Christmas

Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays. You should be reading that in your head to the tune of Nsync's version of the song of course ;-) Such a lovely album. 

Thought I'd write out some holiday thoughts today to get my brain going before moving on to work items. How was everyone's holiday? Mine has been fun. Snowy. I'm currently in Michigan visiting. My mother lives in Lapeer Michigan, and my dad in Bay City, equally snowy at this point I believe. Last year I didn't make it back for the holidays, but I'm here this year and I do believe I have forgotten how to drive in snow. I've gotten stuck twice so far, once just trying to get out of my dad's drive way, and the second in the driveway next to my friends Chelsee and Mike's new house, pulled into the neighbor's by mistake who had chosen not to address the inches of snowfall in his driveway. Good times. I remember now what to do and what not to. And it's all good practice though because even though I'm excited to get back to the valley of the sun to thaw out, in a few short weeks I'll be driving a Uhaul 13 hours from Phoenix to Denver. (Eek am I seriously doing that? ha). 

Let's do family updates. My dad. He's a bachelor these days but branching out and becoming more and more social. I'm proud of him. Similar to many men of his generation, work was how he identified as a person, and was subsequently where he socialized. After the crash that was General Motors and all the older guys 2 years away from their pension got let go, he was able to bounce back and now works for Dow Corning. No it is not the white collar executive position he was used to. He now drives a fork lift and wears coveralls moving chemicals. One 'oops' could cost the company millions of dollars. He tells me he has learned more ways to use the word 'F*ck' from his colleagues than he ever knew possible. He enjoys it though and has begun climbing the ranks. I think this sort of work has changed him in a good way. He has now made effort to meet new people outside of work including his clock collectors' club which I find pretty cool. A friend from his club let us borrow one of his cars while I am in town. We went to pick it up and that was just a quality stop in itself. Dan, the friend, lives in a house built in the early 1900s. His house is fullllll of cool things from the 1890s and 1900s. It was. So. Cool. His furniture, decorations, even his toaster. I told him he lived in a treasure box. He said he usually gets 'museum.' It was all I could do not to whip out my iphone 4 and start snapping pics in every room. When he started showing off his original phonographs (and playing music for us!!) I couldn't resist however and took 2 pics :D What a joy. He said if I ever moved back to Bay City he'd sell me his house full of treasures. I said Ok maybe ;) 

My mom is doing well too. Similar to my dad, and likely others in her generation, she is also going through a work transition of sorts. After spending 20 some odd years being a stay at home mother, it has been a challenge for her to figure out the career path I think, just as it is for the rest of us I suppose. Currently she is doing medical transcription from home, but is starting to dabble with house flipping. She and her guy just bought the first one and are now doing work on it. I told her she should start watching the house flipping couple on HGTV Flip or Flop. She said her tv time goes to Netflix series Orange is the New Black, but that she will try to check it out. She like me, has never been a fan of long winters and I guess this winter has made records this year. Parts of her town have been going 8-9 days without electricity. The poor girl had been on a generator for 3 days but is thankfully back up and running. Last night she pulled up on her ipad (My mom is now more technically advanced than I am as the only tablet I own is a Nook) and showed me a photo of the parking lot of my high school. It was full, as in 20-30 large trucks, that would go pick up utility workers that had been shipped in to help, every morning from their prospective hotels and then take them to the power lines to continue fixing. Good lord. Nothing like this happened when I lived here thankfully. Hopefully it's a one time thing. Once my youngest brother graduates high school I would not put it past her to yank her guy to warmer pastures. 

Speaking of the youngest, Jonathan, much to my delight, has now joined the high school swim team. Swimming was by far my favorite sport as a kid, and possibly still is actually. One second of tooting one's own horn: I was recruited from my private grade school to come join the high school swim team a year early. I swam for points as an 8th grader under the table and was the first to ever have done so. Jonathan was asking about my days as a swimmer, once I told him this and that I had been a record holder, I apparently gained new respect. We are now discussing technique and form :) My goodness he is built. He works out diligently ever day which I love. He has this pull up thing that goes in doorways that you can use either under hand or over hand. I don't even know how many he can do but here is my tally. Underhand- 2. Overhand- 0. Think I'll stick to barre class. It's funny, it's still hard for me to grasp that he is this big hairy teenager. When he was born I was 12, a 7th grader. I was very much a part of raising him through my teen age years. He's still this little tike that I used to chase and tickle to death in my head, but in reality he is now going to home coming dances and listens to music that sounds like yelling to me. Geez. At least we have swimming in common though lol. 

I have a second brother who lives in South Carolina who unfortunately didn't it make it back this year for Christmas. We are not close I'll be honest, but he seems to be doing well. He is raising two children who are now 3 and 1. They are beautiful children and sharp cookies. Ella talks up a storm on Skype and Lucas makes fun sounds. My mom is enjoying these beginning grandmother years. 

And finally Schmanse (Nancy) my sister is for the first time since college, living back in Michigan. She had gone to NYU for school and then stayed another 3 years after. She heads up the Detroit division of a nonprofit called Girls who Code. They teach and empower young girls to get excited about math and science since our society sells stupid T shirts to little girls that say things like I'm too cute for homework. Blah what garbage. It's interesting how we both ended up in this field as I have recently found myself in women and girls empowerment sector myself. Fun to chat about, and talk about different funding entities etc. She seems to like Detroit alright, but very much misses NY. Girls who Code has a location in San Francisco. I think Schmanse would be happier there and our fingers are crossed that she can eventually transfer. I guess recently they were also discussing moving her to Chi, which also would be an upgrade. We shall see we shall see. 

Alright time to work. Hope everyone is enjoying the season. xoxo T