We have a family tradition of getting our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving. It was something my family did, it was something E’s family did, and it’s something we’ve done throughout our marriage. This year Thanksgiving was late, and also fell in the middle of shift work for E, so he didn’t get the day off. Or the day after. I was a little bummed, but we planned to just get the tree in a few days when E could get a few hours off of work.

That never happened. He literally hasn’t had any time off – besides a few hours to sleep most (not even all) nights – since mid-November. If it was at any other job besides the military, his hours would probably be illegal. I know I’ve complained about how much he works before (probably a lot) but I’ve reached a point where I’m not sure how I’M going to get through it.

Right now the only thing I’m getting by on is making sure the kids are still enjoying Christmas. They are so excited about every single part of the holidays that it’s pretty easy for me to let myself get wrapped up in it too, although the fact that we’re missing 1/4th of our family is always in the back of my mind. My mom sent the kids an advent calendar and GOD FORBID I don’t remember to get it down so they can open the day’s door first thing in the morning. And amazingly, they’re keeping track of whose turn it is and remember better than I do. It’s teaching them sharing! And fairness! And that if you touch something covered in glitter it will stick on your body basically forever! Those are all very important lessons.

My biggest accomplishment so far is that I took both kids to the tree farm on a weekend (SO CROWDED) and we chopped down a tree. I CUT IT DOWN MY OWN SELF. WITH A SAW. I did a hack job and a nice guy with his own family came over and steadied it while I was sawing so it didn’t fall over and crush me, but besides that I did it alone. Luckily the farm picks up the cut trees and carts them down to the station where they shake them and wrap them up for you, but then I hauled it to the car, into the car (God bless minivans) and home into the house. I totally failed at getting it into the stand but E got it set up the next morning and now we have a fully decorated tree. We had to rearrange because my little desk/office corner went in the former Christmas tree spot, but now we can sit on our new little couch, enjoy the fire and look at the tree at the same time. Tomorrow the kids get to start opening their Christmas books (I was going to do one for each day of December but books are really expensive, yo) and we can sit on that new couch by the tree and I can read to them about the Christmas story while I sob quietly because magic and family and loneliness and children and Jesus and FEELINGS. It’s raising my level of holiday spirit from Grinch to Slightly Christmasy, which is a definite improvement.

I haven’t had much time for my own photos lately, which makes me kind of sad. Partly because once something is part of your job it loses a LITTLE bit of the fun and partly because it’s hard to juggle the kids in public and take photos. It’s pretty easy to lose one kid while you’re taking pictures of the other one, and I’m generally only seconds away from losing a kid even WITHOUT a camera in my face. It’s amazing I’ve kept them alive this long, honestly. But this might be the first Christmas they remember when they look back as adults and I want to make sure I have at least some pictures to show them, so here are a few.

Evan’s first choice, but I told him it was too short.

Caroline’s first choice, also on the small side.

Final selection

After we killed it.

Watching them wrap it with the cool wrapping machine

The farm had all our favorite food trucks, including the delicious kettle corn people from the farmer’s market.

Decorating

The princess places the angel

Yes, I know it’s out of focus

Fun with bokeh cut-outs

I feel like my head might explode with all the things I am trying to remember. Wednesday morning I realized at 7:30 am it was Caroline’s turn to bring snack to school, so we drove to the grocery store for Goldfish crackers and milk, drove home, put Evan on the bus, dropped Caroline off at school, drove down to the beach for a Christmas photo shoot, drove home to meet Evan’s half-day bus (since the LAST half day I totally forgot him – Mother Of The DECADE!!), threw him in the car, drove back to Caroline’s school for pick up, drove to the post office, drove to BJ’s for essentials (Diet Coke, cheese and milk), then finally stopped at Moe’s for lunch. LUNCH. Because all of that was before 12:30 pm.

