I'd like to start by saying that my intentions for this Christmas letter were to get them printed on nice, red paper and stuffed into beautiful cards that I did in fact buy. But, they've laid on my kitchen "pile everything here until we get to it/M's 1000 piece puzzle" table so long that I'm just going to use them to start my garden for next year, which I'll undoubtedly end up killing off by March anyway due to pure neglect.
My intentions were also to write a beautifully well scripted letter showcasing how incredibly blissful our life is and how the many accomplishments we've made this year have made each of us the most grateful, humble and generous humans that God could've ever imagined for us to be. But I think we all know better. I've never been good at sugar coating anything and if you know me at all, you know that 2017 has been The Texas Titan's Grandaddy of a shitshow for us and our motto on the daily is "just make it through."
In January, "A" started CFI school. A course that "normal" pilots do in about 6 months, but because he's of genius level and also more ambitious than Bill Gates, he decided to take the course to accomplish 6 months of work in 2 weeks. Yeah, the intelligent part of that comes from walking in on the 3rd day, accepting that God's plan didn't pencil in death by cranial implosion and choosing plan B instead. I left Multiview and started teaching Chinese children to speak English. Other than living on an obscene amount of coffee and being tortured every morning for having to drag my not-a-morning-person butt out of bed at the same time I used to go to sleep in college, it truly is a great job and I love it.
February through June was pretty uneventful. "A" worked a lot, talked/walked around a lot in his sleep, leading me to be able to write a book of hilarity at his expense. M slid through First Grade with only having to purchase 8 pairs of glasses that are now giving the children from Lost the ability to see clearly. Which leads me to myself, victoriously having survived these months just short of becoming an alcoholic and funding the CEO of Zennioptical.com's wife with a gorgeous 10K colorless diamond this Christmas. She's getting a Christmas card too. It just says "You're Welcome."
July came in swinging right hooks like it was a paying job with my Dad having a heart attack and me realizing that being 8 hours away from any family was just no longer worth the independent fight I was determined to prove I could win. I also has the epiphany that when they say everything is bigger in Texas, what they're really meaning is cost of living. After a very vocal internal battle including a lot of the Radiohead lyrics "What the Hell Am I Doing Here", "A" asked me where I was the last time I was truly happy and felt like I was home - I said Kansas City. Within a month and because this is how we do life, we were packing a Uhaul and losing things down the storm drain with the help of 8 Yemeni guys. We said our see ya laters and moved to Gardner making life come full circle as this is where I taught right out of college.
This brings us to August. M is now attending the same school I taught at and with some of the same teachers I taught with. We've gone from every day being "fine" to every day being "terrific, fantastic or the best day ever". Most of that revolves around whether the boys beat the girls at soccer during recess or not, even though the teams are wildly uneven (in the boys favor). He's done well and his teachers have told me on more than one occasion that conversing with my kid makes them feel like they are conversing directly with me. What can I say? It's genetic. I sent my teaching certificate in this month as well, in hopes that I would be able to start teaching in a real classroom again and not just in front of the Mickey Mouse shower curtain of my guest bathroom because we now live in a crackerjack box. This process should only take about 4-6 weeks, quick and painless. (Remember this for a few months from now...) "A" started flying for a company checking pipeline and leaves the house every day like a kid in a candy store, making the saying "love what you do and you'll never work a day in your life" a reality.
September brought A & M's birthdays and more of us just trying to get settled and find a groove. (Which we're still looking for...)
October brought Halloween and me deciding to really get The Blonde Egyptian off it's feet. I signed up for a Holiday Mart and started making projects. I've included pictures at the bottom but you can also find me on Facebook or Instagram to see all the things I've made. A lot of people have asked why I'm not on Etsy. Well in truth, I am. But it costs a boat load of money to advertise your products and until I get a larger following and a teaching license to provide that money, that's on hold. M decided to be a zombie baseball player at the 11th hour simply because he runs in reverse 97% of the time and despite my 642 attempts to get him to pick a costume, he just wasn't really in that big of a hurry to do so...until the night before. I don't think he cared. As long as he banked on the sugar, he'd have gone as Captain Underpants and called it good, if I'd have let him. October also brought a wonderful experience that came in the form of a phone call from "A".
A: Babe! What are all the homeowners in Missouri doing to their trees?! (as he's flying over them)
Me: Umm I don't know. What's going on?
A: They're all orange and red! Do they spray paint them just to make them look nice?
Me: Uhhhhh no? (lightbulb) That's called Fall. Egypt has no trees and Texas has no seasons. This is what happens in the Fall. The tree leaves turn beautiful warm colors and then fall off the trees.
A: But then the trees DIE!
