Our garage has been… in a state of disarray for years. Basically ever since I had my candle shop in the garage, we haven’t used it for a car. I claimed 1/3 of the area, the rest was available for bikes, seasonal decorations, camping gear, pantry, or whatever else we wanted to shove in the garage and forget about. Our van didn’t fit in there anyway, and our car was not worth pulling in a garage only to leak oil all over the floor.

In comes the new Toyota (the oil-leaker has since been retired), a little snow and the absence of a candle being made in the past couple years.

In comes a husband who listened to my pleas to knock off a couple items on the Honey-do list.

I definitely don’t give him enough credit; guilty as charged, because he surprised me one day.

Pulling in to the driveway, as I do most every day after work, entering the garage, I can see the floor. He had boxed up my shop stragglers, threw out the garbage that was taking up space, and neatly stacked the rest against the wall. Not quite enough to get the car in, but enough to motivate me to finish the job (just… whatever, you can’t have perfection all the time).

It took a bit more compacting, a bit more rearranging, a couple of choice words mixed with sweat and determination, and finally. Finally, we are able to put a car out of the snow, into the garage.

The sight of it made his father teary-eyed. Yeah, that was written correctly. Made. His. Father. Cry.

Frankie. The garage… it’s clean?! (choking up) Your grandpa would be SO proud, Frankie. So proud. He loved a neat, clean garage.

Ten years ago I probably would have rolled my eyes and upchucked a bit. Today, it warms my heart in a funny, gotta love ‘em sort of way. Happy to have given that gift to him, as it was also a gift to me.

Last night we went to a friend’s Christmas Party. It was more of a dinner party, with four couples and children. The kids played outside most of the time, while us adults stayed in, chatted and enjoyed being together. We weren’t all close friends, but we were familiar with one of the other couples. It was enjoyable, and I was able to, for the most part, take my mind of the everyday stress and simply enjoy myself. It’s been a while since I’ve had a relaxing night. I very much needed it. I need it on a more regular basis.

My thoughts on Tiger are limited, because I don’t give him much thought in the first place. But since I can’t make it through an hour-long news show without hearing about his situation, so I let my fingers crawl the keyboard, danging on the idea of it all.

I don’t like to hear of infidelities. I don’t think it is “no big deal” or a “big whoop” or anything other minor, skimable matter. It is a sad reminder of our slowly degrading society, a bar that is constantly being lowered for us grown women, and our daughters. Cheating is normal? I think not. I’m no fool, I know that people have been cheating for years. Doesn’t make it right or more appealing simply because it is becoming more standard.

Why it is such big news, I don’t know. But then when you consider that, in our country, people can make a living and be on the level of a societal diety for doing something that many people do in their leisure time… you kind of put yourself out there for critisism. Much like a senator, mayor, congressman. We pay your salary, we want to know what’s going on behind closed doors. Apparently, mean. I don’t speak on this from my own emotional base necessarily.

But sometimes when I think, like really ponder the craziness that is our world, it makes my head hurt. Tiger gets paid to play golf, and gets paid well. It’s a game. It’s sport – fun. Fun stuff. You don’t have people performing heart surgeries for “fun” or social work for “leisure play.” But you do find people playing golf/football/tennis, etc. for fun.

Play a sport for fun, become popular, make bank. Practice medicine on the side, read to kids, mission work… we call that volunteer work and what a nice person you are for doing it.

Unfortunately, I gave inaccurate information yesterday. I am not, indeed, going to post pictures of my breakfast-making fiasco from the Snow Day. Not that it is impossible, it just expends more energy than I’m willing to spare tonight.

Today was a long, busy but very normal day.

6:20am, alarm wakes me up. I roll over and ask Frank to re-wake me at 7:15

Wake. Reluctantly. Take pill; heat up flat iron.

Prepare coffee maker by grinding coffee, putting in the basket, adding the water – waited to turn it on until I was nearly done with my hair.

Send the kids off on the bus, turned on the coffee, dressed, put some toast in the oven, made a lunch (leftover salad, 2 pieces of hard salami, a small bag of tort-illa chips. Mmm. Sobe low-calorie drink. Quick coffee, peanut butter and honey toast, put make-up on and check email.

Frank drove me to work, was late (traffic and post office stop). Put in a productive day. Frank picks me up from work, to home I go, he drops me off while he runs to Subway to get a sub for Dante, who is wrestling tonight. I prepare some papers for meeting at school at 2pm.

To meeting I go, lasts over an hour. Drop off sub at mom’s house (who lives closer to school and will run it over to Dante once school is out so he has something to eat between the bus ride and his match).

4pm, finally home, quick bite to eat, putting a fire under the twins to get moving since one of them has their first soccer practice at 4:45pm (the one who broke his leg after getting hit by a car back in April, mind you – hallelujah).

