Most of my little bloggy vacation was caused by finally getting my stinking goodfornothing computer back from the shop. I’ve been spending all my brief moments with two hands reformatting everything. I lost so much stuff that makes no real difference, but is an absolute pain in the neck to put back together. itunes playlists, fonts I have to redownload and install, podcasts I have to resubscribe to, all the downloads – flash, java, spyware, itunes, reinstalling all the peripherals like printers and cameras and video cameras and a 5 year old palm pilot, recreating my little file organization, setting up email, and ALLLLLLLLL the internet bookmarks.

I have big goals for this little blog, but like everything else in my life, I struggle to find the balance. Despite my best efforts I seem to be an all or nothing kind of person. Either I’m blogging so much I have a weeks worth of entries scheduled, or I’m abandoning it entirely. Either I’m not making anything at all or I’m so frantic with creative energy that the thought of sitting still and sharing what I’m doing makes my hair itch.

As soon as October comes around, my frantic creativity kicks in to full gear. From October to January I am almost always wearing paint stained pajamas and am covered in glitter. This is the time of year that most energizes the idea centers in my brain. I have more ideas than my two meager little hands could ever hope to crank out, and so I tend to abandon everything in my life and hole away in my studio cranking out ornaments and presents and fancy wrapping ideas.

This year I’m committed to doing things differently. Knowing it was Atti’s first Christmas with us, I didn’t want to pull my usual routine. I didn’t want to over commit myself and create so much artificial stress for myself that I couldn’t enjoy anything. This year we’re scaling back on presents, I’m scaling back on my expectations for myself. This year my rule is that any decorations not finished by December 1st just don’t make it up. If the week of Christmas rolls around and I’m still trying to handmake presents, it’s time to put that away for next year and just buy something already. This year I want to spend my time with friends and family and sharing the season.

With that being the goal, I have some plans for this little bloggy space. In the past couple of months I’ve seen a lot of new readers (Hi everybody! Thanks for visiting! Buongiorno, Italianos!) and I know from my own obsessive blog reading that it’s no fun to read a blog if the person isn’t truly sharing. My plan (let’s be honest here, it’s more like a hope given my track record) is to post every day in December to share my version of Christmas. We have great traditions, and bonkers decorations, and those are what I love reading about the most, so it only makes sense that I should share it with everyone I’m asking to read my blog.

That means that I’ve got to spend the rest of this month getting my blog caught up. I’ve been working like crazy on the house, Atticus is getting bigger and stronger every day, I’ve been cooking every night, and in my typical style I’ve been getting myself too wound up to take a moment every day, sit with myself, and share what I dedicate my life to. I need to stop that.

I recently listed this place with the blog directory Delightful Blogs, and I had to write a blurb describing what I do over here. I didn’t spend a ton of time on it, I just kind of took a deep breath and here’s what poured out:

So much of my life over the last five years has not been fit for public consumption. This blog is my attempt to communicate with the world despite the messiness of infertility, premature babies, unemployment and other ridiculous bad luck. It helps not having to witness immediate reactions. I write about my new journey into motherhood, all the stuff I make, and trying to create a life of grace amid the temptations of a Southern California life. I want to be a more peaceful person, more grateful, more appreciative of every moment, with a clearer vision for the direction of my family. And yet at the moment I’m a bundle of neuroses and contradictory ambitions. There’s a whole lot I want to do in this world. I wonder if I ever will.

I’m really pleased with that. I don’t know how I managed to get out of my own way and actually articulate what’s been rattling around in my head for so long, but I think that’s it. That’s how I feel. That’s what I aspire to. That’s how I want to be better.

Thank you for your patience with me. Thank you for reading. Thank you for coming along with me as I pinball my way towards progression.

Everyone, meet Liz. Liz, this is everyone.

Who could resist this welcome?

Liz is Bear’s aunt on his dad’s side, and she is just one of my very favorite people in the world, and a huge source of inspiration to me.

