Santa Claus Came to Town

I've missed writing SO much the last couple of weeks!  Just when I thought life was going to slow down and give me nothing but time to write, read, cook and relax, everything got flipped upside down.  Such is life, huh?  At any rate, I’m back and very excited to begin sharing with you once more.

The entire week leading up to Christmas and the week that followed are a blur for me.  My grampa suddenly went back to the hospital and was released to the nursing home.  Just as he was getting settled back in at home, his health took another dive.  That certainly shook up Christmas plans a bit, but it certainly didn't ruin anything.  My wonderful family adjusted their plans and made sure we were all together and that grampa got to see everyone. 

A few days before Christmas, my mom and dad came to town and stayed at my house for a night.  We had a blast.  It’s the first time they've stayed at my house since I moved away eight years ago, so it was super special.  They also spent a night at each grandparent’s house while they were in town.  We had a great time together, telling stories, eating great food, visiting with relatives… all the things that make it feel like Christmas time.

One of my favorite activities that I got to share with them was shooting.  A few firearms, LOTS of ammunition, and my Halloween pumpkins made for great fun at the lake.  I bought myself a new gun for Christmas so I was dying to play with it and share it with anyone who wanted to fire it.  Mom didn't think she would enjoy shooting at all, but she was the one who couldn't wait for me to reload the magazine and hand it back to her. 

On Christmas Eve, I went to see grampa at the nursing home and brought him his gift.  He’s carried a knife everywhere he’s gone for most of his life.  Many of his knives were sold in the auction earlier this year and his normal pocket knife has become very dull.  Knowing this, I ordered him a great new SOG knife.  He liked it right away and got in some good therapy for his hands learning to unfold and re-fold it.  It’s quite a challenge for his weak, numb fingers, but after a few times, he was opening and closing it almost with ease. 

It was great to see him with a knife and I knew he would have ten uses for it within the next day.  In fact, he found a use for it immediately.  Someone had brought him a jar of pickled eggs (gag!) for Christmas, but he didn’t have any silverware in his nursing home room to fish them out with.  Before I knew it, he had that new knife submerged in the pickled egg jar and was stabbing at eggs.  He ate one and then carefully cleaned and dried the new knife.  It brought new meaning to the saying, “Where there’s a will there’s a way.”

Later that evening I got to go over to my aunt and uncle’s house and visit with the cousins for a while.  One of my cousins is in the Navy and currently in Africa, but her husband and two little girls were in town.  It was the next best thing to having her there with us.  I don’t typically know what to do with kids (I think I’m missing that maternal gene to some degree), but with those two, I always have the time of my life.  They are so happy and friendly.  They melt my heart with their innocence and beauty.  I can’t get enough of hugging them and playing with them.  Having them around was a great Christmas gift in itself.

Here are a few fun pictures from Christmas weekend in my world.  I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and are looking forward to a fantastic new year in 2013!

Mom and Dad inspecting their gifts

I've put bows on my head for longer than anyone can remember

Mama playing sharp shooter with my new gun

Nothing like firearms and deer sausage

Me, grama and mom (grama got in the spirit with bows on her head too!)

Day after Christmas "Blizzard"

I made a fire once the snow stopped

A Little Bit Loco

This is my buddy, Elton.

I'm really a pretty unique woman.  I got to thinking about that a few weeks ago after my boss asked me to do this little trick where I suck the cherry off the top of my milkshake through the plastic dome lid.  Long story.  Anyway, I obliged and pulled my little trick and he said, "Ashley, you are a weird one, but that's what we like about you!"

I'd have to agree.  I am very much... well... me!  It's not the first time I've been accused of being a little weird, unique, different, etc.  I'm really rather happy about that fact.  The little things that make me who I am are things that make me happy.  I think we all have lots of those little quirks, but many people chose not to show them to the world.  In my case, I put them out there with pride.  In the way I talk, act, the things I do, what I post to social media... and the list goes on.

Highlights of the craziness that is Ashley:

• I take off my shoes when I'm a passenger in the car.  And I forget to put them on until the car is parked and it's time to get out.  I'm always the last one out of the car.
• I crank up the music in my house and put on mini concerts when no one is around.  I'll use any object that's handy as a pretend microphone.
• I've got as dirty & sexual a mind as any man!
• I cry out of love or happiness very easily.
• I sleep with stuffed animals.  One of them even travels with me.  They all have names.  
• I get emotionally attached to inanimate things and sometimes pretend I can hurt their feelings or make them happy.  I know it's silly, but it's true.
• I think old people are the cutest things.  Especially the little old men.  I want to pack them up and take them home when I see them out and about.
• I let my house get to be such a mess I can barely walk through certain rooms and it really doesn't phase me.  Then one day I'll get the itch to clean it up and I will work my butt off to get it spic and span again.
• I'll talk to just about anyone.  Wrong numbers, random people in public, anyone who's willing to talk to me basically.  I've had some great, in-depth conversations with total strangers on countless occasions.  Put me in a busy campground on a nice summer day and I will walk from trailer to trailer just meeting everyone!
• I take the furniture out of my living room at Christmas time to make room for 13 Christmas trees that make up a forest.
• I wiggle my butt when I get excited.  Kind of like a dog wags its tail.