Drop off Franny, take Sal to 2 stores to look at shoes. Didn’t buy shoes, but did pick up a boot warmer.

6pm Pick up Franny, hear all about the excitement of being at practice. Stop at mom’s, pick up Lootie (who went there after school), and Sophia (who lives with mom and dad); stop at Taco Bell. Pick up extra burrito and taco for later for the hungry wrestler.

Drop Sophia off at friend’s house.

7pm home.

Eat, homework, catch up on email. Wipe down the dresser mom and dad brought over for his room (we recently took out the carpet, put in new floor, he painted, etc.) Get a text from Dante. Lost his match 6 to 5, but did well. On the bus home.

pm Pick him up, stop off at Wal-mart, arrive home at 10:30. Chat with husband on the phone (he’s working overtime tonight), send off a couple text to my birthmother. Sit down to write this post.

Glass of wine? A little Wii fit? TV? Who knows. Read a bit.

Goodnight.

A blizzard was predicted yesterday. Even my boss said, “Surely a snow day tomorrow. Let’s plan on staying home.”  Good call.

The first bout of shoveling started late at night.

We woke to more snow, scraping of snow plows along the street, muffled sounds of shovels and car tires crunching.

The boys spent a good amount of time simply clearing the driveway. They worked well together, with their dad. Normally I enjoy shoveling. It is good exercise. This time, though, I left it up to them, opting to make a nice, warm breakfast for everyone instead. Will post those pictures tomorrow.

Christmas tree, lit.

Lights, twinkling.

Snow? Falling by the bucketful.

Under a blanket with a big bowl of peppermint ice cream. Frosty, silky, the color of cotton candy, crunches of red and green speckled throughout. My lips are chilled, my teeth polar steel. Stomach revolts, ever so quietly. Process repeated many times throughout the days of Christmastime. To think, ice cream really isn’t even my thing.

Target. Afternoon. Hopes of a quiet store, reality; chaos.

In our town we have a “West” side and an “East” side. Traditionally the West was the home of the upper class, while the East was more working class. It is a bit more blended now, but if you visit the East side Walmart, you will notice obvious differences in the patrons in comparison to the West one. Just… trust me.

Target, being an even “classier” department store Walmart, is often sardined with clickity-clack, spike-heeled cougars, mothers-with-money and plastic people. One the West side. Today was no exception.

As I stood in the isle happily alone, contemplating the iPods and accessories, clickity-clack rounded the corner talking in her Outdoor Voice, tailed by an overly excited Target employee acting as her personal concierge to the store. Her loud voice shattered my concentration and I did as I customarily do, politely excusing myself, smiling and moving my cart (yes, I do do this). Undeserving of eye contact, being a mere casualty of a populated planet, clickity-clack did not condescend to look me in the eye, turn her head in my direction or pardon herself, but continued to yak as she passed by, stopping to view the items on the shelf, carrying on with her Outdoor Voice as I drew blood from biting my lip.

“Don’t mind me, I’m just taking up space in your world honey.”

I’m participating in Holidailies again. And I’m really gonna try and update daily. Really.

Look at that, though. I titled this post “Holidailies 2010.” Already. Funny how seasons are pushed (Christmas fare up during Halloween) and the year is pushed as well, as we schedule appointments and project the workload into the upcoming year. 2010 seems to fit better than 2009. That ain’t right.

Saturday morning, a nice day for having a “lazy” morning breakfast (not truly “lazy” since that would mean, like breakfast in bed, or breakfast out – but “lazy” in the way that I don’t have to rush to get to work and can make something homemade and delicious). Pancakes the traditional way were out, because I just wasn’t feeling the whole standing over the skillet thing. But something warm and sweet was definitely on the menu…

(Recipe over at the foodie blog: Fried Spaghetti: Oven Baked Pancake. I’m trying to keep them all together over there.)

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Our tree is up and (somewhat) trimmed. I have the lights and “icicles” on. Ornaments are yet to come. Scary thing is, in order to put up all the Christmas decorations, I need to clear the accumulated clutter around the house to make room for my holiday treasures. Killing two birds with one stone, yes, but it is a span-over-more-than-one-day process, let me tell you.

Adding to the Christmas spirit – it snowed today. Since I rarely check the weather anymore, it was a surprise to me. I was putzing about the house, cleaning and decluttering, when the kids came home and screamed something about it snowing out. Really? A glance out the window confirmed that traffic was slowing as sheets of white flakes hit the pavement, gathering on the cars and sidewalks.

Joy!!!

More joy – Amazon.com is, once again, having their 25 days of Free MP3 Downloads- you gotta love that. Last year I downloaded nearly all the songs, and got aquainted with a few new artists that I enjoyed very much. Each day they uncover a new little gift – a new MP3. I love it. Easy peasy.