This is my first week off from teaching for the Holiday Break! Today I'm doing much better than I was doing yesterday. After I finished working I got home at 2pm and promptly fell to laziness. I know that it's ok because it's a vacation of sorts but for me, personally, I hate feeling like I'm not achieving something. Yesterday I had such a difficult time because I kept getting tired. I even layed down but couldn't fall asleep. I felt like I layed around all day long and wasted precious time. Precious time for what you might ask? I have no idea. Today has been much better though. Putting pictures of my dogs up on facebook, while not as important as making dinner or cleaning the house, made me feel like I got something done. I suppose that it was one of those things that really bugged me. I had this thing up that said, Churchill is a big brother but I never updated the pictures for like five months. Now that all the pictures are recent I feel much MUCH better about it.
I'm about to work on vacuuming which is exciting, right?! And I've also started on some cookies for Saturday's cookie thing at Lindsey's. I usually don't worry about the cookie bake off because Jaime hates my cookies and since his opinion is the only one that matters (besides mine) the only thing I'm interested in is eating a whole bunch of other people's cookies. But for some reason.. I really want to do something good this year. The only downer is knowing that Jaime doesn't like my cookies.. maybe he just doesn't like cookies at all.. gives me little inspiration because I'm afraid that anything I make will be boring and taste like bread. So I'm fishing for ideas and making cookies as I go. Is it bad that I have two different doughs in the fridge? Is that obsessive when I mention that I don't know if either of these will be the cookies I make? I am watching Food Network (I'm always watching Food Network) and I think it's making me a little more nervous than I normally would be... all these great looking cakes... and I can't even make chocolate chip cookies. Crazy right? Why do I torture myself like this?
So here's something else to consider. EWTN has several special Masses that we will be singing, like Christmas Eve. And one of those is New Years Eve. So I could sing a longer service, which pays more money, PLUS sing one of my and Jaime's favorite Christmas Hymns, or drink champagne and kiss my husband on the stroke of midnight. What do I do?! I still haven't decided. I went ahead and said I didn't think I would be there but now I'm second guessing myself. Since we aren't spending Christmas with my family on Christmas day it has really inspired me to spend these special times with my husband. He mentioned that if no one in his family makes any plans that we can have Christmas Day to ourselves (don't freak out Mom) and that really made me happy. This is after we have already planned to spend the weekend before with my family. I was really upset when I found out that we were having Christmas with Jaime's family, I've never not spent Christmas with my family. But now I'm over it and the thought of having a day to spend in the house with Jaime, cook a really special meal for just us and maybe go out to see a movie that evening.. it makes me feel like we are a family even though we don't have children or any one coming over, it makes me feel like we are a unit even more than we are now if that makes sense. What? Carrie, ramble? Who knew. Then I realized that even if we aren't alone on Christmas we will be on Christmas Eve. My very first time to cook something really amazing with him.. it's like Valentines Day to me in a way. Is this weird? I hope not. I want to make a ham!
In a similar way I was thinking about what I do when I go home to South Carolina. I spend all my time with my parents and brother and sister in law. I never realized before that Anderson would change like that for me. Not that it's a bad thing. Mom said that Cliff's Mom had come by and seen them into their new house which reminded me that I don't see him anymore. He was a really great friend that I always visited when I was in town, his mother is a wonderful lady! And although I miss seeing him, I know he's doing well in Florida, heck he's dating a model! I just realized that I think he was one of the people I went out with the most in Anderson and now that we don't do that I don't have a reason to get out and visit people. Paula was another reason but she also went off and got married, crazy married people, and lives in the next town over. You think it's hard to coordinate things when you're married? Try trying to get several couples together when you're also trying to visit your own family. See my point? I know that part of it is being married, I want to spend my time with Jaime and my family and showing Jaime things and talking with Jaime and watching Jaime with my Dad. Jaime Jaime Jaime :) No wonder I don't really have a reason to get out of my parents house with him there. The last time I went to Anderson I was thinking about taking Jaime out to eat, just the two of us, but I had such a hard time with it because the days were so full with spending time with my parents. Just venting here. That's one thing that I really miss about living at home. It's also something that I would look forward to if I ever lived closer to home. I suppose the downside to all of this is that the longer I'm away from home the more and more I feel like I have fewer and fewer reasons to be closer to home. I'll always have my parents there and that will always be important. But like the friends that I listed above, they're gone! And that's totally ok! But I'm finding that with time more and more things change and more and more 'home' is turning into 'that place I grew up in'. I think it's normal and I think it's good, but it is a little sad. I remember in our trips up North my mother and father would drive us through their towns that they grew up in, show us the house where they lived, there's even the house where my Dad's family who came over from Sweden lived (do you have one of those? I didn't think so). And the one really awesome thing that I look forward to is driving my children through Anderson and showing them the houses where I lived, where I learned to ride a bike etc. I'll always have those memories I'm just feeling it less important to be physically near them. I'm growing up ya'll!
And one more thing, Roll Tide! ROLL TIDE!!! Cry your eyes out Tim Tebow.