Our winter has been just as busy as any other time in our lives. We enjoyed our Christmas visit with Elizabeth, Zak, and baby Lucy, and will miss her dearly in the coming months… but that is the road we have all chosen. Just as they could never leave Kentucky, we could never leave Colorado. Home is home.

The new semester has begun, and we’ve enjoyed some beautiful outings and adventures. Mythili, Isabella, sixteen other Girl Scouts, and seven other parents joined me in mid-January for Girl Scout troop camping just outside of Estes Park. WE watched movies (that MacBook and LCD projector come in handy!), sewed, made crafts, sang songs, snowshoed and sledded, and had an amazing weekend without a tear in sight!

Snow has been lingering in and out since the first of January, somewhat hindering my bicycle commuting. Fortunately, my dad gave me his trainer so I can ride in the family room. I’ve been trying to ride at least fourteen miles a day and take longer rides on the weekends in preparation for the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic that I will participate in on Memorial Day weekend with a co-worker. If you’re too busy to look at the web site, it is a race against the Durango-Silverton train, with an elevation gain of 5600 feet (we’re climbing a mountain!!), that is fifty miles long. Should be a challenge! I’ve been trying to put the trainer on the highest resistance for at least half the time I’m riding. Going from that to the bike is like putting on wings, enabling me to ride the Vittetoe Express all the way to the zoo and back last Saturday with all three girls (thirty miles). More about that here.

Meanwhile, both Isabella and Mythili are taking ballet class after school once a week, and Riona has begun gymnastics (finally). She just learned how to complete a forward roll, and has been endlessly showing us, she is so proud! Now, of course, Isabella and Mythili want to take gymnastics again, so we have reluctantly agreed to sign them up for the spring course.

The last bit of business is selling Girl Scout cookies, which is quite another job within itself. Perhaps I should have been an accountant! Keeping up with all the orders and money is time-consuming, but just thinking about all the fun ways our troop will spend it (we’re already planning a unit camp in July) makes it worthwhile. Both girls sold 75 boxes this year, and they have already written thank-you cards for all their customers. I’m so proud of their commitment to Girl Scouts! It’s such a great organization, and I hope they stick with it all the way through high school.

With our special-order Sun Prairie Grass-Fed Beef, we prepared two delicious pot roasts, using two different recipes, and homemade pumpkin pie with the last of our garden pumpkin for our Christmas Eve meal. Everyone ate it up, even picky little Riona! We then opened our presents and watched as the girls squealed over every little item. The best was when Mythili and Isabella opened their iPod with an amazed expression and Isabella said, “I’ve wanted an iPod my whole life!” which is probably, sadly, true.

The next morning, Santa brought Isabella a Barbie scooter, Mythili yet another Barbie set with formal wear for Ken and Barbie, and Riona a new train set to add on to the one we already have that she cherishes so much. The girls just LOVED their Santa presents–he somehow knew exactly what to get them! Truly magical!

We went to Grandma and Grandpa’s house for dinner, the best Christmas dinner ever–prime rib that Dad gets for free every year from his job. As usual, it was mouthwatering, and just writing about it now makes me already look forward to next year.

By the weekend, everyone was gone, and I felt like I was running a bed and breakfast, washing a million sheets–again–and cleaning up holiday remnants. After a couple of days of recovery, we celebrated Dad’s birthday with snowshoeing and cross country skiing in the mountains, then came back into town to celebrate New Year’s Eve with the Mentzers. We partied hard to bring in the new year, and the kids, as usual, had a total blast.

And here we are, MLK day, year two of us participating in the Denver Marade. I’ll say it again–I loved it last year and I loved it again. It makes this day so much more meaningful. But if you’d like to read more about what the Marade is like, check out my new writing blog: Step Write Up.

So, that is what I’ve been busy doing, in addition to working full time, running the Girl Scout troop, selling cookies, and spending quality time with three little girls every day… life is good.

