Aftermath

Good morning! All is fairly normal here in the aftermath of the great opening of stuff that typically occurs on Christmas. I probably shouldn’t jinx anything by saying that all is fairly quiet or that there are no violent outbreaks currently in progress so I won’t.

I need to do some fairly typical things today like laundry. It seems like every time it gets sort of caught up, the boys bring down about ten loads out of their room and someone brings down five out of the upstairs bathroom. It’s just ridiculous. There is always the eating thing that needs to happen. So far, only Joseph has had breakfast. We have plenty of leftovers for lunch and supper so that’s not a problem. We actually have too many leftovers. I think we’re set for at least the rest of the week.

Seth has an appointment with a new eye doctor today. My planner is almost always on the counter but now it isn’t so I have to go find it soon so I can see when the appointment is. I decided to go to a different one because the one we were going to only uses our insurance for the exam; no frames or lenses. In my opinion, that’s just ridiculous. It should be an all or nothing thing. My plan is to get Seth new glasses from this eye doctor because they won’t cost anything and then take him to Walmart for another pair. They won’t be free but they won’t cost too much and he’ll be able to choose frames that he likes (our options at the eye doctor will be limited). That way, we’ll have a pair for him to wear all the time and a back-up pair for in-case. Being a boy, we have lots of in-case times. I really like Walmart’s guarantee—if they are broken within a year, you get a new pair. We used that once for Daniel and probably would have again. We could have used that for Seth but when his glasses broke it was just past the year mark. He needed to go in for an appointment, anyway.

I found it. It was in the living room on the floor. Not a place I usually keep it but I remember setting it there. Seth’s appointment is at 9:45. We have plenty of time to eat and shower and whatever else needs to be done.

Now Cedric is doing his usual thing. He doesn’t quite do anything but teases like there’s no tomorrow and Seth and Joseph, in this case Joseph, respond by yelling and doing the, “Mo-om—Cedric’s doing such and such.”

Our Christmas was pretty good. I’m not going to even attempt recalling what everyone got. The Legos were a hit, as I expected. Joanna liked her corgi stuff. I really made out in the Star Wars department. Groovy. I’ll have pictures sometime. Maybe I’ll work on that while I eat in a bit.

It’s hard to believe that another year is almost gone. Five more days. Another year without Daniel. Another year of learning to cope with emotions and feelings that I never dreamed I would have to do. Another year of a forever changed family dynamic. A first year of not having Laura with us. We didn’t have a bad year; it was actually mostly good. I expect the next one to be about the same. You know the adage “There is nothing so constant as change”? Well, it is mostly true but there are some things that do not change; that never have and never will. Many, maybe most, things do change, but not all. That’s my food for thought for the day.

Adam and Kim came over yesterday. Kim (and her family) and I have a lot of similar ideas and feelings about how things are in the Gardner Ward. We agree that while the music was nice at the ‘Christmas’ party at church, it wasn’t very Christmasy. Quite honestly, for trying to remember what the Christmas season is all about, other than the music and the bowls of ornaments used as centerpieces, there wasn’t anything that really lent that kind of atmosphere to the whole thing. I wouldn’t mind seeing a real Christmas Party at church. In Gardner, Massachusetts.

The Young Men and Young Women are teaching Primary during 3^rd hour Sunday because the Relief Society is having a Visiting Teaching Conference. I have a few opinions about that as well but won’t get into them at the moment. The Young Women are awesome—we’ve got music and sharing time taken care of and at least one girl for the nursery and 6-7-year-old class. The rest of the girls can just help out with those. We only really need one Young Man and that is to help Jonathan with his class because Elizabeth will be in RS.

I am going to go for now. If I take much more time doing this, I’ll run out of eating and showering time.

Have a spectacular day!