When we moved into our condo (before we bought our house), the previous owner left us a vacuum (AND a fridge full of half-eaten food. Yum!). I loved it, used it, and eventually broke it. I’m not techno-savvy (why is the Internet not working, Daver?), so I am not certain what I did to it, but it was a decent thing.

It moved with us to our new home, where it took up residence in our basement for a year and a half. It has now moved to the garage where it sits until I figure out what the hell to do with it. We have a Kirby, which is awesome, even though it weighs approximately 900 lbs AND doubles as a toliet plunger AND hair massager (same attachment!), so I have no use for this broken vacuum.

But I feel wasteful, just throwing it away, when it’s entirely likely that it just needs a little tweak here or there. I’d put it out by the curb, but it’s winter here, and the snow would absolutely break it.

What do I do with it?

Ditto with the baby swing that Alex wore out. It no longer goes (ESPECIALLY not to 11) in any direction, and in the event that I had another baby, I’d just buy a new swing (yes, I am somewhat wasteful. I know.).

——————

I am in dire need of a new pair of simple black boots. I got my old pair shopping in Ashley’s closet, but they’re about half a size too small and incredibly uncomfortable. I cannot order a new pair online, as I need to a) inspect the heel (I hate the really teeny tiny ones with a passion. Ditto with the really chunky ones) and b) try them on.

Are boots universally uncomfortable? Or is it just these boots (because they are too small)?

Where do you go to buy a decent pair of boots (my footwear is universally expensive, so Payless is not an option for me)?

Ankle boots or calf high (I’ve never worn calf high ones)?

—————-

Alex appears to be starting the weaning process, which is making the angels sing on high. The problem is, is that he now refuses to take a bottle (breastmilk filled or otherwise) in any form. I think he is convinced that the bottle = battery acid.

So he eats a number of pureed foods along with mountains of baby yogurt and nurses about 4-6 times a day (if you can believe it, this is far, far down from previous months).

I was beginning to feel all good about myself until I read up on weaning before 12 months (he is almost 9 months now), and all the literature screams: “YOU’RE A DAMN BAD MOTHER IF YOU WEAN YOUR CHILD BEFORE 12 MONTHS. YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF, BECKY, AS YOUR BABY WILL ONLY SELF-WEAN AT 2-3 YEARS. UNFIT MOTHER!!!”

But the baby seems to be certain that eating solids is the easiest way to get from Point Hunger to Point No-Hunger, and there doesn’t seem to be much I can do to dissuade him. (plus, I am getting somewhat relieved that I am seeing an end to nursing in sight. And what would a statement like that be without the accompanying Maternal Guilt?).

Any advice for me? (especially that which doesn’t involve fenugreek. My nasty nursing bras STILL smell like maple syrup 7 months later).

——————–

What the hell is up with the term “Teh”? I seriously don’t understand how “teh” means “the” unless it is misspelled due to error while typing.

——————-

I’m feeling rather diet-ly discouraged, so I need some new tips for weight loss. I know I’m not the only person on the planet who has struggled with weight loss, so lemmie hear your tips.

Please?

Lookit my soul sister today! Miss Cricket and I posted about the same thing WITHOUT SPEAKING BEFOREHAND. The Internet is a strange, awesome place.

In my quest to be somewhat of a hardcore mother, I have gotten two tattoos (look, I may have to have the mini-van with the soccer stickers on it, but I refuse to wear mom jeans OR get a perm). One per foot. This serves the twofold purpose of having something to distract the viewer from my lovely (read: ugly) feet, AND allows me to feel hardcore without having to show them off. I can easily cover them up when the situation dictates it, and sometimes (especially during the winter) even I forget that I have them at all.

Each has a special significance to me, so when I look at them, I am reminded of painful life lessons that I had to learn by myself (because, I suppose, someone just TELLING me wouldn’t have left such an impression. And I am painfully stubborn, so even IF someone had told me, I probably would not have listened).

Being a now-tattooed person, I of course want more. Unfortunately for me, however, I have been unable to decide where exactly to put them. I want to finish each of my feet with a sock (my own term here instead of a “sleeve” because obviously, you don’t have sleeves on your feet), a sort of mosaic covering to blend each of them into a scene (I have a gecko on one foot and a pink seahorse on the other. I’m thinking some background for each).

