My Tivo and I will be happy, regardless

It has not stopped snowing here since 1:00 on Friday afternoon, which, by my count makes it 56 hours. It is beautiful to watch, but that is because I am not the one who has to shovel it. My job, as relates to the snow, is to put out clean towels (and warm ones, if possible) for the people coming in. If I am up to it, I also put on the hot water (although nobody has used it yet: it would be the one time I didn't put it on that they'd come in wanting tea or hot chocolate or some such). The little tree in our front yard is covered tip to root, and has no underneath at all: only snow. We've got well over a foot, I should imagine. A lot of schools are closed from now until the 5th of January... no sense heating up the school for a possible half day on Tuesday. Come the end of June, there'll be some grumpy kids (and grumpier teachers), but that's a worry for another day.

For today, there is a Tivo who automatically records everything with the words "holiday, Christmas, or special", and that leaves me with a surfeit of wonderful Christmas movies and specials to watch. Not to mention the ones we already have: tomorrow is to be Love, Actually, the Muppets, and all the old Christmas cartoons that we taped off the television for the past 20 years (complete with vintage commercials! There's M&M commericals, people!) and present wrapping. That's an almost perfect day in my book, peaceful and calm, little energy required, plenty of resting as needed.

I hope wherever you are - snowed in or not - you're enjoying your Sunday, taking what peace you can find. And if today begins the holidays for you and your family, my very best Hanukkah wishes.

(Oh, and in case you don't have videos or Tivo to keep you company, check out the entire week's posts over at the Collective: they've got a lot of fabulous YouTube clips up, which basically include my entire playlist for tomorrow.)

Never let it be said that I don't keep my promises...

when I can.

So, here's some of the Getting Ready batch:

(I wish I had the professional pix, but I still don't... SisterJ is being flimsy with the sharing here, cuz she wants to make sure people see them with her first.)

So: Here's SisterJ at midnight, first picture on her actual wedding day.


And then SisterCh, protecting her hair (did you know "Up-dos stick better to dirty hair?" It's just one of the interesting things I've learned from this wedding), as she finally gets into the shower.


SisterK's hair looked like those ribbon candies, after it was all curled. I was jealous.




And petrified that I'd have to go with like a ponytail, because with an hour left to the wedding, Naomi, the woman who came to do our hair, still had 3 people left, including me. I kept trying to do the "As long as the bride looks good it'll be fine" mantra, but I was freaking out a little inside. Luckily, she zipped right through us final three. :sigh:

Here's 3/5 sisters getting what they could of their make-up on:



SisterJ is the one who knows how to do make-up and stuff. Which kinda sucked for her, as the bride spend some of her day putting on other people's make-up, but she seemed ok with it, since we all came out fancy-dancy.




Which isn't to say that she didn't get pampered a bit too:




Here she is hugging the Best Man, Kev's cousin, who dropped off a little note and present from the groom:


Which were some dazzling diamond & pearl earrings...



and you'll see just how gorgeous they look on, in the next little piece of this.

Clean-slating it...

Oh internets, I know I am still waaaaaaaaaaay behind on all of the pictures I have promised you, all of the stories I must tell. To that I say: it'll come when it comes.

I've been trying really hard to catch up, I've been trying all year, since Nana and all of that drama, to just catch up to where I'm supposed to be. And you know what? It's not going to happen... all of the things I was supposed be doing at some predetermined and arbitrary schedule? Yeah, that's so not happening.

Yesterday was my birthday. I am 29 now. It feels very, very strange. There's a lot of things I wanted to have happen in my life, a lot of things I always assumed I'd have or be or be doing by now. And those things? They're not happening either.

It's a lot to deal with, but it's also a lot like taking a big deep breath and letting it out. There's a lot to be said for letting things go.

I have a lot of things I need to let go of, a lot of expectations that I need to reexamine and readjust. And I'm starting to get to the point where I think I have the psychic energy, the emotional strength, to actually do it. I'm not all the way there yet, but it feels like I'm getting there. Getting to the point of being able to say "I'm sorry all of the things you assumed would happen in your twenties just didn't happen for you. It wasn't fair, or right, but it's what happened. You're here now, and you're (mostly) ok. You're (mostly) happy. You're lucky to have come this far, really. So you need to just take those deep breaths and let it go."

It's certainly not an easy thing to do, but it's starting to feel like the only thing to do. It's starting to feel like if I don't do that, if I don't try to let go of some of the things that have been hurting me for so long, I won't be able to make it. And that's not an option for me.

So I have to stop pretending that I've been ok with all of this, with the fact that my body has betrayed me so cruelly. I'm not ok with it... but I can deal with it. It's ok for me to be mad about the opportunities I've missed out on, to be disappointed that I so often feel like a spectator instead of a player. It's not an easy role to have. But if it's my role - if it's going to keep being my role - then I really have to embrace it.

This is one of those posts that I keep not posting because I think it doesn't make sense to anybody but me. But you all often surprise me, so I'm going to let it go this time, say it and put it out there.

Basically what I'm saying is that I'm trying to move forward in a way that is more than just making it through the day. I want to find a way to be living in my skin - my painful, achy, worn out body - and really be happy in the spot that I am in. Even if there's things I don't like about it.

It's so tricky, cuz I often think I'm accomplishing that, but I know right now I am not, I know right now it's been impossible to get past how much I hurt. But I'm going to keep making the effort anyways.

So... next deep breath, and moving on!

Hello My Lovelies!

Laptop is still being uncooperative, but I managed to get back here again, so I thought I'd check in.

I wanted to tell you how the shower went last Saturday, in case you were waiting with baited breath.

Honestly? It went rather well... my co-hostesses were a bit lax in the whole "you have to introduce yourself to people" arena, but other than that, and a mini-post crash, I think things went awesome.

