I have not sat here for days it seems, sharing my random thoughts about life in general. I've missed it too, almost to the point of feeling guilty.
The house is so incredibly quiet, like it was before, and my head is completely blank. It feels fabulous. Like I have been purged of all craziness and dead lines that had to be met.
It feels like Monday, but it isn't, it's Thursday, the day after Christmas. I was even disappointed that one of my favorite Sunday evening TV shows wasn't on last night, then I remembered...it was only Wednesday.
My desk is completely bare. I can see the entire top of it and had forgotten exactly what it looked like. The reason it is clean is because I put everything that was on it into a cardboard box and slid it under the desk. I'm sure no one cared, but it did give the illusion that I had cleaned, that I was neat, tidy and proficient.
Right now, I have absolutely nothing to do. Well, I do, but nothing that absolutely has to be done right this very minute. The oven timer is not going off, or the timer on the microwave, to remind me that something is in there, something that needs to come out, before it looks like a piece of charcoal, or nuked to "brick-bat" stage.
I should really do some laundry since all my blue jeans are in the dirty clothes. I have been forced to get out the sweat pants. I don't like to wear sweat pants but since I thought I needed to consume enough chocolate to make Willy Wonka want to add on to the factory, they may be the only pants that will fit.
I haven't shed any tears because I waited until the last minute to do my online shopping, only to find out that my packages wouldn't arrive in time. But, they did.
They arrived Christmas Eve afternoon, right before the throng of people were to arrive for my husband's side of the family gathering. At the time, I was headed to the closest Wal-Mart for some last minute save-the-day items. I gave some serious thought to the idea of just driving in one direction until I ran out of fuel, never to return, but decided that might put an unhappy damper on the festivities.
We don't have to do much on Christmas morning. Our daughters live just up the street from us and they have their own gift opening session before they come here. The oldest daughters' children decided that 3:30 a.m. was a good time to start this year. The youngest daughters' husband, the biggest kid of the bunch, thought it wise to wake his brood up before 7. By the time they all got to our house, the word 'testy' was coming into play. They had to wait on me though, before they could come. Since I was too tired to wrap gifts after everyone left the night before, I had to do it Christmas morning. It was the classic roll, fold, wad and tape. I never have enough tape and considered getting the hot glue gun out or the staple gun, but I had borrowed a roll and finally remembered where I put it. No one seemed to notice that their gifts had padding on the ends.
Our kids surprised us with a new TV this year. One of the new flat screen models. I don't remember how long we have had the old one, but it has given us many years of service. It too, was a big screen model but not the slim sleek kind. No, this one must weigh at least a hundred pounds and is nearly four feet tall.
When we remodeled several years ago, we turned the dining room and living room into one big room. The TV sat on one end of the room and we on the other. I'm not sure if it was the TV or us, but a few months ago my husband decided he could not see what was on the screen as clearly as he had been able to. I moved his chair closer to the screen and left mine where it was. After a week or two of this viewing set up, I felt like I was sitting in the back of the theater by myself and moved my chair next to his. So here we were, in this great big room, with our chairs sitting in the middle of the room about six feet in front of the TV. The first time our kids saw this arrangement must have been what prompted their idea for the gift.
The old TV was housed in what used to be a built in china cabinet and set about three feet up off the floor. Our sons-in law hossed it out of the hole, while I hid in the kitchen with my fingers crossed, praying they didn't drop it or knock over the numerous decorations that sat close by. Then they hooked up the new one, programmed the remote and fired it up. The picture was amazing and I nearly had to put my sunglasses on to view it. Now I can put the chairs back where they belong because if I don't, I fear we may glow in the dark.
Everyone left by a little after one, and I curled up in my chair to relax. I was thinking about how stressed I had let myself get this year. How I had procrastinated, thinking I had all the time in the world to get things done, only to discover that my time was running short. I thought about all the things I had wanted to accomplish, but didn't and vowed to do better next year. Next year, I would start in August.
It was about this time, during my inner contemplation, that my phone rang. It was my oldest daughter's husband. She has taken on the responsibility of her husband's side of the family celebration at their house. It seemed that their oldest son had eaten one of the main ingredients to a recipe she was getting ready to prepare and did I have said ingredient.
I had to laugh because anyone who knows this boy, knows that a tomato within a two block radius is not safe. He had eaten an entire box of cherry tomatoes. I knew his mother was probably not a happy camper at this particular moment because of the above mentioned word, testy. I also knew he was in deep do-do, but I'm sure he had put on a face of great innocence. After all, if there wasn't a padlock on the tomatoes, they were surely fair game.
I just happened to have a box of cherry tomatoes. They were for a salad that I had wanted to prepare for our Christmas Eve gathering, but I had run out of time. I had even strategically placed these tomatoes behind a zucchini and a cucumber in the crisper drawer because I knew if this boy saw them, they were history. My procrastination saved his hide.
Things really do happen for a reason. Christmas is over and what's done, is done. What didn't get done really doesn't matter.
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