What has prevented me is the fact that it is winter, therefore requiring covering each foot against the elements (summer is obviously better for this) and the intense pain that comes along with having a foot tattoo (I need to forget the pain first). Rest assured, I will do this, probably for my 28th birthday (all of the other ones have come on my birthday, which is in the middle of the summer), but maybe sooner.

But this isn’t enough for me, not even close.

Now I really want to get a tattoo for each of my children. Ben will be represented by Max of Where The Wild Things Are and Alex by The Little Prince. And my (possible) last child will have to wait and see what he or she is represented by. So I have to wait until I am done with child bearing to have this one put on as well (I am nothing if not fair), as I am planning to do a large box down between my shoulder blades with all of them blended together.

(note: I’ve always had stringent guidelines for where I wanted a tattoo placed. It had to be coverable AND not in a place that will be easily stretched out by sagging skin. I don’t want to gain 10 lbs and have my cute tummy tattoo stretched from a pair of dice to a domino. Not cool. I admire the hell out of arm tattoos, but I am sure there will come a day when I am annoyed (and ashamed) by my placement of a picture of Kurt Cobain there. A back tattoo, although being mainly hidden to me, seems to be the path of least resistance here, as it fills all of my qualifications for a tattoo.)

I haven’t divulged WHAT life lessons my tattoos remind me of, because that is an entry for a different category, but I’m curious about YOU.

Do you have tattoos? Do they mean anything to you (you don’t have to tell me WHAT they mean if you don’t want to. Aunt Becky doesn’t like to pry), or did they just look cool? Do you want another one? Have you regretted getting them (i.e. your old boyfriend’s name on your boob. Each time I got a tattoo, there was always someone in their changing a name on a tattoo. Mental note: do not tattoo anyone’s name on your body unless it is your own.)

If you have no tattoos, do you hate them? Think they’re tacky (my mom hates them with a passion rivaled only by her intense hatred of cigarettes.) and lame?

Today was our annual Breakfast with Santa, which also happened to fall on THE SAME DAY AS Daver’s company Christmas party (because having a day off in between would be too easy, I guess). We went to the Company Party last year, and I had a minor fit beforehand because, well, the dress I’d bought early on in my pregnancy was not fitting in the boob area.

I had a minor hormonal meltdown, and Daver, being the wonderful soul he is, whisked me off to buy something new about an hour before we had to leave. And then stopped at Krispy Kreme to buy donuts on the way home (this was more for him than me. Couvade, anyone?) and didn’t even mention it when I ate one (despite my whining about being fat).

I vowed to be sexxier and thinner this year, because, well, I am not currently harboring a metabolism-altering parasite. The Universe predictably laughed when I comforted myself by swearing to breastfeed off all those extra pounds from my ass (why my ass felt the need to be pregnant, too, is beyond me. Maybe it was jealous of all the attention fostered upon my belly.), and I have been silently hyperventilating about going to this Christmas party since about October, when it became readily apparent that I wasn’t going to be at my fighting weight this year.

A couple of weeks ago, while at Target, I picked up a pair of pants to wear to this (yes, the invite expressly said “cocktail attire” and I do know what that means, but hey, I was taking an hour and a half train ride to get there. I am not getting on the Metra in a dress), and promptly burst into tears in the fitting room. All of the shirts I grabbed didn’t fit. The pants fit fine, but their size depressed me.

I shakily located Dave and Alex (predictably in the video game aisle), and told them I wouldn’t be attending the party this year. My breathing was ragged and harsh, because I was so upset, that it probably sounded as though I’d taken a couple of pulls off the helium balloons.

It was later that day when I became completely ashamed of myself for feeling so incredibly insecure about how I looked, that I was telling Dave that I wouldn’t do one of the FEW things that he really wants me to do with him. HE doesn’t care that I am a few (read 23.5) pounds heavier. HE doesn’t care that I refused to wear a dress or make any real effort in my appearance tonight. All that he cared about was having me by his side.

And for all of my whining and worrying, it turned out just fine. No one turned me away for wearing pants. No one pointed, laughed, or made any comments whatsoever about how I looked tonight (no, although I was wearing pants, I was NOT wearing a Grateful Dead t-shirt, like I’d wanted to. Even Aunt Becky has her limits for tackiness.). We were only able to stay a short time (babysitters are awesome, but cannot be forced to watch my ickle ones all night long), but instead of being relieved about being able to escape, I was sad that we couldn’t stay longer.

So, Dave, thank you for making me go with you tonight, when you were completely aware of how much I’d have rather stayed home in my pajamas WHERE IT WAS WARM AND DRY AND NOT SNOWING MOUNTAINS.

