Hi there! Just wanted to say Merry Christmas!
Finally spent two days on the chaos of downstairs, and it's in a good state for Christmas morning. So happy about that. Could NOT see enjoying Christmas morning without doing that. What a relief! Not perfect, but nice enough :).
I think I'll take some ginger this morning, as I could barely sleep. Christmas is always a highly stressful time for me...I SO want everything to be perfect. I sit around with bated breath as things go well, and when they don't for just a few moments, there's this massive swelling of upset! Been through it too many times...
Anyhow, we opened one gift (our tradition) last night. I got a mermaid painting from Fiona. I LOVED it in progress, but the final product isn't quite as nice--because she finished the mermaid, who's only in about a tenth of the canvas, and then threw on a bunch of blue paint for the sea--without anything else in the water. She was rushing to finish, but the blue also mixes with the mermaid's blue hair, which detracts a bit, too. Sigh... Anyhow, thinking of adding some material or something to the sides of the canvas, so the mermaid is silhouetted a bit more. Maybe I'll outline her in something, too, to differentiate her from the water...
Not to sound ungrateful! I am totally blown away by Fiona's art these days, and I think I have very entrenched editorial tendencies! Totally worth it. I actually 'saved' an art piece, as I see it, that she did at camp a couple of years ago. Same issue, sort of... I added a coating of metallic glitter to the sort of pale, nondescript figure, some golden paint on the empty eyes, and 'presto', it's one of my favorite pieces! I know that sounds like I just 'blinged' it up, which is sorta true, but it was just faded and hard to see before--not remarkable--almost like a pencil drawing with watercolor background right through it (sorta ghostly thing). Now it looks mystical :). So yep, thinking I will touch up my mermaid pic so I love it, too!
Oh, an example of my stressing out for Christmas...I gave Fiona a set of books. She was thrilled, very happy! They were old boxed sets of #1-#12 of The Babysitter's Club books. Okay, so I've never even read them, but they suddenly looked perfect after seeing that her friends were reading The Hunger Games and such. She's only 11, for goodness' sakes! So, she's quite happily glowing over them, and I add, "I picked those up at the library sale! So no new trees were used or anything." My point? Promoting ethical purchases, making HER feel good about the sourcing of her present. She didn't seem too impressed with my remark, though she didn't make a face or anything. So... my result? I felt a bit like I'd announced, "Oh, I got you USED books because they were cheap and convenient. They were someone's discards. Merry Christmas." Then, armed with that nervousness, I tried to brag on the boxes they come in, because in working on my own library, I finally learned that the boxes ARE extremely nice. So I tried to explain, "And these books are in really great condition, because they've been kept in these boxes..." so far, so good. Then, I continue, "See the tops of the books? They're really nice and clean. The boxes keep the dust and roach droppings off of them." Oh, Lord. I have Foot-in-Mouth Disease.
So there we go. The girl was already happy. What did I go and say all that for??? Sigh. Anyhow, it's fine. She ended up reading half of the first one last night. I do hope they're good books. I always sort of wanted to read them. Don't know why I didn't. Anyhow, some of my hope is that they promote truly good values. Seems to me that all our stuff did that, whereas much of today's media seems to just be a lot of silly nonsense. I sound old, don't I? ;)
Okay, it's nice to chat, but it's now 6:30 and the kids will be up soon. Merry Christmas! I hope that you enjoy the holidays!
