Author Archives: Chrissie

Getting Ready for Christmas?

I am approaching the Christmas spirit with a bit of hesitation this year. Oddly enough, Kevin has morphed from a complete Scrooge to a total Christmas enthusiast. I think you will understand my fear.

During our first Christmas together in Oregon, I was living alone in my little one bedroom apartment. Kevin was in school down in Corvallis but he would come up to visit me on weekends and holidays. As Christmas approached, I decided I wanted a tree for my little home. Kevin’s response was, “great, lets slay a tree for Jesus.” Needless to say, this remark considerably dampened my enthusiasm but I managed to shake it off and I headed to the nearest Fred Meyer with Kevin in tow. He grumped through the tree lot, declared every tree too big, and we ended up getting in a spat about how best to lash my douglas fir to the car. By the time we made it home, I was hopping mad. He had totally ruined my holiday spirit with his comments about how stupid it was to get a tree for an apartment.

The next year, Kevin agreed to help pick out the tree and he did cut back on the snide comments. However, there was still a lot of rumbling about why did we need a tree if we were living in an apartment? Last year was our first year in the house and we decided no pre-cuts for us. Instead, we headed into the hills and Kevin turned lumberjack and cut his own. He greatly enjoyed tromping around the hill and was willing to cut down as many trees as I liked. This year, he actually admitted he was looking forward to getting a tree so I think I have managed to convert him.

Now, I hear you asking yourself, “why is Chrissie so paranoid? Everything sounds normal.” Ah, but I haven’t told you about the Christmas lights.

Over the weekend, Kevin took Artie out on their nightly stroll. On his return, he asked me a rather odd questions – where can you buy moving reindeer made of Christmas lights. I immediately sensed trouble and went to yellow alert. After further questioning, Kevin revealed that on the walk, he saw this cool house with neat Christmas lights. The next day, he took me there. Sure enough, it had multi-colors large and small, icicles, and even Merry Christmas in red and green lights. Be the show stopper were four wire reindeer outlined with white lights. As Artie and I stood there speechless, Kevin pointed our with awe, “see how they are moving?” Sure enough, the heads slowly swivelled back and forth on the front lawn.

Kevin has decided the gauntlet has been thrown down. We hung our simple strand of lights but I can tell he wants more. He’s trying to find a way onto the roof and is musing about running extension cords so he can light our picket fence. I’m hoping that lighting the tree will curb his mad planning. If anyone knows were you can purchase moving Christmas reindeer, please keep that information to yourself. Thank you.

The Pooka Life

I am absolutely useless today. I seem to be suffer from pre-holiday exhaustion. This is a very vicious strain of holiday illness that some surmise is a mutation of post-holiday laziness. As this is a very dangerous affliction, I will detail the symptoms of the disease below…

1. Time stretching – this phenomenon is a common occurrence and involves the drastic slowing of time. A typical example is sitting at your computer for an excruciating period of time, checking the clock and realized a mere 3 minutes have passed. This is one of the more burdensome symptoms of pre-holiday exhaustion. This phenomenon appears to worsen in the late afternoon with the hardest period occurring between the hours of 3-5:30pm on your last full work day.

2. Procrastination – Dwelling over all the last minute details left undone and berating yourself for spending all day channel surfing instead of marking off items on your to-do list. Even though you know you have to go to the store or start cooking, you find yourself unable to rise off of the sofa and turn off the Facts of Life marathon.

3. Lack of Focus – You find yourself daydreaming out your office window or rearranging your post-it notes instead of finishing up your last report/letter. Combined with Symptom #2, a strange limbo is invoked whereby you find yourself able to only complete irrelevant tasks like ironing the napkins and unable to direct your activities to critical areas like cleaning the guest bathroom.

4. Wild Planning – In some severe cases, people infected by pre-holiday exhaustion find themselves caught up in the “perfect” holiday. After copious note taking and consulting every Martha Stewart and entertaining book in your home, you find yourself burnt out having spent two weeks and hundreds of dollars weaving your own tablecloth, dipping handmade candles and arranging hundreds of stunning table bouquets. Unable to maintain this maniacal pace without the help of twelve personal assistants, your immune systems is completely vulnerable and typically the onset of Symptoms #1-3 will occur within hours.

There is no cure for pre-holiday exhaustion that I have managed to discover. In some, shoe shopping has been know to help dull the pain but once out of the store, the symptoms return. In the interest of humanity, I will continue my quest to cure pre-holiday exhaustion. This year, I will test the theory that bubble baths may retard the onset of symptoms.

I will keep you informed of my findings.

Digs

I just discovered DigsMagazine. It describes itself as “a home + living guide for the post-college, pre-parenthood, quasi-adult generation.” I couldn’t have described myself better.

After searching through the “lounge” section, I have dug up all sorts of good plans for Thanksgiving weekend. Aside from Christmas shopping, I’m also going to make a new duvet cover and install some corner book shelves. Yessir, no lazing around suffering from the after effects of tryptophane for me. I’m going to be busy.

That’s assuming, of course, I can pull myself away from the I Love Lucy marathon long enough to focus on something else. I’m so excited!

The Pooka Life

As pointed out by Mikey, the guestbook underwent a bit of unintended surgery. However, the sacrifice was not in vain.

Please put your hands together for……The GuestMap!!!!

Just trying to keep your web-reading experience interactive. All that reading can be boring, I know, you here’s your chance to streach your fingers and leave your very own splat on our humble map.

Thank you. You can now go back to work.

The Facts of Life – Help Me!

The good news, this weekend nothing broke.

That’s right, the car drove, the plumbing ran, and the dryer heated. For the first time in forever, there were no mechanical emergencies for the McLaughlin household. In all honesty, it was rather a let down not to pull out the old tool set and spend all day long yelling at a piece to machinery.

The bad news, this weekend I discovered TV Land.

Now, I don’t know if this is just a weekend thing but there is cable station that plays TV show marathons all-weekend-long. Last weekend, they had 48 hours of the Facts of Life. That’s right, back to back hilarity with Jo, Tuti, Blaire and Natalie. I couldn’t stop myself.

I discovered The Facts of Life at 11am on Saturday morning and it wasn’t until 10pm Sunday when Kevin forced me to turn it off. When I left, Jo and Blaire were at Langley while Natalie and Tuti were still finishing up high school at Eastland. I needed help.

But it was so easy. I mean, I could wander in and out of the room without worrying I would lose the plot line since there was none. Didn’t have to channel surf at the end of every hour looking for another show to watch ‘cause the next episode came on lickity split. I could tune in and out at will. It was heaven. Of course, I’m still humming that damn theme song. You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have, the facts of life… Did you know that there is a different verse that runs over the ending credits? I know! How exciting is that??? Or how about how the girls ended up living with Mrs. Garrett above the cafeteria? And who among us remembers that Facts of Live was a spin off from Different Strokes? Was this a productive use of a weekend or what!

The good news is, next weekend I think they are doing 48 hours of I Love Lucy. At least that theme show doesn’t have any words.

(Somebody, please call AT&T and shut of my cable. I need help.)