I do a ridiculous amount of complaining about Ben’s father, some (most) of it justified, and some of it not. I had a particularly good bitch-session with Dave this past weekend, when Nat had finally realized that we’d added my last name to the end of Ben’s last name. The reasons ran from making sure that Ben got his mail in a timely manner to my dislike of being called Mrs. (Nat’s last name). I mean, if I’d wanted this to be my last name, I’d have married Nat, rather than opt to be a single mother.

He was peeved at me, for sure, but I didn’t care much one way or another. I mean, just the other week, when I got a bill from the dentist that Nat was supposed to pay, and I approached him, talons on the ready, he informed me that it WAS my job to make sure these sorts of things get done.

It appears that he wants the glory of being called “Dad” without the work involved. School functions, homework, vaccinations, birthday parties: those are all “my realm,” not his. He’s nothing more than a glorified babysitter with a meaningless title.

(an aside: when I got pregnant with Alex, I sat down with Ben and explained that although Ben calls my husband “The Daver,” the new baby would call him “Daddy.” Ben then decided to call Dave, “Daddy Dave” as a compromise. That lasted until Nat found out and informed Ben that Dave was NOT his father, HE was, and that he should not call Dave anything other than Dave. Ben, being unable to think to rebel against this, hasn’t thought to call Dave anything other than his name since. I have a feeling that if Nat could have pissed on Ben to mark his territory, he would have.)

While I am a decidedly Holiday Person, Nat is not. I spent many pregnant months making Ben a stocking, I’ve always carefully selected stocking stuffers and gifts for him, I’ve insisted that we get a tree and have Ben help decorate it, I am painstakingly planning (and hosting) Christmas Eve for our families, this is what I do around the holidays.

Nat and his family (who I honestly adore. I think half of the reason I stayed with Nat as long as I did was because I love his parents. They’re physicists, who are my favorite sorts of people in the world, and they’re hilarious) are not from this country, and although they do celebrate Christmas, he and his siblings never were allowed to believe in Santa Claus. His mother (Ben’s grandmother) was too distraught when she learned that Santa wasn’t real, so she decided not to tell her children about it.

While I have absolutely no problem with this: I mean, it DOES feel a little odd to have to make up elaborate answers to these questions about where Santa lives, what his reindeer eat, what he does in his off time, I can’t get behind not doing it for my own children.

I guess I feel like childhood is a fleeting time of innocence and wonder, and I would hate to have to introduce my children to what the world can be like any earlier than I have to (no, I don’t home school them. Nor would I. You can start breathing again.). Believing in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy is something you can never go back and decide to do again once you know the truth.

So when I told Nat that I was taking Ben tomorrow to Breakfast with Santa, he expressed that he didn’t think Ben should “believe in that crap.” I had been hearing this from him on and off for several years now, so it didn’t take me by surprise. But it’s just another reminder to me of the vast divide between Us and Him. Dave may not be pissing his pants with excitement over this (or anything. He’s not that kind of guy. Lucky for him, Ben and I are exuberant enough to make up for it), but he’s certainly looking forward to it, just as we all are.

I know full well that someday Ben will come home from a night with his father and tell me that Santa Claus isn’t real, and I suppose that my only real hope is that he won’t tell his brother about it.

How did you feel when you found out Santa wasn’t real? Were you crushed? Or did you already kind of know and therefore remain unsurprised (as a child, this was where I fell)? Do you think it’s a bad thing to allow kids to believe in these fictitious beings?

In a popularity contest in my house, before Alex was born, Dave was numero uno. As far as Ben was concerned, I was a mere blip on the radar, whereas Dave was the Real Deal. Instead of being hurt by this (which would have been quite easy, really), I took it as a reaffirmation of my good choice in marrying The Daver.

I got very, very accustomed to playing second fiddle, to Dave’s one man-band (well, two men, really), so it came as quite a shock to my system when Alex was born and as far as HE is concerned, there is no better person in the world than his mother, me. It was, and still is strangely flattering to me that this little person is convinced that the sun rises and sets by me (trust me, this is nothing I take lightly).

But the world keeps on spinning as per usual, and a strange development is taking place in my house: Ben has decided that I am awesomely awesome. As far as I know, I am the same person that I always have been to both of them, but something deep inside of Ben is shifting. Dave is amazing, of course, but MOM has been cast in a new light.

