Crooked Pigtails

Tuesday

Two weeks have passed since my last post.  Two weeks.  This is one seriously neglected blog.  Oh, there are reasons; none of them particularly good, all of them perfectly debilitating, the most frustrating being a big old case of severe writer's block.  But, it is Tuesday, and I am moving on.

***

Our Thanksgiving was a whirl-wind, three meal, tour of turkey, stuffing and my mother's famous holiday pies.  We logged nearly 800 miles on the van, consumed more calories than is recommended for a month, learned to make always perfect, will-never-under-any-circumstance-lump gravy, played board games, saw my sister and brother-in-law's new house, took lots of photos (but not as many as I intended to take), got the kids to bed too late every night and up too early every morning, laughed until we couldn't breathe, hugged lots of people, completely wore out the High School Musical soundtrack (at this point, even S has the words memorized), and took a few moments to stop and give thanks for all the tremendous blessings in our lives.

In short, it was everything you would expect from Thanksgiving.

***

Recently, when I called Sherry her husband answered the phone.  Sherry was unavailable, so D and I had been chatting for a couple of minutes when Miss A entered the room.

A:  Who are you talking to?

D:  *laughs* Tell her it's Santa.

Me:  I'm talking to Santa!

D chuckled on the other end of the line, I tried to conceal my smile as Miss A's eyes became enormous.  After a few seconds of shocked silence, Miss A's expression shifted from shock, to wonder, to curiosity.

A: I need to talk to him.  *puts her hand out for the phone*

Me:  Ummm.  Santa?  She wants to talk to you.

D:  Oh!  OK!

As I handed the receiver to Miss A, I heard D drop his voice about three octaves and lift his volume about four decibels.  He never skipped a beat. 

D:  Ho!Ho!Ho!  Merry Christmas, Miss A!

A:  *Doe eyed expression*

Santa proceeded to talk to Miss A for a solid minute and a half, telling her that he knew she was a good girl this year and that he would be brining her lots of great toys on Christmas eve.  Miss A stood, frozen, nodding her head.  I think she whispered a couple of answers, but I didn't hear them clearly because I had to turn my back to her in order to hide my giggles.  (At dinner that night, Miss A told S and Miss H that Santa says HoHoHo for hello and goodbye.)

Yesterday Sharpie was singing her sister's praises; here at Chez Pigtails, we think D is a pretty great guy, they are a perfect match.

Three guesses how I spent this rainy evening

The amazingly talented Sherry came over for a visit tonight.  She was packing a piping hot, homemade, banana-nut bread and, not one, but two brand, spanking new, fabulous, blog designs.  I loved them both; truly, they were perfect, so perfect that we threw them out, and began creating a third choice: the completely different, exact replica, of choice number two that you see above.

It makes my heart dance.

Thank you, Sherry, for braving this rainy New England weather to bring your expertise, your creativity and your patience over to Chez Pigtails for make-over night.  Thank you for listening to my thoughts, and figuring out how to make them happen; thank you for freely offering your own thoughts, and not laughing at my total lack of computer smarts.  Thank you for creating and re-creating; changing fonts and tweaking colors.  You really should look into doing this as a business.  I love, love, LOVE the new look, the new feel, of my little space.  I suddenly feel like a grown-up blogger.  Thanks for the inspiration.

Tomorrow, I will post something new.  Tonight, I just want to sit and stare at my gorgeous new blog design.

Thank you

all of you.  All of you who sent emails and cards, all of you who commented here and left voice mail messages; your good wishes and kind words have been a tremendous comfort, and I appreciate each and every one of them.

We are home.  We are tired.  We are sad, but we continue. 

Tomorrow this blog gets happier.  Because my grandmother was nearly 91 years old, she had sisters, daughters, grand-daughters, and great grand-daughters.  In her day, she washed, brushed, cut, permed, bleached, curled and parted a whole lotta hair into pigtails.

And every single one of them was crooked.