Every year since we met (with a couple exceptions…sometimes I suck at keeping up traditions), Mark and I have given each other an ornament.  Often, the ornament reflects a theme of the year, or a season in our lives.  Sometimes, it’s just cute or silly or pretty. The first Christmas after we were married, I slogged my way through a bout of major depression.  And I mean Major.  I boycotted the holidays.  I didn’t want a tree.  Mark and his sister both took a day off work, got a tree and decorated the house while I was at work. I […]

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If you are a radical Environmentalist, please stop reading.  Skip this post and come back on Thursday. ….waiting….waiting….. OK, they’re gone. It’s safe. Me: “Hi.  My name is Christine, and I’m a Tree-cutter.” You: “Hi, Christine!” Every year, we visit a local tree farm and cut our own real pine christmas tree. In my head, this happens on the day after Thanksgiving.  I think we’ve actually hit that schedule a grand total of once.  This year.   But growing up, the Day After Thanksgiving = Holy Tree Acquisition Day, so in my imagination, that’s still when we get the tree. […]

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Raw honesty is rare in the adoptive community, and when I find it, I just want to share. In her post “After the Airport,” blogger Jen Hatmaker says: “…if you ask me if these are the happiest days of my life (which a ton of you have), and my eyes kind of glaze over and I say through a tight-lipped smile like a robot, “Yes. Sure. Of course. This is my dream life”…I am lying. I am lying so you won’t feel uncomfortable when I tell you, “Actually, I haven’t had a shower in three days, I lost my temper with my uncontrollable […]

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Speaking of the Chicken Dance… …following a recent Newsboys concert, the first song played as exit music was, in fact, the Chicken Dance. As the crowd herded out of the arena, I very subtly flapped my wings and twisted my shoulders along with the music. The girls watched in horror. I wondered if they were even familiar with the Chicken Dance; Americans seem genetically predisposed to perform the Chicken Dance whenever the music hits their eardrums.  Like the YMCA…you just gotta do it. Is this one of the things that we take for granted until the terrible day we learn that […]

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As anyone mesmerized by The Evolution of Dance knows, dance has changed over the years. Different moods characterize different eras such as social change in the sixties, technology revolution in the eighties; the dance of the time clearly reflects those moods. (Wow, can you tell i’ve been helping with way too many high school English papers??) So now there’s this thing called Dougie. Apparently, it’s so popular and engrained in teen culture that it morphed from nothing to a verb practically overnight. I asked my daughter recently what characterized Dougie. Was it a specific move, like the Moonwalk? or a […]

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