Quiet Time

I'm not sure what's up but I just don't seem to be in the mood to blog anything other than the Who What When and Where of life.  Its bugging me, though, because I like to blog more thoughts and feelings.  I feel like this past month my blog has become superficial... not in the fake sense but just that I'm not recording anything beneath the surface.

I'm sitting here on lunch and I really should be reading a couple chapters from a book for my master's class.  I didn't realize it until about 10pm last night that I had a paper due by midnight.  Oops!  Luckily my prof is pretty understanding and he's letting me turn it in late for partial credit.  Better than nothing.  Its only 300 words, and I was planning on just BSing it but I started to read what I was supposed to be reflecting/writing about and I realized I'd actually have to read the book to even begin sounding like I knew what I was writing about.

I have begun eating lunch in the classroom by myself.  In the dark. With the door shut.  It just seems like I never have real quiet time... time where I'm not thinking about anything else.  There are kids everywhere all day at work.  And kids and husband and dogs and house duties at home. And once the boys are in bed I'm usually working on something... photography, housework, laundry and lately its been Christmas projects.  So, my mind is constantly set on high speed.  Lunch has become my quiet time and I just love it.  I can read blogs in peace.  I can blog (which I should attempt to do more often... but I hate posting and not adding pictures.... although I could always save it as a draft and add pictures and post it later... hmm...).

The boys and I are doing a 25 Days till Christmas countdown.  The past few years I've done the Christmas socks and last year they bombed. Something about 25 treat filled socks are too tempting for a 1 and 3 year old??  So, this year I made these library card pockets and put them on a 2" ring clip and hung it in the kitchen (pictures later!).  I think I'm going to attempt to take a picture of each of our 25 activities (although we didn't start until Saturday... so it'll really only be 22 days...).  Saturday we decorated our tree.  Sunday Porter and I made a paper link chain garland thingy ma-bopper.  Today is "Buy a Christmas Present for your Brother" day.... so Ryan and I are taking the boys individually and letting them pick out a gift for their brother.

My mom is coming to visit from the 9th to the 19th.  It was a last minute trip and I'm SO SO excited to have her here over my birthday and before the holidays.  While she's here, on our "Countdown list" is to go ice skating, and I want to take the boys to Campus Martius Park in Detroit to go ice skating one evening.  I'm a little nervous as we've never taken Hudson ice skating (Although Porter was his age when he started ice skating, Hudson isn't quite as coordinated, balanced or athletic as Porter is/was).  I think it'll be fun, though.  Porter's old hockey skates should fit Hudson now and we'll just rent skates for Porter.  If nothing else, it'll be fun to people watch, enjoy the lights and snow and have some hot cocoa.