Here is an actual conversation that was had over lunch this week:

Me: “blah, blah, blah, blah, Britney rules! Blah, blah, blah.”

Ben: “Mom?”

Me: “blah, blah, blah, blah. Yes, Darlin’?”

Ben: “I’m gonna marry you when I grow up.”

Ben: “I can go to the store for you and stuff.”

Me (stunned): “Don’t you think I’m a little old for you?”

Me: “I mean, you’re going to be a great husband, should you decide to get married. You’re a real sweetheart, duder.”

Ben: “No, Mom, I think you’re just perfect.”

I am not even exaggerating when I tell you that my heart, like the Grinch in Whooville, grew 10 sizes that day.

I guess we’re doing something right.

I have never been an alarmist, most especially when it comes to my children. I firmly contend that no matter what I do or try to do, it doesn’t much matter as they’ll turn out just fine whether or not they rolled over at four months or walked by ten (months).

If you didn’t actually know me, you might even take my very relaxed attitude as a sign that I do not care for my children, which would be so very false. I don’t worry much about them, but I am fiercely protective. So frightneningly so that Daver often will gloss over things (and sometimes completely omit) that he knows will evoke my wrath, which I imagine that as a coping mechanism my children will someday learn to do as well.

Really, I don’t worry about much in my day to day life. I live under the assumption that most things will work themselves out eventually (which is a good damn attitude to have as my husband likes to worry about absolutely everything–I talk him down from his worried cloud while he talks me down from heading over to Little Billy’s house to kick his damn ass for possibly giving my son the hairy eyeball).

All bets are off however, when I am pregnant. There is something hardwired into my body chemistry that flips a switch whenever filled with HcG and I turn into a bundle of nerves. Worried nerves. Painfully freaking out nerves. There is something so huge about being tasked with becoming a healthy vessel in which a small fetus is to develop for nine loooong months that scares me. Partially, I think it is the intangability of it all: if I can’t keep my eyes on it at all points in time, something bad might happen to it, and partially it must be the uncertainty of it all, that one can do everything “right” and have it all go so horribly wrong. Me while pregnant is not a Very Good Thing for anyone until that baby actually is born all wrinkley and screamy and garden gnomeish.

Months ago, while still pregnant with Alex, I decided not to go back on OCP, take my chances (as fellow parents likely know, having sex while having a baby around is not very sexxy. It’s all “Allright, one, two, three go, Go, GO! The baby is asleep!” Not very romantic, eh?), have my very last baby and then get done with the whole pregnancy/newborn period for good. Although I don’t necessarily want to have our last children back to back, I wanted to take the pressure off myself from the whole “trying to get pregnant” thing, which was supremely stressful, and figured that our last born would come whenever he or she would.

I just don’t know if I have it in me to have another baby. It’s not actually the baby itself that scares me (hell, I have two. I haven’t had a hot meal or taken a crap by myself in YEARS. This, I am used to), it’s the fet-bryo part I can’t take. I am neither naive or stupid enough to believe that everything will be all right, I know better than that. Bad shit happens to good people who don’t deserve it all of the time. Just because I’ve been lucky before doesn’t mean my luck will hold out (what’s that phrase about the house always winning in the end?).

I fear that the only way that I can make it through another pregnancy with my sanity (somewhat) intact is to have Dave commit me to a mental institution and strap me down in a straightjacket for nine whole months. My anxiety and peripartum depression is that severe.

(I’ll put it to you this way: immediately after delivery, when we brought Alex home, in spite of the fact that he would only sleep while being held AND I literally nursed him 20-22 hours a day (no joke here), I kept remarking over and over to Dave “Man, THIS IS SOOO MUCH BETTER THAN BEING PREGNANT.” Anyone who has dealt with a newborn for an extended period of time knows that between the raging postpartum hormones and the sudden sleep dep, this is not the normal reaction).

I don’t want to regret having another one, yet I don’t want to regret NOT having another one. I don’t want to be 50, sitting around with The Daver and say “Man, I wish we’d had just one more, like we always said we would.”

It’s a tough thing to tackle, this conundrum, because there is no good answer. What’s good for the goose may NOT be good for the gander (or something. Whatever. It sounded cooler in my head). I don’t know how to decide, I mean, this is a bit bigger than what color underwear to use or what cell phone plan to choose. It’s not ‘flip a coin’ territory, is it?

