Merry Christmas in five bullets

It is 12:03am and technically no longer Christmas Day. We had a wonderful day. Mae got up at 7:30am and I came up to see her face when she noticed the Christmas tree. The funny thing is that she did not notice it right away. Yesterday the nanny gave Mae a baby doll, which was the #1 thing on Mae's wish list. Mae loves that doll and I gave her a Christmas box to use as a doll crib. So this morning she came out of room with her doll in the box and walked right toward the tree but didn't notice a thing as she only had eyes for her doll. She set her doll on the sofa and went back to her room for a blanket. It was only when she emerged with the blanket that she finally noticed the tree with all the presents underneath. She stopped short and the blanket dropped from her hand. She could only speak in stutters.

"Wha..."

"Loo..."

"Izza..."

And then I hugged her and said, MERRY CHRISTMAS, MAE!!!

She ran to get Libby, but Libby refused to wake up for another hour.

Website I'm grateful for: toysrus.com. I bought some last minute gifts online and they had amazing prices and free, fast shipping. It's been incessant rainfall here for the last couple of weeks, flooding and all that, and it's nice not to have to drive. The funny thing is that I needed to use the site to get a baby doll for Mae and then she ended up preferring the one that the nanny gave her on Christmas Eve, so now I have this extra baby doll still in the box. I am really glad I didn't have to pay for rush shipping or an inflated price to get that doll.

Toy I'm grateful for: the Battat cat-shaped keyboard. Mae played with this when she and I were in Barnes & Noble the other day. I thought it was terribly annoying at the time, especially because her most favorite setting is where the keys actually "meow" when you play them. But then my dad sent a B&N gift card and I remembered how much fun she was having with it, so I showed it to Mike and he loved it. We got that and a similar instrument by the same company - a frog-themed electric drum. Well, Libby and Mae played with these instruments all day, from the moment they saw them under the tree until they went to bed a couple hours ago. They took a few breaks to play with their new walkie-talkies, baby dolls, and kinetic sand, but then went back to the music.

Photo of aftermath - and there is Mae playing the cat keyboard:

Book I'm reading: The Man Who Invented Christmas (biography of Charles Dickens)

I wanna always feel like part of this was mine

Today we saw Star Wars The Force Awakens. Still reeling. I wouldn't likely have been the slightest bit interested if it weren't for J.J. Abrams. Episodes I-III really bugged me as much as they bugged everyone else. I love Episode IV A New Hope and I think it was Gary Vaynerchuk who I recently heard say that it is without question that Empire Strikes Back is the best movie of all time, and though I never said that myself, I understand the sentiment.

But the prequels led the story astray and so I just have a DVD of A New Hope and I actually watch it quite often.

But then waaay back when the trailers for Episode VII first aired I said, "damn you, J.J. Abrams" knowing that I was sucked back in.

So if you have seen Episode VII, which I assume you have by now but I will not spoil, let's just say if you love ANH then you will probably love Episode VII.  And when it gets to the part where you-know-who does you-know-what as they say, I held it together, but the wordless final 5 seconds of the entire film WRECKED me. And I'm sure I'll go back and sit through the whole thing all over just to see those last 5 seconds again.

Star Wars ANH is the first movie I remember seeing in the theater. I would have been 5 years old. My dad took me. We waited in a very long line that wrapped around the building. On the outside of the building were the movie posters, and when we got to the one for Star Wars, my dad pointed to Darth Vader and told me that he was "the bad guy". That helped me understand the movie a little better.

So I would have been around 7 or 8 when I saw Empire Strikes Back, I remember when Vader said "I am your father" I didn't believe it. Not that I was shocked or incredulous, I just literally did not believe it. And I thought Luke was a fool for believing it. Like, obviously Vader was just digging at him, telling a lie to try to upset him. Really, Luke, how could you fall for such an obvious lie.

J.J. Abrams described Episode VII as though everything has changed, but nothing has changed. It's really more in the "nothing has changed" camp if you ask me. It is not a new movie with a Star Wars brand on it. It's the real Star Wars. If you did not see the original in the theater when you were 5 years old, I am not sure you would understand this. But I feel that Episode VII did require nearly 40 years and my entire life to tell the story, and that it would not be so meaningful if it came out immediately after Return of the Jedi and also if we hadn't have had to suffer through Episodes I-III.

