I’ve started this post numerous times and it would not save, so I am once again going to try to explain my Holiday from a trucking family perspective. This is even the 4th attempt today to finish this and get it posted… I simply cannot start 2012 until the story is told.

It’s very hard to plan anything when Clint is on the road. He works hard all week long and understandably doesn’t really want to deal with anything when he gets home on the weekend. I try really hard to manage things so he can rest easy while home, but sometimes my level of overwhelmed hits the roof and I simply cannot function. This was one of those “sometimes”! In fact, I’m still trying to deal with feeling overwhelmed and I’m pretty sure I’m just messing things up worse. I know I’ll have to fix them later, but that is just how it is for now! So back to, or on with, Christmas at “Chez FatandHappy”:

Last year and all through the spring and summer months of this year, we had “planned” to have Clint home by December 1st and not back out on the road until after the New Year. Guess what? Yup, it didn’t work out! So around Dec 1st, we decided he’d have to be out until the 23rd and then home between Christmas and the New Year… well, fortune did finally shine down on us (a GREAT paying load) and he got to come home on Wednesday, the 21st. I was sooooooooooo stoked! That would give us DAYS to shop and make sure everyone got what they wanted and I had time to decorate and wrap and cook… yeah, you get the picture… a “perfect” Christmas.

This is how I started the week before Christmas… Banana, CollegeBoy’s girlfriend, had helped clean and do some decorating, and I could see the floor in front of the book cases again, but there was still a lot of work to be done! Not to mention a tree bought, brought home, put up and decorated!

As Clint was finishing up his short week on the road, his mom, Granny, was feeling worse than normal and while it took all day, she was finally persuaded to go to the hospital. They admitted her. Boom… Granny would not be coming over for Christmas day and we now had to figure in visits to the hospital with shopping and exchanging gifts and just hanging out and spending time with family.

Needless to say, my stress level was through the roof and looking for a landing spot on the moon, but Clint got home and immediately I felt better. He was on the phone dealing with Granny and sis-in-law and bro-in-law and all the aspects of the hospital stay. He laughed at my perceived predicament, told me all would work out, and promptly took a nap. LOL Just kidding, it was bed time already!

Thursday dawned bright and sunny and… promptly became cold and cloudy! As we tried to wake up and get around and get ready to shop til we dropped, it became clear around 2pm that we were running out of daylight fast. We loaded into our Big Red Dodge Pickup anyway and set out for the big city. List of gifts to buy, check… plans to have dinner with bro-in-law and family, check… plans to visit Granny, check…

I’m sure you’ve guessed the outcome, but I’m gonna tell you anyway! We visited Granny and went out to eat. NO SHOPPING. By the time we were done eating, it was just time to get the hell out of Dodge!

Besides, tomorrow was another day, a new beginning, a promise of better things, right?

Yeah… so Friday, we did manage to get up and get around and head out to the AT&T store in the next town over… a couple of new phones as gifts, an upgraded data plan… hell, that was half the shopping list right there! Well, just my luck, their computers were having issues and it took four hours, yes, you read that right, it took FOUR HOURS to get all the phones and services upgraded… more than half the day over, still a LONG list of gifts to buy, still a visit to the hospital to squeeze in… Okay, we’re headed to the big city! We’ll finish up the gifts, visit Granny and I can take ALL day Saturday to wrap!!

Yeah… we went to three or four stores at the mall and managed to pick up a few things and then headed to Toys R Us for the littlest Angel’s gifts… I guess I was tired, and stressed, and suffering from low blood sugar, and maybe a little possessed by demons at that point, because NOTHING in Toys R Us was good enough… Clint just loaded me back into the Big Red Dodge and took me home! I wasn’t even lucid enough to be stressed!!!

