Return of the Blog

And on Christmas day, my blogging hiatus ends as I am sitting in front of a fire, in a quiet house, with a newly purchased, long overdue, refurbished MacBook on my lap. I can now return to the soothing tippity-tap, tippity-tap, as opposed to the vertical fingered bang, bang, banging required of my old companion. I can now type "9"s and "M"s with reckless abandon without cutting and pasting them from other documents. There is, of course, a "9" in my zip code, so it's been annoying enough over the past many months to just put the device down and walk away. This toy is quiet, no grinding sound, recently accompanied by an unsettling tick, tick, tick of an ersatz bomb waiting to go off, documents up in flames, or at least melted from the heat, increasing in fortitude from the bottom of the machine. No more children yelling "mom, get a new computer, it's time, just admit it." As one application after another stopped working, I have finally admitted it.

Now the dreadful task of updating costly software, inputing all my addresses, one by one, as the old address book was corrupted and can neither save or export. Figuring out if my older backup system will work and the laborious process of moving over documents and music and pictures and whatever else. Getting a new computer is not fun. Sure, it's shiny and pretty, but it's deceiving, there is so many nerve wracking tasks involved, I dread it, so I put it off as long as possible. My old faithful served me for seven years, it was my first laptop an some change I don't like one bit. I miss the way the old keyboard felt, I miss the way the outdated desktop worked, but sometimes you don't have a choice. New computer, divorce, cancer, sometimes you just don't have a choice.

I've had a lovely holiday season. I always forget I work in retail and so am always surprised by how busy and frazzled I get, but the fact that we've all finally admitted Santa is a fable, some of the pressure is off and it's more fun making up who the gifts are from. Little boy got gifts from The Great God of Good Socks, Gandalf, The Doctor and yes, some from his mom. The tall one got lots of very warm clothing to take with him to college in Maine next year. This time next year, he will be home visiting for the holidays, wow. Our Colby College dream has come to fruition with an early decision acceptance, but our expectation of a "need blind" experience, where the financial need of all those accepted is fulfilled by this prestigious, well-endowed school, turns out to really mean, they are blind to our need. While I am doing my best to negotiate some more funds, the dream is now going to include massive quantities of loans and debt. This is very disappointing. I still, however, fully believe that this is the right college for my boy and will offer him a life-changing experience and opportunity for positive personal growth and building of character. How do you walk away from that? He remains, smitten and in love and wanting to play college football and baseball while getting a world-class education, how does he walk away from that? I don't think we can, I think we will need to find a way for it to happen.

It's been a while, I've had some issues, I'm spending a lot of time in rehab, of the physical therapy variety, not drug and alcohol. But that's for another day, because I love the holidays and it's been a holly jolly month. I threw myself on the mercy of a friend with a truck who carted me home a frozen sold tree which thawed nicely and looks festive as can be. I learned that next time I plant a frozen tree, indoors, in a stand, I should not fill stand to the top with water because frozen, implies moisture, and all that water is going to soon start dripping downwards and there is a lot of it and if your stand is already full, well, you get the picture. We had our yearly festive xmas eve gathering last night, with the old friends who over they years have become family and some new ones for good measure. It is such a beautiful and powerful thing to see kids grow from babies to the precipice of launching. Stressful, fragmented evenings filled with diaper changes and temper tantrums are now relaxing and mellow with everyone doing their own thing, the generations and age groups interweaving naturally, sans anyones interference or orchestration.

This was the first christmas morning the boys father chose not to come over which surprisingly freaked  both boys out but we wound up having a perfect festive morning. We were all glad Aunt Ivy slept over as she always does. We're a small group, but it was perfect. It was also the first year I wasn't invited to the in-laws, or ex in-laws, which freaked me out. It's an odd thing how you can know people for 25 years and then just be exiled, but I guess it's time for new traditions and it turns out I'm perfectly happy home alone today and fine with the boys having a holiday tradition without me. They'll be back tomorrow an our annual Lord of the Rings marathon will begin and well go see the Hobbit to top it off. I've gotten a lot of cleaning up done, I'm doing a laundry marathon, it's warm and cozy, I'm eating leftovers, way too many cookies, and using my new computer. It's just gotten dark and I'll flip around and find a movie and I'm at peace with the universe. I have local friends in on who I could drop, but I'm feeling no need, I'm quite content and hope you are too.