Seanna (n. shaw-nuh)

Christmas 2011

We had it at a chalet in Gatlinburg, starting on Tuesday of this last week of 2011.  It was lovely.  Want to see a photo of the view?  My sister-in-law took it the morning after we arrived:

Cool, huh?  It was incredibly peaceful there. 

(Post-Christmas Carnage, Wednesday 12/28/2011 at dusk).

See that black case on the table?  Want to know what was in it?  Yes, you do.  It looks like this:

Pretty cool, huh?  LOVE IT. 

It was a pretty low-key Christmas with most of the focus off gifts--except for maybe stocking gifts; we really like stocking gifts.  The adult children planned and cooked us Christmas dinner on Wednesday evening, complete with delicious chicken fajitas and individual chocolate molten lava cakes like the ones they serve on cruise ships.

We were fortunate to be joined by my brother's family, and it was just as it should be.  We also hosted a Dirty Santa event on Tuesday evening, with most of my sister's family.  Their oldest daughter could not attend, unfortunately, and we missed her and her family, but their other children and spouses were there. It was lots of fun. 

One thing about the chalet: To get the "spectacular" grade view, you have to trek up a "spectacular" grade horror ride of twists and turns and dropoffs and vertical inclines.  For that reason, once my sister-in-law and I got up on the mountain with groceries and everything we needed for several days, we declined all offers to ride back down the "hill." No, thanks!  Going down the hill actually wasn't that bad--going back up was not my favorite, though. 

We all agreed we would definitely stay at that chalet again--I hope we have the opportunity sometime in the future.  Christmas 2011 was pretty peaceful, not a little sad with the absence of my brother a bit of a dull hum constantly and sometimes an out-of-the-blue piercing sadness, but also warm and lovely with the togetherness of family. It's weird how things can be both sad and happy at the same time.

Oh, hi

I think I last posted over the summer.  People keep telling me to start up again, and I keep not doing it.  But today's the day.  One of the girls is home for the weekend to study and has taken over my scrap desk and other parts of the room in here.  It's cute.  I have a couple of projects I plan to work on today--I started an etsy shop, yay!  But I need to put some stuff in it before I debut it to the world, so that's on tap for today.  We did a little Christmas shopping yesterday--Christmas PJs:  DONE.  Yay!  They were stressing me out this year. None of my ideas were panning out so we went back to the basics.  Em and I also went to this Mexican restaurant in Brentwood.  I think it was Brentwood, anyway. Maybe we were in Franklin.  It's hard to tell; they seem to run together.  I do remember we passed by Dave Ramsey's headquarters.  I saw this sign that said "Financial Peace Plaza" and said, "Hey, I know that name. OH!  Dave Ramsey!"  Anyway, it was right down the road from there.  The restaurant is called Chuy's, which sounds sort of Asian to me but was definitely not.  I had the best chicken fajita I have ever had in my life, on the best freshly made tortilla ever.  We got it for two and Em had her first chicken fajita as well.  Poor thing. I did tell her it will all be downhill from there, so she knows not to expect that level of excellence from, say, El Tap.  But it's hard to mess up a chicken fajita, so she'll be OK. 

One of the reasons I stopped posting is  because my brother was killed in a car accident in September.  I thought I might like to write about that, and maybe I will, but not right now.  It's still too hard.  I'm very happy that his wife and son (and I think his son's girlfriend!) are joining us for Christmas this year, though.  I really think he would like that.

Since I posted last, I have had to reformat the hard drive on this computer, so I had to archive most of my photos, but I'm sure I have at least one I can share.  I also lost the program I usually use to write my blog posts, so hopefully this won't look too different.  Like anybody can even remember what the other ones looked like, right?

That's Sam.  This is a scene we see multiple times each day.  It's a little game he likes to play with us.  He cries and carries on and tries to lead us into the bathroom so we can turn on the bathtub faucet for him.  I think those might be little water droplets on his face.  He seriously lives for this game. Lately he has tried to add an extra move called "I will jump on the bathroom sink and you will turn on the water," but I am strongly discouraging that by refusing to comply with his cat manipulation.  Even Charlie gets in on the bathtub game, but she just does it because he does. 

So that's it.  My first blog post in...eleventy months.  Sorry about that.  I hope you missed me.  I will try to step up my game soon.  There has to be a first, breakthrough and sheepish, "I'm back" post first, though.  Right?  Right!