Happy Boxing Day/First Day of Kwanzaa!!

I hope you all had a lovely holiday however it was celebrated (or not). We've been busy, but we also enjoyed our time with our families.

I think this was the first time Cadence actually enjoyed the act of opening presents. Since we wanted to keep things simple and not so focused on presents, we only gave her one small gift to unwrap on Christmas morning at home. It was a wooden crocodile that I had bought at the Seeds of Change marketplace earlier in the month. Cadence had wanted it then, but I had bought her a giraffe already, so I bought it when she wasn't looking and saved it for her. And she totally remembered that it was the crocodile from church and immediately reunited it with her giraffe.

We stopped at my uncle's in the burbs on the way to Ted's parents' house. My mom was spending Christmas with them, so we got to see her too. My cousins Sherline and Debbie were there too, and it's always nice to spend time with them. I think they enjoy having a little kid's voice in the house, especially for the holidays.

It turned out to be a good thing that we only gave her the one gift in the morning since there were definitely a lot of presents with her name on it under Grandma and Grandpa's tree. See that big box with the snowflakes? That's from Great Grandma Carol, and there were no less than half a dozen entire outfits in there.

Ted's mom and his Aunt Martha made Christmas dinner, which was as lovely as it was delicious. Cadence was excited to sit down at the beautiful place setting, but when it actually came time to eat, she decided against it.

After a couple bites of pasta, she decided it was time for dessert but settled for an apple she found in the fruit bowl. Finally, someone left a tupperware full of Grandma's yummy cookies out unsupervised on the kitchen table, and Cadence was in heaven.

At least four cookies later, we were served Auntie Martha's homemade eggnog ice cream, and Cadence absolutely loved it. In fact, she traded one of the cookies she had in her fist to me for my last spoonful of ice cream. I think she must have had 10 cookies at least during the course of the evening. And about 20 minutes before we left, she found the bowl of gumdrops.

Cadence probably had a week's worth of sugar in a span of 3 hours. And this is the kid who when she opened up her present from Yia Yia and found a bag of M&Ms said, "Look! Snack!" and put the bag down uninterested. Had we told her it was chocolate, she would've made us open it up on the spot.

It was a nice time with the family, although we were missing Uncle Charles and Auntie Ali in Seattle, as well as Uncle Dave and Aunt Becki and Uncle Douglas and Auntie Lauren who were vacationing in Athens for Christmas.

Alright. I'm pooped. I've been back at work as of today, but at least it's a short week. We're still super busy trying to clean up the tornado that apparently blew through our condo during the holidays. We've got people coming over on Sunday so we don't have much of a choice. The good thing is that I remembered that there is a new Salvation Army Family Store that just opened up in our neighborhood, so we can give away a lot of our stuff and hopefully, HOPEFULLY, in 2008 we'll get a system of organization down. I guess I'd have to believe in miracles for that one to come true.

Best Shot(s) Monday--Then One Foggy Christmas Eve-Eve-Eve-Eve

It being Christmas this week and all, I guess I gotta post some Christmasy photos. I've actually been terribly busy and haven't had much time to lift up my camera, but we did go to the Daley Plaza downtown on Friday night to do some family oriented holidayesque stuff, so I can at least post a few of those shots.

It was a rather foggy night, which made the scene all the more dramatic with the spotlight effect of the extra bright streetlights.

There was actually a lot going on besides the big old blindingly bright tree. Cadence loved all the hustle and bustle, especially anything related to model trains, fake penguins and fake armadillos.

There was a German festival of sorts going on with a number of vendors selling everything from German chocolates to pastries to bratwurst to toys to ornaments galore.

This was definitely the place to be if you wanted Christmas ornaments. Or a $3,000 nativity scene.

It's been very busy around here, which is why I've been neglecting this here blog. Actually, I've been working on getting my new domain/blog up and running. It's pretty much ready to go now, I think, but I'll wait until the New Year to make a clean break of it.

See other folks' Best Shots on Tracey's first BSM at Mother May I.

Best Shot(s) Monday--Bring on the Holidays

I normally wouldn't post a photo of myself because I usually hate my own photos, but I kinda like this one. I took it on our hayride yesterday at the Pioneer Tree Farm in McHenry, IL, a place where you can get organically grown Christmas Trees for the great flat price of $35.

