Hi my name is Melinda...

just in case you've forgotten who I am!

I've been a bad blogger. So many posts running through my head and an inability to put them together coherently. Perhaps you should just have a look inside? I'm not sure what the sound track would be for this post, something soothing? Marshmallow world? Deck the Halls? The Target ditty that I have on repeat in my head as it seems to ALWAYS be on?



Phew! MOST of the presents purchased. Only two left. And those are the hardest two! Only minor concerns of: "What if they don't like it? Will it be a pain to return?"

The kids have wrapped the presents so they are a bit of a happily rumpled mess with wobbly bows/ribbons and dodgy taping around the edges. They've wrapped things that aren't presents. I'm pretty sure there are a few ornaments, one box full of Christmas ribbons (which a certain six year old forgot would be needed to do the remainder of the presents) and some full of who knows what. If something is missing, it probably is wrapped and under our tree.

We have a new puppy, which is a bit like having a newborn baby. We've had an unusually cold December so far, with several nights below freezing (probably over our annual average already), so he's been sleeping in his kennel in the laundry room. He starts the "I've got to go!" crying sometime before 6 a.m. What joy to stand on the doorstep in the freezing pre-dawn hours waiting on him to finish his business. I swear it is just like Austin Powers when he first wakes up from the deep freeze. Go. Stop. Go. Stop. Gooooooo. Stop.

There have been school Christmas plays, dance recitals, sniffly noses and nighttime coughing, a funeral, canceled shopping trips, cookies that didn't work out (note to self: double ALL the ingredients when making a double recipe), fudge that did. All the whirlwind stuff that means Christmas is coming! Again.

And didn't we JUST DO IT a few months ago? Can we push it to every other year?