Deck the Halls

This Christmas is vastly different.  Not bad different, but it does take some getting used to.  My Mr. and I are very happily decorating the few small things in our home that can be decorated and sneaking presents around the house so the other doesn't see them.  It's fun and it's led to a lot of creativity.  For example:

This is our Christmas tree.  It's branches I found at the Farm and strung together with wire decorated with odds and ends. 

This is the first ornament we bought together last January on a ski trip.

I love foxes, so my littlest brother, Gizmo, painted an ornament for my tree.  It says "I love you" on the back in his handwriting.

These little bears were a wedding gift from one of my cousin's little girls.

 I think this is why I've always loved the Christmas trees in our family.  Ever since I was little mom would buy each of the kids a new ornament every Christmas to help us remember the special things that happened throughout the year. And then, every year, we'd unpack the old ornaments and hang them all up as a family.  It was like unpacking years of memories and holding them in your hands again.  I'd pull out a Tangled ornament and remember The Perfect Thanksgiving (a tale for another day), a little dancing fairy for the days spent playing in the woods,  a silver plaque for a lost dog, an octopus for the start of my blog. 

Our tree is simple, colorful, and already full of love and memories even though it's only our first Christmas.  This year is tough, different, and exciting.  We don't have an ornament for it yet, but whatever it is has a lot to reflect because this year has been a handful.  We're spending the winter in our living room and kitchen because this house has too many rooms and it would be silly to heat them all and I'm loving it.  Last night we made a pallet in front of the fireplace and cuddled while we watched Friends.  This morning has been spent in our PJs playing League, sipping hot tea, and trying to rest-the-heck out of our colds.  The night before we were up until 4:00 a.m. telling stories from our childhood and laughing together. 

In sickness and in health
In wealth or poverty
Now and forever.

Life is beautiful.

Merry Christmas,

kaJo

Bump in the Night

I'm a fan of horror stories.  Not exactly an avid fan, but I do enjoy the occasional spook or scare from time to time, even if the good ones are getting harder and harder to find.  One of my favorite shows of all time is The X-Files and I've seen classics like The Ring, The Grudge -- both the English and Japanese versions of each -- and numerous other horror films.  I'm a fan of H. P. Lovecraft's work and I'm especially fond of playing scary video games with my dad. 

All of that to say, I don't think I scary terribly easily.  Sure, there have been a few times in my childhood and even into early adulthood that I've slept with the light on (just in case) but in general I'm hard to scare.  Just ask my brother, Nails, over the years he's tried to scare me, mostly by jumping out at me at random times.  He's only succeeded twice over the course of almost ten years.  One of those times he deeply regrets because it came during finals week when tensions high and he got an earful for it.

Now, all of that to say there is one film I've seen that still haunts me enough that my husband basically won't let anyone even talk about it around me anymore.  It's just called Lights Out.  I won't even post a link to it here because I want to spare you all the terror and myself the nightmares from just seeing the screen-shot of it.  Here's my advice should you decide against my warning to look it up:

1. Watch it during the day.
2. Watch it with someone.
3. Don't actually watch it cause it's awful.

It's a two minute video.  Two minutes!  Maybe two and a half and I could not sleep with the lights off for about two months after seeing it and I'm not even embarrassed by that cause I'm still scared of it.

Okay, that's about enough background, because really this post it just to say that this is the conversation My Mr. and I just had:

Me: I don't like things that shouldn't be. Because if they are then I have no idea how to fight it or protect myself.  Like the thing in Lights Out.

My Mr.: Yeah...I watched another film by those people...

Me:  No! Why?!  I can't ever see that.

My Mr.: Yeah.  It was worse.

Me (this was the part where I started to actually almost tear up... no joke): What?  How?

My Mr.: I won't describe it at all, but it's actually bothered me for the past few nights.  Like, it didn't exactly scare me because I know it's not real, but when I lay down I find myself thinking about it.


And that's how I became afraid of a video clip floating around on the internet that I've never seen and I don't know anything about other than the title.  I'm not going to share it here because I want to spare anyone who might go looking for it because it apparently spooked my husband who I'm pretty sure isn't afraid of anything. 

Yeah.  Okay.

Sweet dreams!

kaJo

A New Life

Wow, it's been a while.  Life has changed a lot since I last wrote which, oddly, can be summed up in three sentences:

1st. I met the love of my life last year.

2nd. My parents up and suddenly moved to a lovely hidden paradise in the hills outside our little town.

3rd. I married the love of my life.

So there you have it.  In the past 22 months my whole entire life changed and I'm loving it.

I suppose I didn't really have much to say in this particular post, but with the school semester over and nothing on the horizon until January I wanted to try and get back in the habit of maintaining a blog.  I've discovered since the wedding that idle time drives me crazy, so if I start piling stuff on my plate now I should be all set in a week or so.

Well, My Mr. should be home soon so that's all for now.

-kaJo