So, tell Aunt Becky about you. How do you know if/when/how many children you want to have? How do you KNOW for certain anything like that? Is three kids like Three’s Company? (if you don’t yet have kids, what was it like growing up with or without siblings?)

Since we happen to do our grocery shopping at the Holy Grail of Awesomeness (read: Target), we always spend the last half of our shopping extravaganza perusing all of the cool stuff Target is trying to convince me that we need. This includes their 8 mile long stretch of wares that I affectionately refer to as Christmas Row. Included in Christmas Row is an aisle I have always blatantly ignored: The Wrapping Paper Aisle.

Now, just as I am neurotic with Christmas Cards, I have always been slightly less so, but still neurotic about my wrapping paper. My brother and sister-in-law have always spent an insane amount of time and money procuring The Right Wrapping Paper, and while I have admired them for it, I simply can’t get behind spending my life’s savings on something that someone may briefly enjoy, then throw away.

I love cheerfully wrapped packages, but so long as the paper doesn’t come in a 6-pack with cheesy looking Santa’s, or stupid messages of holiday cheer, I’m fair game. Although I have admired the really funky textured metallic stuff, I simply cannot get behind spending $6.00 on 10 feet of paper. The volume of gifts that I have to wrap simply precludes this.

But because my family has grown exponentially over the past couple of years, I have notice an alarming trend: I have found myself increasingly excited about thoughtfully wrapping gifts (which you would think would be opposite, especially considering that I alone wrap the Christmas gifts. Even my own. Does that sound depressing to you?).

This year has even FOUND me perusing the Aisle of Wrappy-Goodness. Yes, I am admitting here and now to The Internet that I willingly (cheerfully, even) spent AT LEAST 20 minutes examining all of the cute doo-dads that one can use to wrap gifts with. I’ll probably never be crafty enough (she’s CRAFTY!) to make my own doo-dads out of ordinary household objects, but I may begin to pick them up here and there.

Sometimes, I take a step back, examine myself and wonder who the hell I’ve turned in to. I mean, I used to wrap gifts in newspaper or whatever was lying around (birthday paper at Christmas? WHO CARES?), or better yet, I used to bribe my mother to wrap my gifts for me.

So, it’s YOUR turn, you crafty souls out there. I’ll never scrapbook (although I did get some supplies, before I impotently decided that although I made my wedding invitations, I’m just not that kind of person deep down), knit, or crochet (even platitudes!), but I know that other people do this sort of thing willingly.

Any suggestions?

And Aunt Becky is dying to know what YOU do with your gifts? Are you anal about them (oh, the search terms on this one)? Do you care at all about what your gifts look like, or do you subscribe to Aunt Becky’s School Of Why Waste Money On Something People Will Throw Away?

In case anyone wants to email me, which is totally rad by me, even if it IS to tell me how stupid I am, my email is currently down. Which includes my address book.

Thanks to my trusty geek, however, the situation has been immediately rectified. I have a brand-spankin’ new address to be immediately filled with spam (why YES, my girlfriend IS sad because my penis is too small and keeps slipping out! Thank you for noticing, spamalot!)

If you are someone who I regularly email (and even if you’re not), you can assume that I do not have access to my address book. This makes me sad. What if Don Msurhstasthey @ supercolon blow cannot access me? WHATEVER WILL I DO THEN???

Please, PLEASE, for the love of Baby Jesus, email me:

becky (at) dwink (dot) net

I will love you for ever and ever and ever if you do.

And you can put THAT in your pipe and smoke it.

Now that my father is home from the ICU, resting comfortably and finally in real clothes again (which means that he has stopped accusing me of trying to look up his gown), I can focus my neurosis on more meaningful things.

Like the loss of my sunglasses, which I have had for over 3 years. And I am ridiculously, oddly, and oh did I say ridiculously? upset about. I can’t begin to understand how this loss is breaking my heart so thoroughly, but inexplicably it is.

And in spite of their insane cost, I plan to go out tomorrow, ice storm or not, and replace them.

I don’t get this sudden need for THOSE EXACT SUNGLASSES to be replaced NOW, NOW, NOW. It was all that I could do to NOT go out tonight, sheets of ice on the roads be damned (it honestly appears as though Swarovski has set up shop in my front lawn. EVERYTHING has been crystallized, including the dog poo. If only Swarovski was in the market for crystallized dog poo, I would TOTALLY CORNER THE MARKET).

I think I may be going insane.

