Birthday Cake, Chrimas Cookies and The FLOOZY

The Christmas madness is over for 2014 and thank all the gods old and new for e-Bay, we didn't have to sell any organs or illegal narcotics to pay for Christmas.

We spent Christmas Eve at home again with just us, it's a big contrast to the loud mad-craziness of my huge family. My sister Moe always goes out of her way to make my birthday special, and being an enabler she made a FANTASTIC Bailey's Irish Cream cake that pairs well with whiskey.

Lola, Alex my husband, little Bug, the CAKE, me and my son Tinny

I tried to make it last year and it was flat as a pancake. I am beyond baking challenged. Thankfully I never let sucking at something stop me from trying, or I would never do anything. I'll try for my daughter's birthday Sunday.

When I was pregnant due end of December, I really wanted her to be born on Christmas Day just as I was. No doctor would agree to induce me on Christmas Day, should have looked for a Jewish OB, so we had to settle for the 28th. 

I still wish she were, I mean if you're going to be born anytime in December, it may as well be ON THE DAY you probably won't have to work and you'll see your family. You're going to get combo presents anyway, and get the shaft anytime a month before or after Christmas, so why not?

People have always immediately asked me if I hate being born on Christmas and assumed that sucks. I didn't get a choice or know what it's like to NOT be born on Christmas Day, so I don't feel like it's that bad. After about age 10 birthdays aren't a big deal. I'm not a big 'center of attention' person. People you meet seem to remember that about you, especially if your name is Joy. 

My mom said she called my Grandmother to tell her I was born and the last song she heard was "Joy to the world" at church, so she started singing that to my mom on the phone. That's the legend. In case you wondered.

How I went from Christmas angel to the crabby sarcastic binch I am now? Well, that is a MUCH longer story. Someday I'll write a book. Maybe. Yeah, probably not since I can't even post anything interesting to this blog regularly, but we'll see.

My family always (and still does) buy me Christmas decorations with "Joy" on it, so I never had to buy many. 

My name is everywhere in Comfytown at Christmas time. My house and Christmas tree make me look like the world's biggest narcissist. It's kind of amazing.

When I was younger, my parents had special BIRTHDAY wrapping paper and cover the table with a BIRTHDAY tablecloth and put up decorations. I had no idea what an amazing feat that actually IS to do on Christmas, especially with her having FIVE kids, but it was special to have someone go through that trouble on Christmas Day. 

My husband carried that on for years when we got together, but after you have kids your birthday is just another day. He still makes me breakfast on my birthday, which is a real blessing after all the stress/panic/marathon wrapping sessions that leave you exhausted Christmas morning. 

On Christmas Eve, we had a ring of the doorbell, which made us panic a little about neighbors potentially dropping off cookies. Some did last year and it's why we felt obliged to make sure we made some cookies this year to have ready. 

NinjaBread cookies. Fun to make, but no one hear likes the taste.
Can you spray these with something to turn into Christmas ornaments??

We had fun making the cookies, even if the kids lost interest after 3 minutes of eating the top candies that were supposed to be decorations. This was a giant lump of leftover gingerbread after we got bored of making the ninjamen.

No one hear wants to eat this brick.

At the moment the doorbell rang, however, we of course didn't have them all finished yet, so we panicked a little. Thankfully it wasn't neighbors, it was a UPS delivery man with an expected gift I had ordered and just assumed would be coming after Christmas. 

After giving the deliveryman a couple Christmas cookies, I opened it and was delighted to see the custom order from The Cotton Floozy arrived! Before Christmas! Which I told her when I ordered it, NOT that long ago, that it would be totally fine if it were delivered after Christmas. It was really lovely of her to sacrifice sleep so I could count this as a present. I didn't have many.

She even put it in a white, wooden frame so we could immediately display it in ComfyTown. I've called my husband's house Comfytown since we were dating, and thought about having something made for the house, but having no talent to make things myself and very little budget to have things made, nothing ever got completed. This was extremely affordable, adorable and perfect.

Kim Bongiorno is from Let Me Start By Saying, 

You should check out the Cotton Floozy Facebook page, her blog, Etsy store and Instagram. 

Those are links, check her out! As Samara from Samara Speaks said, how do you not love someone with the word 'floozy' in her name? Hard to argue with that.

She did not ask me to promote her at all, I have just gotten a LOT of laughs at her creations. 

There is just something magical about seeing swear words in fancy needlepoint. It's like  a ransom note written in baby food. Adorable.

