Actual Unretouched Photo

So, we’re getting our house ready to put on the market.  I’ve had the kitchen counter-tops redone and new vinyl put in the laundry room.  I bought a new kitchen sink and a new toilet.  A few days ago, a guy installed a new stove.  There’s a new dishwasher sitting in the living room waiting for a guy to hook it up on Wednesday.  A nice young man installed two new light fixtures.  A long-suffering friend came over on very short notice to help us put up the new hood over the range.

And for a couple of weeks now, I’ve had a man here painting the interior walls.

He was due to arrive this morning at 9 a.m.  I worked last night until almost 2 a.m. . . . went to sleep at 2:30 a.m. . . . and woke up very reluctantly on a non-school day at ten minutes until nine.

The painter finally arrived at 10:20 a.m.  No, he did not call and let me know he would be late.

He was here until almost 7 p.m.  And while he’s a great guy and a meticulous painter, I am weary of having strange men in my house.

Spiffing up the house to sell it is a pain in the neck and also makes me wonder why in the world I didn’t spiff it up earlier.   Other than the fact that it’s a huge ordeal and inconvenience.

Next up?  Making arrangements for an appliance store to come and pick up my very old freezer.  But first I have to defrost it and clean up the Coke explosion that resulted from two of my kids forgetting cans of Coke in it last week.

Yes, it’s fun to be me.

Last year was a year of uncertainty.

This year has a little more structure . . . but much of it remains shrouded in a giant cloud of the unknown.

Frankly, I’m not fond of being unable to see what’s going to happen next.  I’m more of a planner.  I like to line things up in alphabetical order and sort things from tallest to smallest.  And this year is a gigantic ball of tangled yarn that is too big to hold, let alone untangle.

Well.  So.  There’s that.

Meanwhile, the painter will be here at 9 a.m. and I’m so very sad about that because as it turns out, tomorrow there’s no school (still?) and it would be a perfect Sleep-In Day but since I thought there was school until a short while ago, the painter has already received permission (from me!) to come at 9 a.m.  He’ll be painting the upstairs bathroom and possibly my 8-year old daughter’s room, a fact that makes me want to cry because her room is in complete disarray and that means that tomorrow morning not only will I be unwillingly awake but I will be sorting through the debris on her floor, wondering what kind of mother allows a child to have such a sloppy room.

Good night.  More tomorrow unless I am dead from lack of sleep.

Driving down the road with teenagers, I had the following conversation with one teenager:

Teen:  ” . . . so I was thinking we could use that song as a platelet for our song.”

Me:  ” . . . a platelet?  Do you mean a template?”

Teen:  “Uh.  Yeah, template, whatever.”

Me, smiling:  “Do you even know what a platelet is?”

Teen:  “Yeah . . .  It’s a really small plate.”

Me, instantly hysterical:  “A really small plate?!”

Teen:  “What?”

Me:  “A platelet is a kind of blood cell . . .”  [Note: Slightly inaccurate, but still, close enough.]

Teen:  ” . . . ”

I had begun to laugh so hard I was crying . . . I couldn’t breathe.

Now, days later, all I do is think . . . platelet, really small plate . . . and I am amused all over again.

That is all.

First of all, I want to offer you a chance to win a $50 Bank of America gift card.  All you have to do is leave a tip for getting back time during the holiday season.  I will pick a winner on (or about) Christmas!

AND THE WINNER IS: #3, Judy from Anybody Home. I used Random.org to pick the number, but I can’t figure out how to put that little box here so you can see.  Anyway, you’ll have to trust me!

Thanks for all your comments . . . hope you had a Merry Christmas!

*

You may have noticed that I am busy.  Really, really busy.  How do I fit everything in?  (Cue commercial break now, please.)

First of all, I prioritize.  I figure out what is most important and focus on that first.  Stuff that isn’t vital may get neglected.  (For instance, who has time or inclination to dust?)

I also make lists on my desk calendar.  While I do depend on my iPhone for many things, I depend on my handwritten calendar for information and scheduling.  (Then I might put an alert on my iPhone calendar but I like to see things written down.)