Me: That's called SPRING. The tree leaves come back and they're green. Magic, I tell ya.
The next two weeks consisted of M reading books to A about Fall and explaining the process of seasons. This is one of the many "first" experiences we've encountered this year with adjusting to new cultures and finding a way of our own, whatever that looks like as of that day. I try to blog about them for the most part but a lot of them happen and then the day gets away from me and I forget.
November took us to Minnesota to be with my brother as he got married and hang with family and nearly freeze to death. I missed Texas a lot this weekend. "A" was pretty sure he was going to get hypothermia every where we went- another first because you know, NOT desert here. Thanksgiving came and went and earlier in the month, I'd started subbing as a para because I often find that biting off more than I can chew is a refreshing change of pace. And also...still no teaching license that I need to be a teacher sub. So I start my day with my Chinese students, go sub all day, come home and work on projects. My crackerjack box looks like Hobby Lobby and Michael's blew up in it and I may be one stack of craft shit away from an episode of Hoarders.
But! Hello December and a successful Holiday Mart, making it all worth it. See? We're incorporating all those well scripted success stories here. We're at the point in the school year where M has informed me that he "gets through each day by thinking OK. How long until morning recess? Now, how long until lunch? Now, how long until afternoon recess? How long until Mom comes to get me? AND BOOM! The day is over and I made it!" Meanwhile, I'm at the point where he gets up and I think "How long until he goes to school?" "How long until I go get him?" "Sweet Mother of Monkeys! How long until he goes to bed?!" The child is my everything but very different than myself in that he wants to know why everything is the way it is, how it works, what the parts and pieces that make it go around are called and what each and every one of them costs. Then he wants to argue every point you make. He asks WHY more now than he ever did as a toddler. If he lives to see adulthood, he'll make a very successful lawyer or engineer. 8 is such a fun age.
I am so excited to report.....the state still has my paperwork for my license! SO, still teaching Chinese kids. Still subbing on occassion and still doing The Blonde Egyptian stuff. I'm 33 and not real sure what I want to be when I grow up but for now, this works. It sounds like a derailed train that let all the circus animals escape and now they're all running through the village eating the townsfolk, but it's who we are. It's messy and it's unscripted and it's a lot of crap that someday I will write a book on. But for now, we just keep thinking about the next time we're gonna eat, when the next recess will be and at the end of the day, we thank God we made it.
We hope this finds each of you happy, healthy, and truly enjoying your own beautiful mess and we wish you a safe and joyous Christmas season!
Love to you all!! -- A, K & M
My intentions were also to write a beautifully well scripted letter showcasing how incredibly blissful our life is and how the many accomplishments we've made this year have made each of us the most grateful, humble and generous humans that God could've ever imagined for us to be. But I think we all know better. I've never been good at sugar coating anything and if you know me at all, you know that 2017 has been The Texas Titan's Grandaddy of a shitshow for us and our motto on the daily is "just make it through."
In January, "A" started CFI school. A course that "normal" pilots do in about 6 months, but because he's of genius level and also more ambitious than Bill Gates, he decided to take the course to accomplish 6 months of work in 2 weeks. Yeah, the intelligent part of that comes from walking in on the 3rd day, accepting that God's plan didn't pencil in death by cranial implosion and choosing plan B instead. I left Multiview and started teaching Chinese children to speak English. Other than living on an obscene amount of coffee and being tortured every morning for having to drag my not-a-morning-person butt out of bed at the same time I used to go to sleep in college, it truly is a great job and I love it.
February through June was pretty uneventful. "A" worked a lot, talked/walked around a lot in his sleep, leading me to be able to write a book of hilarity at his expense. M slid through First Grade with only having to purchase 8 pairs of glasses that are now giving the children from Lost the ability to see clearly. Which leads me to myself, victoriously having survived these months just short of becoming an alcoholic and funding the CEO of Zennioptical.com's wife with a gorgeous 10K colorless diamond this Christmas. She's getting a Christmas card too. It just says "You're Welcome."
July came in swinging right hooks like it was a paying job with my Dad having a heart attack and me realizing that being 8 hours away from any family was just no longer worth the independent fight I was determined to prove I could win. I also has the epiphany that when they say everything is bigger in Texas, what they're really meaning is cost of living. After a very vocal internal battle including a lot of the Radiohead lyrics "What the Hell Am I Doing Here", "A" asked me where I was the last time I was truly happy and felt like I was home - I said Kansas City. Within a month and because this is how we do life, we were packing a Uhaul and losing things down the storm drain with the help of 8 Yemeni guys. We said our see ya laters and moved to Gardner making life come full circle as this is where I taught right out of college.
