Ramblings, Part I

The nun habits the girls got for their dolls for Christmas... so cute

So, this will be a rambling post... and every time I sit down to try to put an update here, I feel like I have so much to say, and then... nothing comes.  So I will add lots of pictures from the past month and see if that gets my brain moving as I comment on them and also hopefully follow the tracks of my brain to where they actually want to go.  If that makes any sense at all.

So, this was a fun thing... I am very sentimental, so this piece of wrapping paper is still on my desk.  My constant battle between minimalism and sentimentality rages on within me.  I am really hoping to work on minimizing things in my house this year... kind of a New Year's resolution.  I don't know where it all comes from, but if it doesn't have a use or it makes my children bicker, out it goes.  If it holds sentimental value to me, well... hard to let go of some things.  I have thrown out stuff in the past and then regretted it later based on the sentiment attached to it.

Back to the wrapping paper... this was a roll of wrapping paper that I hadn't seen used to wrap presents since I was much younger and still living with my parents.  I assumed it all got used up like in 1994 or something.  well, apparently it did - all but this scrap of it.  You know the scrap that you had to cut off and then saved because it might be able to wrap a box of earrings or a baseball card one day?  Don't scoff, I am not being random here; I used to get my brother a baseball card of his favorite Braves player every year for Christmas and then wrap the card about ten times, and this scrap would have been perfect for that.  Well, maybe for half the card.  Apparently this year, my dad decided to use these last scraps.  He wrapped them around the handles of gift bags with a tag attached to them (creating mass confusion in the large family gift opening department, as the previous years' tags on the bags themselves did not get covered up, and he had to explain,"No, look at the wrapping paper scrap wrapped around the handles; that is who it's for!").  And I gleefully announced, "Oh, I remember that wrapping paper - I loved it (alternately, "It was so ugly; I guess it is still around because nobody wants to use it!" - although the pineapple paper has not made an appearance in well over a decade, perhaps two)!  I'm so excited that we still have some!"  Er, had some, as my dad burst my bubble by saying this was the last of it.  So I rescued two of the last of the old wrapping papers, and now, hmm, maybe I will make them into laminated bookmarks or something?  Again, usefulness and minimalizing!  But these philosophies must also intersect with my style of reused/reclaimed/handmade decor.  See exhibit A, my license plate collection which adorns the walls of the sunroom (and contains a few sentimental pieces with stories behind them, of course), and exhibit B, my search for a farmhouse-style dining table (either antique or made from reclaimed wood if new) for our hopefully still-growing family.

So that is another resolution I have for this year.  Find us my ideal table.  I already found a few on Craigslist and they already sold.  To other people.  I am the kind of person who needs to look at ads for tables the day before I could actually drive two hours to buy one.  If I look at them and save them for later, they will be gone before I go look at them.  It doesn't help that the tables are all a few hours away from me.  Chris and I need a date day, a table-looking date day.  This is one thought that kept popping into my head a week or two after the miscarriage: I just want a day all alone with only my husband.  We will go to Mass and go table-shopping.  That is all I want to do.  It was strange how strong the urge was at that time... but yeah, I do still want to go find a table. 

O Come Let the dollhouse families Adore Him

 I found this setup a couple of times during the Christmas season... various toddler dollhouse people gathered 'round the nativity.  This is a child-friendly nativity that my mom started us one, adding a few new figures each year.  The wise men and camels were this year.  Lucy liked to have all her dollhouse people come to join in the Nativity of the Lord.  I don't know what happened to Cloth Dollhouse Daddy there; it looks like his wife pushed him over.  He was one too many for the crowd, apparently.  The plastic brown-haired people... those came from a teacher supply store marketed as dollhouse people for toddlers (because they are chunky and easy to hold, don't have hinged appendages that can pinch tiny fingers, etc)... but the description on the box was unfortunate.  They were labeled as the "safe, soft, white family."  Sold alongside the Hispanic, Asian, and black dollhouse families.  Many a joke was made that Christmas, and seeing as Caroline could read that year, they are still referred to as "Lucy's safe white family."  Thanks, Mom. ;)

See, I told you this would ramble.  It's even uglier than I thought, ha!  And all that from a wrapping paper scrap.  Sometimes it is exhausting to be in my own brain.  So with that, I will take a break and come back later to add more... I think I will post this in parts.  Otherwise, it will just sit and I will keep adding to it slowly and then it will be quite long.  Small dose rambling is probably easier on the brain anyway.