It’s so peaceful to watch, to see the frosting on the grass, the branches of trees glistening under the clouds that tickle them with winter’s early gift. It’s wonderful to take a moment between pouring batter for homemade chocolate pancakes, changing Riona’s diaper, and running off to visit the grandparents, just to watch the giant flakes float languidly down from the sky. It’s exciting for all three girls to try on their “new” boots–Isabella’s from the used clothing store, Mythili’s and Riona’s from their hand-me-down boxes of shoes–and to watch them as they rush outside, gather up every flake they can on their tongues, and pound miniature snowballs into their hands, relishing in the very idea of winter.

But we must remind ourselves that it is only October, that winter is just visiting us for a day, that we still have pumpkins to pick, Halloween decorations to put up, fall break to enjoy, and Thanksgiving to celebrate, before winter rears its blindingly cold El Nino head and pounds us with what I hope will be inch after inch, foot after foot, of beautiful white powder.

So the next night, the girls and I went to a 4-year-old’s birthday party at Chuck-E-Cheese. Not exactly my cup of tea, but that night was all about them. On Thursday afternoon, we had our biweekly Girl Scout meeting. This time the girls were earning their strength and courage petal, so we decided to do a push-up contest. It was pretty hilarious to watch all the 6-year-olds attempting to do push-ups, especially as most of them looked like they were, um, humping the ground!

Meanwhile, I had to administer CSAPs all week, which has its benefits: I was able to read three and a half books! You gotta look at the bright side of those boring days. And to “decompress”, our staff had a happy hour on Friday, and since Isabella was getting her cavities filled and wasn’t going to need me to pick her up, I decided to go. Had a good time hanging out with the people I work with, and then Isabella and I went to a GS birthday party to celebrate the birth of GS and to collect items to make birthday parties in a box for disadvantaged kids. And as if we hadn’t had enough of GS, we did our cookie booth sale at Safeway the next morning, then went out to lunch with the girls from our troop who were there.

This week isn’t as crazy, but Isabella is still in dance and might soon be in soccer (if they get her a coach), and soon Mythili and I will partake in a parent/tot roller hockey course. I’m still wondering how I’m going to juggle all these activities when I have three girls involved in things, but I guess we’ll figure it out!

And, at last, it snowed this morning. Denver weather likes to pretend it’s winter for just the amount of time it takes to drive to work, because by this afternoon, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky or a speck of snow anywhere. I guess I can just give up on having a snow day this year and instead welcome the busy-ness of spring!

When we got up to the Bear Lake parking area, we got on all our winter gear and snowshoes and started our hike. When ever we go snowshoeing, we never know which way we will go or how far. This time was no different. We ended up crossing over two frozen lakes, Nymph Lake and Dream Lake, and after approximately 2 miles of walking, made our way to Emerald Lake. We didn’t realize where we were heading until about half way through when we asked some other people what was ahead of us. Overall we traveled about 4 miles during our peaceful but tiring trek through the snow.

If you would like to see more pictures of our snowshoeing adventure, click on over to our flickr photostream to check them out.

So here they are: Bruce and I are both in search of employment, and Bruce really wants to start up a tech business helping people with technology issues in the home, such as setting up wireless networks, backing up data, cleaning out slow computers, etc. We are currently trying to think of a creative name, and hope the business will be up and running by summer. Meanwhile, Bruce will be taking 11 credits this semester, all of which will take up 3 evenings a week, so he’ll be very busy.

I am looking for employment online. I am hoping to do some university-level teaching and a K-12 charter school online. Our goal is for me to be home doing that and Bruce to be working part-time with his business, so he will still be the primary caretaker of the kids and I will be the primary breadwinner.