Is it just me??

She's done so many funny sayings.

There are tons of great items ready to go, ornaments, and lots of these personal messages for kids young and old.

Plus, sarcasm. In needlepoint.

Right? She gets me.

She has a lot of great things on Etsy, and she'll work with to make a custom order. I wish I had thought of that months ago, I would have had things made for Christmas. I need to get started early for next year.

I hope everyone had a peaceful Christmas, with minimal credit card debt. Now we have to quickly UN-Christmas and rearrange the whole comfy house for company on Sunday

Thankful to have family and friends coming to celebrate, but it does mean a lot of spacial manipulation in our little hobbit home.

This post was part of the amazing transformational Ten Things of Thankful. 

Rando Ho Ho

I wanted to quickly say Merry Christmas to anyone who celebrates that. And even if you don't, just have a nice day for the rest of us because that's what Christmas is all about, making other people happy at the expense of your own sanity. Tis the reason for the season. 

I have been making Monday morning my day to post here, statistically the worst time all week to publish a post because I'm smart like that S-M-R-T. I couldn't do it earlier, on account of a slight hangover and being mad at my laptop and Blogger for eating an hour's worth of work on a post Saturday morning. It wasn't War and Peace, but it was an hour of my life I'll never get back. 

Unless of course I had a chat with my smart friend Google on how to open a closed Chrome window and recover old screens or something like that, which SPOILER: I did not. Like the wise, old soul I am I slammed closed my laptop and whined about it like a baby. Can you picture a baby writing a blog? Nevermind, I'll bet there are at least 10 posts written in the voice of bloggers' babies already existing. 

"Open Letter to baby food makers: Less veggies, more fruit!"

This week we're getting ready for the big day, which takes more effort the older your kids get. Until they're teenagers, and then like my dear friend Lori posted you just get them a bunch of gift cards and they can suck it if they don't like it. Or as my dad would say GET A JOB and buy your own stuff. 

That's the balance of putting up with teenagers, you don't have to put on a whole show. Unless you want to. Or you have good kids who deserve it, I don't know anything about that. I hand my teenager socks and underwear in the bag I bought them in and let him stay here, and we go about our day. It works for us.

We our doing all the Christmas things for the little girls, well not ALL the Christmas things. I won't do that elf thing and I don't have the energy to go crazy with stuff every year, but we do what we can. We got them some small gifts that should keep them busy they will enjoy. Their favorite part of any holiday is going to my sister's house and having everyone's attention for a day. And treats. They live for that crap. I don't know where they got that from. Ahem.

I hope all of you have a happy holiday season, and we ALL have a better 2015. If this year taught us anything, it's we have some work to do on Team Human. We can do better. Yes, even that jerk. I mean guy. 

One thing I'm loving is the low gas prices! It's like a Christmas miracle. And of course since gas prices have gone down for a few minutes SUV sales are going up. Really 'Murica? You think they'll never go back up? Sure, gas flows out of the tap like flaming water. What short memories we have.

Anyway, we're able to head out of town next week and spend more time with family, and not worry about selling off a kidney to pay for gas. Phew. I was saving that kidney for something important, like a trip to Vegas.

This weekend we saw the third Hobbit movie. Of course I loved it. I want to write a review, but doubt I'll have time.

Gwenyth Paltrow is off the hook in these movies.

I did write a review of the first movie two years ago. It was one of my first posts back when my writing made sense, and actually went somewhere. I know, I miss that too. I'll link it below, because it really tells you all you need to know about ALL the Hobbit movies without any real spoilers. And oh, the facial hair!

Click here if you're interested in that. I really loved the movies and highly recommend them, even if you didn't love the Lord of the Rings movies. 

Happy Holidays and a Better 2015 to all.

Your 2014 Holiday Letter. Plug and Print. Or Email.

I used to love to include a letter with our Christmas cards, tell people what we're up to, what we've achieved, my son is still alive. See, Dad? I CAN parent. That kind of thing.

The last few years, I have not been....inspired. For several reasons. Lack of sleep, busy days, lack of sleep, Also you forget things when you don't get enough sleep. I've also heard people can repeat themselves when they're not well rested. Where did I hear that before? I dunno. 

Besides, there isn't much to be said about the daily or even annual accomplishments of small children that people couldn't guess. They ate, they pooped, they made messes. Wow.

