I've been pretty behind on all things in life it seems these last few months. And somehow despite not achieving all my goals--personal, professional and otherwise--the time has flown right by. At any rate, while I still need to put together a post with pictures of our fabulous amazing wonderful "babymoon" vacation to Mexico, I wanted to post a quick update.
Yesterday we got back into Chicago after Thanksgiving with my folks in Racine, which was nice and low key this year because it wasn't the whole clan gathering at Grandma's, it was just Terry and me, Robyn and Andy (her boyfriend), Mom and Dan, and my stepdad's sister and son. Even still mom managed to put together a totally impressive spread including a nice roasted turkey, mashed potatoes with gravy, etc. My sister and I both eagerly drooled over the sweet and sour cucumbers and apple cranberry relish (both longstanding traditions that date to my Great-Grandma Richter).
On our way home we hopped off the metra to say hi to our friends Lynn and Zack in Waukegan. My allergies to cats and dogs went stratospheric and pretty soon Lynn and Zack were graciously packing us into their second car--a lovable 1995 Corolla named Rufus--to get me back home and to enable us to pick up our Christmas Tree.
Now we pause while I do a little happy dance....Okay I'm back. Have I mentioned that I LOVE Christmas? Emphatically ridiculously love everything about the holiday season. If I had my druthers I'd be blaring holiday music from about June 15th, but out of respect for Terry's sanity I keep it under wraps until the day after Thanksgiving. But since we were out of the country for all the major holidays last year, I had something like two full years of Christmas spirit all pent up.
We took Rufus to Home Depot where we scrutinized a variety of trees for longer than I care to admit. But picking out a tree is a hefty duty! Its like the five points of picking a fine diamond: you have to consider color, shape, fullness, evenness, and scent. We finally thought we had a winner, so Terry (manly manly) hefted the 6.5" Douglas fir over his head and toted it to the checkout where they give the bottom a little buzz. The guy asked if we wanted some of the lowest branches trimmed so it would fit into the tree stand and (stupidly) I said yes. Well, three buzzes of the saw later we stood it back up only to discover it now looked like a man without pants on. The bottom of the tree was hideously bare. With a pitiful apologetic look at the buzz saw guy, we went back into the fray to pick another tree.
We found a great tree, and when we got it home wound up putting it into the stand about sixteen times trying to get the thing to stand upright. I had just about resigned myself to the leaning tower of Christmas when we realized that we needed to trim one of those pesky lower branches and viola! A perfect tree. I think somewhere around effort number nine (when the drill and saw first made their appearance, as did several efforts to shim things with cardboard), Terry lost his patience. But bless him he held on until we got it right.
Today we braved the sleet and flurries to head out to the mall to try to get some more Christmas ideas for Terry, who has so far been a slow starter on his Christmas list. We took several hot cocoa breaks, which made the experience all the more pleasurable.
And I also had what I consider to be a pregnancy milestone: for the first time a total stranger at a store said to me "So, are you expecting a little boy or a little girl?" And then later on the way home we stopped at the grocery store and the check out girl said "Hey Mama!" to me. And after all my bump envy and all the weeks of waiting, I have to say that at least so far, it is just as fun and nice as I thought it would be. Maybe I'll get tired of it eventually, I don't know. But for today, it really really made me smile.
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