This past Christmas, I flat-out refused to buy my father his 733rd golf shirt and I didn’t care how many times my mother insisted he needed a blue one.

And because last year I bought my mom liquid gold, otherwise known as Obsession (for all of you who were thinking, What? She bought her mom unleaded?), and she uses an average of five drops a month, there was no need to replenish her stockpile this year.

Also, I was under the mandate that was repeated to me ad nauseam through the year, specifically, DON’T BUY US STUFF, WE DON’T NEED STUFF, WE HAVE TOO MUCH STUFF, WE ARE SUFFOCATING UNDER STUFF, which, despite the refusal of my parents to cop to it, stems from the ginormous 3D puzzle of the New York City skyline that I bought them one year because #1) I refused to buy my dad his 689th golf shirt; and #2) I decided to be spontaneous and whimsical, thereby proving to the universe that I have no business being spontaneous or whimsical.

I thought that puzzle was pretty cool and referred to it as “the shiznit of all things puzzle.” Nate referred to it as “that big-ass thing.” My parents referred to it simply as “what the hell was she thinking?”

That poor puzzle has never seen the light of day, presumably because of its unfortunate big-ass-ness.

I guess I should be thankful that I’m allowed to see the light of day.

So anyway, I debated on what to get my parents for Christmas. And my in-laws. They’re another couple who just doesn’t need any more “stuff” in their house which is already a 1200 square foot temple of PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, I WANNA GO TO GRANNY’S, I WANNA SLEEP AT GRANNY’S, I WANNA LIVE AT GRANNY’S in the eyes of the seven grandchildren who run, play and/or drool amuck through it.

And just in case you’re wondering, I’m biologically and legally responsible for only two grandchildren of the non-drooling variety. Thank you, God.

One day, when I ran downstairs into my kitchen and abruptly stopped and simply stood there, staring blankly at my sink, trying in vain to remember what was so important as to cause me to fly down my stairs and leave the cocoon of my office in the first place, it suddenly occurred to me.

I need more memory.

Well, that, and the foregone conclusion that my family believes our kitchen sink is not unlike a clown car in that an endless supply of dishes can be crammed into it for their amusement.

Nevertheless … we all need a better memory and I’m not just talking RAM here, although for the record, I would do the happy dance all over my house if it meant I would never again see a “your system is low on virtual memory, dumbass” message yelling at me through my monitor.

My human memory needs more RAM. I bet yours does too? It’s like I tell What’s-Her-Name there, my youngest, the one with the glasses … time goes by wicked fast. Pretty soon, she’ll be entering high school and following in the footsteps of the other one, her older sister, the one with the long hair who’s constantly breaking bones in her body.

I forget what they were like as babies. As toddlers. As little people who hadn’t yet figured out how to make their mother’s head explode off her body in thirty seconds or less.

I forget what they did five years ago.

I forget what they said five minutes ago.

I forget … wait. What were we talking about?

And if I’m forgetting this stuff, can you imagine how my parents and in-laws are faring? Not to mention my 84 year old aunt, who constantly asks me why I find it necessary to refer to her as “my 84 year old aunt” instead of simply “my aunt,” to which I respond, Ummm, I don’t know, because I can be quite verbose when I choose to be.

I’m old but they’re all, like, ancient. And I’m including my in-laws here because, even though they’re not nearly as old as my parents and my 84 year old aunt, I was always taught never to exclude anyone so, Bill and Sue? If you’re offended … go right ahead and blame my parents. It’s all their fault.

So anyway, if I’m forgetful, can you imagine how they must be? My God, it’s a wonder they remember to stay vertical and blink, right?

Which reminds me, someone call my parents and see if they’re blinking. I’d do it, but I’ve got my hands full trying to remember what I’m doing here.

I decided to give them all some memories for Christmas. And those memories arrived under the tree, looking like this:

A twenty-seven page hardbound book filled with photos of the two non-drooling grandchildren (or nieces, in the case of my 84 year old aunt) who arrived on this planet via my uterus.

