December 2022 – Sweat & Sparkle

Bring It

I want to post this quote everywhere: on my blog, on Facebook, on a t-shirt, on my damn forehead, just so no one misses it.

Losing my mom has taught me a lot, and one of the most important is that life is so shockingly short. Our time and energy are precious, and we have choices about what we spend them on. It’s mystifying to me how some people opt to blatantly waste time: on jealousy, pettiness, competitiveness, childishness, absolutely worthless drama and silliness.

I say: if you are hell bent on wasting life, go ahead. Knock yourself out. Gossip until your lips fall off. Whisper and lie and make up the most fabulous fabrications that your shallow head can muster. Stalk, compete, and hate to your jealous heart’s content. Whip up drama and storm about and indulge in infantile histrionics until you pass out from lack of oxygen.

Carry around your absurdity and melodrama everywhere you go. Wear it like a cloak. Caress it and adore it. It makes no difference to me. I am not interested in you or it. Bring it. I won’t take it. It’s your burden to fondle, and I am above it.

In the meantime…I willfully choose to be happy. I choose to take my husband’s hand, continue to build our life together, create even more memories with him. I choose love, happiness, growth, discovery, and hope. My priorities include only my loved ones, my family, my peace.

We have one shot at life. Why waste so much of it on meaningless drivel? It’s sad. I won’t do it. I love life. I love my husband, my stepkids, my family. I love myself. I won’t disrespect them or myself by frittering away the precious few moments we have together on abject silliness.

That is likely the biggest difference right there: because of love, I value, I cherish, I savor. Without love — and it’s not terribly surprising when some people end up bereft of it, given that they never dispense it on anyone but themselves– then what is left to treasure and honor beyond frivolity and foolishness?

Freezing

The North Pole decided to make a prolonged pit stop in our neck of the woods over Christmas, and it has been unusually cold for several days. I love chilly weather, but freezing temperatures are a bit much, even for me.

My husband brought in piles of fire wood, and I must say, I have enjoyed the fireplace immensely. When we first bought our house, he was excited about a fireplace, but I had never had one and didn’t understand what the big deal was. I was sold, however, after the first fire he lit, and I have loved it ever since.

On Christmas night, it was bitterly cold again, so my husband lit a fire, and he brought me a glass of wine. (Yes, he’s a keeper for sure.) We snuggled on the couch together, the warmth soothing our skin, the fire crackling and popping as it gently lit the room. I can’t think of a better way to finish the holiday.

I’m not a fan of artificial fireplaces. If you have to plug in your fireplace, well, you don’t really have a fireplace. You have an entertainment center. There’s no substitute for real flames, the dancing light, the calming warmth, and the gentle snapping and sizzling of burning wood.

Would you like to sit and stare at the fake fire? — No thanks! I’ll take a real fireplace.

I won’t be sad to see the freezing weather move along, but I will be disappointed when it’s too warm to light a fire. We should be able to enjoy it for at least one more night, though, and I’m looking forward to it!

Ornaments

I absolutely adore this quote. When I pulled out all the boxes to decorate the Christmas tree this year, I admit I wasn’t 100% in the spirit for it. My husband loves Christmas, though, and I didn’t want to dampen the holiday for him.

It took over two hours for the two of us to place each ornament, pine cone, and bow on the tree. I turned on some Christmas CDs, and we ended up dancing to Elvis Presley as we worked.

It started out, for me, as “Let’s just get this done.” But as we unwrapped each ornament and chose the best spot for each one on the tree, I found myself pausing to enjoy each one, holding them up to share stories with my husband or laugh or just comment on how old some of them are. He was enjoying himself so much, I couldn’t help but start having fun, too.

None of our ornaments is from a generic box set from a store. I love that. It wasn’t intentional; it just sort of happened over the years, an ornament for each other here, a souvenir from a trip there, or a milestone, like our new home ornament, or the first “Mr. and Mrs.” ornament. We have a few cherished ornaments from family members no longer with us, and they get a special spot on the tree.

Each of the kids selected their own ornaments during a shopping trip when they were all so little, and it makes us smile to unwrap those, to remember them circling the trees at the store, picking out just the right one. They have personalized ornaments I had made for them for one of our first Christmases together. Some day, it seems only right that we pass those ornaments along to them when they have their own homes and their own trees to decorate with them, and it will feel odd not to unwrap them each year anymore.

One year, I got the idea to bring home packages of tiny red bows, and when I attached them, one at a time, to tree branches, my husband said our Christmas tree was beautiful. I do it every year now, even though it takes a while, because it’s just so pretty. And I love how excited he gets as the tree gets dressed up with its little red bows.

This year, I caught my breath when I unwrapped an ornament that my mom had gotten for me years ago. I suppose it’s always going to hit a good bit differently now. So now my memories of her are wrapped up in our tree, too, and I am grateful to have that touch of her, that gift from her, on our tree.

We have ornaments from field trips with the kids, and I made an ornament with seashells from our beach trips this past summer. When we recently took a trip to the zoo, we had fun picking out ornaments and getting them personalized, then adding them to the tree as soon as we got home.

It takes a long time to put up our Christmas tree, and taking it down will take a while, too. I guess we will just put on some Elvis, dance, and share more stories as we wrap each ornament, each memory, back up, until next year.