JFF: Christmas movie ranking

 Just for fun: what's your Christmas movie score? I should probably (definitely) be painting the bathroom instead of typing this, but I'm not going to fight Hallmark this time. If you were in a Christmas movie, how would you rank? 

Do you:

get a real Christmas tree +2

go to get said tree on foot with the expectation that Mr. Right will appear to carry it home +4

wear a suit to work -1

do woodworking +3

have handmade ornaments on your Christmas tree +2

order presents from Amazon -2

decorate your car like a reindeer +1

occasionally work nights and weekends -3

have a secret family cookie recipe +2

put Christmas garlands around each door frame in your home +3

start listening to Christmas music in October +1

answer work phone calls outside of working hours -2

have real poinsettias on every surface in your home +3 

have poor communication skills, specifically with your future spouse +4

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This post inspired by my brother in law, as it occurred to me that his recent woodworking skills made his value in a Christmas movie dramatically increase. In an unexpected twist of fate, he is married to the Queen of Christmas. Christmas magic never lies.

Thoughts @ Thirty

Since I passed a milestone this year, I wanted to commemorate some of my thoughts and life lessons at this point in my life. This is mainly for my own benefit, so I can compare my thoughts in the future.

Lessons learned in my twenties:
~Whenever possible, avoid melting plastic in the dishwasher. My first thought was - I think we'll have to move.
~"Clear care hydrogen peroxide" is not meant to be used as normal contact solution. Especially not on night one of vacation at an all inclusive resort, where you have to walk 3 miles blind with burning eyes to find a real bottle of contact solution (for which you gladly trade $90 and your right arm).
~ Do the hardest thing first. I've heard some philosophies that differ, but this works for me. Make the dreaded phone call first, do the worst project first, and get it off your shoulders.
~ If you never turn the TV on, you never have to turn it off.
~Say yes. Say yes to making the presentation, to trying the new group, to taking the opportunity. My mama's words ring in my head all the time "doing things you don't like to do develops character". (My 4 year old's response is "I don't think I want character"). Say yes to what scares you, because it will force you to grow.
~Say no. I'm just grasping at the edges of this lesson, but I'm starting to get it out of sheer necessity. If you never say no you will burn out and lose out on what should be the priority. "Even the good is the enemy of the best". 
~Love your people. You are going to lose some of them, and it will crush you. 
~ Give yourself some grace. I want my house to be "not lived in clean", but it just so happens that it is lived in by two small heathens. Someday I will have more than 60 seconds to tackle a project without being disrupted by said heathens. Someday I will miss those precious little arms that wrap around my legs and my neck and limit the cleaning I can accomplish. So for now I love on the babies, do my best for the house, and give myself a little grace for the baseboards.
~Be kind to everyone. We have no idea the battles they are fighting. Life is hard - let's not make it harder for each other.

~Be where your feet are. I can't say it better than Jim Elliot: wherever you are, be all there. Live to the hilt every situation that you believe to be the will of God. 

Cheers to thirty ;)

COVID ramblings

A collection of random thoughts during quarantine that I could have put individually on social media, but didn't. You're welcome.

I don't get the toilet paper shortages. Were people not using toilet paper before? Does everyone have 100 rolls stockpiled now? Our toilet paper consumption and purchasing patterns have not changed...

Quarantine gave me the opportunity to try some different jobs. I think I am ok as a preschool teacher, but at best I'm a mediocre hairdresser.

Apparently in our normal lives we basically live at the grocery. Did not realize how much we went there until we intentionally tried not to go.

I'm not a big shopper, but I really just want to go to Hobby Lobby and walk around. I don't want to buy anything, but I just want the option of a completely non-essential trip.

Life for working parents is only going to be more difficult after COVID. Will daycares have to reduce the number of kids in attendance? Will daycares refuse to watch kids with runny noses? Sick kids are already the bane of my working parent existence, and I think it's about to get worse.

Quarantine means finally using all the stuff in our freezer: lamp chops and shark meat for dinner at our house. My husband now makes tortilla shells and bread from scratch. This is normal, right?

I never thought I'd say I was tired of wearing jeans. Apparently I don't own enough jeans. I just want to wear dress clothes again!
On the jeans note... it's been a long time since I wore so many jeans. It's made me realize that other than the two maternity jeans I bought in 2015, my next most recent jeans purchase was somewhere between 8-10 years ago. I'm not sure if that means I'm an adult or if that means I need to go shopping.

As a former homeschooler, I think it's so neat how many people scrapped e-learning and bought or created their own curriculum (with teacher approval). After 30 years of hearing people hate on homeschooling, I want to yell "that's the beauty of homeschooling! you get to recognize that different methods work for different kids, and you have flexibility to make an individual plan!" This is why many people homeschool... it's not because they hate socialization. Ok, off my soapbox.

Dr. Eric Yazel should get a Nobel peace prize. And a Pulitzer, I think Facebook counts as journalism now.

You know you're a parent in quarantine when:
-it occurs to you this would be a marvelous time for potty training.
-the fact that you must take solo trips to the grocery (no kids) is not at all terrible. The trips only occur infrequently, but they are still basically a vacation.

During COVID I tend to start emails to clients with 'I hope you are doing ok'. Perhaps that is something I should keep. Compassion for each other's well being matters even when it's not a pandemic.

My 3 year old's comments:
On wearing a mask: "I can't wear a mask. It will cover up my beautiful face!"
When she first got to see my sister after quarantine: "Aunt Rebecca! It's Mia, do you remember me?!"