Bear loves to tell the story of when we first got married. I wore big black combat boots as I tromped all around the BYU campus, I died my hair black and wore leather jackets, and I was super active in the Feminist club. I warned him that I was not going to be some *Homemaker* (picture me holding my nose while I said that). I was not going to be [shudder] domesticated.

And of course now I could take Martha Stewart on in a crafting cage match.

I think I’m more surprised than anybody to see what path my life has taken, but I can really thank Liz for setting me on that path. In our early days of marriage we’d drive out to Liz’s house every Friday night to watch cousin Joey in the local high school football game, and every time she’d have some wonderful homey meal with fresh bread and cookies. Or all the girls would be standing around peeling apples to have a piping hot cobbler waiting for us when the game was done, and we’d talk and laugh and catch up with each other. Liz’s kids are some of our closest cousins because of those times we spent gathered around the kitchen island.

Through Liz’s example, I really saw what an influence a homemaker can have. How it’s not about drudgery or thankless martyrdom as you swoon from one unkempt room to another, it’s about setting the whole tone for your family. It’s not about being the family servant, it’s about serving your family by creating a place of peace, a place of warmth, a place of safety through your nurtuing efforts. It’s not mindless labor. It’s an artform.

And once I caught on that I had a choice – I could do everything halfway and whine about the fact that I had to feed myself everyday, or I could sack up and do it right – I set about my artistic training. I rummaged through Liz’s cookbooks and took all her best recipes, I spent hours watching hgtv and the food network, and I started cooking big elaborate meals for just the two of us.

Now thanks to Liz’s book, you can save yourselves ten years of effort.

The Food Nanny Rescues Dinner takes her 30+ years of experience cooking for a family and gives you all the tools you need for success. Her recipes are incredible, but what really makes the book unique is the structure she creates. Liz uses “Theme Nights” to make the chore of meal planning a science. Each night of the week has a subject to narrow down your options from every recipe ever created to something much more manageable, like “Mexican Night” or “Comfort Food”.

I wish I could buy this book for everyone I know. Especially everyone I know who struggles with dinner. I truly believe that cooking dinner for your family is the single best thing you can do to ensure a healthy kid, good relationships, and a happy home. I think that having someone who cooks at home trumps having a pool, having the fanciest video games, whatever. Cooking for your family will get everyone back home together.

I’m so proud of you Liz!

We just got invited to THE Halloween party in our circle of acquaintances. We’re super excited, and we’re hoping that this will lead to an actual honest to goodness social life after only two years of living here. Barring any further extended hospitalization, of course.

Here’s our dilemma. We need a really great costume.

We really want to show how fun we are (Because seriously, we’re fun. It’s about darn time people around here got to see it.), we want to put ourselves out there and let people get to know us, and most importantly it needs to be a superhero since that’s the theme of the party. We’re thinking that we need to make something up instead of just being a regular old superhero. It’s also our first time with this crowd and we have no idea what their going to be game for, so we’ve decided to play it safe. Nothing even slightly controversial, including political jokes even though I would make a cracker jack Sarah Palin.

Here’s what we’ve come up with so far:

OCD and The Slob: Take a wild guess who is who.

Captain Obvious and Know-it-all Girl: I call Bear Captain Obvious at least once a week. It totally fits the both of us. My problem with it is that it’s not entirely original. Also, I think Know-it-all Girl is a little weak. Bear suggested Captain Obvious and No Sh^+ Sherlock. Oh my gosh we laughed and laughed, but it is our first time with this crowd, and who knows if they’d find it funny or inappropriate.

The Channel Surfer and The Librarian: Bear’s superpower would be a laser remote control, and mine would be supersonic shushing. And he’d have a breastplate that would read WWZMD (What Would Zack Morris Do). We’d work together with all the knowledge we’ve gained from after school specials and cliff’s notes to solve the problems of the world.

We’d love any other brilliant ideas you guys have. This is our big coming out party after all the bleck in the past year. It’s kind of hard to put yourself out there and do the work of making friends when you’re barely keeping your head above water, so know’s our chance. We want to make a splash.