It came with a thick, acrylic cover that allows you to see through to the first page of the book. It’s bound with a two inch band of black linen which is all but invisible here because I am an idiot and took these photos against a black backdrop, despite the fact that a dark green Christmas tablecloth was readily available underneath the black backdrop at the time.

Someone remind me next Christmas to dress up as a scarecrow and ask Santa for a brain.

Here’s a view from the top - you can kind of see the black linen on the binding, right?

Can you see it now? How about now?

Now?

By the way, when I’m done with this post, I’m applying to Verizon. I think they need some estrogen in black horn-rimmed glasses, don’t you?

I  love SharedInk, the company I used for this book. They do top quality work and I used them all the time when I had my custom digital design business. The book is sturdy, the pages are nice and thick, the colors are vibrant.

Just like me!

Except for the vibrant color part.

I included photos of Zoe at various ages:

And Helena at various ages:

As well as some photos of them together at various ages, where they weren’t killing each other or crying or screaming or blah blah blah:

I also threw in some photos of us as a family unit, lest anyone think these two raised themselves because they most certainly did not, and I don’t care what they told you.

I kept it all clean and simple, which is pretty much my calling card in the digital community. Hi digital community! ((waving))

I think my parents and my in-laws and my 84 year old aunt liked the memories and while they may still forget to blink once in awhile, hopefully they won’t forget how beautiful their own DNA can be.

I’m considering doing a book like this every year from now on.

And now that I’ve just typed that out loud, may we all have a moment of silence for the best of intentions.

Because chances are, I won’t remember a bit of this by next week.

It’s January 4. That means that somewhere along the recent way, I lost three days. Last thing I knew, it was Wednesday, which was New Year’s Eve. I blinked and now it’s Sunday.

And the weird thing is … there wasn’t even any alcohol or illicit drugs involved.

We’re only four days into the new year and I’m already off schedule and out of sorts. I think that may be a record for me.

Tomorrow the kids go back to school, my husband goes back to work, I go back to laundry and life goes back to normal.

Normal is a relative term, is it not? My normal could be quite a bit different than your normal. For instance, you may have a dog named Jake who sleeps on your bed. I may have a camel named Thor who sleeps on my kitchen table. Who’s to say what’s normal anymore?

I don’t have a camel named Thor.

And even if I did, he wouldn’t sleep on my kitchen table because … well, because … ewwww.

I was just making a hypothetical point. I love to make hypothetical points, because you can’t be wrong when you’re speaking hypothetically and anytime I can’t be wrong, I’m all over it. Hypothetically speaking.

Anyway, since it’s Sunday, I need to regurgitate something and since I recently cleaned my bathroom, I’d prefer it not be my breakfast. Therefore, I leave you with a post about how Nate and I met: I  married my tall, dark, handsome, rebound guy.

In the meantime, I’m going to write something for tomorrow. I wish I could tell you it was going to be enthralling, riveting, engrossing, intriguing and fascinating, but no, I am not going to set myself up for colossal failure.

I’ve learned my lesson. From now on, I’m going to aim low.

Tomorrow’s post will be legible.

And you know, that’s not as low as you think it would be, because today, I’m going to try upgrading to wordpress 2.7 and I have no idea if my blog is going to like wordpress 2.7 or if it’s going to pitch a hissy fit and run screaming in the other direction.

So, if you have trouble accessing my blog in the next day or so, just know that on the other side of your monitor is a prematurely gray, slightly overweight, drowning-in-panic-sweat, puddle of OH SHIT posting OH MY GOD, HELP ME threads all over the Internet.

Yep, things will definitely be back to normal.

Everything is kind of chaotic right now and I’m trying to clean up my house a bit because we’re hosting New Year’s and nothing is where it should be and everything is where it shouldn’t be and Helena doesn’t have a decent set of clean jammies for tonight and I’m not sure if my chocolate chip cheesecake squares are thoroughly cooked and I think I just ruined the finish on the top of my brand new George Foreman grill, the one my parents got us for Christmas, by trying to get one stupid gigantic sticker off it.