The rest of this week is also half-days which means more racing around to make it to pick up, plus my parent-teacher conference on Friday. I have two newborn clients I’m just waiting to become outside babies so I can schedule their sessions, a handful of families to do Christmas photos for, a cool press event in NYC on Monday and a husband who is about to go into shift work that will last probably the rest of the year. ALL OF 2013. I’m not sure I’ll survive it with my sanity, let alone with a house that doesn’t look like a tornado hit it, because that’s what it looks like now. Like a storm of boxes and My Little Ponies and couches rained down on my family room. I made the mistake of building Evan a “city” out of empty Amazon boxes and now I can’t throw any of them away or he freaks out. Smooth move, genius. Let’s turn trash into something we have to keep!

Because posts about how I am SO BUSY and don’t have time to blog are boring, I will make it up to you with a video of Caroline from a couple weekends ago. The kids are obsessed with the Cups song and E is pretty proud of himself for knowing how to do it, so this actually happens a lot around here. And don’t try to tell her she’s doing it wrong, she won’t believe you.

One of the things I love about my iPhone is the ability to buy and ready instant eBooks. I read myself to sleep at night, sometimes for 2 minutes, sometimes for an hour.  I like long books or series so I don’t have to keep remembering new characters (which is hard, when I fall asleep in the middle of every chapter). I read all the Anne of Green Gables books (free!) and all the Sherlock Holmes books (also free!) plus all the Game of Thrones books and all the Stephanie Plum novels and a bunch of young adult appocolyptic end of the world type stuff. I don’t really have a TYPE, just a general rule that I don’t read anything that requires more than 10% of my brain at any given time.

This week I finished my end-of-the-world-secret-Nazi-plot-wormhole-through-time-and-space book (it was called The Atlantis Gene, it wasn’t terrible but the rest of the series isn’t written yet so no real ending) and I started skimming the Kindle lists for a new book. I stumbled across a book called Lowcountry Boil, and since a) lowcountry boil is delicious and b) it was 99 cents I bought it. I like books set in the south and the description said it was a mystery which is one of the genres I almost always enjoy.

So I started reading the book. I can’t spoil it for you, because I am only a couple chapters into it, but I NEED TO TELL YOU ABOUT WHY IT IS FREAKING ME OUT.

It started with normal coincidence stuff. The main character is 31 years old and I am 31 years old! (Unimpressive, lots of people are 31 years old.)

The main character’s childhood best friend – who returns as a ghost – is named Colleen and MY childhood best friend is named Colleen! (Still not impressed, since it’s a fairly common name and also real-life Colleen is very much alive and I think even reads here sometimes so maybe she can confirm she really existed.)

The main character starts in Greenville, South Carolina but goes home to an island off Charleston and visits lots of Charleston places. I went to college in Charleston and recognize a lot of her locations! (Eh, lots of people like Charleston. And I bought the book knowing “lowcountry” was in the title, so I shouldn’t be surprised.)

The main character is named Elizabeth (which is not my name) but her middle name is Suzanne (which IS my name). OK, that was the point where I messaged Amy and said “THIS BOOK WAS MEANT FOR ME! IT’S BOOK FATE!”

And then I read one more chapter, in which the Elizabeth Suzanne (who is a private investigator) starts investigating things. She’s looking into the town council and the mayor, who is named Lincoln. Lincoln is my grandfather’s name! Not a super common name, but not unheard of. AND THEN she mentions the mayor’s wife is named Mildred. Which is my grandmother’s name. The one married to Lincoln, in my real actual life. Those are my real actual grandparents, Lincoln and Mildred and also two of her supporting characters in a book about a 31-year old named (Liz) Suzanne in South Carolina with a childhood best friend named Colleen.

TOO MUCH! I mean, no, it isn’t. It’s not like ANY of the story applies to my life in any way. It’s just the framework is full of random coincidences that makes me feel like this book ending up on my kindle IS fate.

I Googled the author and she went to my college (at this point, I’m not surprised) but not at the same time as I did. I think I’m going to social media stalk her a little, just out of curiosity. Maybe she’s somehow related to me on my mother’s side? Or we rode on an airplane together?? I’m going to keep reading, since it’s a really good book so far, but at this point I have to stop looking for MORE similarities. OMG, the main character likes coffee and I like coffee! She finds the ocean relaxing and I find the ocean relaxing!!!! She walks on two feet and I walk on two feet!!!!!!!!

