Life, Unexpected

Sooo, I haven't written a post in a couple months. I have meant to, and have had a couple projects I have finished I should post. I would sit down and go to type a post up and no words would come. I hate that we didn't get a lot of projects done this year like we had planned. I have to keep reminding myself our project was making memories with my Dad and that was more important than any painting or table re-do. We won't get this summer back, so it was time well spent.

The holidays were hard, as everyone always says they are when you lose a loved one. I did not want to decorate for Christmas. Did. Not. I had to though, because we were hosting a Christmas Open House for our online business. I decided to just go simple and borrow a 4' pre-lit tree from my mother-in-law (she has at least 6 fake trees of varying height). Once I got the decorations out and a few up, I was okay. The closer we got to Christmas, the rougher it got for all of us, though. I broke down making Christmas dinner because we didn't have enough stuffing and there was no cranberries. Ah, grieving. Even as I read that, I think,' Really? You got upset over stuffing and cranberries?' But it was a culmination of it being the first Christmas without Dad, PMS, and time moving on when I don't want it too. In all honesty though, all I really, really cared that we had, was pumpkin roll that Dad always made. It just wouldn't be Christmas without pumpkin roll. My awesome baker of a husband made sure we had it. He made 2, one with nuts and one without. He's so great. 

New Years was a bit better. We all did our own things for NYE, which was fine. My memories of the holidays mainly center around NYE anyway. Dad made fudge and us kids got to have root beer floats and stay up until midnight. That was when dad would shoot his shotgun into the air announcing the new year. So wanting my kids to have strong memories of NYE, we started our own tradition of watching  a movie marathon. We indavertently started it last year when we watched 2 or 3 of the Karate Kid movies. This year, we watched the 4, 5, & 6th episodes of Star Wars, ate popcorn and drank sparkling cider. It was  a great way to start what will be a great year! :)

I am glad to have 2010 behind us and am moving forward with a few things:

• Planning a trip to the LA area to see my bro-in-law and sis-in-law
• Returning to the Happiest Place on Earth for 3 days(that was the major Christmas present of the year)
• Decluttering my house ( I really don't need a huge stack of Pottery Barn catalogs, right?)
• Getting back in shape (that pumpkin roll I mentioned above? Yeah I ate about 3/4 of one by my self) 
• Figuring out a flattering, fashion forward wardrobe
• Finally finishing painting the bedrooms! 

I'll reveal a bit more of our 2011 year plans soon. :)