I figured to save us all time, there should be a Form Letter you can fill in and print out when you print your address labels if you must, (you're not still HAND writing them are you, Wilma Flintstone?! Oh honey, you can print at the library if you don't want to spend the money for ink for your printer.) 

Better yet, pretend you're on an Earth-Saving mission and copy and past the following into a mass group email!

Feel free to update one of the following letters. Fill in specifics and delete any sections you don't need. 

HOLIDAY LETTERS 2014

1. I sent this out last year:

Happy Holidays! 

We're alive and well and hope you are, too. 

For more information, see Facebook.

Love,
Us 

2. I haven't been updating Fakebook, d'oh! So I had to get creative this year.


Hello Special Person,

We would like to wish you a happy and peaceful season.

2014 was a year for  us. How about that crazy thing in the news? Crazy. 

We have had a year, we learned and did a lot of stuff. And also things. Hope you did, too.

Spawn Update 
(delete or change to 'Dog' or 'Cat' etc.)

The little ones are getting bigger. It's like they're growing every day. One minute they're doing this and the next day they're doing that. Am I right?

The middles ones are learning and excelling in their sport or extra curricular activity, and doing what they're supposed to be doing, except when they're not. 

Those scamps. It's a good thing we're Santa has a short memory.

The teenager(s). Well, we're supposed to love them no matter what. 

They'll be adults soon and then they're society's problem. 



Have a wonderful holiday and and a happy and healthy 2015!

Breaking Cake & I Got BOMBED: TToT

This was an interesting week. I had to write something serious, which is usually a bummer for me, but necessary for whatever reason. The lovely Lizzi THANKFULLY encouraged, inspired, helped, full-on edited my ramblings and allowed me to post my thoughts on some of the worst things in the news here in the U.S. 

I'm thankful to Sisterwives Speak blog for allowing me to post there and have more than my 13 readers have access to that. Click >>here<< to read about that  if you're interested

I'm deeply thankful to Lizzi for her support, encouraging me to step outside my comfort zone in Alice's Wonderland of madness into more serious subjects. It may not seem like much, but my taking the time to put troubling thoughts into coherent sentences, and form a complete post on the subject, is very cathartic. I doubt I was able to give anyone much to think about, but it was nice to be able to get it out there in whatever way possible. 


Thankfully, the comments were all polite, even those that disagreed. I have seen some of these subjects not well received, and that is part of why I-- why we ALL need to voice our opinions. 

Open dialogue in a safe place between people of all kinds, from all different areas and different experiences, is the best way we can understand each other and all feel part of the SAME TEAM. The Sisterwives Speak blog of course has intelligent lovely followers. Of course they do.

We're getting ready for the holidays, and thankfully remaining comfy. We try not take on more than we can handle, as is our way. We don't go crazy at holiday time, that gets to be too much. I'm thankful we know our limits. We take a family picture to send in some cards, we put up a tree and some inside decorations and lights. Thankfully our children are happy with that.

We're going to make some Christmas-ey cookies this year, not a huge batch from scratch that takes all day, just a few different ideas for holiday treats. We always do some kind of craft for whatever season, I'm thankful my Lola loves to do crafts. She's always so proud of making something. 

We do minimal presents, and thankfully my husband reminds me to keep it small so we don't feel we have to out-do the year before. My children are still young, we're trying to keep the season from turning into just PRESENTS. At least for as long as we can. We figure maybe one more year ? :)

After focusing on the bad news I had written about, I'm thankful to announce a fantastically GREAT package came in the mail from none other than the beautiful, world famous published author Lizzi Rogers! Very exciting! International air mail, for little old US. 
Of course it was filled with fun, *sparkly-twinkley-goodness* (I'm not nearly as good as that as Lizzi is) and fun, happy things. 

My kids played in the glitter, and made little bracelets for their stuffed animals with it!

My Lola said "I love this stuff!" We played, wore mustaches, well the 2 yr old wanted no part of that because: 2. 

T-Rex arms & selfies don't go well together

She did, however, love the cake erasers and we all had a cake eraser tea party, here we are doing "Cake Cheers!"

Fun! They're STILL playing with the glitter 40 minutes later!

I'm thankful for having met Lizzi, and looking forward to one day really having cake WITH Lizzi! Not just Skype cake, though that sounds pretty fun, too, but sometime next year when she graces our land with her presence, we shall break cake together.  By that I mean eat cake, not just break cakes. That's senseless cruelty to cakes.

