Bust Out the Slanket

Alright, I admit it.  I climbed back in my blanket fort and ditched the gym, but people it is 34 degrees in Mesa, Arizona!  If mother nature shaves off another couple degrees, the emergency sirens are going to start blaring and all the snowbirds from Canada are going to demand refunds from their trailer park associations because they can't wear the plaid bermuda shorts that match their Hawaiian shirts.

We've had several cloudy, rainy days and even got a rainbow out of the deal.  Yesterday there was even snow on some Saguaro cactus and they are complaining to their union representative, Ed Prickley.  Sunday brought a foggy morning that had us totally befuddled.  Dust storms we Arizonans know how to handle, but fog has us speaking like Madonna with fake British accents and drinking herbal tea.

Last night I decked the halls with my decorative Christmas sheets so my flowers wouldn't die.

Seriously, I know I shouldn't complain, and yet I do, because I find if you're happy all the time, people tend to mistrust you.  I was very disillusioned when my children told me that they really hated the soothing, kind voice I used over the years to wake them up in the morning for school.  I should have blasted an air horn and called it like it is..."That Stinky Time of Day When You Have to Roll Out of Your Cocoon, Fight For Bathroom Time, Eat Your Cream of Wheat and Go to School". 

Now we're down to one lone child at home and she (usually) wakes up on her own, perhaps to avoid the soothing kind motherly voice of doom.   Last Saturday was Winter Formal and she looked beautiful.

And now it's time to write the annual Christmas letter.  I wrote the first one 17 years ago as a protest against all the over achieving letters we received.  It began like this...

What a boring year it has been!  How to fill the empty hours!  What a struggle we have had trying to keep ourselves occupied.  It is so embarrassing to have to come up with any news to report.  We have simply laid around since last Christmas!

I suppose it all began with the purchase of those seven Lazy Boy recliners.  A sort of lethargic peace settled over us all as we sat, vegetating, gazing hour after blissful hour at the television.  Oh, we roused occasionally to pop a microwave dinner in, but all in all we really were functioning at our lowest metabolic rate.  Our blood pressures plummeted.  We have never felt so rested.

And every year since I have produced a scintillating work of fiction about family exploits.  The husband and kids are always rather frightened to read about what they've been doing.

 

Maybe if I wrap myself in my holiday slanket I can force my frostbitten fingers to peck the keyboard.