Once a Bagger ...

Last week, Brian and I went to Hellmart to gather my supplies for my Great Day Green Country TV segment. Brian didn't want to be there. He never wants to be at Hellmart, but on this particular night he was coming off a three-day sinus infection that had laid him flat. Once my list had been checked twice, we went through our new self-checkout. I'm not sure what it is about the self-check out, but dang if it's not fun, right? There's power in that scanner, y'all.

I turned to Brian before I began scanning and asked, "Do you want to bag?"

He shook his head, so I scanned and bagged. Rwar! I am woman! I can do it all!

And I got it all in one bag. 

"Heather? Geez," Brian sighed and pulled another bag out and started re-bagging my purchases.

You see, back in the day, Brian was a state-champion bagger. 

No. I'm not kidding.

"I asked you if you wanted to bag," I whined when he was redoing my chance at carrying in all of our purchases in one hand.

"I don't. But I don't want to pick up a bag full of your stuff from the driveway when the bag breaks."

"You miss it, don't you. You miss bagging the groceries, stacking heavy to light, creating sacks full of groceries that won't squish." I teased as I paid out.

"I really don't. I just don't want the bag to bust before we get home," he sighed. 

"You miss the apron, right? You wanna wear the apron when we get home?"

It was at that point that he stopped talking to me.

But he did wear the apron around the house the next day.

Counting The Days--Celebrating Advent

Thursday on Great Day Green Country, I shared several ways to help kids count down to Christmas while not driving their parents totally wacko before the big day. Oh, you'll still go wacko, but not totally wacko.


Christmas Books. When The Daughters were younger, I would wrap each book and we'd open it and read it that night before going to bed. Because we designate each day with their initial, that person got to unwrap the book. Once I realized that I didn't have infinite time to wrap books nor did I have infinite resources to purchase wrapping paper for twenty-four books, We just left them unwrapped. The Daughters are now nine (practically ten, if you ask her) and twelve and we still read a Christmas book a night.

Tip: If you don't have twenty-four Christmas books, be sure to check out your local library. You could also form a co-op with a group of mommy friends. 

Advent Jar. I made filled jars with twenty-four pieces of candy each and gave a jar to each of The Daughters as well as our three nieces. Each day, they'll get one piece of candy. When the jar is empty, then it's time for Santa to come. After Christmas, the nieces (and The Daughters) can return the jar to me, and I'll refill it the next year. A way to add some meaning (even though eating candy is pretty darn meaningful in my life) would be to add a sticker on the pieces of candy with an activity to do. You don't have to put an activity on every piece of candy, but one it would be a cool addition about half the time. Some activities include: Watch The Polar Express, call your favorite aunt and sing your favorite Christmas carol, or make hot chocolate and deliver it to your local police station or fire station.

Tip: Buy extra chocolate so you don't have to sneak from the Christmas jar. It would stink to have to celebrate Christmas on December 19 because that Twix was calling your name when you were up wrapping presents. 

Lollipop Tree. This is very similar to the Advent jar, only you're using suckers and a styrofoam tree.  The lollipops will poke right into the styrofoam tree. Each day, the kid(s) get a sucker. When the tree is empty, it's Christmas! Again, you can put an activity on some of the lollipops to add meaning to the season.

Tip: Buy your lollipops on November 1 when the Halloween candy goes on sale, and reuse the tree. Momma is nothing if not cheap and easy.

Advent Wreath. The most wonderful time of the year is also the most busy time of the year. Between sports practices, concerts, recitals, family gatherings, work parties and everything else, many families don't get to have family time every night. The Advent wreath, while it's sacred in its history, can be used by any family to count down to Christmas. Designate a day a week for the four weeks leading to Christmas that you will meet as a family. Each week of Advent is designated as follows: 1) Hope; 2) Love; 3) Joy; and 4)Peace. To make your own Advent wreath, you'll need four candles, one for each week. Typically, the candles are purple except for Joy, which is pink. However, you can make them any color you wish. You'll also need one white candle for Christmas Eve. Each week, meet as a family and talk about your week as you light one, then two, then three candles, counting down to Christmas Eve when you light the white candle.

To make my advent wreath, I tinted canning jars and used my Nativity candle from Keepsake Candles. The "wreath" sits on our dining room table.

Tip: Let your kids help you make these jars--it's fun, easy and they'll end up making extra to give away as gifts. Again, cheap and easy!

How will you count down to Christmas?

I See Where I Rate

For the most part, the government shut down didn't have a direct impact on me and my family except to cause extreme anxiety in my already-anxious child about how the government shut down would directly effect her and her alone. I have close friends whose families wondered where their grocery money for the week (or two or three) would come from; I knew people who weren't being paid because they are employees of the Federal government; and every single person I knew had an opinion, one way or another, about what the real issue was and who was at fault.

As for me, I didn't fully understand it. I listened to the commentary, I read every last shared post on Facebook (and then did some major blocking of ignorance), but I all I really got from it was that our politicians' behavior could be best summarized with two words: Big Babies.

Good news--they came to an agreement before we defaulted (whatever that means) and the government shut down was ended, which really didn't mean too much to me and my family because, as I said before, we weren't directly impacted. Life was still going on as usual. I blogged a little. We did our #ThankfulThursday. We went to school. We came home. We went to bed. Lather, rinse, repeat.

On Thursday morning, we woke up, got dressed in our costumes and drove to Tulsa to film my segment for Great Day Green Country. Brian and I were dressed as a Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes winner and spokesman. Daughter 1 was dressed as Napoleon Dynamite--Sahweet! And Daughter 2, after a lot of last minute scrambling, was dressed as one of the Duck Dynasty Guys.

We did a segment wherein I discussed how we do our own Halloween costumes and how I try to not spend exorbitant amounts of money on something that we'll only wear for four hours at best and how 90% of our costume can be used in some other capacity and about how I crowd source for the hard to find items--like a Napoleon wig.

The interviewer, KC Lupp, who is always so kind and seems genuinely interested during our segments, asked my family how they felt about my blog and my oversharing, and they all responded that they were the first editors, nothing gets posted without their approval and then we cleared.

All during my interview, I felt my phone in my back pocket vibrating like an adult toy with new batteries. Brian and The Daughters went back to the lobby--they didn't need much changing. I headed back to the changing room and then joined them in the lobby where I checked my phone.

You were preempted!
The president is speaking!
You aren't on! The president is!
Why aren't they showing you?
When will you be on?
What are you doing? Send. Send. Did it send? What are you doing? I don't think this phone is working. (My own momma just learned to text.)

So ... we stayed around to film my next segment ... but I'm not telling you when it will air in case the President reads my blog has plans to wipe me from the air completely. (So there! I will not go down easily, President Obama!)

In the meantime, though, we ran into a few of our Wednesday night friends:

So ... what was my takeaway from Thursday?

1. Apparently The President outranks a mom blogger from Oklahoma--who knew?

2. Modern Family photo opps always make things better.

3. Our costumes look really, really great on and off the air.