And here are Cadence and Ted sitting across from me on our hayride. Cadence wasn't so sure about the bitterly cold winds, but once that wagon started bump, bump, bumping along, she was happy as a clam.

She was kinda more interested in finding pine cones than a Christmas tree, and there were a few times when she almost threw a fit amongst the trees, but I was determined NOT to ruin the experience of getting our very first Christmas tree, so I didn't give up on our search for "the perfect tree."

I finally found a tree that was just right. It may not be the most perfectly shaped tree in the world, but that's what makes it perfect for me. Ted had mixed feelings about cutting down a live tree, but when he actually put blade to tree trunk, it came down pretty fast. Well, I just hope it wasn't a Talking Tree...

And here's that same tree in our living room. It's the perfect size for our big window. We haven't decorated it yet, but I have a box of handmade Christmas kitsch ornaments from Yia Yia and her friends who run a Christmas bazaar every year, so I think our tree's gonna look mighty fine once we're done with it.

Go see other folks' Best Shots on Tracey's Picture This.

Seeds of Change

Our church, Berry UMC, is part of the Chicago Fair Trade coalition, and yesterday was our semi-annual Seeds of Change marketplace, a fair for local artisans to sell their products as well as other fair trade vendors to sell goods from around the world.

There were also performances during the event, including WNEP Theater's Soireé DADA. Cadence was a bit puzzled and quite captivated by the trio of white-faced decked out DADAists walking, dancing, singing, shouting and otherwise soireé-ing around customers and vendors alike.

This is whole different take on DADA than what we're used to in our family, where DADA generally refers to TED.

Anyhoo, it was a very enjoyable day, and there seemed to be a pretty good-sized turnout, despite the snowy then rainy weather. Our friends Jenn and John and Ada showed up too, so Cadence had someone to play with for a couple hours. I found some really cool ornaments made by a woman named Erin (I think) who used scraps of clothes she didn't want anymore. It's got me thinking I'd like to do some stitching of my own. We're hoping to get a Christmas tree this year, so we'll be needing some ornanments. It'll be Cadence's first tree, and I think she's gonna love it, considering one of her favorite books is about these teddy bears who go and find a Christmas tree, bring it home and decorate it.

I didn't have a Christmas tree growing up because my dad believed that it was a pagan symbol. I was always embarrassed that our family was so different, and I knew some of my classmates thought I was weird. I guess that's why I want so much for our family to have a Christmas tree. I want Cadence to have memories of going to a tree farm and picking a tree, of playing Sufjan's Songs for Christmas while decorating the tree, of making our own ornaments and decorations for the tree. You know--normal, wholesome memories.

I guess you could say I'm planting my own little seeds of change in my family.

Keepin' It Real...Or Trying To...

A while back, Ted mentioned that I should blog about something to motivate me to take action about that said something. I've been mulling it over because I don't really know how to blog about it, so I'm just gonna do it. My thoughts haven't crystallized, so if I sound like I'm rambling, that's because I am...

Anyhoo, one of Ted's passions in life is Voluntary Simplicity. Yes, I know you all thought all he was interested in is beer and homebrewing, but he's actually more complex and contemplative than I usually let on. I'm all for Voluntary Simplicity in theory. But when it comes to day-to-day living, man, do I totally suck at it.

For the past 3.5+ years we've been living together, Ted has been trying to get our family to minimize our possessions and to declutter our living spaces. Poor thing. You see, he married a packrat. Needless to say, it has not been a painless process for us. But I think I'm beginning to see the light. I recently had a daydream/visualization of the world just filling up with stuff and stuff and more stuff at an astronomical rate, and it really freaked me out. I can see that happening in our home, and it's really got to stop.

I like to think of myself as someone who is bucking the system, rejecting material consumption, and who cares about the environment. Truth be told, however, I'm sooooooo lazy at it, which makes me question my motives. Do I really care, or do I just want to keep up appearances because Green is the New Black [could someone explain this phraseology to me?]?

Anyhoo, I'm not being hard on myself or anything here. I'm just trying to sort out what's real, and if I've been faking it all this time, well, I gotta come clean one way or another...To Be Continued...Indefinitely...