One hour. That’s apparently how long I can muster up Cheerful Crafty Momma Who Enjoys Making Teacher Gifts With Her Children. At least when we start at 7 p.m. on the last day of school before the break, right after The Scary Trip When Mama Pretended It Was Fun To Get Lost Trying To Find The Christmas Tree.
But first things first – I’m so sorry about the demented snowmen. I mean, look at them. I guess they look cheerful enough in a group, which is what I’m hoping will happen when they are distributed as teachers’ gifts tomorrow.
But this guy? He looks a bit like a particularly intellectual rabbi. Seriously, I’m thinking my friend Sandra could do this project with her little girl and add side curls to the little guy and take him to her teachers at temple. Oy. Unless they wouldn’t like Orthodox snowmen, cause they’re Reformed, or unless snowmen in general might be offensive, which would not be my intent at all, in which case I’m stumped.
At least this guy looks fairly normal, in terms of snowman forehead proportions. Whew.
Oops. Didn’t realize he was sans scarf til I posted the picture. Sigh. Pause to create one more snowman scarf……….and done.
Projects like this, and days like this, are all about me understanding myself. A Given: I WILL try to cram too much into any given time period, and holidays just exacerbate the problem. Which brings us to The Scary Trip When Mama Pretended It Was Fun To Get Lost Trying To Find The Christmas Tree, which happened earlier today when I was SURE we had enough time to go use the half-price Christmas tree deal I’d purchased online a few weeks ago, between after-school pickup, tae kwon do lessons and crafty pretzel snowman creations. Oh, and dinner and homework. And cleaning leaves out of the pond so we can possibly see the leak so we can possibly refill it and get the waterfall pump going so it won’t freeze overnight and be ruined.
What do you mean, I can’t fit all of that into 3 hours? SURE I CAN……..cue twitching and spasming. Twitch. Spasm. Twitch.
So off we set, blithely into the gray Oregon afternoon, tra la la la la. I figured that the two boys I’d “brung with” and I could pick up a pre-cut tree, look pitifully at someone to help us strap it to the top of the van, and home we’d go. Half hour, tops.
Right. Until I realized we were driving about 45 minutes away, into the deep rural woods of …. hey, how’d we get to Kentucky? (I don’t know why exactly it would be scarier to be lost in the foggy woods of Kentucky, but it just seems scarier.) And WOW that is an impressive mid-afternoon total-darkness fog storm of Epic Proportions. (Kind of like Rabbi Snowman’s Forehead.) (No disrespect.) (Thank you, Jon Stewart.) And whattya know, they’re closed when it’s dark out? And it’s u-cut anyways?
Well, kids, guess we’ll drive home through the fog at 30 miles an hour, guessing where the road is, and come back Saturday.
Cause that’s the key, really, to me living with my particular brand of crazy. Roll With It. As long as mommy doesn’t get cranky, we’re having fun. Whether we’re trying to get out the door to school, or I’m trying to finesse a project at work, or we’re lost in the foggy woods of Kentucky/Oregon, as long as I keep rollin’ with it, it’s An Adventure.
And who doesn’t need An Adventure? We can get a tree Saturday, but An Adventure, you take when you can get it.
Tara Talks Too Much 
I love doing things like the snowmen. But if I did it at 7 p.m. on the last day of school before the break, right after The Scary Trip When Mama Pretended It Was Fun To Get Lost Trying To Find The Christmas Tree? My family would need to get me an exorcism. And quick.
Roll with it, ya gotta just roll with it. And eat snowman parts as necessary……
An Adventure, you take when you can get it.
An Lessin n pefekshun.
I remember not any tree as a child that is not in a photo, for they were all basically cone-shaped and green. Oh. There was that chrome thing and the fake snow back in the early… how the hell old am I anyhow?
What I do remember was cutting off the base of the tree and feeling bad about having to waste the really cool, wide part of the tree so it would fit under the ceiling…I remember cutting them off with my Dad and making a mess, something that was ALWAYS prohibited in Momma’s house, but happened every year we had a real tree.
The only two trees I remember as an adult were the really huge, bushy one I bought from Blake that looked like an enormous Charlie Brown special by the time it came down on the 25th and the sad, demented ones that I hid in the woods on my parent’s farm when I got them down to eye-level and realized they just wouldn’t do.
Demented. Shedding. Chrome. Dreams of holes in the ceiling to fit a bigger tree… that is what I remember… and that is what your boys will also
It is in living the adventures that we find life perfect, savor ’em when you can get ’em.
I do love me some pefekshun! Oh, I can’t even imagine what memories these boys will have, I just hope they are mostly good!
Love the snowmen! They are much cuter than anything I could put together.
Next time you drive through Boise on your way to Kentucky to get a Christmas tree, look me up!
Did you see Jon Stewart last night? He did in fact make reference to his own forehead.
Nissa, I didn’t, but I’ve got it TiVo’d! I will take special note.
Oh my gosh – the first one DOES look like a rabbi!!
Tara, you do have a talent! I loved both the stories I read from your Dad today.
Thank you, Jean, how nice to hear from you! Keep reading!