It wouldn’t peel up on its own and neither hot water, oil, peanut butter, WD-40 or even Un-Du would work. I had to use my fingernails to scrape it off one microscopic bit at a time, leaving a big splotch of gooey residue all over the top of it.

I could not get that goo off. I finally resorted to Soft Scrub and an SOS pad and a nylon scrubber pad, which did the job but only at the expense of my shiny, glossy finish, which is now a dull, scarred, shadow of its former self.

Kind of like me, whenever I remove makeup.

The grill still works great. It just looks like it’s quadrupled its age in one day.

Kind of like me, whenever.

In a few more hours, it will be 2009.

I don’t do New Year’s resolutions anymore. I’ve decided to spread out my ridiculously high expectations throughout the entire year so that I can thoroughly enjoy each and every accompanying disappointment in all of its glory, rather than experience one general, massive, overwhelming, excruciating, cataclysmic disillusionment on January 5. This way, I won’t have 360 continuous days in which to ask myself Now what the hell do I do?

That’s not to say that I don’t have some hopes, however.

Because I do.

.

I hope my mom doesn’t yell at me for the grill fiasco.

I hope if I see a FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, ANDY! WHAT WOULD GEORGE SAY? LOVE MOM in my comments later today, that it was typed with rheumatoid-arthritis free fingers.

I hope my cholesterol goes down.

I hope I can lose a little weight so that my cholesterol goes down.

I hope I can stop eating everything in sight so that I can lose some weight so that my cholesterol goes down.

I hope someone wires my jaws shut.

I hope it doesn’t hurt.

I hope I continue to blog.

I hope I get better at it.

I hope my blog makes people smile.

I hope it makes them laugh.

I hope it makes them think.

I hope I can worry less.

I hope I can worry a lot less.

I hope I can enjoy more. A lot more.

I hope my kids don’t kill each other by screaming one another to death.

I hope I don’t scream myself to death.

I hope I don’t do anything to death. Except breath.

I hope no one I know, care about, like or love, dies.

I hope no one you know, care about, like or love, dies.

I hope the earth can handle the overpopulation if no one we know, care about, like or love, dies.

I hope I’m proactive instead of reactive.

I hope this country becomes proactive instead of reactive.

I hope our new President and his family like their new digs.

I hope our new President leads. In a good way.

I hope we all lead. In a good way.

I hope no one else loses his/her house.

I hope no one else loses his/her job.

I hope no one else loses his/her retirement.

I hope we can all stop losing stuff. Except weight. And blind ambition.

I hope this economy can get itself out of the CAN IT POSSIBLY SUCK ANYMORE vortex.

I hope our 401K’s and retirement funds return from wherever they are.

I hope all of us find some happiness and contentment.

I hope to see you all back here soon.

.

Stay safe.

If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that I hopped a flight to the west coast, swallowed the entire Las Vegas strip and spent the next twenty four hours ensconced in the throes of acid reflux.

*burp*

Or maybe it’s just that we saw the Trans-Siberian Orchestra this past weekend and my poor body hasn’t yet recovered, because it has no idea where to even begin to address the onslaught of sensory overload befallen it.

That’s saying something, considering my body went through the eighties, as well as two c-sections and is currently raising two daughters, one of whom is firmly entrenched in teenage angst.

That show was loud.

I don’t mean loud, as in Hey Nate? Do you think maybe we should get a new muffler sometime?

I mean L*O*U*D as in WHO’S BRIGHT IDEA WAS IT TO HITCH A RIDE TO THE MOON INSIDE THE SOLID ROCKET BOOSTERS OF THE SPACE SHUTTLE, HUH? I HOPE YOU CAN BUY EARS THERE. MINE EXPLODED OFF MY HEAD DURING TAKE OFF.

