Today...

[LadyFoot]

I started listening to Christmas music today, even though it's before Thanksgiving. It legitimizes the cold weather outside.

[diggitydot]

Today...

We had our very first ever family portraits today. The gal did DD1's senior pics last week. She's a lot of fun and very good at what she does. I absolutely haaaaaaate having my picture taken, but it wasn't awful.

So here's hoping that the pics turn out well enough to actually send to family for Christmas presents like we planned.

[spaz]

health

I'm grateful that all three of my children are healthy. I'm grateful that they are good kids. I'm grateful for the healthcare in this country. ( We just finished a mission trip where I saw a state hospital that was pitiful.) I'm grateful that I have a house with heating and air conditioning. I have been truly blessed.

[bokelley]

I am doing my first round of bee venom immunotherapy. Wish me luck. At the hospital for all the testing.

[LadyFoot]

With all the hopping from city to city dh and I are doing for rotations, we've been visiting a different church (when he doesn't have to go in Sunday morning) nearly every week. It's exhausting, and I really miss having a home church. Today we visited a church that we both loved and ran into an old family friend. It felt like God giving me a hug, and I feel refreshed to persevere through this year a bit longer.

[v-girl]

How wonderful!

[MrsK]

Today, two big boxes - o-crap from the ILKs basement arrived. Apparently, DrK set aside some stuff he wanted when he was there. In a classic dad maneuver, DrK came to the dinner table wearing his high school football jersey...Two sizes too small. K1 looked him over and asked, "Why are you wearing THAT?!" (So glad it wasn't me.) DrK explained it was from when he played high school football and now the boys are starstruck. They keep asking him, "Did you catch the ball?" "Did the referee punish you for being mean?" I have a feeling we are going to be seeing a lot of that football jersey.

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[MAPPLEBUM]

I'm pretty sure this is a thread where you're supposed to write what you're grateful for but this is my Today. Today I'm so stressed and low energy I just want to crawl under the blankets and forget about everything. Being a musician holidays are great because I make the most money but it's also very stressful trying to get to all these new concert sites on time (often a lot of travel), having to face new people and music, knowing how prepared you need to be, etc. In addition to that my students semesters are going on FOREVER which means I'm basically running around like a maniac. But the thing that's sending me over the edge is driving on snow/ice. I'm from Florida so this isn't exactly a problem I've had to face before. I've talked to a lot of people about it and even done reading but the only way to really learn is to drive slow and figure out how well/poorly your car does. I'll be on the roads for about 2 hours every day through next week, and I swear the thought of it is leaving me in a total state of exhaustion. And truly, the roads are a mess. It's in the times when I have the most professional stress that I wish DH was more present. Taking care of all of the domestic tasks becomes unbearable. But mostly I just wish he was around more to have some support. I just wish it was Dec 20.

On the upside, I did tell DH that I need to not be disappointed with Christmas this year which I'm pretty sure he thought was the most hilarious thing ever. He promised to buy me diamonds followed by the very loud and exaggerated "....NOT!!" it was pretty funny.

[diggitydot]

The best advice for driving in ice and snow that I heard when we lived in the lake-effect snow shadow of Lake Michigan is that you can either change direction or change speed, but you can't do both at the same time.

[corn poffi]

^this.

[MAPPLEBUM]

Where did you live? I'm in Milwaukee and going back and forth to Green Bay this week . At least it's not Minnesota, right?

[diggitydot]

We're on the west coast now. Used to live on the IN/MI border.

[MsSassyBaskets]

For winter driving practice, I would actually recommend that you find a COMPLETELY deserted snowy/icy parking lot and slide around a bit to get a feel for "safe" sliding and how to control your car. It really helps you to know how your car behaves on ice and to "program" yourself to react calmly when it happens on the road. I had three cars when living in Minnesota, the first was a 20-year old hunk of junk rear-wheel drive diesel, and the next two were tiny, lightweight ice skates. (and I didn't go through three cars because I crashed them... they were just old. ) I know how exhausting it is.

[diggitydot]

Yup, a large, empty parking lot in the winter is how we taught DD1 to drive in the ice and snow. Hugely helpful, particularly since we're now in the mountains so it's not all nice and flat like the Midwest.

[corn poffi]

Milwaukee and Green Bay should be fine until Friday/Saturday. There might be some flurries, but it's too cold for real snow!