merry christmas from the family

christmas at the family homestead was pretty low key this year. it seems that as you get older and people have commitments to other families (in-laws and such) that you don't get quite as worked up about christmas morning as you used to. it's still a wonderful time of course to get together and spend time with eachother and celebrate our Savior's birth. there are still surprises to be had as well as you open up all of your presents from friends and family near and far.

mom and i made a big christmas breakfast since everyone was getting together in the morning before heading out to see other family.

jeff and jesse came by...they really are happy people i promise :)

breanne, seth and i

dad doesn't need to by books for a while, he's pretty set

after breakfast and present opening we just hung around the house. family called from florida, indiana, california and up north in bothell so we got to share christmas with extended family even if it was by phone.

i hope you all had a wonderful christmas and got to spend some quality time with your families.

only 354 more days until next christmas!!

wonderful wintery wishes

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** * ** ** * **** I LOVE SNOW*** * *** ** * * * *** ** **

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every year i wait very impatiently for the first snow fall on the valley floor. usually this doesn't happen until about mid january. however, this year God has shown His love for the people of the willamette valley and given us snow before christmas. did you know that we may actually have a

WHITE CHRISTMAS!!!!???

it's true. according to the weather channel 10 day forecast, we could have snow on the ground christmas day. this hope makes me so happy!

things i love about snow:

• the way it crunches under your feet like popcorn
• everything becomes glisteny and glittery
• even at midnight, it is so light outside because every beam of light reflects off of the snow
• except for little kids playing, it gets so quiet outside

i hope that you get to enjoy the snow! remember to drive slowly and carefully if you go out on the streets and never underestimate the road conditions :)

christmas!

i love christmas! december 26th is the worst day of the year for me because it means that i have to wait another 364 days for christmas to be here again. i do try to savor the holiday season though by decorating my house, doing fun holiday things and listening to inordinate amounts of christmas music.
this year was fun setting up for christmas because N and D were here to share it with me; whereas last two years i have been living alone. last friday i posed the question of going to get a christmas tree and N became very excited about the thought of WALKING to the corner to get our tree and CARRYING it back down mill plain blvd. as crazy as it sounded....it also sounded fun :) so we bundled up and headed out. we had walked this same distance during the summer going to sheridan's for ice cream but let me tell you, the walk seemed a lot longer when it was 35 degrees out versus the hot summer afternoon! we walked around for a bit looking for the 'perfect' tree. after about 20 minutes of looking we found the one....we named him "gap tooth" because he has quite a gap at the top between some of the branches. the guy at the tree stand made fun of us for carrying the tree home and kept trying to convince us that we needed help. we told him he was a chauvenist and that women can do anything they set their minds to and walked off...carrying our tree.

maggie had to have a say in what tree we picked too...after all, she is a member of this household! ;)

D...cute as always (p.s. she's getting married in less than a week!!! woo hoo! )

i am not excited at all to be christmas tree hunting. nope, not at all.

N dancing to the christmas music with Doug...doug fir that is!

we must have been quite a site to see, walking down mill plain with our christmas tree in tow! i commented that all that was missing from this norman rockwell-ian scene was a few inches of snow on the ground :)

we got it home just fine and set it up right away. i love trees that go all the way up to the ceiling but that aren't too fat around, so this tree is perfect! gap tooth and all :)

mom dates

on saturday N, J and i took our moms for a nite out on the town! first we went to the keller auditorium to see the oregon ballet theater perform george balanchine's 'the nutcracker'. it's the only performance on the west coast of this choreography and it was gorgeous. there is nothing like hearing beautiful life orchestra accompaniment to this classic ballet.
after the nutcracker we took our moms to pf chang's in the pearl for dinner. please keep in mind that these were all new experiences for our mothers!! first time at the ballet, first time at the restaurant...first time eating the yummy lettuce wraps there :) we had such fun! each mother/daughter combo ordered their own choice of appetizers then we swapped and shared some too. after dinner we went across the street to peet's for coffee and hot chocolate. we stayed there for probably another hour just chatting. our mom's hadn't ever met eachother before so it was neat for them to get to know one another. it was also neat for us girls to see our moms have so much fun and getting a glimpse of the lives we lead as 'young single gals' :)






what a fun evening! we will have to to it again!

homecoming

a week ago i 'moved' back home after being at my parents house for about three weeks. i had been there not to avoid my roommies but to just get a chance to chill out and have some company ( my mom is home full time ), etc. since my meds have been working well and i am feeling much better, i decided to make my way back to my apartment and resume life with N and D. to celebrate my homecoming, last night the girls prepared dinner and we watched 'chocolat' and had a girl's night in.

N made delicious tomato-red pepper soup and savory pumpkin scones, while D picked out the movie for us to watch.

thank you ladies!! ; ) it's good to be home

expectations

since i have been on disability these last several weeks, i have been trying to pin point what threw me off course, if there was one thing in particular. while this may not be the 'the thing' that made me go crazy it certainly was one of the straws that broke the camel's back. that thing is expectations.

i am a person who has high expectations. i expect a lot out of myself. i expect a lot of my family. i expect a lot from my friends and those that i live with. i expect a lot from those that i work with and for. i don't expect perfection out of anyone but myself, but i do desire to see everyone else at least try to reach perfection or 'compliance' (if you will).

in comparing my expectations to those of other people and what they consider 'high' expectations, i found that my expectations were not that high. this depresses me even further. the fact that my expectations are not actually even high yet everyone seems to still not measure up. it was one thing to think 'maybe i am asking too much of people. that's why they never meet my expectation'. it's another thing to ponder 'it turns out i am not asking that much out of people, yet they still let me down. does this mean they don't care about me? does it mean that they are just plain irresponsible? does this mean that they are dumb and don't know how to do whatever simple thing i want them to be doing?'

these questions in the head of a passive aggressive person like me is not good. i don't like confrontation because i have never gotten good results from it. people just end up feeling guilty or shamed into whatever it is that i need/want from them and that's not the goal. on the other hand, passive aggressive techniques are lost on people who are clueless to their surroundings so i don't see results there either. again, this further depresses me because i feel helpless to fix the situation. i feel like i have to live with these conditions and i don't know how to. sure i could pick up everyone elses slack, but i shouldn't have to do that. there are measures put in place so that everyone can share the load (the expectation) yet when the load is not shared it all piles on to one person's shoulders (the dissapointment and depression and resentment begins).

i don't know how to live with expectations and i don't know how to live without them. however, until i learn how to assert myself and gain compliance to my expectations i am going to have to drop all expectations i have of others. so there you go world, i expect nothing of you.

now why do i feel even more depressed??