NNOOOOOOOO! Save the innocent cakes! from eatingrecipe.com

I'm so grateful for Lizzi's glitterbombs, the world needs more of these lovely bombs. Her post today is full of goodbombs and it's making me listen to The Smiths "Louder Than Bombs" which someone thankfully uploaded the whole album to YouTube. Thank you, lovely people who do this! We challenged people enjoy having free things to listen to while we try to get exercise. Here is the WHOLE ALBUM.

I'm also thankful for my family, who helped me when I was younger and who always help me and long story short have again, and to celebrate we're going out to dinner at a grown-up restaurant that doesn't even have crayons. (I always have some in my bag, no worries!) That is worth more than 10, and the Book of Secret Rules BoSR/SBoR clearly states the sum of the parts are worth more than the numbers, or something like that. I don't speak fluent Guard-Virginian. 

This post was much more fun than last week and part of the best blog community yet invented, the Ten Things of Thankful.

I Can't Breathe. Thoughts I wrote in support of #BlackLivesMatter

I hate when I have to write anything of a serious nature. I occasionally write about stories in the news, but I like to put a funny spin on whatever the subject is, add my own flavor in a way (ridiculous or not) that no one else could.

Whenever I feel I have to write a serious piece, it's usually something very upsetting. If I can't even put any humor into a piece, I know it's serious. I had to write this piece, on the items in the news lately that revolve around the riots in Ferguson and protests nationwide, and the reaction to all of that. 

The Sisterwives Speak group were kind enough to publish my thoughts on that, and thanks to Lizzi for this piece even getting finished. I have a very hard time editing my writing, my original submission was 10 pages long and I needed help getting it digestible. Lizzi made it happen. 

Please click the link >> HERE << to read my thoughts. 

Because it's true #BlackLivesMatter and they need as much support and as many voices as we possibly can muster.

Please know that I support Law Enforcement and reading this article, and having any opinion you have on any one case, does not mean you don't support Law Enforcement. 

Everyone makes mistakes. A few bad apples do not spoil the whole bunch, and all of that. I address this in my piece. But we cannot continue to pretend these things don't matter. They do.

The WolfChild The Book And The Burn! A Guest Story

It's Monday, but it's the best Monday in a long time. It's the third Monday for the rest of your life, and it's also the Monday where I post a fantastic tale from a guest writer. World-famous published author Lizzi Rogers and I are doing a cookie exchange but with words.

Lizzi and I both agreed to go a little outside of our comfort zone to mix things up. She wrote a satirical piece, funny and shiny-magazine worthy, and I made an attempt to write about something real and non-ridiculous. It was hard, yo. That's coming up this week, I will post a link in a separate post.

You are the winner in this whole experiment, because you get rewarded with a story from a real writer for once. 

Just don't get used to this level of writing around here.

Without further ado, for once, here is a true tale that will be told 'round the hair-dryer for generations to come from the master of fiction, Lizzi Rogers of Considerings blog.

The WolfChild, the Book and the BURN!

My mother once told me that when I was born, in addition to a head full of thick, jet-black hair, I had a fine rim of (what can only be described as) fur on each ear. Having closely examined my genetic heritage, I can only assume that I’m a bit of a WolfChild. Which hasn’t been a problem for years, until recently, like tonight. And then it was really Frankenstein’s fault…let me explain.

I don’t know whether it’s the cold weather, the fact that I’ve been exercising quite a bit lately (and something distasteful about muscle mass increasing testosterone levels (!)), or that my inherent WolfChildiness just decided to make a bit of a resurgence, but in the last couple of months I’ve noticed a fine, but long, layer of what can only be described as FLUFF, coating my upper arms.

And EW! Because seriously, who wants that?

I hoped that I could ignore it and it would go away, but as with each occurrence of that time-honoured go-to response, it didn’t work. And I AM (just about) enough of a girl to know that shaving said fluff would leave nasty stubble and ugly regrowth.

My options seemed limited, and I began to contemplate getting a waxing kit (not my favourite – I’ve tried it once. I pulled faces and teared up. It hurt. And I’m pretty sure I did it wrong, because my legs seemed to have more wax on them after I’d finished pulling the little paper things off, and the level of hair was more ‘moth eaten mink’ than ‘smooth and lovely’) but then to my utter joy, a bargain on the shelf at my local supermarket seemed to provide The Answer.

Hair removal cream. Of course! How could I go wrong?!

