be comforted with the  notion that some of the leaves are actually on my gardens, that the remainder may miraculously dry out in some stretch of unseasonably warm weather in January, at which point I can haul them off to the leaf pile.  

Life NOW

I have decided to begin this blog again, as it has been a very long time since I wrote here.  I realized that since the last time I wrote my wonderful husband of 26 years has had not one, but two cardiac arrests, both of my parents have passed away, and I resigned my job for many reasons but the main one was:  I just wasn't leaning in anymore.

Yoga in Sedona, AZ

Wow, lots of changes to my external world, and to my internal world as well.  I took up Yoga, traveled to various places including the Grand Canyon with my husband- what an amazing place! and went to Africa on a safari-all life changing  events.  Life changing
? How?  Subtle ways, I seem to hold them all inside of me now and use the serenity and strength  of each place, each yoga position, to give me inner peace.  I  also decided to run in the Pit Run- originally the 10 K was my goal, but with the second heart event happening in this year, I decided to curb my enthusiasm to the 5 K.  I am proud to say I made it and immediately wished I had done the 10K- but have also decided that I will push to improve to be able to do it in 2015.

I have been working with Raph on fixing our home of 27 years ( between heart events)  and find I have some skills and mostly just manage to get it done. We are taking each room and "finishing" it for the first time, really, and we both are enjoying the creative challenges to restoring an old house.

I have been looking for what is next for me/us.  Need to make money but don't want to just get a job- and we are looking for purpose in what we do...

 So, I am Middle America still stands.   I think I am still very middle America.  I think so many aging baby boomers are still looking for meaning, trying to keep in shape, working to keep their relationships strong and loving, and have dealt with aging/dying parents, kids leaving the nest and maybe returning for some period, etc.

I plan to write here 3 times a week- some will be advise on child rearing, juggling aging parents needs with work and family, and some will be more introspective about where I am now- because where I am is where most folks are of a certain age, and maybe there will be some comfort knowing we are not alone, maybe a community can rise up and we can offer the millennial's advise/inspiration to help smooth their path a bit.

I hope you enjoy my musing, learn some from my trials and tribulations, and continue to follow me and suggest others follow too- lets build this community together.