So, thank you J.J. Abrams. I didn't really mean it when I said damn you.

My Friday Five

My word for 2016: Listen. Not because I think I'm a bad listener. But because I think of it as a one-word way of saying Be Here Now. Not staring at a screen while my kids are in the room. Listen to my kids. Listen to Mike. Listen to my heart, my gut, my self. Listen to music and podcasts and audiobooks. Listen to birdsong and rain. Listen to the world around me and really realize there is more to life than my own world.

Quote I'm pondering: We choose our excuses. They don't choose us. (James Altucher)

December book sales so far (Dec 1-18): 235. That's paid sales, for money, to people who weren't obligated to buy. #OMG!!!!!

I was asked to teach my "power outage preparation" class to a group of women tomorrow. I'm excited to do it and was excited to be asked. I always give away GoPicnic boxes as door prizes and I will be doing that tomorrow as well. (Not an affiliate link, I just like them.)

Something I made: this awesome pom-pom bracelet.

Johnny Mathis Christmas concert in Portland

Johnny Mathis and Gil Reigers. Photo credit: Wolf Trap

A couple days ago I had an early Christmas present (to myself) when Mike and I went to see a Christmas concert featuring the Oregon Symphony and Johnny Mathis. It just can't get any more Christmas-y than that, and we had front row seats since I bought them the second they went on sale back in May.

It was even better than I anticipated. The show started with 30 minutes of the (2016 Grammy-nominated) Oregon Symphony playing the most beautiful arrangements of Christmas music I've ever heard. Such sweeping, moving music as if we were in the score of a Christmas film.

Then Johnny Mathis took the stage and opened with my favorite track of his, Walking in a Winter Wonderland. His voice is strong. He can still hit the high notes, and all the songs he performed are still exactly as originally recorded. No changing keys to accommodate his age of 80 years. In addition to being backed by the symphony, he brought his own band as well, and it was a supreme pleasure to watch them. He also performed some of his classic love songs and closed with an incredible salsa/Brazilian number that really took me to a different place. Since we were in the front row we were able to shake his hand at the end of the show, and realized we missed an opportunity to bring flowers or a gift. Oh well.

We also met some other nice people in the front row including a very interesting gentleman who has quite a few fascinating stories. We hope to see him again sometime as he invited us to see his beach house next year and has already been in touch with us a couple times. It was a real treat to get to talk to another adult who had good stories and was so friendly. All in all the entire evening was a rare and special privilege for us.

I don't think Santa Claus will mind

Something I'm watching: Gotham. I love it! Oh, that Penguin is such a troublemaker.

Something I'm pondering: This podcast and blog post about life's phases of accumulation of stuff.

Perhaps related, something I'm giving up: giving Christmas presents to everyone I know. Though always a bit stressful, it's just past the tipping point this year.

A surprise: one of my books that I converted to hard copy on Createspace has sold over 100 copies. So take that, whoever said most authors never sell more than 50 copies.

Something I'm enjoying: "show" season for Libby and Mae's dance classes. They are dancing 4 days this week at various retirement and nursing homes. They love it and they are so cute to watch. One of their dances is to "Jingle Bells" and another one is "I want a hippopotamus for Christmas".

Hurry up, hurry up

Movie I've watched 5x in the last 2 days: Home. Ok, really I watched it 1.5x. The kids have watched it 5x since it was put on Netflix. Mae loves it. She keeps asking Mike and me to buy her the soundtrack, which is pretty remarkable because she doesn't know what soundtracks are and she never asks to listen to music. Of course I bought it for her.

Frustrated with: Christmas shopping. There's a Target that's not exactly convenient to my house. So I haven't gone there, and that's probably stupid, because then I try to get my non-Amazon shopping done at Fred Meyer and they tend to only have about 75% of what I need and then I get frustrated. First world problems.

Quote I'm pondering: supposedly Aristotle said, "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit."

Podcasts I bookmarked this week to listen again: Tim Ferriss's The Magic of Mindfulness.
Tech Talker's How to Easily Delete Computer Viruses.
Hal Elrod's Harnessing the Power of Movement.

Fired: The Girl Scouts of America. See separate post on that subject.

Book I read in November

It looks like I only finished one book in November. I guess that is because I was watching more TV than usual.

I just noticed the subtitle on this book and I don't consider myself a failure. The book is just a collection of James's blog posts and I enjoy his essays.