SisterJ and her fiance seemed a little bit surprised (although I'm not entirely sure they were), and most importantly, everybody had fun. So that's good.

How about some photographic proof of said fun? I thought you might like that...

Here we are in the car... I'm taking pictures because we're running late. AGAIN. And I'm trying not to go crazy. (I am an early bird, in a family of never-on-time-s.) That's Sister Y, Oldest Nephew, & Sister Ch...



Lil Girl, hiding for the chance to say 'surprise;'

Here are the soon to be Mr. & Mrs. playing a who knows who best game:

Can you guess who's winning?




Then there were some presents:





We did cake smooshing, because Sister J is VERY MUCH OPPOSED to doing it at the wedding...




Which turns out to be a good thing.


There's a few more still to come, but overall, I thought it went really well! (Note to self, however: if you're planning on playing games, bring pencils. Don't leave them on your desk.)

(You can click on over to my Flickr Stream to see more: if we're not friends, let's be!)

Monkeys? Hop on! Ducks? Screw that!

Some stuff came up this week, and the niece of transparency (thank you all for the shutter speed explanations, that's what I was guessing it was too!) wound up having to spend all the days (and a few of the nights) with us.

And, as I am still (41 days later!) hiding out on the couch in my living room, the pain, it is not so much the manageable all the time.
Needless to say, this has cut into my blogging time. But now I am recuperating a bit, and I thought I'd share this IM between me and Sister K, who stopped over to play for an hour or so on Wednesday, during her spring break.

Sister K [10:48 PM]: is tonight the night Lil Girl is sleeping over?
NTE [10:49 PM]: yesh. she is asleep, who knows how long it'll last, but right this second, she's asleep
Sister K [10:50 PM]: :)
SisterK [10:50 PM]: was she good today like yesterday?
NTE [10:51 PM]: she's such a good girl - like 98% of the time. No meltdowns today, just a couple of whininess-ish times
SisterK [10:52 PM]: :) i told everyone who would listen to me about playing play-do and carebears
NTE [10:52 PM]: yeah, we do a lot of that. Every single day.
Sister K [10:53 PM]: i like how she all of a sudden goes, 'WOWWWWWWWW'
NTE [10:54 PM]: today, on the way home, we sang the wheels on the bus. FOREVER. there were dogs, cats, monkeys... all on the bus
NTE [10:54 PM]: trying to keep her awake long enough to drive home was a bit of a challenge
Sister K [10:54 PM]: hahaha
Sister K[10:55 PM]: monkeys on the busss nice
NTE [10:56 PM]: hey: we do what we have to. i was trying to put ducks on the bus and she goes "noooooooooooo" Like "what are you thinking woman?? Ducks? On a bus?? You are crazy!" But monkeys? Sure... hop on!
Sister K[10:56 PM]: hahaha <3

So, just in case you were wondering: No ducks on the bus. Happy Friday, everybody. Thank God it's here.

Some laughing links to share:

If I have to explain to you why this is one of the funniest things ever, then I'm not really sure how you got here: God, how I hate that stupid Castle Toad! It's not just about the toad, though: Heather! Anne! nails all 5 as she reminds us all that sometimes being alone on a deserted island is preferable.

Also, you should head on over to Jennie's! place, and see how many times you can say "That's what she said" while you're reading.

Cuz anything that makes me laugh today, is worth it's weight in gold. Or finger sandwiches. Or meat. Either way.

Also, if you're into that kind of thing (which I usually am not), may I suggest you head on over to YouTube and see what Jimmy Kimmel, Sarah Silverman, Matt Damon & Ben Affleck are up to? Crude, senseless, totally shouldn't be funny. But I laughed. A lot. Out loud at one point. If you want, go see if it makes you chuckle too.

MBSM - Illicit

Today's Best Shot Monday picture combines a few of my favorite things: the energy of Youngest Nephew (7), time alone with just Youngest Nephew, and the two of us acting like children - which, although he can do it all the time, is such a treat for me!

Here's an action shot from our sleepover this weekend, when I caught him catapulting from the couch to the ottoman, something the grown-up me would've had to get mad at (if only because it's not technically my furniture, and I know his Papa would've), but the fun & games me just laughed and showed him the picture.


I don't ever remember having this kind of careless, frenetic energy -



but it's still really fun to watch.

Happy Monday, all: If you're one of Best Shot Monday-players who usually only stop by on Monday's then ---> I hope your week is filled with things to be grateful for, and that you spend your Thanksgiving exactly as you wish.

Yay! NaBloPoMo Day #1

I'm still up, and it's after midnight, so I figured I'd get an early start on things.

Hi, everybody!

How was your Halloween? We got about 10 Trick or Treaters, total. And more than half of those were 12 year olds in wigs, with pillowcases. And eggs. But, whatever. My two favorite Trick or Treaters showed up, even though I was beginning to doubt that they would make it, and that was enough for me.

Here's what made my heart happy tonight... it's a good thing to start the month off right, that's for sure. (even if I didn't get the red eye out yet... you know they're not really demons, right? )

Thursday Theme = Glee

Finding the perfect dress
Originally uploaded by bbackprple

Here's SisterJ experiencing a little glee during our recent wedding dress shopping trip. She did this whole little dance... it was very cute. This isn't the dress she wound up picking, though it was that dress's main competition. The wedding is still a while away - next October - but she's so excited to have one decision made!

(Also, trust me when I say that bridesmaid dress shopping was not nearly as gleeful. I need to lose, oh 125 lbs before next October. That should be easy, right??? Ugh.)

Don't forget to head on over to Picture This for more Theme Thursdays.... http://picturethis.clubmom.com/picture_this/2007/06/thursdays-theme.html

Can make you do a dance of joy!
Originally uploaded by bbackprple