BEARS WIN!

It was a horrible game that they should probably not have won, but thanks to a blocked field goal attempt, overtime, the sheer luck of the coin toss, and finally a Bears field goal (thank you Robbie Gould!), the Bears scraped past the Packers at Soldier Field. Joshua and his dad were among the frozen fans that braved windchills of -2 degrees to see the Bears stay alive for another week. (When they first got tickets, I was very jealous, but once the weather forecast for this week came out, I laughed myself indoors).

I watched the game from a pub with Joshua's mom (yes, I did drag her teetotaling self into a BAR...i love it), although we left at the end of the 4th quarter to drive downtown to get the guys, so we were on Michigan Avenue admiring the Christmas lights and listening to the game on the radio when it ended.

My first hometown team is of course, the New England Patriots (stop booing, I can hear you), and if you follow football you know that Patriots fans are despised the country over because they are a) obnoxious (I will admit this) and b) everyone else is jealous. I know this year has been rocky, and last year ended in utter devastation, but overall Pats fans have had lots to be happy about in the past five years or so.

My adopted Bears are more of a heartbreaker team, and I'm getting used to that. My learning experience with the emotional upheaval that is a losing football team began in the 4th quarter of last year's Super Bowl, when I held myself together until all our friends left (they were cheering for the Giants, I should have kicked them out) and then I cried on Joshua's shoulder for twenty minutes. Maybe that gives a little insight into how serious I am about football (you don't have a choice, growing up in New England...please see above: obnoxious fans). Joshua was a little stunned, but he has seen my family watch football (where there is yelling and screaming and stomping and occasionally the throwing of inanimate objects), so he handled it well. My hatred for anything Manning runs deep.

But beyond football...today we woke up in a snowglobe. Chicago looks absolutely gorgeous blanketed in snow, and yet I am already over it. We have had to use chains twice to get out of our ridiculous city parking spaces, which are really ice ruts and it is not even January yet. Sigh. I am spending the day inside wrapping presents and cleaning the apartment until I have to leave for work tonight.

Two days til Christmas and 98% of my shopping is done, 75% is wrapped and 0% of the Christmas Day meal/baking is completed. Overall, with the exception of some baking I should definitely have started yesterday, I would say I am making excellent progress.

I have not accomplished much Christmas shopping since my last post (Joshua has, although last time he went out he came home with a brand new HD TV. For...us.)

I work three 12 hour night shifts a week, including every 3rd weekend. This is my weekend. I suppose it's ridiculous to complain about a 3 day workweek, but with the way we are scheduled I sometimes end up having long stretches of time off and long stretches of time ON. I'm the middle of one of those long work weeks right now. From last Wednesday to this Wednesday I'm working 72 hours. Then, I admit, I will have 5 days off, but I'll be honest this 'week' is dragging for me. I had to go downstairs to the cafeteria at 4am last night to buy M&Ms and hot chocolate (from a machine! a new low!) just to keep me going through the last 3 hours. My babies were sleeping soundly and didn't need me to wake them up for anything so I organized their bedspaces, finished my charting, and then I gave up and ate M&M's and read an old issue of People. NICU nursing can run the gamut of terrifying to mind-numbingly dull, I guess.

And when I work 6 out of 7 nights in a week, I definitely miss my husband, my friends, my cats, and my bed. I do not have time for Christmas shopping. And I eat too much sugar.

So...the holidays are flying by at an astonishing speed (goodbye, Thanksgiving, hello, panicked Christmas shopping) and I have barely kept up with it all. I think anyone who has known me longer than 5 minutes knows I am definitely not your overprepared, wrap-the-presents-by-October type of person. I grew up in a family that considered tearing through department stores on Christmas Eve, an hour before we were supposed to be at Grandma's, practically tradition. Actually, we would typically run in to my extended family there as well. This is in no way an exaggeration.

Which is why we have arrived at December 11th with not much crossed off the list. And what is crossed off happened between last night at 10pm, due to Joshua taking advantage of Amazon.com while I was at work, and today at 7pm, after I finished a few hours of wacked out, sleep deprived shopping with Amy as my driver.

I have made exactly one handmade gift (Joshua's mom's scarf) and I'm very happy with the gifts we've found for friends and family so far. I have not bought one thing full-price, which is obviously very tacky to say, but I am not always the best bargain hunter (see: lazy, easily distracted, swayed by slick packaging, also lazy). So I am proud to say, if you are getting a gift from me, don't expect to return it for full price.

In other news, Joshua and I are the proud owners of the world's ugliest Christmas tree after my delightful husband convinced me to buy a tree in a net laying outside at at Home Depot. I will be honest, there were warning signs that things could go badly (the tree was in a net, hello) but he was swayed by the low price (warning sign!), ease of transport, and...I'm not sure what else. I'm not really sure what overcame either of us, but we were in a state of extreme exhaustion following our whirlwind Thanksgiving trip to New England (32 hours in the car, people, unacceptable).