My body hasn’t stopped vibrating. I think this is due to 7,855 decibels of deafening roar from drums and guitars and violins and keyboards, blasting from the stage directly into my mouth, down my esophagus, wrapping around my spine and shaking my entire skeleton like an oversized maraca.

Not to mention the continuous acid flashback I’m having, courtesy of the stunning pyrotechnics and laser light show that burned themselves into my retinas. I think if I connected all the spots in front of my eyes right now, I could create a reasonable facsimile of the Apocalypse in high definition.

From our dinner beforehand to the mild weather to the warm and friendly strangers sitting next to us, it was a thoroughly enjoyable night, dampened only briefly by my thirty minute detour into self-induced paranoia when Nate went missing in the stadium, leaving me sitting in my seat, worrying that he was (1) kidnapped; (2) injured, unable to communicate due to a massive, gaping head wound; (3) having a quickie with some bimbo; or (4) whipping out our charge card and buying an outrageously expensive assortment of TSO memorabilia.

If you ever experienced the shock and awe that is our monthly credit card statement, you wouldn’t even think twice as to why I was rooting for any of the top three. As it is, we are now the proud owners of a TSO program so big, thick and heavy, I had to leaf through it twice to ensure it didn’t come with Paul O’Neill and Jon Oliva stapled into its spine.

They’re some of the founding members of TSO, in case you were wondering.

And no … Nate has never had a quickie with a bimbo, in case you were wondering about that.

I am not a bimbo.

I completely loved this show. The first half was dedicated to TSO’s spin on the traditional Christmas carol and I have to admit, I don’t think I can listen to Holy Night or Pachelbel’s Canon in the same way again. And Bryan Hicks, the narrator? If I didn’t think it meant being cuffed and bringing in the New Year with a cellmate of dubious gender named Butch, I would have smuggled Mr. Hicks home as a belated Christmas gift to myself, stuck him under our tree and made him read The Polar Express to me until sunrise. The second half was a classical heavy metal assault upon all of my senses, as well as my entire skeletal system. The sheer volume of sound reverberated within me with such ferocious intensity that at one point, I think I almost choked on my fifth metacarpal.

But the facial I received from the blasts of heat radiating from the explosions of fire across the stage more than made up for nearly asphyxiating on my own marrow.

It was a spectacular mesh of the classical and the heavy metal, full of holiday spirit and rock ‘n roll soul. It oozed sexiness and hotness. The music wasn’t half bad either. It made me want to leap into the nearest fountain of youth, shower off the past twenty years, liposuction my entire body, squeeze into a slinky little black dress and some high heeled, black leather boots, weave in thirty pounds of hair extensions and bang my newly adorned head onstage to some heavy metal, rocked out version of Requiem, shoulder to shoulder with a few tuxedo-jacket clad, idolized, long haired, guitar screaming icons. And an occasional explosion or two.

In case you’ve never experienced the wonder that is TSO, here’s a little taste of what you’ve been missing. Approach it with an open mind and you might be surprised to discover that somewhere lurking deep inside your conventional, traditional, middle-of-the-road-behind-the-wheel-of-a-minivan heart lies the soul of a freaky, long-haired, hard core, classical rocker wannabe, just waiting to deck the halls in a way you have to see, and hear, to believe.

Trans-Siberian Orchestra - First Snow (Live) from B. Sheehan on Vimeo.

Christmas is over.

It was wonderful. Exhausting, but wonderful.

My house looks like a pack of rabid wolves ransacked it, got all liquored up, partied hard until the cows came home, partied with the cows and then skedaddled, with the cows, before the cops came busting in.

Wait a second.

That’s me.

My house doesn’t look much better, though.

And for the record, I’m not calling myself a cow.

Out loud, anyway.

Today, I looked in the mirror and to my horror, found yet another white strand of hair on my head, despite coloring my hair no more than two weeks ago.