Just call me crazy!

Love, Pain and the Whole Crazy Thing (Christmas Style)

I LOVE decorating my house for Christmas.  Always have.  I can remember the Christmas tree we had when I was growing up.  It was an old school one that had a big pole with color coded holes around it at different heights.  The branches were separate and had a wire the bent down at a 90 degree angle which was painted in colors to match the holes on the upright pole.  You would spend an hour sorting all the branches and trying to discern the blue paint from the green paint on the ends of the branches.  Each color was a different size of branch so you could eventually figure out which were which.  I loved sorting the branches all the way around the dining room, kitchen, living room, hallway... where ever there was some floor space.  Then, with all the love and happiness in the world, I would put the largest branches on first, working from the bottom of the tree all the way up.  

Once they were on, it was time to fluff everything up.  With my arms and fingers getting poked and scratched by the artificial pine needles, I'd sing along to a Christmas cassette or CD (usually Garth Brooks, over and over again).  I'd bend each wire branch into the perfect position.  It would take at least one full day, if not the whole weekend for me to decorate mom and dad's house.  Most things had their place.  Mom had a layout for the Christmas decor, so I went along with it.  It was more about making the house beautiful and magical looking than being creative. It was the warm, fuzzy feeling I got from the season.

About five years ago, I started inheriting more and more Christmas decor from a number of sources (grandparents, parents, etc.).  I had a very large house and was married at that time.  Most everyone was getting to a point where they didn't want to do as much decorating anymore and I was the obvious first choice to call to off load anything they didn't want.  :-)

One day, my Grandma Leavelle asked if I had a theme or a color or anything that I wanted to focus on.  I really hadn't considered that.  I was just collecting whatever I could and finding places to put it all.  I started to search my mind and my heart for what it was that I loved the most and wanted to make the theme of my decor.  I thought about snowmen, silver, blue, angels, Santa Claus, Snow, White, Disney... all kinds of things.  And finally, it hit me.  I remembered how much I loved putting up the tree.  Spending time making it perfect.  Adding lights, garland and ornaments.  And most of all, I loved laying underneath it and looking up at the lights twinkling through the branches.  At mom and dad's house, there was a heat vent in the floor along the back side of the Christmas tree.  I'd lay down under the tree and put a blanket over myself and the vent and have the most warm and cozy place in the house.

That was it!  Trees.  I loved Christmas trees.  When we bought the big house, I got a second Christmas tree to put in a place that just seemed to be the perfect place for a little tree.  The next year, I started to have dreams that many would consider to be crazy.  I dreamed of a "forest" of Christmas trees inside my house!  It would have a little white picket fence and a snow covered ground.  Each tree would have a theme.  There would be snowmen and it would be gorgeous!  

I started measuring and planning and collecting Christmas trees from family members who didn't want to put theirs up anymore.  I bought a couple more when I found them on sale too.  I drilled out some 2x4's to make a base to stand the "fence" up in.  I even grabbed two tree shaped trellises that I had grown clematis on in the summer and wrapped them in lights and green garland to create two more trees.  We moved the furniture to make room for this grand display and I started setting up.

The first year there were seven trees and two snowmen in the forest.  It was stunning.  People thought I was crazy.  I never cared.  It became my favorite place to be.  I'd sit in that room almost every minute I was home.  I'd never turn on the house lights.  The twinkle and glow from the tree lights gave off more than enough light and was the most gorgeous glow.  It filled me with joy, love and peace to be there.

The first year

The next year or two years later (I can't remember which year is which), I would move to a new (much smaller) house after my divorce.  The lack of space wasn't about to take away my forest or dampen my spirit.  I figured out that if I moved the furniture out of the living room and made the forest a little more condensed, I could still fit all the trees in.  With a little re-working, the forest was back!

The first year in the new house

I added birdies decorating the trees that year

This year, I thought it was time to take it to a whole new level.  A level that would make many really worry about my sanity and gain me the title of "Christmas Enthusiast."  At the beginning of October I began working on a secret project.  I posted several things to social media, but would never tell anyone what it was or post anything to give it away.  I worked for over a month on it in every free moment I had.  It was a project all my own.  I took no assistance or advice from anyone.  I was on a mission to conquer the world in a way.  

There were some bumps in the road along the way including electrocution, bumps on head, stubbed toes, cuts, scrapes and a black eye.  It was all part of the experience.  I loved every minute of it.  Even the painful ones.  Go ahead and call me crazy.  You won't be the first or the last.  

In the end, I got it completed and installed and it is amazing.  It's a log cabin facade with a front porch that sits in my living room, among the Christmas trees.