We’ve had a flood of giveaways here at the Fishbowl. And as much as I love giving stuff away, I need to know:
Thank you! Your vote helps make the Fishbowl a happier place.
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Let’s talk ADVENT.
I need to write it down before I lose track of what we’ve done. I feel like I haven’t been very creative with our family activities this year. I am feeling burned out – not by Christmas – just by life. I feel like there’s this pressure for me to be a happy homemaker. And I am – to a certain degree – a happy homemaker. At the very least, I know that I’m a happier homemaker than many women out there, but I can’t help but feel like I am seriously lacking in the Christmas department. What is wrong with me? This is why I love all things Martha Stewart, and I hate them almost as much. Nothing makes you feel more inferior than a perfectly decorated sugar cookie. I feel like I would be a better mom if I loved baking and decorating (and scrubbing the baseboards, but that is a whole different post) and lovingly darning the socks of my delightfully well-bred offspring.
The truth is, I suck at baking and decroating cookies. I don’t love doing it, and for some reason I think I should. I love having a tree but I need to force myself to decorate it. Where does this come from? I can’t figure it out.
There’s a house around the corner with a huge four-season front garden and decorations that come out at each major seasonal interval: Easter, Halloween, Christmas. How do they do it? The living room is really the only place I ever have the energy to decorate.
Gah. Enough of that. Here’s the lowdown on what we’ve been doing:
Day 6 – Mini pedi spa day (a.k.a. Keeping Up With Personal Hygiene)
Day 7 – Decorating the tree
Day 8 – Was going to be “dress up for dinner,” but Emma had something going on right after school so we turned it into a mashup of “wear hats at the dinner table” “eat dessert before dinner” (I made a kick ass pudding. Kick.Ass. I must post the recipe.) and a last-minute “Get take-out from The Works because mum didn’t plan anything for dinner. Just pudding.”
Day 9 – Sarah had an art class at 4Cats Arts Studio, which I first wrote about here. (It was amazing. Here’s what she created!) and we attended a fundraising party at Emma’s school, AND topped it all off with two holiday TV shows before bed.
Today I am waiting anxiously for a delivery of a new camera. I ordered a Nikon D90 from Henry’s. Mark agreed that it was time for an upgrade. I was hoping it would arrive yesterday and the whole thing is making me squirrely.
In other news I am making a little somethin’ Christmassy for YOU too. It’ll be a downloadable kind of thing. Stay tuned for that.