My letter to Santa asking for a stylin’ natural brunette ‘do must have gotten lost in the mail. Stupid post office.

So in honor of the burgeoning skunk line atop my head, I present to you: Grey’s Anatomy - Home Edition, on this second installment of Sunday Regurgitation at The Creative Junkie,

I’m off to Target to buy up every single box of hair color on their shelves.

Or a razor.

It’s Christmas Eve and I’m almost done cooking. Another 84 sides and desserts and one more bottle of Tylenol and I’ll be ringing the cow bells for dinner!

Except that we don’t have cow bells.

Because I’ve got 84 more dishes to prepare, this post is going to be short and sweet.

Just like me!

Except for the sweet part. Kind of.

Whatever you are celebrating, or even if you are not celebrating at all, I wish you a very happy holiday or a very happy day, whichever most suits you.

And even though you didn’t ask for it, I’ll give you one piece of advice: be very careful when you are gathering up all of the crumpled boxes and paper strewn about your house. Inevitably, there will be a gift card or money or gift receipt or one of your offspring buried amongst the rubble and there is nothing more annoying then hearing a constant MOM! DAD! HELP! echoing from out in your garbage dumpster when you are trying to enjoy the dinner you slaved over for 47.5 hours.

Not that I have any personal experience with that whatsoever. By the way, has anyone seen Helena recently?

And in case you are bored and sitting around with nothing to do … can I be you?

Nevermind.

In case you are bored, I thought I’d link you to a Christmas post I did back in May - although I haven’t quite figured out why I was blogging about Christmas way back in May.

Anyway, if any of you have a Wii or wanted a Wii or couldn’t find a Wii but needed one by Christmas, you might relate to this post. And if your spouse thinks that the original authors of the Declaration of Independence meant to include bidding on eBay as one of our inalienable rights but ran out of ink … what are you doing in my mirror?

Wii … the odyssey

Merry Christmas and happy holidays! Stay warm and safe and enjoy yourselves and your families.

I’ll see you soon.

Fa la la la la, la la la la.

Last year, I woke up one morning, feeling strange. Not my normal quasi-anal, semi obsessive-compulsive, anxiety consumed self.

At first I thought I was dying. But then I figured that was impossible because I wasn’t worried about dying and it was this very absence of worry that concerned me. I worry about anything and everything, even if I have to make stuff up. It’s the only way I know to exist.

So then I thought that maybe, during the night, I had come down with a case of dementia. Because if I was dying and not concerned, I had obviously lost my mind.

I hopped on my computer and googled all of my symptoms and much to my astonishment, I discovered that what I had been feeling all morning was not, in fact, imminent death but rather … imminent craftiness.

This was big for me, because it’s not often I feel crafty, let alone wake up that way. I don’t consider myself a very crafty person. I’ve always thought of crafty people as “go with the flow” people, very laid back, easy going, with great hair. You know, exactly the type of person I would have been had I been born a completely different person. With great hair.

Not that I’m high strung or anything … hang on a sec while I fix my keyboard so that it’s completely parallel with my monitor, would you?

OK, I’m back.

Wait.

Would you mind adjusting your keyboard? You’re not totally parallel with your monitor and I can’t see you straight on. It’s making my eye twitch.

Whew. Thank you.

As I was saying, it’s not that I’m high strung, it’s just that I don’t often feel carefree and crafty so when the mood hits me, I make the most of it.

Why doesn’t that happen with housework?

So later that day, I ran out of my house and drove all over town, collecting my supplies and getting more and more excited with each passing moment, completely engrossed in all sorts of creative possibilities.

And then I ran back home and ignored my family for three days while I sat at my kitchen table in my jammies and made these:

Each one was different and yet, somehow similar … each one carried a little bit of me. Just like my kids. Except they didn’t scream YOU ARE SUCH A BRAT at each other. And they didn’t call me mean. And didn’t tell me that I suck the fun out of everything.

