Because I don't already have enough on my plate, I welcomed two house guests from Cameroon yesterday. No, I'm not stressed at all about packing up for our first international flight, then moving to New Mexico for a couple of months about two weeks after we get back. not at all right...
Actually I'm kind of hoping that our house guests will be so nice that I will want them to stay while we are away. It would give them time to look for a nice place to live, and help me out too. But first I want to make sure they don't destroy the house. Did I mention one of the guests is a 7 year old boy?
One of the members of our church came to the US 6 years ago and has been waiting for a visa to come through for his wife and child since then. It finally did, but with a caveat that they had to leave the country in 5 days. The man is currently an in home care provider, so he had no place for his family to land, and I have an empty room upstairs.
I'm really hopeful that it works out, but with twin infants in the mix, I'm also a little worried. Guess we will have to wait and see...
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Monday, December 3, 2012
To every season...
I love going to a Christmas tree farm and picking out a tree, hauling it home, putting on the lights and the ornaments, playing Christmas music while we decorate everything...
Except, perhaps not this year.
The time involved for the length of time it would stay up is not an efficient use of my resources. We leave for Germany on December 14th, so that would be less than half a month of Christmas. Plus, we would either need to pack everything up before the 14th, while packing to to to Europe, or come back to a very dead tree with needles spread throughout the house....
So I did something I never thought I'd do. I bought a fake tree. A pre-lit fake tree that I put together in less than 5 minutes, including getting it out of the original packaging. I did a little rearranging of branches, but overall, it's pretty quick to set up a fake tree. It was either a fake tree, or no tree at all, and I just couldn't see not having a tree for the babies' first Christmas.
And, I figure we'll run into this problem every other year, so this will be a useful option in the future. Now I need to decide if I get out the ornaments, or have a second set of basic things to put on the tree. I'm debating ribbon bows or gingerbread ornaments, something to keep it not bare, but that I can put on and take off without a lot of thought. I debated making baby hand imprint ornaments and then giving them away at the end of the season, but we'll have to see if there's enough time for that or not.
On another note, we're about to get unexpected house guests. A member of our church, and one of my mini-parish members, is from Cameroon. His wife and son got a visa to come to the states, but were given only 4 days to leave the country. He currently works as a certified nurse assistant staying in someone's home every night as a caretaker, so he doesn't have a home of his own right now. They'll stay with us for two weeks as they look for a place to live. Really you would think I would learn not to do things like this, but I'm kind of hoping it works out.
If it does, I'm hoping they'd like to stay until we get back from New Mexico. They could watch the house for us while we're gone and I wouldn't need to worry too much. Of course, we did learn enough that we are giving them a two week trial period before even mentioning this as a possibility.
Plans for NM are afoot (and keeping me up at night). Speaking of night, I think I'll try to sleep tonight. That would be a change...I don't need the kids to keep me up at night, my own insomnia does that for me.
Except, perhaps not this year.
The time involved for the length of time it would stay up is not an efficient use of my resources. We leave for Germany on December 14th, so that would be less than half a month of Christmas. Plus, we would either need to pack everything up before the 14th, while packing to to to Europe, or come back to a very dead tree with needles spread throughout the house....
So I did something I never thought I'd do. I bought a fake tree. A pre-lit fake tree that I put together in less than 5 minutes, including getting it out of the original packaging. I did a little rearranging of branches, but overall, it's pretty quick to set up a fake tree. It was either a fake tree, or no tree at all, and I just couldn't see not having a tree for the babies' first Christmas.
And, I figure we'll run into this problem every other year, so this will be a useful option in the future. Now I need to decide if I get out the ornaments, or have a second set of basic things to put on the tree. I'm debating ribbon bows or gingerbread ornaments, something to keep it not bare, but that I can put on and take off without a lot of thought. I debated making baby hand imprint ornaments and then giving them away at the end of the season, but we'll have to see if there's enough time for that or not.
On another note, we're about to get unexpected house guests. A member of our church, and one of my mini-parish members, is from Cameroon. His wife and son got a visa to come to the states, but were given only 4 days to leave the country. He currently works as a certified nurse assistant staying in someone's home every night as a caretaker, so he doesn't have a home of his own right now. They'll stay with us for two weeks as they look for a place to live. Really you would think I would learn not to do things like this, but I'm kind of hoping it works out.
If it does, I'm hoping they'd like to stay until we get back from New Mexico. They could watch the house for us while we're gone and I wouldn't need to worry too much. Of course, we did learn enough that we are giving them a two week trial period before even mentioning this as a possibility.
Plans for NM are afoot (and keeping me up at night). Speaking of night, I think I'll try to sleep tonight. That would be a change...I don't need the kids to keep me up at night, my own insomnia does that for me.
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