All about our inspired and half crazy decision to move from the Midwest (where we have all lived our whole lives) to San Diego. Where we have spent a collective 200 hours.
OK so I spent a whole pile of money on holiday gifts. But considering Don actually was able to FIX the dishwasher - for $125 worth of parts - it's all a wash - because I didn't have to buy a new $1300 dishwasher.
Stuff karma.
Posted by Michelle Edelman at 8:31 PM 2 comments
Being Jewish, it is always so fascinating to me that I feel the same holiday rush as everyone else. Oh sure, I have my share of Hanukkah presents to buy. And some years - unlike this year - Hanukkah is retardedly early and I have to start the whole holiday thing in November.
But this year I couldn't even bring myself think about it. I couldn't even make a list and check it twice. Or even read last year's list.
This is - and I am going to use the most overused word from CNBC - unprecedented. If there's anything that always, even on my last nerve with no sleep, I am able to do, it's make a list. At one time, I even had a master list of all the lists. (that was in the relocation phase...)
Eventually, panic set in. I was foreign to myself. Why was I having a list block? This is an intellectual and organizational disaster. Would it bleed over into other areas of my life and prevent listmaking at work? And how was the holiday shopping going to get done with NO LIST? I can't even go to the grocery store on a "10 items or less" day with no list.
I went to Bunco on Thursday and lamented my fate with the girls. Of our 12, 4 of us had not done anything yet - list making or otherwise. Of course, as usual, I was the only one thinking I was losing my mind. Everyone else was in the "oh well. It somehow always gets done" mode.
So I made like Nike and Just Did It. Listless. (or should I say, list free.) Don subbed in for me and froze his ass at the Ice Arena while I power shopped. I did it Southern California style - I "felt" the gifts. I channeled my nephew... who was he and what would he like? I meditated over the journals... which one is right for Vica? I meditated so hard that I didn't even notice my friend Val staring at me in the aisle. This is something, considering she's a 6 foot tall, shockingly blond woman and she was making faces at me so I would notice her.
There was buying. Then buying more online. Then wrapping. Then running out of tape and taking a break. More wrapping. Boxing. Shipping. And after a hectic weekend, funny enough, it's somehow going to get done. The Bunco girls were right. I'm tapeless, sleepless, and spent a whole pile of money. But it's done.
The real question that remains is: why wasn't I able to make the list? I think it's inability to accept that the holidays are really here. After all, it's still 68 degrees outside. And I have worked enough 70 hour weeks in a row that I'm not sure what day it is. And I have been working on 2009 planning for so long that I am already writing 2009 as the date. I think it's safe to say I am temporally misplaced.
Gotta go. Making a list of posts I owe you people...
Posted by Michelle Edelman at 8:12 PM 2 comments
We survived last week without Sarah.
On Monday, we dropped her off with a suitcase and a sleeping bag and she went to 6th grade camp with NO contact with us (except a letter I sent that was totally lame because I had to write it before she left in order for it to get there - so it was absolute nonsense) until we picked her up on Friday!
The most sad member of the household was Gizmo, who treated Sarah's empty room like a shrine to be visited, lingered about, and wailed in for varying periods each day. We all did feel her absence, though. It was weird. The longest we have gone without Sarah's presence ever - and with NO contact?! Freaky.
After we fumigated the luggage and disinfected the child - what's amazing is not only did she survive, she loved it! And this is the little homebody who, at her first sleepover, announced to the mom in charge, "I think I had better go home. I'm not ready for a sleepover yet."
Next step: summer camp? And then... Oxford?!
But actually that's not why I'm writing this post. I'm writing this post because when we were at the Ice Arena yesterday (yes friends, 75 degrees and gorgeous in San Diego yesterday, and I'm where???), Sarah's coach told her that she would like Sarah to START COMPETING starting in March! Wow!
Sarah is very excited - and I have to say, not only is it a big accomplishment and a testament to her diligence in practicing her moves... but it's again illustrating the great mystery of genetics that she can actually DO something like this.
Watch the video below - it's not very long because I'm having a bit of a challenge filming her during the practice sections what with all the hooligans skating in front of me and falling all over the place (aka people like ME).
All I have to say is that if I tried what she is doing in this film, there would be 3 little kids skewered on my skate like a bunch of martini olives, and that's IF I was able to stay vertical (unlikely).
(Sarah is in the white hoodie and the brown skirt)
Posted by Michelle Edelman at 7:53 AM 6 comments
Happy Thanksgiving from the 1st grade!
These are great little clips - check out Becca's dance moves! She is strategically placed on the bottom row near the end. Mostly so that if she starts wandering around or smacking her neighbor, she can be whisked away...
Posted by Michelle Edelman at 6:23 AM 0 comments