Merry Christmas Eve - Eve

It’s been pretty dang cold the past 48 hours. We thought we would be waking up to snow, but as the week progressed, those chances went down. Figures. We still got some snow flurries throughout the day, but nothing that stuck to the ground. I go between feeling bummed about not having snow and really low temps to also thanking God we aren’t in another Snowmaggedon. There are so many people out there without shelter or places to seek warmth. Families who are struggling this holiday season to stay on top of bills and provide a Christmas for their loved ones. Having another brutal winter would just add to their struggle. So, I’ll take the 26-degree high and sunshine.

I finished up all of the Christmas shopping this week, and today I only had to work half the day. I was able to fit in the “Freezing Friday” run challenge that our running club came up with. Talk about a sure way to wake up for the day! Though let's be honest, I’ll probably take a nap soon. Anyway - after some discussion yesterday I've concluded that our Christmas and New Year’s Eve plans are totally up in the air this year. If I had it my way we would watch football on Saturday, visit our families on Christmas day and then go back to being recluses by Monday. I’ve just been feeling so tired these days. However, I don’t think that’s how it will go down. We know for sure that we’ll be heading to Houston the day after Christmas. And my brother and his family are not certain when they’ll be making it down. It's looking more like a New Years get together with them. We do know that Emery’s little brother and his mom will be heading over Christmas morning so we’re excited about that. So, other than that we plan on winging the rest of the time we have off and I’m not necessarily mad about it.

This winter weather that moved in yesterday had temps dropping into the single digits. It's made me want to stay inside where it's all warm and cozy. Thankfully, we had already started prepping for it on Monday. The pipes leading to my dishwasher and washer froze - sadly, but the rest of the house is good. That just means I’ll be washing dishes by hand today. Boo. And the laundry will have to wait. I finished 90% of it on Wednesday anyway, so I’m not stressed, but man, I hate washing dishes by hand. I’m procrastinating on that task if you can't tell. LOL! I’m about to put on a Christmas movie, make some hot chocolate, and cuddle up on the couch. Hopefully, I’ll get a nice little nap in before I have to start picking up the house. Send me some motivational vibes, please! Okay, well this is where I leave you for now. I hope this post finds everyone warm, healthy, and well! Since I probably won’t post again until next week - Merry Christmas!

Wordless Wednesday

 

Some Space for Her

A few years ago Emery asked if she could start a blog. We created one, but she never actually followed through with posting anything. This request came after she asked me what I was typing one day and I let her see a little bit of my blog. I told her I also had a private one that I hope to one-day print out into a book for her. Then last year, while she was using my Instagram account to look for a specific TikTocker - she made her way to my profile. She looked up at me and asked, “Why don’t you post on here very much? And how come you can’t see my face in any of the pictures I’m in? Is this how all of your accounts are?”

Privacy and safety are always at the forefront of my mind when I put things about our lives online. And we’ve covered online safety with her - several times throughout the year. The schools also have a session on it once a year. But I still took that opportunity to dive further into the details of privacy, online safety, and consent to post things online. I told her that I felt it wasn’t really MY place to post things about HER even though I was her mom. This is a big reason why I don’t post a lot of pictures of her and also why I moved away from writing so much about her too. If you’ve been here since the beginning you know that this blog started out as a “mom blog”. If you dig far enough you might even get some secondhand embarrassment from my writing back then, but I digress. My daughter is a BIG part of my life. So, I’ve decided that with her permission, I’ll post a smidge more about her from time to time. And I also want to have a few posts where she gets to unleash a bit of her own voice on.

My idea is to do two “interview” style posts asking her some silly questions and some a little more serious ones. Without getting too personal of course. I’d like to do one at the beginning of the school year and then the other at the end. Kind of like a check-in. And then I’d like to ask her to share her thoughts in a post or two about what’s going on in her life. I’m still on the fence about sharing pictures that show her face on any social media platform, but she’s kind of already out there - so we’ll see. Now that she’s a bit older, and has more of a say, I kind of feel like sharing more of her with you. All of that said, I do realize that I missed the beginning of this school year, so I’ll try to draft and post while we’re both on break in a few weeks.

When I asked her if this would be something that she'd be interested in - she said yes. She asked me what my ideas were and what she'd have to do. I went over what I had in mind and then told her the rest would be mainly up to her. She said, "This will be really cool to look back on." And she's not wrong. It's one of the main reasons why I wanted to start this. To look back on her entries as she's getting older. For her to see what was going on during these years. And also as a way for us to have something that's just ours as a mother & daughter. Again, this could totally change. I could start it and then forget about it. I could decide that it’s not a good idea. I could end up feeling like it's too much too soon. But I'm going to give it a go - as long as she’s on board.