Thank you all so much for a wonderful Christmas party. The presence of our dear friends made the 14th annual Wilson holiday party a huge success! It was awesome seeing so many of you.

These recent post-Christmas days have been filled with drowsy mornings, playing with new toys, cleaning, laundry, textbook editing, and sifting through old belongings—some of which are going to GoodWill and some of which are going into the garage for another day. Ian was off Wednesday through Sunday and that was delightful. Lucas could hardly contain himself, and basically didn’t try. Instead, he did his best to monopolize his father’s attention with games, Legos, RC cars, building Erector set robots, etc.

Entirely too many tasty goodies are lying around in my kitchen, waiting to pounce on my hips and stay there. Today was my day to fix a meal for our friends whose 12-year-old son recently had spinal surgery. Fortunately, I don’t think the comedy of errors that took place during the making of that meal will be discernible by the family who partakes of it. Suffice it to say, the tip of my left thumb is still attached—let’s hope it stays that way. After much drama involving a kitchen knife, a fennel bulb, a couple of worrisome phone calls, a blood-soaked rag, two ruined steaks, and my mother’s uncertain determination that stitches probably aren’t necessary, I managed to finish the cooking meal and deliver it to the Nutting household. It was: roast curry chicken with lime jus; vegetarian risotto with chard, carrots, tomatoes, onions, fennel, and garlic; Caesar salad; homemade fudge and lemon bars. At least I managed to foist some goodies off on the Nuttings, and  , too. 

I started making a list of all the presents we received for Christmas. Pretty OCD, no? Well, I haven’t finished and I have four pages of my college-ruled notebook filled. Honestly, our lives are so bountiful, so blessed, so abundant in every way. I’m grateful, humbled, and also kind of sickened by the excess of it all. Mostly, I feel tremendous wonderment and gratitude.

Tomorrow I get to buy a llama.

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Originally uploaded by SarabellaE

Our darling friends  and  have taken another bunch of beautiful shots of me and the Wilson boys at play (on December 6, 2008). I invite you to take a gander at my Flickr account if you would like to see how they make our motley crew look so pretty.

Thank you, T and E. We love the photos!

After having listened to my parents periodic freaking out about my missing ID and how we are going to have to board an airplane to Hawaii  in a week,

Just after having checked the DMV website to find out how to get a replacement driver’s license, 

Just after having called my credit card company to find out if new and bogus charges had been made on my credit card, 

A Christmas miracle occurred.

Ian found my wallet.

In a drawer.

In the kitchen.

Which is the last place I saw it last week when tipping the gardeners.

Where I looked numerous times.

Poorly, apparently.

I had looked under couches.
On my desk.
In toy bins.
In craft bins.
In drawers.
Under laundry.
In couch cushions.
In my car.
In my coats.
In my pockets.
In my purses.
In Asher’s room.
On the bookshelves.
On top of the fridge.
And, last but not least,
In the week-old kitchen rubbish in the can!

Ian is my hero.

I saw my step-sister-in-law (I actually have three) and I explained how my wallet has been missing since last Tuesday or Wednesday, whichever day it was that the gardeners were here and I took cash out of my wallet to tip them. My SSIL asked, “Does little Asher ever help you by throwing things in the garbage?”

Oh. God.

I have thought of little else since that conversation yesterday afternoon.

I think I have looked in all the places that make sense for my wallet to be. I think I have looked in many places that don’t make sense. Now I am mentally preparing to dumpster dive in an effort to find it.

I do not think it’s in the kitchen trash because I think if Asher got a hold of it, he would have taken every receipt, paper, card, and coin out and strewn them around the house.

But I don’t know where else to look.

Shit.

I’ve got two guides going these days. They were both supposed to be done by now, but I still haven’t figured out how to edit text that hasn’t been written yet, and so I soldier on behind schedule. I think the count is down to this: 3 to 4 more chapters left to go across the two books. Don’t get me wrong—I am fucking THRILLED to have this work.

I am also being pulled in the direction of holiday stuff, which I’ve written about before. A number of fairly large-scale things must still be made. I am hoping to fill the coming week with enough fun stuff for the children that they will allow me some time to work. It’s a contradiction when you first look at it, but I’m taking a different (naive? no, hopeful) view: Perhaps if I invest in some extra-cool Christmas activities, they’ll leave me alone in between them. Well, there’s always the TV (with which I’m currently engaged in a sordid love-hate relationship). Today is the boys’ last day of school/daycare. Tomorrow begins three solid weeks of vacation—for them.

I also have to work like hell on my textbook revision, which I’ve let slide for the last two weeks. Somehow I must make up those hours before the end of the month because I don’t want my client to know I’ve let it sit idle for days. I think I can, I think I can.