Finally (and the point of this compensated post), I handle all my banking online.  I pay all my bills, including my mortgage using the trusty internet.  Furthermore, I use Mobile Banking, so I receive alerts about my balances.

Bank of America offers these helpful solutions:

• Receive instant account balance alerts : Don’t worry about making an extra stop to the bank during all of your holiday shopping.  Keep track of your spending by using Bank of America’s Online and Mobile Banking and receive instant alerts if your balance is running low.

• Bank on the go: It’s easy to set up mobile banking and secure access to your money wherever you are. Download the mobile banking app and you can check balances, transfer money, pay bills, and locate ATMs.  Sign up for text banking and you’ll be able to send a text message to get your balance instantly in a reply.
• Make quick and easy deposits: Holiday means a lot of extra work, so eliminate the labor of depositing checks.  With Bank of America’s Deposit Image ATMs, you simply feed checks or cash into the ATM with no envelopes or deposit slips required.  You get images of your checks and a list of cash deposited on your receipt as proof.
• Save a trip to the bank: Don’t worry about making an extra stop to the bank during all of your holiday shopping.  Keep track of your spending by using Bank of America’s online banking: set up alerts, check balances, and transfer money.

I just heard about this cool MapQuest feature . . .

• A lesser-known “route planner” feature on MapQuest helps you save both time and money by mapping out an entire journey – with multiple stops – all in one convenient step.  You can add up to 25 destinations along any route, and the tool gives you the fastest route.

Bank of America has recently developed a Twitter handle called @BofA_Tips . . . so follow them for even more tips and ideas.

Good luck and thanks for participating in this giveaway!

This contest is hosted and fulfilled solely by Actual Unretouched Photo.

“I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of Bank of America and received a Bank of America preloaded gift card to thank me for taking the time to participate.”

Dental visit.  Ouch.

Hair highlighted.

Husband returned.

Left on a late jet-plane for New York City.

Room service.

Working online in hotel.

Wednesday meetings, meetings, working, office party, cab-ride, Rockefeller Center, Times Square, John’s Pizzeria, cab-ride.

Thursday home but not before meeting an amazing car-driver.  Then work.

Friday, husband gone.

Santa!

Saturday?  Blank spot.

Sunday?  Church, nap . . . what else?

Today?  Sister, shopping, traffic, painter, nap, work, lunar eclipse.

* * *
I will be back to fill in this post with actual writing and details.  But tonight I am too tired and at 10 a.m. the painter will be back to paint my kitchen, entry-way, hallway and living room.

Since you were last here:

1)  My four children had early morning dental appointments.  One had a cavity.
2)  A guy came and installed new laminate counter-tops in my kitchen and master bathroom and new vinyl in my laundry room and adjoining bathroom.  He arrived at 8 a.m. two separate mornings.
3)  I painted the laundry room and adjoining bathroom (midnight to 3 a.m. . . . I vow to never paint again.)
4)  I participated in two telephone conference calls with my company.
5)  I worked my regular forty hours.
6)  I had a temporary crown installed in my jaw.  Ouch and ouch and ouch again.
7)  My hair colorist had mercy on me and colored the uppermost portion of my hair so I have no obvious roots.
8)  My husband arrived home for three days!

Tomorrow?  I am leaving my house at 5 a.m. (that is four hours and twenty minutes from now) to catch a 7:30 a.m. flight to New York where I have a work meeting and then will attend the company Christmas party.  I know.  I am very fancy.  Well, not really.  But I will be in Manhattan on business anyway.

While I’m gone my husband will be here.  You’ll recall he’s already working in Southern California.  This is the first time he’s been “home” since October.  It was nice to see him for awhile and to hear him snore while I worked.

And now I’m going to bed to get a hoped-for solid four hours of sleep.

Okay, look.  I had quite a busy weekend visiting my husband and our new church in California.  I wanted to tell you all about it.

But I can’t because it’s 1:30 a.m. and I just finished working and I’m exhausted and at 8 a.m. a guy is going to arrive to install new countertops and at 8:30 a.m. two of my kids have to be at the dentist and then I have to take one of them to school (and bring the other home) and then at 11:00 a.m. I have an important work-related telephone conference and I just don’t time to tell you all about it.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll have time.