This brings us to August. M is now attending the same school I taught at and with some of the same teachers I taught with. We've gone from every day being "fine" to every day being "terrific, fantastic or the best day ever". Most of that revolves around whether the boys beat the girls at soccer during recess or not, even though the teams are wildly uneven (in the boys favor). He's done well and his teachers have told me on more than one occasion that conversing with my kid makes them feel like they are conversing directly with me. What can I say? It's genetic. I sent my teaching certificate in this month as well, in hopes that I would be able to start teaching in a real classroom again and not just in front of the Mickey Mouse shower curtain of my guest bathroom because we now live in a crackerjack box. This process should only take about 4-6 weeks, quick and painless. (Remember this for a few months from now...) "A" started flying for a company checking pipeline and leaves the house every day like a kid in a candy store, making the saying "love what you do and you'll never work a day in your life" a reality.
September brought A & M's birthdays and more of us just trying to get settled and find a groove. (Which we're still looking for...)
October brought Halloween and me deciding to really get The Blonde Egyptian off it's feet. I signed up for a Holiday Mart and started making projects. I've included pictures at the bottom but you can also find me on Facebook or Instagram to see all the things I've made. A lot of people have asked why I'm not on Etsy. Well in truth, I am. But it costs a boat load of money to advertise your products and until I get a larger following and a teaching license to provide that money, that's on hold. M decided to be a zombie baseball player at the 11th hour simply because he runs in reverse 97% of the time and despite my 642 attempts to get him to pick a costume, he just wasn't really in that big of a hurry to do so...until the night before. I don't think he cared. As long as he banked on the sugar, he'd have gone as Captain Underpants and called it good, if I'd have let him. October also brought a wonderful experience that came in the form of a phone call from "A".
A: Babe! What are all the homeowners in Missouri doing to their trees?! (as he's flying over them)
Me: Umm I don't know. What's going on?
A: They're all orange and red! Do they spray paint them just to make them look nice?
Me: Uhhhhh no? (lightbulb) That's called Fall. Egypt has no trees and Texas has no seasons. This is what happens in the Fall. The tree leaves turn beautiful warm colors and then fall off the trees.
A: But then the trees DIE!
Me: That's called SPRING. The tree leaves come back and they're green. Magic, I tell ya.
The next two weeks consisted of M reading books to A about Fall and explaining the process of seasons. This is one of the many "first" experiences we've encountered this year with adjusting to new cultures and finding a way of our own, whatever that looks like as of that day. I try to blog about them for the most part but a lot of them happen and then the day gets away from me and I forget.
November took us to Minnesota to be with my brother as he got married and hang with family and nearly freeze to death. I missed Texas a lot this weekend. "A" was pretty sure he was going to get hypothermia every where we went- another first because you know, NOT desert here. Thanksgiving came and went and earlier in the month, I'd started subbing as a para because I often find that biting off more than I can chew is a refreshing change of pace. And also...still no teaching license that I need to be a teacher sub. So I start my day with my Chinese students, go sub all day, come home and work on projects. My crackerjack box looks like Hobby Lobby and Michael's blew up in it and I may be one stack of craft shit away from an episode of Hoarders.
But! Hello December and a successful Holiday Mart, making it all worth it. See? We're incorporating all those well scripted success stories here. We're at the point in the school year where M has informed me that he "gets through each day by thinking OK. How long until morning recess? Now, how long until lunch? Now, how long until afternoon recess? How long until Mom comes to get me? AND BOOM! The day is over and I made it!" Meanwhile, I'm at the point where he gets up and I think "How long until he goes to school?" "How long until I go get him?" "Sweet Mother of Monkeys! How long until he goes to bed?!" The child is my everything but very different than myself in that he wants to know why everything is the way it is, how it works, what the parts and pieces that make it go around are called and what each and every one of them costs. Then he wants to argue every point you make. He asks WHY more now than he ever did as a toddler. If he lives to see adulthood, he'll make a very successful lawyer or engineer. 8 is such a fun age.
I am so excited to report.....the state still has my paperwork for my license! SO, still teaching Chinese kids. Still subbing on occassion and still doing The Blonde Egyptian stuff. I'm 33 and not real sure what I want to be when I grow up but for now, this works. It sounds like a derailed train that let all the circus animals escape and now they're all running through the village eating the townsfolk, but it's who we are. It's messy and it's unscripted and it's a lot of crap that someday I will write a book on. But for now, we just keep thinking about the next time we're gonna eat, when the next recess will be and at the end of the day, we thank God we made it.
We hope this finds each of you happy, healthy, and truly enjoying your own beautiful mess and we wish you a safe and joyous Christmas season!
Love to you all!! -- A, K & M
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