photo © 2005 Rae Whitlock | more info (via: Wylio)
It’s been a busy weekend, but at least it didn’t snow.

Yesterday, I had hired movers to move the big pieces of furniture from G’s house the 25 miles to my house in the city. The move went well. I was very intentional about trying to keep my temper. G’s DS1 was there as were both my boys. All three wanted to know what the goal was. They weren’t exactly believing when I said “clear out the rest of this stuff except for the kitchen table, the dishes and cutlery. Everything else either needs to be tossed in the dumpster, staged for charity pick-up or boxed for transport to the storage unit or the house by way of three cars (so not much stuff.) My friend JH was able to come over around 10 and help where the guys left off. We filled another dumpster and almost made that audacious goal a reality.

Here’s the rest of the list of things for which I’m grateful this week (in no particular order):

• DS1 coming home from college Friday night.
• The progress we made on transitioning G to the house completely (he has his underwear and socks in drawers now!!)
• Choir on Wednesday was particularly energizing and fun – both the kids, the guitars and the adult choir
• Making a list that helped me keep a realistic limit on what I tried to accomplish every day
• Happy hour with JH on Thursday, coming home and bailing on “The List”
• That G didn’t bail on Thursday’s list
• Walking with JH as she struggles with where she fits in the world and how she wants to contribute. (hint: it’s not corporate training for wall street) (Hint: me neither)
• getting to play with some awesome jazz musicians at church
• listening to the Sunday School sing, tell the story of the birth of Jesus and read reflections from children their own ages from Bethlehem
• a really great forum talking about the congregation extending a part-time call to me to finish out the process and essentially turn off the timer
• a real Christmas tree
• seeing the wild urban turkeys in the neighborhood on my way home with groceries
• being better (for a couple of days) at just being in the moment and less stressed (lists help)
• being very specific in my assigning tasks to G, DS1 and DS2. Maybe we’ve hit our stride, or maybe they hear The Crazy in my voice, but they’re very compliant and trying to complete the assignments well and quickly. This feels very helpful.
• Oh! and that G kept looking for the reset button on the garage door until he found it. He asked for help from his friend SF and he eventually figured it out. I’m also grateful for the realization that getting upset with him not knowing this kind of stuff is exactly the same as him being surprised that I’m “really not a morning person!”
• That it’s 7:40 on Sunday night, football is on (ick) and because I’m done with what I’d put on my list, I’m going to go to bed and read for a while. And then go to sleep before 10pm.

And because I hear it’s an argument again in the right-wing “everybody hates us!” circles I’d like to share this take on the Season’s Greetings argument:

So, if you’re celebrating either of these or any of the others holidays that happen in the dark of the year, I pray your celebrations and  preparations are blessed with energy, long tempers and special moments.