But my most important resolution of the year has more to do with the environment: I am not going to buy anything new for a year. Used clothes, toys, gifts. Or handmade items. I read about this in an article and thought it sounded like a great idea. We live in a consumer-driven society and we fill our homes with things made in Chinese factories. With the technology available today (mainly Craigslist, of course), there is no reason to buy anything new. It’s recycling at its best: recycling our products, not just paper and plastic. So for our grand audience of Vittetoe Times readers, please do not expect store-bought gifts in 2009. What you receive will be just as glorious, if not better, I promise! It comes without the hefty price tag of guilt.

Our new year has begun with much business. Isabella and I have begun our Girl Scout cookie sales, Mythili has returned to preschool, and Riona is still enjoying being 2 (such an easy life!!). We hope it calms down soon, as we are entering our venture of the Used New Year. We welcome, and invite, any comrades.

Now I only catch glimpses of this. I try so hard. Too hard, maybe. Not that I expect the holiday season to be perfect. I don’t–I’m way too jaded for that. But I try to make it as stress-free and seamless as possible. I pride myself on having all cards sent and gifts bought and wrapped by December first, because the next few weekends in December are for baking, parties, and school events.

I choose my gifts carefully. I listen to what the kids want and I try to get them for them. This year, Bruce made homemade candy and we both worked our butts off baking about 20 loaves of pumpkin bread. I handed pretty packages of bread and candy out to every single person in the office at school and all the teams that my students are on, as well as Isabella’s and Mythili’s teachers.

We even made an advent calendar out of felt. We worked hours on this the weekend of Thanksgiving, hot gluing numbers, cutting out ornaments to fit in the pockets, one for each day to put on the tree. The girls have even been well-behaved enough to keep the candy canes inside until after dinner each night.

Isabella and I went caroling with several Girl Scout troops. I thought that would do it–cure me of my holiday blues. I remember doing this as a child in my little town in upstate New York. Everyone came to the door and clapped, praised us. But as we walked from house to house last Friday, people who had their houses decked out with more lights than I could ever imagine hanging actually turned us down. Some people wouldn’t even come to the door. I guess they didn’t want to take 1 minute away from their televisions to listen to 50 little girls sing to them. It just about broke me. But I wouldn’t give up.

We went to Mindi’s annual cookie party, and as usual, it was a hit. Great food, great music, perfect timing for a party (4p—???). The girls and I prepared all day, baking chocolate chip, chocolate revel bars, and their favorites, gingerbread cutouts. I swore it wouldn’t take all day, but it did. Chilling the dough. Mixing the frosting and then dividing it into different bowls for various colors. Setting up baggies with cake decorating portals (whatever they’re called) and allowing them to make their messes. They loved it. They said they wanted to do it every year. But I was a bit tired and overwhelmed. So much cleanup and work for mediocre cookies.

Isabella had her party at school today. Wild 5- and 6-year-olds running around everywhere. Cookies to decorate. Crafts to glue. Goody bags to sift through, candy canes to crunch. Her eyes filled with joy, but the parents’ job? Cleanup. I must have scrubbed those little tables 20 times before the first layer of scum came off onto the miniature sponges the teacher gave me. And she received 3 goody bags filled with useless items such as tissue-paper-thin miniature notebooks, chocolate Santas, erasers that don’t erase, and cheap pencils.

Is this supposed to put me in a holiday mood? I want to collect her joy, to take the twinkles out of Mythili’s eyes as she proudly holds up the candy cane she received from Santa (who visited her preschool), to gather the grin from Riona’s face as she tells me she wants a Christmas tree for Christmas… but I still have the reality of life hovering over me, the bills, the worry about overindulging my kids, the knowledge that everything comes with a price, whether it be in dollars or work.

Six days till Christmas. I’m going to make it. I’m going to remember my excitement from childhood Christmas mornings, waking so early that the stars still stung the sky with their winter brilliance. I’m going to look outside at the snow that has finally begun to trickle down and sing my Bing Crosby melody. I’m going to squeeze, squeeze, squeeze their tiny, thrilled bodies until their naivete seeps through their skin and into my heart. And I’m going to find my holiday mood.