A brief glimpse of what my week before Christmas looked like.

Well technically, a week and a half. I have to make that distinction because the craziness began Friday, December 16^th (consequently that was my grandmother Opal’s 100^th birthday if she was still alive). 

I got a phone call from Danny, the youth pastor at my church in the midst of having lunch with my Aunt Joyce and Bumpa, who’d come over to visit with my parents.  Danny wanted to discuss having the youth Christmas party/get together at my house.  I agreed that this sounded like a good idea, mainly because we were running out of time, and I’d been wanting to have the group out to my place anyways.

As wonderful as this sounded in theory, it also meant a lot of work leading up to the event. Beyond straightening up the interior of my house, I had to do a lot of work organizing my yard. There is a big reason for this and that is: I live in a house trailer, and there’s really not enough room inside for 20 teenagers. So the party had to take place in my yard. Which was fine, but it meant I had to do some work on it.  I had plants that needed to be weeded, pots that needed to be moved, weed-eating that just about killed my arms, and lots of raking and sweeping. Now though, I’m so glad I had the impetus to get it all done, ‘cause I just love wandering around my yard and enjoying my new plants and the general cleanliness of it all!

I also had an Adirondack chair sitting in the middle of my living room waiting to be painted. I made this another paragraph so I could explain to you why the chair is sitting there. Danny and my friend Richard gave me three chairs as a housewarming gift a year and a half ago. Two were regular chairs and one was a rocker. I actually painted and gave back the rocker to Richard because I knew he’d enjoy it more. The other two I planned to paint in a truly artistic fashion and enjoy them myself. Well, I got one painted. It’s in my yard, and it looks great. The other, it’s STILL sitting in my living room, and I’m writing this after the party and after Christmas. HOWEVER, it is A LOT closer to being finished then it was before the party. Before the party it had nothing on it, not even primer. Now it’s got primer, paint, and a design started on it! I’m only slightly proud of myself on that. It really should be finished by now, but it takes a lot out of me physically, and plus. . .well, I’m just lazy. . .Oh well. 

Richard's finished rocker (The Bahamian flag
is the base design. The smaller scene is
that of logger-head sea turtles)

My one finished chair.
It's a basic color theme design
with my own white flourish on top.

This next part, well it’s just absolutely ridiculous, but I still get a little thrill about it.

I moved into my place last May. This is after my friend Julie and I worked on it for six months, doing small repairs, cleaning, and painting every room. However, there were a few things that just did not get done in the midst of everything else. One of those things was replacing the toilet seat in my bathroom. 

Now, to describe my bathroom, it’s small, so every little detail stands out pretty blatantly. For some reason when this trailer was designed, somebody had the bright idea to install a mustard yellow toilet and bathtub. Do you know how hard it is to match any desirable color scheme with mustard yellow anything? But I persevered, and came up with a blue and brown combination. Somehow I managed to find a shower curtain that included blue, brown, white, and a green that it is very close in color to my odd ball fixtures. 

The toilet seat however was mauve. I ask you why would it be mauve? I have no idea.

Anyways, it was damaged slightly in that one of the little bumpers that allow it to sit on top of the seat part was broken in half. This made it scratch the surface of the seat. The seat itself was not damaged in anyway except that it looked unappealing. So I’ve lived with it for a year. Well, I’ve lived with it for a year because every time I go to the store to get a replacement, I can’t remember whether it’s a long seat or a short rounded one. . .go ahead, judge me, but it’s the truth.

Well, this time I made a concerted effort to remember that it was short and round. I went to the store, bought an off-white toilet seat, took it home and replaced it. 

And loved it. I just love walking in and looking at it, knowing that I figured out what I needed and fixed it.

Plus it looks a whole lot better than that odd pink thing that was on it before.

As such, I ended up having the party at my house, in the yard.  The kids came out on the church bus. We played trivia and question games while we all sat in camp chairs around the fire pit (Just so you know, this was Friday, December 23^rd, and it was 80 degrees outside. There was absolutely no need for the fire). Then Danny read through a devotional about the Christmas Peace during WWI.  Dinner was Ziti and garlic bread and chocolate bark that Julie had made. The kids even managed to get one of the ball sets from my Ladderball game stuck in my oak tree. Wouldn’t be a youth meeting without that! 

We had a blast, and I had tons of food and drink left over. Danny’s already talking about having the party at my house again. I think I’d like that.