Not quite sure how this happened but: it’s December.

I haven’t written in a long while, but that’s OK. I have been living life.

I read the The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up this summer when I had no time to actually put any of the author’s (somewhat wack-a-doo) concepts into practice, but once all three kids were in school this fall, I kind of carted off 14 truckloads of crap from our house that didn’t “spark joy” for me. It felt pretty good.

Since then, I have still been steadily busy with work and I thought that with all three girls in school full time, I would have all the time in the world to live a nice, balanced existence, but, alas, they are home at 2:40. THAT IS NOT A FULL DAY. That is a morning. And then lunch. And then, boom! They’re home. I am happy to see them, and all, but when I was a kid, we went to school until 3:30. And that is how things should still be. (We also walked uphill both ways, in case you were wondering.)

The fall slipped through my hands like water and now it’s winter and and…here we go! December! Why do we cram so many fun things into this month, to the point of exhaustion? Then January hits and we are all fat and lonely and depressed. I think we should spread holiday cheer through to February…we need more parties and events in those bleak winter months instead of frantically ramming them into three weeks that make us all weary and stressed. Owell, it’s OK. I am excited for Christmas: for the baking, and the gifts and the family and the mulled wine and the time at the ski hill.

(And the children wearing police suits with their faces painted like Rudolph.)

Last weekend we got a bunch of girls together and we all chipped in to celebrate our dear friend, Arielle’s birthday and we went on an epic wine tour.

That was fun!

I didn’t blog about it, but a few months ago Rolo had a bad fall (he jumped off a deck and fell 10 feet when we tried to leave him at a new doggy daycare for the weekend. He was all, “Oh no you di’int” and then leapt off the deck railing like Superman and then was like, “Crap, I broke myself.”) He couldn’t put any weight on his leg for weeks and the vets were telling us we needed to spend $4000 on surgery and we were like, “He’s almost 12 years old.” It was SO hard to see him immobile; we had to carry him up and down the stairs and he was so sad. But we were torn about spending that much money on an old dog (and then I would cry because I realized he’s old and I kind of want him to live forever) so we decided to just let him rest and see what happened. And…he’s OK! Back to walking and running and chasing birds and airplanes. After a little sprint, he sometimes has a little limp in his gait, but we’ll take it. Go, Rolo!

Anyways, I hope your December is swell. Thanks for reading my bi-annual post. Means a lot.