Seasonal

The inversion is terrible.  I think the elementary kids are staying in for recess because of the air quality.  Also we have no snow to speak of, the deer are everywhere and if the cougar is still around (there was another sighting last week in our neighborhood) it should at least not be going hungry.

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Gearing up for the return of all my chicks back in the nest, I changed sheets and pondered the differences of our children.  I put the nice quilt on Emma's bed because she's the only one that can be trusted.  She sleeps like a normal person.

Mark and Braeden both shun top sheets (which seems barbaric to me).  I picked which pillows Braeden has been using when he comes home to sleep (he grabs them from another bed) and put new pillowcases on them.  Why fight his preferences?  I heaved the six (not kidding) heavy blankets off Mark's bed to change his sheets.  I put three back on.  He's the only one besides me that sleeps cold around here.  He's very picky about how exactly the covers are arranged and I almost always do it upside down.  That's why I stopped at three blankets.  He'll redo it all anyway.  And then it will be a weird nest of blankets that only makes sense to him.

There's something soothing to me about slipping fresh sheets on their beds.  I mostly don't see them as often as I'd like and a small thing like clean sheets is something I can do for them.

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Since it's nearing the end of the year, I'm coming across Best Books of 2017 lists. I'm carefully adding everything that looks interesting to my ongoing list of books I want to read.  I have a document that is 15 pages long.  10 point font.  It is at once ridiculous and thrilling to have that many books that at one time or another seemed enticing enough to me that I put them on my list.

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Laundry has its seasons too.  We lived many summers where I was washing towels and swimsuits daily.  I think I breathed as much as chlorine as our kids did, even though I didn't get in the pool.  Now it's referee season.  Adam is a high school referee in his not very free time and it's striped shirts and black pants in my laundry basket.  I don't mind a bit.  I (perhaps weirdly) enjoy doing laundry.  Folding neat fragrant piles for people I love makes me happy.

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Yesterday my visiting teachers came.  One of them asked, "So are you ready for Christmas?"  I said yes.  She was taken aback, "Really?  I was not expecting that answer!  I didn't think anyone was ready for Christmas."

An awkward pause followed, like she didn't know what to say to me after that.

I didn't say it but I think my sisters are ready for Christmas too....

I realized that it was one of those times when you are supposed to say the answer people expect.  Like when someone asks you how you are, you are supposed to say fine.  They don't really want to hear how you are.

And people don't want to know that you're ready for Christmas.  It's not polite apparently.