holidays – Page 2

Oh the weather outside is frightful…

February 14, 2015 Marie Leave a Comment

vday-featherweight vday-featherweight2 vday-snow

Oh wait, wrong holiday.

The weather outside awful, but today I’m inside cozy and warm with my two valentines. We have a pizza in the oven for lunch, and I’ve been knitting away on my new cardigan while the Mr plays video games in between taking care of the Little Mr. Tonight we’re having a tomato and spinach pasta… nothing super fancy. We’re not huge on Valentine’s Day, but we’re making it special in our own way I suppose.

I hope, no matter where you are or how you celebrate, you find a bit of time to do something you love today. Happy Valentine’s Day, friends! <3

We faked it

January 1, 2015 Marie 4 Comments

It’s the new year, and I probably should be writing about fresh starts and whatnot. Instead, I’m going to tell you that we faked Christmas pictures this morning. We woke up, put on our holiday pajamas we wore on Christmas morning, and we faked photos. See, we were so in the moment on the 25th that we totally forgot. I’m not sure how we managed to forget, but we did. And I was so, so upset about it – the baby’s first holiday and I didn’t have any photographic evidence of it.

I voiced my frustration online, and several friends told me they’ve done the exact same thing. They’ve just been so busy and overwhelmed with things going on – kids begging to open presents and such – that they totally forgot. I’m not alone, at least, which really does happen to make me feel better.

So we faked them. I’m told that in 15 years I won’t even remember we faked them, but I feel like I’ll still know. I know ultimately it won’t matter, though – I won’t be focused on the fact that we faked them, and I’ll instead be looking at how tiny and sweet my boy is here.

Goodbye holidays, hello new year

December 27, 2014 Marie 1 Comment

The holidays are officially over. I traditionally take down the decorations on New Years Eve/New Years Day, but I’m finding myself itching to take them all down this weekend and get my house back in order. It might have something to do with the fact that our dryer decided to stop working on Christmas so there’s laundry all around the house air drying. It also might have something to do with my readiness to just move on. I need the fresh start that the new year brings.

I had this post written out with all my plans for 2015, but Monday I was diagnosed with postpartum depression and now the only thing that seems important to work on is taking care of myself to fight the PPD and just, overall, survive. I still want to work on my list of plans, but those all have to be secondary. My main priority right now is to get back into running since exercising has always made me feel better and helped with the small bits of depression I’ve had off-and-on throughout my life. We’re probably going to re-join our local YMCA – winter in Ohio isn’t a horrible season to run so long as there isn’t snow and ice, so having the indoor track is going to end up being necessary. I want to get back to my 5k race days, and the only way that will happen is with a lot of hard work and dedication to training 3x a week.

(About the photo: my husband bought me a pizzelle iron for Christmas. They’re imperfect, but I’m getting better at it the more I use it)

All is calm

December 22, 2014 Marie 1 Comment

A peacefully napping baby, a mellow (and temporarily clean) living room, and knitting by holiday lights as the dawn arises. The calm before the holiday storm.

(Knitting is just a basic double-stranded garter stitch blanket, using up some acrylic I’ve had hanging around for a while. It’s not the prettiest thing, but it’ll be a fantastic toddler-sized blanket for the baby’s crib for next winter.)

On traditions and simplicity

December 21, 2014 Marie 2 Comments

Traditions are funny things. They are, by definition, a pattern. It’s tradition for me to put up the tree the day after Thanksgiving. It’s tradition for me to give the niece and nephew an ornament each year. Every year I do the same things.

But traditions change, too. They evolve. It used to be tradition that I went to see my extended family on Christmas day up until a few years ago. Now it’s tradition to stay home and open presents and relax (because it’s something I’ve always wanted but never had as a kid). Christmas with the extended family on my mom’s side used to mean a tree you could barely see because there were so many presents piled around it. Now the tree is more simple, and there are only presents for their children (my mom and uncles and spouses) but not the grandchildren. There’s a little sadness in that for me. It isn’t the presents, though that makes me a bit sad, too. I think it’s that, as an adult, you see things differently. You know the why and how. You see things for what they really are instead of having the lens of childhood innocence to tint your view a different, happy shade.

Traditions change, and it has taken me 30 years to realize it. I can’t believe I’m finally realizing that I don’t have to follow tradition just because “it’s tradition.” I don’t have to do something if I don’t enjoy it. I don’t have to make something work just for the sake of keeping tradition. All I have to do is what makes us all happiest, and say no to the rest. No to making 10 different kinds of cookies and candies, yes to just the one or two we actually enjoy. No to the pressure of making everything hour and minute special, yes to keeping it simple and laid back (which is our style, anyway). No to letting anyone dictate what our traditions should be, yes to doing what works for us.

Just a happy, simple holiday season for probably the first time ever in my life.