My obsession started innocently enough, with Christmas Cards. Being 21 during the first Christmas my son was alive, I had never even CONSIDERED writing Christmas Cards each year. I mean, what the hell did I have to say to anyone before then? I lived at home, was going to school, and partied like it was 1999, but somehow I don’t imagine those sentiments would translate well into holiday cheer:

(Dear Aunt Mary,

Love + Rockets, Man,
Becky)

But once Ben was born, and I got the first in many ridiculous holiday portraits taken (we did those yet again last weekend! Man, oh MAN is that exhausting. I need to do them in like March, when the photo place is not filled to the brim with other tantruming, but nattily dressed children and their bedgraggled parents), and I realized that many people would, in fact, enjoy seeing my infant son in a Santa costume. I knew that I would (plus, the Humilation Factor is high here, which brings me no end of joy. If I still pee my pants when I sneeze, I can humilate my children when they are small, right?).

So I set out to find Christmas Cards, which is no easy feat for me. Despite the prohibative cost, I refuse to do the econo Box ‘o’ 200 from Walgreens, because they are printed on what I believe to be wax paper, their corny sentiment misspelled (I shit you not. On the first year I was married, I sent cards to all of Dave’s extended family, for which I purchased the ultra-religious (and cheap!) tacky cards. The message inside was misspelled, which made me giggle).

I am exceptionally picky when it comes to (most, really) these sort of things. Although I may like something that can be described as sparkly and colorful with some doodads thrown in here and there, I MEAN THIS SPECIFICALLY. You could never go out and TRY to do this for me (which is what makes me a total pain in the ass to buy for), because you’d be guarenteed to fail (even after spending an insane amount of time trying to find the perfect card). Honestly, the only person I know off the top of my head would could ACTUALLY be called upon to pick something out for me would be my best friend, Ashley (which is not to imply that we have the same type of taste. I am delightfully tacky yet unrefined, but she is not). She gets me.

Being the forward thinker that I am (really, I am just a complete sucker for a bargin You say “half off,” I say “lemmie at ’em,” even if it is as exciting as socks), last year I picked up a couple of boxes of cards for half price from World Market. But apparently, I am not forward thinking ENOUGH, as it became extremely clear that I hadn’t purchased enough. So, in order to distract myself yesterday, I dragged my sister-in-law to Target to pick up some additional Christmas Card-y Goodness.

What’s interesting to note, which also makes me sound like a freak is that I have gradients of awesomeness when it comes to Christmas Card appraisal:

I have the people that get what I call Goes To 11! (the people who might care that their card has been excruciatingly chosen and say “That was a great card”), the people who get the Just Awesome ones (the card is cool, but not the Coolest, sent to the people who MIGHT care if they have a nice card) and the people who get the Meh Cards (I don’t hate these cards or anything, they don’t have any pictures of the baby Jesus on it or anything, but they are not the best cards I have. These are mainly reserved for family who don’t send me cards at all, or if they do, it’s completely clear no thought went into choosing the cards. These people shop the dollar bins and buy their cards in massive bulk, caring more about the cost of cards than the actual Awesomeness factor.).

My friends all get the Super Awesome cards, whether or not they send me a damn thing, mostly because I assume that they will care the most (this is a false belief, I’m sure). My family gets the Awesome-Meh gradient depending on where I believe their level of Cares About Quailty lies (I just can’t spend $2.00 on a card for someone who won’t care a bit about it, and possibly question why the hell I send cards at all).

(If I had it my way, I’d buy everyone THESE cards, which I consider to be the Pinacle of Awesome. I’m not feeling quite plucky enough this year to do this, but I may do it next year. There is very little in the world I love as much as swearing, but it seems a bit un-Christmas-y)

I was trying to (badly) explain myself to my sister-in-law, who ALSO loves cards (actually more than I do), and she looked at me as though my neck had sprouted a second head that had begun to sing to her in Pig-Latin. So great was the divide here that I actually STOPPED TALKING about it (which never, ever, ever happens) and left the conversation hanging mid-sentence (oh LOOKIT, a BLUE CAR!).

This left a bad taste in my mouth, as I figured that she of all people would understand (Dave couldn’t care less. I’m not even sure that if hard pressed, he’d have any idea if I actually sent Christmas Cards at all.) my neurosis. Since she does not, I’m turning to you, Dear Internet, to tell Aunt Becky how nuts she is about her Christmas Card Gradient (or anything really), AND to tell me about the things that YOU do that no one else would understand. Aunt Becky, she probably understands, you know.