Crunch time

Some people have told me that my husband might have been right to suggest my blog's name be, "Jeanette's Fantasy World".  Well, I'm not just another well intended blogger, dear sister. Here's the deal. I don't plan to update my blog daily, or even weekly. Only when I have time and desire. Anyway, that is the excuse I am offering.  That, and, "I've been too busy to write much" which is usually true for everyone when it gets to December, probably. However, this holiday season has been unusually frantic for me. I mean, you should see the status of my purse!  That's always a good indicator of how fast my busy hamster brain is running on it's little wheel. The little guy has to be soaked in sweat by now.

Hmmm...that's kind of a crazy little image. Soaking wet hamster, panting, and running for it's life on a little wheel...inside my head...

Anyway, I'm sure my three readers are just dying to know why my poor hamster brain is so crazy active.  Let me enlighten you, dear readers!

Since my first blog entry, we've celebrated Thanksgiving by preparing a delicious meal, including a record 9 pies (including the three delicious winners my talented girls made.  Rebecca made banana cream, Emily made a pecan pie, and Madeline made the award winner, chocolate ganache pie!). We also enjoyed our annual rotisserie turkey, along with a ham this time, and mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes  rolls, stuffing, cranberry sauce, green beans, etc. It was all so delicious and we had great company! Even though we had a couple friends who couldn't make it, we welcomed other guests we weren't originally expecting, so it all worked out and there was PLENTY of food.

Sadly my favorite holiday came and went so fast it gave me whiplash. Well, truth be told, I haven't actually felt the pain of whiplash yet, because my head just keeps spinning. On Dasher, on Prancer! On Donnor and Blitzen! On Comet and Cupid, and Frosty and Rudolph!  

Yes, the Nelson's hit the ground running with the Christmas preparations. This is something I usually avoid every year since I like to have a few days to simply enjoy my Thanksgiving food, I mean blessings, before I head into the consumer driven Christmas festivities. However, this year we put up our Christmas decorations in record time, including the tree, which we've decorated at least 9 times by now, thanks to our darling kitten Wembley. Yes, we've put the lights up outside, done all the Christmas shopping and wrapping, hung the stockings by the chimney with care in hopes that St. Nick would soon be here...and what do you know?  He came already!  We're THAT GOOD. :)

Yes, the Nelson's had an early Christmas! We enjoyed opening all our gifts to each other on the 16th this year, due to Jared's deployment to Kuwait, which is fast approaching- coming up here in 36 hours.  The gifts were especially thoughtful this year with that in mind.  In fact, I think one of the favorites was a video Madeline created for her Daddy that featured all of us in it.  Each one of us took a turn sharing why we loved Jared and what we will miss most about him. Tanner wasn't featured, of course, because he's still serving a mission.  But Lisa, my sister in law, who lives with us now, was and I loved hearing what she had to say about her wonderful brother.  Everybody had such thoughtful responses and then Madeline added some music and pictures of all of us, including some of her brother's missionary pics.  It was so well done and made us all emotional.  I'm a bawl baby anyway.

I'm so grateful that my girls are learning what real gift giving is like.  They really went out of their way to consider their family member's individual needs and desires.  They made hats, scarves, videos, pajama pants, picture frames, etc.  It was the best part of Christmas, seeing what my girls made for each other.  Then they presented a song that they dedicated to Daddy that they'd been practicing for awhile.  Madeline played the guitar, Emily played the piano, and Rebecca sang.  Of course, Emily and Madeline sang the chorus with her.  It was beautiful!  They covered a great song.  I think it's called 3000 miles.

Santa brought us movie tickets so we could go see our annual Christmas movie too.  This year we saw Frozen, which is a super cute movie, by the way.  We pulled the kids out of school, of course, for our Christmas celebration, because that had to be part of the deal. I thought I detected a curious look on the face of the woman who sold us our movie ticket that afternoon. However, I was wrong. When I told her we were celebrating Christmas early due to hubby's deployment, she didn't even look up. In fact, it looked like she could care less. I think she even yawned! Apparently, we aren't the only people dragging our kids out of school to see a movie and she's heard all the excuses. I found that mildly amusing.

Tanner will skype with us tomorrow for awhile and we are looking forward to that,  but it's bitter sweet to anticipate his call this Christmas, knowing after we hang up with him, we're taking Jared to Baltimore to get on the rotater to Kuwait.  We will be without any priesthood in our home for the first time since 2005. That's a big bummer...especially since I love them so very much.

Anyway, I promised to keep my blog uplifting. So here's the good news. It's not a year and it's not Afghanistan. We can thank the Lord for those two things!  We've been very fortunate to have gotten away with only two short deployments thus far (5 months and 7 months), and both to safe locations. I've known many others who've felt worried constantly for the safety and security of their spouses in war torn areas. I feel exceedingly lucky to be spared that concern, for the most part.  Of course, one always worries when someone leaves for so long and they are so far away, but by in large, safety will not be an issue where Jared is going.

Well, this has taken all morning to compose, so I'm off now.  To my whole family and all my friends, I wish a peace filled, wonder filled, love filled Holiday Season.  May your days be merry and bright.

Merry Christmas!
Jeanette

I started a blog today.  

Do you want to know why?  All the hip people I know have blogs and I feel so old without one!  Well, that is only a tiny reason why. Okay, it's totally not the reason. But I do feel like an old blogger - seems like most people in the blogosphere are hipster twenty/thirty somethings. Why, yes, I'm glad you noticed how I totally know the word "hipster" and thanks to urbandictionary.com I even know what it means.  Here's the link, just in case you are not in-the-know like me:  http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hipster


Anyway, I feel like a closet hipster, sort of. I mean, granted, I don't look twenty something and my tight jeans aren't intentional, but I'm totally hip, in a wrinkle cream and minivan kind of way. After all, I am getting a Liberal Arts degree and I totally wear my old sneakers sometimes.
No, the real reason for starting a blog is that I've recently been thinking about how each individual effects the world in some small way either positively or negatively. Everybody has a reason for being on this big blue ball. thus one can't help but to change the world just by being on it. What kind of  effect one has on this earth depends on how one chooses to interact with one's neighbor. In this digital age, everyone is our neighbor.  But I don't know if you've noticed,  it's kind of hard to just drop by a digital neighbor's house. So, I thought that one way I could be a better digital neighbor is to invite friends over to my "blog".  I happen to believe I'm not only a closet hipster, I'm a pretty good person with a lot of witdom to offer...er, wisdom, I mean. Anyway, I promise to bless the whole universe with my really positive and relevant musings. 
Besides all that, paper journals are so old school. Why not post my life lessons online for the entire universe to relish and enjoy?  I mean, why hog all the laughs to myself? That would be selfish!

Anyway, I hope you, at least, noticed my catchy cool blog name: Ironic illuminations. I thought about my blog name for a long time before I went with it. It took at least a half an hour. As I was finessing my thoughts for my new blog, I asked Jared, my dearest darling of a husband, what I should name my blog. He deadpanned, "Jeanette's Fantasy World," the implication being that I won't actually blog. I told him that wasn't catchy enough. Hmmph! We needed a big turkey for Thanksgiving: I think we have ourselves winner!