I felt so proud of myself for figuring it out and Being A Girl without needing prior instruction, hand-holding throughout, and correction afterwards. For once!
But of course, pride always comes before a fall, though in this case I think I can circumvent pride entirely and implicate Frankenstein and Mandi, holding them both utterly accountable for What Happened Later…

SO!

A while ago in a conversation about books, my lovely friend Mandi shared that she’s a huge fan of Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’, and I admitted that it was one of those classics you feel you really *should* read, but somehow I’d never gotten around to. She rolled her eyes and pouted and stamped her feet (adorably) and told me that I really, really, simply must read it, because it’s wonderful and she loves it. So I told her I would, and promptly forgot all about it.

Then a while later I was at my Dad’s, and saw that he HAD a copy of Frankenstein, and remembering Mandi’s passion for the story, I asked him if I could borrow it. He allowed me, and I took it back home with me, whereupon I put it down Some-whar* and promptly forgot all about it.

Today (several months later) Husby and I were having a pre-Christmas tidy-up of the flat, and under a chair, several layers of old-no-longer-fits-me clothes, two bags full of things I thought I’d lost forever, a camping blanket, some shoes, and an assortment of cranefly carcasses, I FOUND THE BOOK! I was so happy, I brushed it off, added it to the top of the book-tower in the hallway, and took a photo on Instagram to show to Mandi, who told me that she squealed with delight to see it, and asked if I’d read it yet. Guiltily, I told her no, but that I WOULD.

Fast-forward beyond the end of the cleaning, the tidying, the laundry and dinner, to the point where I decided that I would have a shower to wash all the dust off, and while I was at it, why not try that hair removal cream, after all, no time like the present?

I got undressed and then realised that I wouldn’t be able to see the backs of my arms well enough to apply the cream. We have a mirror, but seriously, who has the TIME to be standing backwards, butt-naked in December, in front of a mirror, trying to wrangle themselves into an even layer of anti-fluff cream!? Clearly the task of Being A Girl is one I’m not yet up to, so I called Husby to come and help me, and through his giggles, he understood what he was meant to do, and started layering on the little sachet of slightly pink, verycold cream.

Eventually it was on, in an almost, kindasorta even layer, all around the tops of my arms (shoulder to elbow, for good measure) and the back of the sachet told me I could leave it for five minutes, or 10 if the hair seemed stubborn, but DEFINITELY NO LONGER THAN 15 MINUTES! Which, as it was kind of stinging and uncomfortable, I figured was fair enough.

I told myself that this was the price of beauty, that there’s no gain without pain, and to GIRL UP – though I did a difficult job of convincing myself, standing there in the middle of the freezing, in the nip, bored, and in a stance like a gorilla so that the cream didn’t smear from my arms onto any of the rest of me and do something unexpectedly awful like dissolve a boob off…
…and at that point a genius idea hit me. Mandi! Frankenstein! BOOK! I could make a start!

I checked the time on my phone and calculated that I should have enough time to safely get at least a FEW pages in before I needed to take the cream off. So I opened the book and promptly forgot all about it.

Fie, fie on me. I shoulda stayed bored. Before I knew it, I’d gone well over my 15 minutes, had a Sudden Realisation, and whizzed the shower on in a panic, because I knew by the level of ‘ouch!’ that I should definitely hurry up and wash the cream off.

It. Was. Awful.

If I were the type to cry with pain, I would have! Even horrible, awful sunburn isn’t that bad.
The warm water on my skin felt like burning needles. And the gentlest strokes of my fingertips to get rid of the cream (which had kind of hardened on) felt like I was abrading myself with sandpaper gloves. And because I was so terrified of splashing any of this awful ointment into my eyes, I was working with my eyes shut, and as I felt the amassing under my fingertips of little sloughings of what I desperately hoped was only the hair, I couldn’t help but worry as visions of the shower water turning pink as my arms oozed blood, having melted down to the muscle layer, shot through my imagination.

Fortunately when I tentatively opened my eyes, though my arms were blotchy and pale, there was no blood. Even though there should have been, given the level of pain!

UNfortunately, when I got out and dried off, I realised why it hurt so much: there were scatterings of tiny holes all over the surface of my upper arms! The cream had eaten away my skin!!! Holyfuck!
BUT (and this is the important bit) not even a SHRED of fluff was left, and my upper arms were every inch the twin paragons of smooth, glossy baldness I’d desired.

And yeah, there might have been a mild case of chemical burns, and later, blisters to go with the lacework which was my epithelium, but I had some soothing, lavender-scented baby-bum-cream to slather on, and really I was just psyched at my success, because I’ve done it: I’ve finally WON at BEING A GIRL!