They just sat there, blissfully quiet, looking pretty.

I think the hardest part for me was tying the ribbon into a bow. It took me several attempts to get a decent looking bow and at one point, I cried.

I may have been too emotionally involved.

I sold quite a few of these at a vendor fair I participated in last year, when I still had my custom digital design business. I needed something that was readily available to be purchased on the spot and these sold like hotcakes.

I hate that saying … sold like hotcakes. It makes no sense. Who buys hotcakes in bulk at warp speed? Is that a southern thing? Western thing? Another planet thing? What?

Now if you say “these sold like double fudge brownies dipped in Nutella” it would make much more sense.

Am I right?

This was one of my favorites. I included it in the vendor fair but the more I looked at it, the more I knew I couldn’t part with it. So when a little old lady full of wrinkles shuffled up to me with her walker and asked if she could buy it, I told her it was already sold and I hid it in my purse.

I’m going to Hell for that one.

Looking back on it, I wish that I had spray painted the metal tops to match the ornaments. Why is my hindsight 20/20 and my foresight 1,245,899 / 3,472?

One of these days, I swear to GOD, I’m going to learn how to take a decent picture so that my subjects don’t look as if they’re missing their bottoms.

I’d like to look as if I’m missing my bottom.

Who do I speak to about that?

After my vendor fair, I ran out and bought enough supplies to make at least 100 more of these babies.

I haven’t woken up crafty since.

And there all my supplies sit, in the corner of my office, right alongside the best of intentions.

Unused and unloved and smothering in dust.

Kind of like the monstrosity of a treadmill that now lives in our basement. It showed up in our living room one day because Nate doesn’t wake up crafty.

He wakes up bored.

Those damn best of intentions. They get you every time.

I hate it when my blog stands idle on the weekends. Or sits. Whatever.

Once in a great while, I’ll get the itch to write a post for either a Saturday or a Sunday but more often than not, my brain decides to scamper off into places unknown on those two days, leaving me a puddle of itchless, uninspired, witless goo that must still, despite lack of cognitive ability, drive her two offspring all over creation.

So I thought I’d change it up a bit and start a tradition where I post an oldie but a goody on Sundays so that my blog has something to keep itself out of trouble on the weekend, ‘cuz we all know what happens when we have too much time on our hands, right?

Right?

No?

Me neither.

By oldie, I mean one of my older posts that you may or may not have already read.

By goody, I mean one of my older posts that you may or may not have enjoyed. Maybe it made you laugh, or cry or twitch or hurl up your breakfast.

Nevertheless, I thought I’d call this tradition … actually, tradition seems too fancy of a word for what I’m doing … let’s just call it a “thing.” So, I thought I’d call this thing Sunday Regurgitation. Because it’s Sunday and because I’m bringing something back.

Not to be confused with bringing sexy back because I can’t bring back what I never had in the first place. I’m still not sure how Justin Timberlake managed to do it.

If anyone can come up with a better title than Sunday Regurgitation, throw it out there and we’ll see if the cat licks it up (quick … name that TV show.)

WEST WING! Hah! I beat you! What’d I win?

Anyway … let me know if you think this is a good concept. Or if it stinks like feet.

OK?

For my first Sunday Regurgitation, and in honor of the holidays, I bring you The Infamous Chia Pet Incident.

Read it in good health.

We created our family ornament last night and I had every intention of blogging about this family bonding experience, the agony and the ecstasy and all of the WE ARE GOING TO ENJOY THIS, WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT, SO SMILE DAMMIT, THIS IS FUN in between. With pictures and everything!

But then I remembered that I have no Photoshop anymore due to my hard drive failure.

And no one sees my pictures until they’ve been completely overhauled in Photoshop because my photography skills suck dirt and my handy dandy dslr camera, the one I affectionately refer to as Damn Stupid Little Ratshit That Cost A Lot Of Money (DSLRTCALOM for short) is sadistic and lives to psyche me out by flashing stunning previews on its LCD screen, only to turn around and download horrid, blurry, over exposed, under exposed, blatantly lousy images onto my computer. Just to mess with my head.

