From There to Here

We went from this:


and this:

To this:


And finally this:It felt like the range and scope of our lives, sometimes. Most of the time. But still, there was this:



We went from here
To here

And spent time here.



All in all, it wasn't bad, 2010.

Holiday interlude *edited to add pictures*

Merry Christmas, dear readers!

So much, of so little note, has happened since we last spoke. There have been birthdays! holidays! museum trips! family visiting! present purchasing! purchase regretting! present opening! There have been tantrums large and small, mostly from strung-out children, but also a few adults (okay, ME). Remarkably, the worst of the Christmas season has passed without any major family snarking. We are all still on speaking terms. The season has been good to us and ours. Dearly beloved people have come and gone, leaving the Melospiza household lonelier but less chaotic.

M and I, like the kids, had to make do with partially fulfilled wishes this season--we still have no kitchen, but on December 23 we got lights and power in the front half of our house and we quickly moved into Christmas Mode, hauling out the boxes of ornaments and nostalgia, stringing up lights, taking photos. We cleaned the trash out of the fireplace, drove nails into the 2x4 fireplace frame, and hung our stockings with care between the ShopVac and the table saw. We regifted some of our Christmas cookies to Santa and brought out rugs and pillows and camp chairs. We had a right jolly old Christmas morning. Then yesterday we took it all down again, in the hopes that the builders would come today as promised (as of a quarter to noon, no dice--our builders are like the bad boyfriend, the one who never calls and never quite gives you his full attention).

However, I am always telling the kids that unfulfilled desires build character. (THAT'S what you call this pain and resentment swelling within my head!) Really, I guess, it's how we respond to unfulfilled desires that build character, or perhaps that response is how our character reveals itself. Anyhow, my character, or that of my household, is less gracious and unflappable than I could wish.

Hmm. I sense a resolution brewing.

Friday Favorites

I was out of town for work at the start of this week, and even though it was only three days it somehow felt like three weeks and now I'm really just running on made-up time, or so it feels. Like I'm going to look down, Wil E Coyote-style, and realize that ohmygod I forgot to feed the kids. Or holyshit Christmas is TODAY and we haven't even put up our lights. (We HAVEN'T put up our lights.) (But I did make the kids breakfast, and I'm reasonably sure they're at school). So I'm playing mental catchup, here. But I'll still put up a quick favorites post:

1. Favorite holiday: Christmas. Yes, it is, for real. And you know what else? My second favorite holiday is Easter. Old curmudgeonly, nonChristian, hasn't-belonged-to-a-church-in-over-thirty-years me.

2. Favorite part of my commute: where the highway goes down into the Platte River valley and for a mile or so all you can see are cottonwoods, plains, and mountains.

3. Favorite part of traveling for work: the food. Also, making coffee in my hotel room while I take a shower. Also, check-in. Otherwise I kind of hate it, I'm finding.

4. Favorite thing to dream about: landscape. Those dreams where I'm just setting forth into a new a tangled country, either on foot, or more rarely, in a truck. The world in my dreams seems vast and unpopulated. Lately the land in my dreams has been covered with houses, or is platted to be covered with houses, or is not very far from a large population center. Hmm. Coincidence? Or living in the suburbs with little chance to leave them? [Interestingly and perhaps ironically, my second-favorite dream involves looking at real estate.]

5. Third favorite thing to dream about: my grandpa's house. Always in these dreams there is an undiscovered room or floor filled with fascinating things. Two nights ago, however, I dreamed I was in his house and needing to pee, but every room I went to had been demoed. Apparently we were undertaking a "quick" bathroom remodel during our visit to his house. (I wonder where THAT dream came from?)

In other news, we have drywall, folks. Once we get rid of the drywall dust, the house will be downright habitable. Who NEEDS a kitchen, really?