whew, christmas.

I'm literally sitting at my kitchen table trying to wrap my head around how fast the last few months have gone by.

[A few minutes ago I was wearing a head lamp because the power was out for a few hours. Creepy. The last house had a flashlight in each drawer and bathroom but I guess Chris took some because I can only find like 2 of them now. While waiting for the power to come back on, I ordered a battery powered lamp and a 4-pack of flashlights off Amazon. Also, in this house NONE of the bathrooms have windows. Strange lack of windows in this house.]

Back on topic.
Christmas was a whirlwind of one event bleeding into another.

With my family, we only have one real obligation: show up at Litmas and you're off the hook for everything else... if you choose.

By contrast, Foxy Grandpa had 4 different events that involved spending time with different sections of the family. Of course I was invited to each of these events and it would have been obvious if I was absent, because I'm "the girlfriend" now, so despite feeling pretty burnt out, especially towards the end, I participated.

I'm glad I went, though, because again, in stark contrast to what I'd gotten used to with Chris's family, Foxy Grandpa's family is happy and fun and they like each other and it's actually a pleasant experience to be around them. I genuinely enjoy their company. I'm sure everyone is on their best behavior now and drama will eventually reveal itself because that's normal, but overall the vibe is very nice.

By Christmas day, I happily sunk into a chair on his daughter's apartment balcony and sipped wine until I got moderately lit. See? I feel comfortable enough with these folks now that I feel like it's ok to get a little drunk without judgement. (Plus, his ex-wife was three sheets at that point so if I got a little tipsy it would not be worth mentioning.)

Did I mention that his ex-wife is frequently around? The first one, not the second one.

Anyway, it makes sense that she's around because they both both have a close relationship with their daughters, and nope, it's not weird at all.

Now I'm sitting on the other side of the holiday, exhausted because I can't remember the last time I had a day to myself, kicking myself for not taking some PTO to just chill, and for a few days amidst the chaos I kept thinking about how FUN it was to skip Thanksgiving and beebop around Arizona and we could totally do that for Christmas, right??

Back to reality. My one personal goal for the day was to clean off my kitchen table. I succeeded, unless you count the fine dusting of glitter from random Christmas accessories.