Don’t hold your breath.

What did you do last weekend?

Lucky me!  I was chosen to receive a Hickory Farms Party Planner gift box.  It included three varieties of Summer Sausage, five different cheeses, and Sweet Hot and Cranberry mustards.

I admit that I thought it would be nice to save this complimentary box to use as a Christmas gift–it’s just the kind of thing I like to receive for Christmas. So I put it on a high shelf and thought about who I might give it to.

But things didn’t turn out as I planned.

Two weeks ago, we’d just returned from a weekend trip to Texas.  The next day, snow began to fall.  By afternoon, we were stuck at home . . . and we had no milk, no bread and nothing fun to eat.

My kids acted like they were dying of hunger.  How great was their suffering . . . until one of them spotted the Hickory Farms box.

I allowed them to open it up and by morning, all the Summer Sausage was gone.  Half the cheese was gone.  And the kids were very, very happy.

The moral of this story?  Buy one Hickory Farms box for your family and another to give as a gift!  For each Party Planner Gift Box sold, Hickory Farms will donate $5* to Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry Campaign, a national nonprofit that is ending childhood hunger in America.

Oh, and I should mention that the packaging was totally recyclable, which is important to me.  In fact, I saved the empty box to use for another gift!

Additionally, Hickory Farms provides free military shipping to military APO/FPO addresses on select products, allowing our troops across the globe to share in holiday traditions. Visit hickoryfarms.com to learn more about these two opportunities as well as the variety of gift boxes available!

“I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of Hickory Farms and received a signature gift box from Hickory Farms to thank me for taking the time to participate.”

*Maximum donation $500,000, offer valid thru 1/31/11.

It’s a strange thing to wake up every morning and do ordinary things when life has become unmoored.

My husband has been living in another state for almost two months now.  We saw him a week and a half ago and we’ll see him again very soon, but it’s still utterly strange.  I’ve lived with him longer than anyone else in the world and it’s odd to be apart.  (I miss him, even though it’s so easy to make the bed in the mornings without him untucking and flinging the covers everywhere while sleeping.)

The next time I put up a Christmas tree, it will be in a different house in a different state. I’m now marking time by packing away things we won’t need again until next time this year.  Yet, this certainty is draped with uncertainty because we have no idea where exactly we’ll be living.

In the meantime, it’s like we’re still here but not really . . . and yet, we haven’t gone anywhere at all.

We are living in the space between our past and our future.

If you really think about it, though, we are all living in that in between space.  We just don’t recognize it in the clutter and noise of daily life.  So I suppose I should be grateful for this awareness.

As I drove down the rainy street today, I thought about how much I will miss the Douglas firs and the emerald green of our wet climate.

I’m trying to live in the moment.  I really am.  It’s just that I find the moment so fleeting and elusive.

And I hate not knowing exactly what my future looks like.  I guess I’ll know soon enough.

For now, though, I am going to try to be here, heart and soul, in the moment.

So, yesterday I cooked the whole Thanksgiving dinner.  I used to think it was a semi-big deal to cook Thanksgiving dinner, but now I know how to make gravy from scratch and mash potatoes without asking the nearest woman for instructions.

I made pies the night before (pumpkin, pecan and peanut butter chocolate).  I even made the pie crust from scratch.  Be very impressed.  (Not really.)

My mom came over and we six sat at the table and before I knew it, the youngest boy ate and fled to his video games and eventually, my mom and I and my daughter sat at the cleared-off table and looked through the Black Friday ads.  Grace circled things she really, really, really wanted from Kmart.  I never, ever shop at Kmart, though.  I hate Kmart.

I had to work today but between shifts Grace and I dragged out the Christmas decorations, unpacked the pre-lit tree and like magic, the tree was up.  I love that tree.

I ran out of energy before every decoration was put in its place but we made good progress.  I’m glad because that means tomorrow it will be a fairly easy task.

The snow melted . . . hooray.  I never thought I’d be so happy to see forty degree temperatures and rain.

And now, the weekend begins.  Hooray.