One of my fervent hopes for the new year is that I can learn how to keep track of my shit: I would like to know at all times where my wallet, my keys, and my cell phone are, in addition to knowing where my two children are. Is that so much to ask? Apparently, for me, it is. My wallet is currently missing somewhere in my house. Last time I saw it was Wednesday, when I tipped the gardeners.

I would really like to curl up alone with a good book or six until the 2nd of January.

The days are ticking down to the Solstice. It is finally, unequivocally cold here in the sunny Californian bread basket we call the Central Valley. Ice laced the leaves and ground this morning, making everything blue and quiet. I can sense the turning inward. I see it in the eyes of all of my boys. It’s a tiredness of spirit and body. It’s a longing to stay home, snuggle up, play all day in our pajamas, and drink tea. Our morning routine has become harder to get through; Lucas and Asher both move like they are stuck in a vat of molasses. Everything is slow—waking, eating, dressing, facing the day. As parents stirring the vat everyday, we cannot succumb to the freezing of motivation. We must persist, do, go, work, accomplish. For now. Within a few days, we too will be able to relax a little. To settle in and enjoy the stillness. I’m hoping so, anyway. I’m hoping for a mellow, joyful holiday season in which we can reflect, rest, and revel in the turning of the year. 

This email exchange between me and the mother of one of Lucas’s classmates kind of cracks me up. The backstory is that she picks Lucas up and takes him to her house almost every Thursday afternoon, allowing Asher to nap and me to work a couple of hours.

Hi SarabellaE,

We’d be happy to have Lucas over tomorrow if it works for your schedule.

Is it possible to send Lucas home with a change of clothes ( pants, socks, shoes) so that he can maybe change before he gets in the car?  My understanding is that there are a few boys in the class who really like to be “boys” and play in the sand and water, etc during their recesses.  I am all for it and think it’s wonderful the school reinforces all of that and just let them be kids, but, when it comes to my car and house at the end of their day, ugh!  I keep a fairly clean house and, the first thing I have Ryan do is wash his hands and change his clothes after he has gotten “really” grubby so it doesn’t transfer to the floors, carpet, etc.  Thanks Sara, I highly appreciate it.

Mommy Friend

Could all clients who owe me dough please send it to me? K. Thanks.
Your friendly editor,
S

Joy. That was the topic of today’s sermon at UUSS. It was a good reminder that joy is always accessible to us, if we make the effort to be aware of our bodies, be in the present moment, relax, breathe, and smile. Doug, the senior minister, said something that really resonated for me: "Anxiety is excitement without the benefit of oxygen." In other words, if you can focus just on breathing, you may find your anxiety mellows into a more comfortable state of excitement. I’ll take that over feeling anxious any day.

I skipped four holiday parties this weekend—one because I couldn’t get babysitting, one because I couldn’t fathom driving all the way to the Santa Cruz mountains with the kids and no hubby to help me, one because I got a better offer to hang out with   (which was a welcome balm to my soul), and one because it just didn’t fit in with our Sunday evening routine and required too much of us. I’m OK with all of this, even though I know I would have had a joyful time at any of these events. Sometimes you just gotta say No thanks to keep life simple.

Simple. Joy. I think I’m trying to rest in both of these concepts. I would like to call this my theme for the month. Wouldn’t that be marvelous? Maybe it would stave off all the anxiety and batter down the encroaching army of shoulds.

So, tonight was a simple dinner of tom ka gai and spring rolls, a little telly, some knitting, labeling jam jars, stringing popcorn garlands with the kids, and just a touch of mobsters (for work). And now to bed.

“When you wish someone joy, you wish them peace, love, prosperity, happiness… all the good things.”

—Maya Angelou

“Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.”

—Thich Nhat Hanh

… when I get all goosey about money. I’m a nervous wreck over Christmas because my imagination so outstrips my ability, time, energy, and cash. The possibilities I can dream up are boundless, but reality is distinctly bounded—or should be. I find it easy to get swept away with all the self-imposed shoulds. I could list out three dozen without even stopping to think, I bet. I won’t, though. I’ll spare us all that painful exercise. My creativity runs away with me and my heart overflows. I alternate between letting my mind go wild with all those delights I would like to do, make, create, give, donate, decorate, design, draw, paint, sew, cook, find    … and reigning myself in with prudent advice and wet blankets of reality: I am enough. I have enough. I do enough.

It’s all good, I guess. It’s the same hamster wheel I get on every year. I dream and wish I could somehow create magic and perfection in the lives of everyone I know and love. But I can only do so much, and then I have to forgive myself for the rest that doesn’t get done.