snow!

you all know how much i hate snow, right? well it's starting...but so far, the big fluffy flakes aren't annoying. a coating, a dusting, dressing the trees and lawns. the leaves haven't finished falling from my Japanese Maple out front...my favorite tree out of all of them in my yard. this year, for some inexplicable reason, i am absolutely overjoyed about the holidays! i can't wait! last year was dismal...no holiday spirit in the house whatsoever. bill and i had entered a tenuous truce, and were engaged in that silent arguing...i turn the light on, he turns it off a few minutes later, and all that nonsense. i had planned to just set up shop on my own after the holidays, so had no particular bond with anything or any traditional Holiday Spirit. we finally got a Christmas tree a day or 2 before Christmas, only for the form of the thing...i mean, without it, do you just sit around the footstool and hand off gifts? we did it for the kids mostly. well, i'm still here for some reason. and this year, the house WILL look like the Christmas Tree Shoppes blew up inside. i'm headed out for the dreaded garland/ornament/whatever purchases at some smaller shops, and of course the Christmas Tree Shoppe. a scary place. but with the volume of decorations i plan to buy, i need cheap. i'm mentally prepared for battle. little diva won't know where to hide her bones when i'm done. her personality is so different from my Kita...he was laid back, always smiling. she frets over everything. she'll get up in the middle of the night and have to go out to retrieve her "outside" bone (Greenie) and bring it in to hide it. in the morning, she's up and re-hiding it. and God help the soul who tries to come near her when she has the bone. a good way to lose a hand. she always has a concerned fretful look about her. tonight is diva spa night...bath and toenails. i am looking forward to it just slightly less than she is...the nails part. she squirms and struggles and shreiks and tries to whirl around in your grip to get free. for all the world it sounds like i'm cutting her entire paw off. - back to the garland. the fairywing lady overpaid me and refused to rewrite the check. so now, i figure i have all that extra cashola to go nuts with. it just feels so good to have someone buy my art...even fairywings! it's not entirely about the money, either. it's like an affirmation. but more than that. it feels good, really good, to know that something i created touched someone enough to make them want to own it. to have at their home so they can enjoy it all the time. that is such an ecstatic thing in my soul. (art in general...not the fairywings, necessarily, since i probably won't know who bought them from the shop). i debriefed myself on those and if i have to do more, i will welcome the opportunity - i have it all figured out now. i'm actually thinking of doing a huge sunflower, just to have in reserve. so this thanksgiving dinner has all the promise of being Another Family Get-Together of Epic Result. my mother-in-law is still convinced that i hate her (i don't), my sister-in-law has stopped taking her medication, and is convinced people around her are threatening to kill her (note to self: hide Dreamweaver before he tells her I'M trying to kill her), my parents are exhausted, my husband is slipping into his fall-to-winter malaise and going "into his cave." he read that in a book once - maybe Men Are From Mars, or some such crap. about how men retreat into a cave emotionally when they're hurt or some such stuff. he stopped reading there, apparently, having found justification for his moody, brooding, spoiled child behavior when things don't go his way. i told him the next time he goes in, i'm rolling a very large rock in front of it, and he can ask Lazarus or David Copperfield how to get out, but i would not stand at the entry with a brontosaurus burger and Wilma-like dress on trying to coax him out. i have a hard enough time staying on an even keel in these shorter-day months. so anyway...dinner. yep, his mom is already upset that i am making the squash. people, listen...i could give a flea's fart less who makes the squash...i really could care less for family gatherings. i do this for my husband and his kids....mostly for the kids, so they don't grow up hermitized like me. the lone wolf. remember Lenny & Squiggy? the whole discussion over who's bringing what is just so Who Cares, that i can't believe i'm writing it. just bring. or not. just come. or not. but let me know so we don't end up with turkey and 15 bowls of squash. and again, who cares?? well...i'm off to shower and take diva for a quick walk through the woods...she is now refusing to poo in her own yard. i see her point in it all, but it is a Very Cold walk these days. i'll post pics of the decorating when/if i get it done. OH! and i'm buying all new tree ornaments! can't decide a color or theme yet, but will see what strikes me. the ones we have...well, the cheerios have fallen off most of the 2nd grade pics, and they are sweet and swell, but definately need a little sprucing up. so we'll see. maybe pink......... Linda