As you can imagine, the tree comes with all sorts of lovely quirks. It's not exactly the triangle shape we all imagine a Christmas balsam fir should be. It's exactly the kind of tree that I would laugh at were I to find its sad little self hanging out in the woods. However, it's very green, the needles aren't sharp or brittle, and it might have the strongest branches of any Christmas tree I've ever had. Which is why all the ornaments are hanging off the very tips of the tree, 'disguising' the various holes. It gives off the effect that the tree is slightly disgusted by all the bedazzling we've imposed upon it, and is holding all the glitter and bells at arm's length.

I have not even begun to discuss how I much I am looking forward to filling the kitties' stockings. And Joshua's. So I will have to post again before Christmas!

Yesterday morning I reached into the freezer to pull out Joshua's lunch (a Trader Joe's frozen meal, sorry I am failing at my wifely duties here) and it was Not.Frozen. So I put my hand back in the freezer and very gingerly poked a pork chop. Soft.. The whole refrigerator had died overnight. And judging by how thawed the frozen food was, it had died early in the night.

Luckily it was thirty degrees out and with the help of my friends (I highly recommend living on the same exact street, within a block, of 2 of your best friends and your sister in law) we got the food out on the back porch and took all the pictures and magnets off the old fridge.

Then I left for a day of caramel corn making and watching The Business of Being Born (highly recommend that as well) and when I returned after a few more errands, voila! new, nicer fridge and bonus! they had put all the food from the porch back in the fridge.

I can't wait to own a place, but sometimes I am totally thrilled to be a renter.

I am pleased to announce that two very monumental events have occurred today, and it's not even 3:00pm yet.

First, I hauled out all the Christmas decorations and started the massive process of bestowing holiday spirit on every room in this apartment. I am about halfway done, but I had to take a break since I am also in the midst of processing 6 (SIX!) loads of laundry. (We have been busy). So far I've put up our nativity, our stockings (including two new tiny ones for Pam and Hala, comments are closed on this issue except theyaresoflippingcute!!), changed over all the dishcloths and potholders to their Christmas versions, and pulled out all the Christmas candles. I've also made two holiday stations on Pandora, one contemporary and one classic. I just told Pandora to never play NSync's version of Merry Christmas again, so I haven't completely lost my senses in the holiday hoopla.

I do know that it's pretty early to decorate. I wasn't planning on diving into this lovely disaster until this weekend, but I have today and tomorrow off and then I work 6 out of the next 7 days after that. I leave straight from work Wednesday morning at 7:30am to drive 14 hours across the country to see my wonderful family. That clearly left me with no choice but to decorate today, since I absolutely cannot return home from Thanksgiving to an undecorated home! That would be tragic.

Secondly, in terms of the monumental events, I have secured a written contract from my younger brother telling me he will move to Chicago next summer. Ok, it was a text message, and maybe he was slightly more vague than that, but I am taking him seriously. My youngest brother was just here visiting my alma mater, and he also tells me he wants to move here. I have a VERY good track record of convincing (coercing?) people to move to Chicago, which is why you could be out at a bar sometime and overhear an entire table of people talking about their childhood in Massachusetts. Those are my people. Anyways, convincing both my brothers to move here within a year would really be the ultimate triumph for me. Because with all three children in the Midwest, my parents would also be forced to seriously consider relocating.

They call this a coup, I believe.

Oh! And one more thing. After having spent an inordinate amount of time wandering the aisles this morning (and after watching that 30 Rock a few weeks back where Oprah guest-starred), I would also like to promote a few of My Favorite (Holiday) Things (Which can be Purchased at Target).

1) Method Frosted Fir Hand Soap

2) Snowmen Acrylic Dinnerware
Ok, I only bought the glasses. But tell me the whole set is not adorable?!

3) Snowmen Christmas Stocking
Joshua and I both have stockings at our parents' homes, but have never purchased our own. These look like they will wear well over the years. I can picture our (rambunctious) children ripping apart the Christmas boxes and yelling, "I found mom and dad's stockings!" (then they will grumble, "here are Pam and Hala's stupid little stockings") Somehow I find this mental picture hilarious.

I finished Joshua's mom's scarf today, making it officially the first wearable piece of knitting I have completed! I've crocheted several scarfs and hats and made valiant attempts to finish the random knitting I've started, but this is really the first thing that I finished well. (Naturally, I kind of want to keep it! Because I am a horrible, selfish knitter. Don't worry, it's definitely hers). I would post a picture, but my camera won't connect to the computer lately. It's feeling lazy, apparently.

The cats love the yarn. They lick it and bat at it and are generally transfixed by it. This is a serious stereotype, right? Cats and yarn? I am the kind of person who owns CATS. Who KNITS. I really enjoy this new hobby, and I adore my cats, but the reality of being a cat-owning knitter is rough on the ego. I am too young for this.

I Bleed Blue...

"This is our moment. This is our time - to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American Dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth - that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism and doubt, and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people:

YES WE CAN."

- Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States of America