CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS, GROWING MY HAIR OUT, AND OTHER THINGS ON MY MIND

• CHRISTMAS

I LOVE Christmas!!  I love hauling out the decorations (okay, I don't love that part) and creating a cozy space filled with Christmas cheer.  I just love it.  Normally, I wait until Twelfth Night before I tear it all down, but for some, inexplicable reason, I want to tear it all down.  Now. I will be sad once it's all down.  I really will.  But I have this unexplained desire to have a clean, organized house, and have that clean slate.

I am weird. Yes.  I admit it. Perhaps it is the fact that I've been listening to Christmas music since November 1st?  Or that I've been watching Christmas movies since November 1st?  I don't know.  But today or tomorrow, Christmas is coming down ... sniff, sniff.

• HAIR

My hair ... it's driving me crazy!  CRAZY!  CRAZY! I am keeping it short because, honestly, I don't have the patience for long hair, and my face looks better with shorter hair ... fat or otherwise.  I found a style that would keep my pixie cut, but, gulp, needed to be grown out a bit.  I had foolishly talked myself into the fact that it wouldn't take that long.  BIG mistake.  It is taking FOREVER, FOREVER, and in the meantime, I feel like I look maternally and frumpy.  My desire is to look hip and edgy.  Perhaps why I am not pulling it off is because I am neither hip nor edgy.  I'm a fourth grade teacher.  By our very nature, we're the antithesis of hip and edgy ...

• JAMMIES UNTIL NOON

I have never spent two entire weeks in my pajamas until noon.  Never.  Work out clothes?  Yes.  Jammies?  No.   I have the past two weeks though, and Monday?  Monday is going to be cruel and unusual punishment.  Monday's 5 a.m. wake up call is NOT going to be pretty.  It just isn't.  Not one bit.  And this is the longest quarter of the school year ... no breaks ... no way to bolster one's need for rest and relaxation.  Oh, cruel and unusual punishment!

• BATTLE OF THE BULGE

It's back on ... the battle and the bulge.  I have no excuses.  I am what I have been eating.  It's a sad state of affairs, but I refuse to allow my self-esteem to be attached to a number.  So, I will get back on the wagon and ride it, more than likely, slowly, over bumpy terrain, until I see some progress ... or not.  We'll just have to wait and see.  

• PRESENTLY PRESENT

The doldrums of winter can get to a girl.  I refuse to let it this year.  I am going to rest on the positive.  I am going to seek more activity.  I am going to look for more ways to find relationships outside of my phone and computer and iPad and iPod.  I am going to be PRESENT.  Ugh!  I hate to even use that term, it's such a trendy word.  However, the truth intertwined in it is so important and so palpable.  It is so easy, in this time of our lives, to disconnect completely.  My goal this year is to really be present for each and every moment.  It goes by so quickly.