Christmas Cards on Sale!

It is true. Rest, sit back, and relax. You can get all of your Christmas cards on sale this month if you can find a store selling left overs - Tuesday Mornings was my choice. So, just incase you're on my list, and 200+ of you are - you'll recieve the cutest gold lined cards, 4"x 4" with a photo of a little white fluffy dog catching snow flakes. The interior reads "Let it Snow! Holidays are Fun Again". If that bit of information ruins the season for you - don't worry, you'll forget you read this spoiler by Thanksgiving - and when you get my card in the mail you'll think you had a moment of deja' vu'. Should be fun.

I found a stack of Christmas and holiday cards from years back - found them today when I was trying to rework the puzzle that I call my storage unit - ever do that? You get one, put all the big things in first, things you don't need. You add the boxes later. Big heavy boxes on the bottom, but not too big - because you can't lift them. Medium sized heavier boxes are best. Then somehow you get the smaller heavier boxes to fit, and the larger, medium, smaller boxes that are either rectangular or unable to be taped up, they go on top of those - and before you know it, you're working a jigsaw - worse than the freakin' Rubic's Cube to figure out. Oh, but my darlings were PERFECT with the markers - they were absolutely amazing.

I found a box marked with 81 different titles. I swear to God, I'm not lying - Laura listed the contents of the entire box: ALL OVER THE BOX. So, I pull it out, it reads: Crayons, pencils, lense case, 6-Lego things, paint tube thingy, pens, and dictionary. It continued to explain that Christmas bows, a battery charger, and a box of dominoes was also inside. Must have been the one box I would have called "MISC". Leave it to Laura - but you know what, if I want my dictionary I'll remember it is in THAT box. The box behind THAT box was the box marked "Stupid cards that we don't need but Mom keeps anyway". Why are my kids so mean? I don't want to throw out little cards given to me by my dead aunts, my new and old friends, my co-workers who I may someday remember. I don't want to chunk them just because they're 11 or 12 years old. I have an original drawing from Wayne Coyne in that box! Yeah, that's right, Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips baby, drew me a card for Christmas - The Flaming Lips rule! (telling me to throw out cards, to hell with that!)

So, every once in a while when we're out and about the city of Edmond, and have nothing else to do - we go by the storage unit and visit our stuff. You know, make sure the floods of May didn't overtake the boxes, making sure the rats and cockroaches aren't making permanent homes in our photo box, or worse - my pretty curtain box. I have a pretty curtain box, and then I have the ugly curtain box. Caity's title. It was her way of letting me know she didn't agree with my purchases. Why don't I just put her in a box and write all over it "Nothing in this box, nothing to see - just a big, mean, nasty, folded up kid with her tongue sticking out at me!" Why? Well, because we went to the zoo today to waste a little time, and she jumped over a really scary fence to save a kid that was just about to take a header into the sealions' domicile - that's her - that's my Caity. One minute I'm ready to stuff her in a hole, the next I'm crying with my heart about to bust from pride.

When I got to the storage unit I pulled out the box that said "Kids School Stuff" and I dug through it a little. Caity and Laura looked at me. I found what I was looking for almost instantly. You pack a box yourself, and you have that luck sometimes. There in the middle of the seemingly messy mix of moments from a decade or more of grades and little momentos that again, I couldn't bear to part with - was the award Caity won in the 3rd grade for bravery. She had told the teacher about a boy who brought a knife to school. It just seemed appropriate to get into the box and get out her little medal. I tried to straighten out the little red and blue ribbons so I could pen it onto her shirt today. She laughed at me, but she wore it all the rest of the day. What a neat little brat - and then, it was off to Tuesday Morning. Some days are just good like that!