I’ll definitely let you know if she ends up married to a guy named Evan and with two ginger children. Then I might get suspicious.

(This random is brought to you by not enough sleep and way too much Halloween candy.)

This is a sponsored post on behalf of MinuteClinic, but all opinions are my own. 

WINTER IS COMING. The temperatures dropped a good 25 degrees almost overnight, I had to turn on the heat and my poor littlest ginger has her first cold of the season. I added “giant boxes of tissue” to my shopping list, since I’m pretty sure the snot levels between now and April are going to reach Defcon 1. With both kids in school – DIFFERENT schools, so two times the germs! – I’m pretty sure we’ll all end up sick at one point or another.

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Is it possible I could be nesting even though I’m not pregnant? Maybe it’s less nesting and more getting ready for winter hibernation. I’ve been living on a steady diet of HGTV while I edit photos, and nothing makes me hate my own (pretty nice) house than watching people turn their horrible basements into super useful space. Why can’t someone do that to MY basement?! It’s disgusting! The before and afters would be amazing!

The current first floor makeover started when E moved our cheap, old, Walmart desk downstairs so I could carve out an “office” corner for my business stuff. Need a lamp for one ugly desk was the gateway drug to a Target trip, which lead to a HomeGoods trip, which lead to an Ikea catalog with half the pages marked and a Pinterest board full of links to more furniture than I could ever fit in my house.

Last weekend I went shopping alone to “just look” for a little tiny couch to put in the living room. I didn’t end up finding the couch of my dreams, but that didn’t stop me from dragging the rest of my family out at 7 pm to look at the couch I DID find. It’s probably for the best I couldn’t find the one I wanted – I’m not sure a white tufted fabric couch is the right thing for a room that is currently full of surfaces the children are allowed to write on. The tan microfiber that was delivered yesterday will DEFINITELY survive more Play-Doh mishaps.

Part of the deal when E agreed to come look at “my” couch was we would also look for “his” new couch, which was basically the total opposite of that white one I had in mind. Think of the ugliest, most ridiculous man-couch you can. Now make it a) bigger b) uglier and c) add more cup holders. THAT is the couch he wanted. If a dozen cows didn’t have to die to cover his own personal reclining seat with built in beer fridge, he was NO INTERESTED.

Fortunately, our budget couldn’t support that couch, so it is NOT what I am sitting on while I write this. Unfortunately, the store’s huge sale item that weekend was a big, squishy sectional complete with cup holders and power recliners at each end, so that IS what I am sitting on. I’m not going to lie…it’s pretty comfortable. And this cup holder is very convenient for my Diet Coke. And it’s nice that it takes up basically the ENTIRE ROOM so we had to move most of the toys upstairs and I have most of my house back. The kids are both old enough that I can send them upstairs to play without me and I only have to occasionally shout at them to stop hitting each other. It’s pretty amazing to go from having 3 seats in this room to at least 7…and that’s not counting MY couch in front of the fireplace. A couch in front of the fireplace! For sitting on while drinking mulled wine and eating sparkling brie bites and having adult conversation without the TV on!

That will probably happen once. Right after we put the Christmas tree up. Then someone will say “We should watch Love Actually!” and we’ll move back to the giant ugly couch and that will be that. But when we have people over, there will be SO MANY PLACES TO SIT DOWN!

I realize I just wrote 500 words about two couches and I’ve posted no pictures, but that’s because I’m not done with the rearranging and redecorating. Plus I haven’t finished cleaning the old couch to put on Craigslist, so we actually have THREE couches in two small-ish rooms. I’ll be sure to do an underwhelming reveal if I ever get this part of the house set up the way I want – but I sort of suspect we’ll get busy and never actually sell the old couch or move this bookcase that’s basically blocking a doorway or buy a coffee table or patch the holes in the walls. So for now, just IMAGINE I live in a Pinterest-looking classy yet casual house. That’s what I’m doing.