I think I might have had some night terrors that Christmas Eve Eve, because Saturday morning did NOT dawn bright and sunny… I can’t even tell you that it DID dawn… perhaps the sun just forgot our little town that morning… I don’t remember. I know we finished up the shopping (yes, FINISHED); and I know Ms. Gurley-Brown, my daughter, came over; and I remember visiting Granny and giving her a gift. That’s it… I can’t tell you what order that was all accomplished in, or what stores (and where) we went to. It was all a blur! When we finally arrived back home, I remember wrapping gifts and giving Clint packages to wrap and I remember handing finished presents off to all the kids (CollegeBoy, TireMan, Ms. Gurley-Brown, ChefBoy, and my pretend adopted son, Animal) and having them stack them where the tree would be if we had one…

But I do remember Christmas morning dawning bright and beautiful and full of promise! I remember saying my prayer of thanks for having a healthy, happy family that would be surrounding me that day to celebrate the Birth of Christ with joy and presents and laughter! Then the MotherOfMayhem (my dear daughter-in-law) and FamilyMan (our oldest son) arrived with the Littlest Angel. Our family unit was all present and accounted for. I remember handing gifts to the Littlest Angel and watching her help unwrap them (whether they were hers or not)! And I remember my sigh of relief that it was finally all over… well, THAT part of the day was over. And, it was a success! And I love my husband, and I love that he gets up everyday and slays dragons for us, and I love that he longs to just be home hanging out instead of slaying dragons, but next year………

So I told you about ignoring this blog… I told you I’m way behind on cooking and cleaning and blogging… I’ve told you about getting in a funk and letting the world just spin by without me on the ride… now I’m gonna tell you about a trucker’s wife’s life.

At Thanksgiving this year it was decided the family would meet at my sister-in-laws house. After much emailing to the family, it was discussed that we would meet on Christmas Eve to exchange gifts and enjoy the time together… well, this past weekend, it was decided that Christmas Eve at said sister-in-law’s house was not going to work out so we would have our gathering HERE on Christmas day. Imagine the shock and awe I felt when faced with this situation and a house full of Clint’s father’s stuff that we brought back after he passed away. My dining room table has held boxes piled 3 feet high since last spring! Needless to say, I wasn’t really feeling all that cheery!

Add to that scenario the fact that I have done very (VERY) little shopping and don’t really have a lot of extra money to pull off all the gifts I need for 5 kids, 1 daughter-in-law, 1 girlfriend-in-law, 3 exchange gifts and 3 beautiful grand children… AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH…

Well, Friday night the CollegeBoy and said girlfriend-in-law arrived home from college for Christmas break. Banana (the girlfriend) was so happy and excited to be spending time with us and could tell I wasn’t very excited about the Holidays so she offered to help clean, organize and decorate. Really? She finally gets a break from college life and she wants to clean? Well, Sunday, while I was faithfully watching my Kansas City Chiefs beat the undefeated Green Bay Packers, my dear, dear Banana cleaned off the dining room table, washed all the dishes and decorated with my cute little Dickens figurines. It looks so nice in there!! I felt a little stirring of the “Spirit” of Christmas…

And then, the Angel on the top of the tree (my beautiful granddaughter, Jordan) arrived at my house in the evening and finished filling my heart with cheer! We colored with crayons and pencils and markers, oh my! Then we played dolls and bubbles and even talked PaPaClint into firing off a bottle rocket!! Oh what fun! Now I can’t wait for all my family to come and enjoy the birth of Jesus at my house.

Who needs paxil when you have family?

I posted this picture of my office/library space before Thanksgiving saying I was going to get it cleaned up and organized. Guess what? I didn’t… so I started yesterday. We decided the tree is going in this area, so I have to get things moved and out of the way for a HUGE tree…

Here’s what it looks like today… I *can* see the floor now, too, which is nice, but… I’m going to get this done no matter what! Prayers, prayers LOL

I know, I know… I’ve been busy getting ready for Christmas (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!) and have sorely neglected my blog. Bad, bad Housewife! Truth be told, I’m not really all that jolly this year. Not sure if it’s that new fangled Seasonal Disorder or what, but my house is a wreck and I haven’t even decorated yet. I’ve been cooking up a storm but it’s been the normal easy meals I fall back on when I’m feeling disorganized and slacking. I’ve been watching a lot of TV lately, too, which I tend to do when my brain is in a fog. I think it’s because it’s mindless to me and I can get involved in a world where I have no responsibilities. I will be blogging more, though, so stay tuned! I might even make it a New Years Resolution… hmmm, probably not a good idea since I haven’t lived up to one of those since 1969 Please have a very merry Christmas!