So my photos do not see the light of day without Photoshop.

I wish I could say the same for my body. Except my ears. I have nice ears.

Photoshop, please come back! COME BAAAAAAAAAAACK.

I miss you.

This leaves me with nothing to blog about except random thoughts bouncing around inside my head at this very moment and I don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t want to read about cramps and bloating and constipation, much less write about it.

Do you? I didn’t think so.

Mental note to self #1: Get a life.

Mental note to self #2: Get some fiber, while you’re at it.

Therefore, I think I’ll answer a few Christmas questions because I am all about Christmas, baby! Six more days! Ho Ho Ho! Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerry Christmas! Ho Ho Ho!

Mental note to self #3: Stop it.

.

Here we go:

.

Wrapping paper or gift bags?

For most of the year, I’m all about the gift bag. A bag lady, if you will. Or you don’t have to. It’s up to you. Just know that if you do, I’m not your average bag lady. I smell better and shave more often.

However, for Christmas, I’m all about the paper. And I’m here to tell you that it’s long, hard, grueling, tedious work, being all about the paper. It’s no piece of cake. Which reminds me.

I’m hungry.

Mental note to self #4: Feed me.

It’s not uncommon for me to spend hours picking out wrapping paper, giving a lot of thought and consideration to its weight, sheen, color, pattern and dimensions, leaving and coming back to the store three or four times to get a fresh perspective, creating a mental picture of how the colors will combine under the tree.

Will they be balanced? Will they compliment each other? Will they look festive?

Will they joyfully scream IT’S CHRISTMAS! RIP ME OPEN!

Or moan UGH. STOP STARING AT ME. DON’T TOUCH ME. LEAVE ME ALONE.

Gosh, that sounds so familiar. I know I’ve heard that somewhere. I’ll have to ask Nate. I bet he’ll know.

Speaking of Nate, sometimes I drag him along to get his opinion on paper selection, but when that opinion is expressed after only 2.3 seconds of deliberation because he was distracted by his iTouch or his blackberry or whatever electronic gadget was cemented to his face at the time, I tend to hemorrhage all of my Christmas jollies all over the floor. And there’s nothing festive about that.

Do you like eggnog?

Yes, but only if it’s made with Dove dark chocolate eggs. Then it totally rocks. Otherwise, not on your life. Mine either.

White lights or colored lights?

After laboring for a combined total of 80 hours in order to have my uterus ripped to shreds twice so that two miniature human beings could burst forth from my body and control every single aspect of my life from that point on until eternity, I don’t think it’s too much to ask to have all white lights on our Christmas tree.

White lights, it is.

Blinking lights or non-blinking lights?

After laboring for a combined total of 80 hours in order to have my uterus ripped to shreds twice so that two miniature human beings could burst forth from my body and control every single aspect of my life from that point on until eternity, I don’t think it’s too much to ask to gaze upon my Christmas tree without the urge to pack an overnight bag and go on an acid trip.

Non-blinking lights, it is.

What’s on top of your tree?

After laboring for a combined total of 80 hours in order to have my uterus ripped to shreds twice so that two miniature human beings could burst forth from my body and control every single aspect of my life from that point on until eternity, I don’t think it’s too much to ask have a beautiful, wired ribbon bow atop our Christmas tree.

A star, it is.

Apparently, one worn out uterus and two little humans only get you so far. Who knew?

Mental note to self #5: Find a surrogate

.

That’s it! I’m done. It’s over. You can open your eyes now. It’s safe.

I’m hoping that before Christmas, I can post photos of some inked Christmas ornaments I made last year. They turned out beautifully. I’m just waiting for the photos to be restored to my hard drive. They’ve already been photoshopped and they make it look as if I actually knew what I was doing.

Mental note to self #6: Photoshop my life.