I just wonder how long it’s going to be before I get to be my glorious, feminine self without wincing in agony.

P.S. Just FYI –sometimes even the computer notices when you fail at life; later in the evening I got a spam email from Bloglovin, promising me smoother, perfect skin. HAH! #Can’tMakeThatShitUp


*Some-whar: that Place, where you put things you intend to come back to, and somehow never do, and then can’t remember where the Place was…

Lizzi is a Deep Thinker, Truth Teller and Seeker of Good. She works a normal job and has a secret life as the writer at Considerings. Wife to Husby and Mother to two Neverborns (and now dealing with the challenge of primary infertility) she is a frequent instigator of silliness and loves to entertain with words.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Considerings

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The Weirdest Summing Up You'll See All Week. Probably.

I'm turning my e-frown upside e-down and looking at things the Thankful Way.

Instead of:
"I hate being broke at Christmastime"
I'm thankful for:
Stuff that 'really matters' meaning it's FREE.

Stuff like:
We're healthy, for the most part. I mean if you don't count stuff like cholesterol levels and BMI. Screw you BMI. You don't know my life, bunch of weird numbers invented before Doritos.

from fatgirlchangingherworld.com

Not all people have full health, not even all people I know. 

At least we live in a place where we have a lot of options for treatment. I'm thankful for that.

Thankful we have time to do things like cookie decorating with Grandma Ready, that's how my 2 yr old says it. They had a blast & made a big mess. And ate a lot of cookies, BMI be damned.

Speaking of messes, we made a big one following a post left on my FB wall about Play Snow.

It's 1/3 cup hair conditioner and 3 cups baking soda. I didn't even have enough baking soda and all the kids that were here LOVED IT. 

We also do things that don't go over as well, like "Hot Cocoa Picnic In The Park." Good idea at the time, but with a 2-,4-, and 5-yr old it was a messy, spilling, staining and complaining festival. Meh, I tried.

Goodwill Industries.
Chock full of old, cheap, FANTASTIC treasures like toys, clothes, decorations and LAMPS! I picked up a couple lamps for $2/each and a ton of puzzles for the kids. Can't beat that.

Perspective.
It helps me a lot. I haven't lived a charmed life or anything, you'll be shocked to know with my level of charm, but I've met a lot of different kinds of people and done a lot of different kinds of things and it's really helped for me to see other people's opinions. 

I've worked for very rich (very not nice) people, and volunteered with very monetarily-challenged, and completely wonderful gifts from the universe, people. Unlike the racists sheltered opinionated people in my FB newsfeed, I don't feel the need to add insult to injury about the reaction to certain news items. I've said it before, but if you just really, truly cannot understand that level of anger, frustration and rage, just thank your lucky stars.

I'm all for NON-VIOLENT protests of people who don't think they're being treated fairly. If you live in a place where you're treated fairly, and have basic freedom and civil rights, chances are someone, at some time, may have had to fight for that. We should be thankful that they did. 

I wanted to write about it, but I couldn't make time. Probably for the best, I doubt it would have done much. The people who read my blog are good, intelligent people. Yet they read it anyway, nyuk nyuk. I'm thankful they do! They don't need my advice. I don't even know what advice there is, what call to action can be brought forth. When something happens where *I* live, I will go to congress.org and look for someone to e-mail. Usually I get a cookie cutter response, but I feel like I did SOMETHING. I don't even know here. I feel I'm not in a position to be helpful right now. I am currently overwhelmed by other things that need my full attention. 

I'm thankful I can opt out of things. Not everyone can.

I'm thankful I have choices. Not everyone does.

I'm thankful I live in a place where I don't fear for my life on a regular basis. Or the lives of my children. Even if they make mistakes. And they will make mistakes. Because they're human. That's what humans do. It's actually kind of our thing. Everyone makes mistakes, the young, the old, the rich, the educated, the religious, oh gods yes the religious, the professionally trained.

But my children will most likely have the luxury of learning from their mistakes. They will have the opportunity to make amends, to apologize. Because they won't have an immediate trial by firing squad for the way they look.

I just wish everyone could say that.

I really wish EVERYONE could say that. 

Just some thoughts. 

I want to put something funny here, but I can't seem to.

How about a suit made of Ugly Sweater material??

This post is part of the Ten Things of Thankful, and really it's not supposed to be this much of a bummer. And it almost never is.