Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! Namaste! You Pick!

So much fuss these days over whether we should say Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays or whatever.  I can't be bothered with the Christian notion that Christmas is their holiday, and that we should all act accordingly.  To me, Christmas is about family, friends, food, and presents.  Spirituality, whatever kind you ascribe to, has it's place every day and shouldn't be more important on one day than the next. 

Anyway, we spent Christmas Eve in our hotel opening a mound of presents.  We spent Christmas Day with my Dad and Step-mom (I forgot to bring my camera), and the weekend after Christmas with my Mom and Step-dad (I forgot my camera again).  I'm pretty sure I've gained a few pounds from all the Christmas food, and we definitely gained lots and lots of stuff to fill our "new" house.  Pretty kick-ass Christmas, I'd say.

Our little 4-foot-tall Christmas tree with all the gifts

My little Christmas "angels"

Evelyn is excited about the pretend pet turtle she opened!

Dade received the only thing he wanted: a Kindle Fire HD.  He was sure we would never buy him one, and he mentioned it every time he saw the commercial on television.  Mom is full of surprises.

Our little cowgirl is excited about the horse!

Brody with his new Matt Forte jersey

Our hotel catered supper in the lobby Christmas Eve, and we took advantage of the fireplace for a few family photos.  Happy Christmas Eve!!

 Of course, we had to leave treats for Santa and the reindeer...

This was the scene around the hotel for a few days; kids playing with new video games and dolls and action figures.  We have so many blessings, and it was nice to sit back, relax, and enjoy them!

Ballin'

Despite my best efforts to turn him into a band kid like his big brother, Brody is quickly becoming a sports kid.  We encouraged him to play the viola, which he did for two years, but he has had enough.  He said, "Give it up, mom.  I'm a jock."  Sigh.  He also has a "girlfriend," so Brody really is headed in an entirely different direction than his bookworm, trumpet-playing, anti-social brother. 

All I can picture is a future filled with emergency room visits and expensive tennis shoes (one pair for football, one for basketball, and one for backyard/driveway sports).  This year is his first year playing basketball, and he seems to enjoy it very much.

That's my boy in the yellow shorts.

And there he is chewing his nails.  He can't even stop chewing them long enough to play ball.  Grrr.

I guess I should get used to going to football games to actually watch the game and not just the marching band.

Goals

Goals.  In yoga we don't set goals; we set intentions.  Goals are often seen as big-ticket items that might be a bit out of reach.  Intentions, on the other hand, are smaller steps possibly leading to a bigger goal.  Intentions are meant to be attainable in the short term but are the building blocks for larger goals.  However, intentions aren't seen as invaluable if they don't eventually lead to a large goal.  Oftentimes, we set goals, and the moment we stray from the path toward that goal we just give up.

Example: I might say, "I want to lose 10lbs."  That is a goal.  We all know that a diet cheat day leads to a diet cheat week and then the diet is just blown.  We feel like our goal will never be met, so we give up on reaching that goal.

An intention looks more like this: "I will not eat any chocolate today."  If I do eat some chocolate, I can start the next day with a clean slate and new intention.  Make sense?

That said, the 2014 day planner I recently purchased challenged me to set some goals for the year.  I took the opportunity to think of a few large goals and smaller intentions I might set for the new year.

Number 1 is an intention that I set every day, not just for the new year: Greet each day with gratitude.  It is impossible to live a fulfilled life without gratitude for the small things, the big things, everything.

Number 2 is a goal: Less time online; more time with kids.  I will set intentions every day to build habits that achieve the larger goal.  Setting a timer for Internet usage.  Adding 10 minutes to our reading time each day.  Small intentions lead to success and success leads to encouragement and positivity.

Number 3 is probably the hardest of all: Listen more; talk less.  I'm a talker, and I often miss out on vast parts of a conversation because I am so busy thinking about what I should be saying next instead of listening to what the other person is saying.  Part of the process involves quieting my mind as a general rule.  My mind never stops running, and that's a problem.  It causes me stress.  It causes me to miss out on words people are saying.  It causes me sleepless nights.  So, having a quiet mind is also on the goals list.  Hmmm.  This is getting complicated.

I hope you have been inspired to set some intentions in your life. I guarantee that if you can set small intentions you will have much more success and much more joy in your New Year's resolutions.

Namaste.

House Update Part 2

Progress is being made at our house.  We have everything done on our end as far as picking out interior stuff: flooring, counter tops, faucets, etc.  Our last jobs as far as decorating will be paint colors and furnishings.  The house is being ozoned (a process that uses an extra molecule of oxygen to degrade foul odors like smoke).  You will see from the following photos that everything is covered in white sealant.  Once the odor is all removed and the sealant has done its job, the new windows, siding, and soffets will go up.  I really hope the new garage door is installed soon because my house still looks like a boarded up haunted house.  Once the exterior stuff is done the house won't be such an eye sore for my neighbors.

Standing right inside the front door looking down into the garage

Standing at the top of the steps looking into the kitchen

Standing in the living room looking down the hallway

The living room

The front door and (to the left) Brody's room

Another view of the living room

So, life moves on at the Vescapades house.  Every day there is more progress. 

The Place We Call Home

Since sharing photos of the house during its renovations, I thought maybe I should show the little place we call home.  When I tell people we live in a hotel room, I think they picture two full sized beds and a television.  We actually have quite a bit of space, maybe 750 square feet.  We have two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living/dining room, and a small kitchen.

The hotel provides free hot breakfast every day, and Tuesday through Thursday they cater supper.  So, our consumption of processed food has increased, but my cooking time has decreased.  Also, my yoga students have prepared us so many home-cooked meals.  My kitchen doesn't really afford me an oven or the room to prepare the foods I normally prepare, but my yoga friends have brought fish, pot pies, lasagnas, salads, and so much more.  My yoga practice has not only blessed me with a healthy body, but it has also brought fantastic people into my life.

Here is the master bedroom.  That's a queen sized bed, thank goodness.

This is the view into the master bedroom showing you our vanity, closet, and the bathroom door.

Our living room and dining room

The kitchenette

This is the kids' room.  Both of the beds are queen sized.  Dade sleeps on the pull-out sofa in the living room.

The kids have their own bathroom.

And here's our dining room table.  It mostly gets used for the girls' craft projects.

So, that's our little piece of home away from home.  It's pretty cluttered, which drives Colby crazy, but we could definitely be a lot worse off.

So Much For Which To Be Thankful!

Despite being sort of homeless this Thanksgiving, we still enjoyed a pretty amazing holiday.  Our friends flooded us with offers to join them for Thanksgiving dinner. Cooking for six extra people is quite an undertaking, and I felt oodles of love in every offer.  We ended up invading the Thanksgiving dinner of the C Family.  They have kids similar in age to ours, lots of room, and a fondness for all things liberal.  It seemed a perfect match.

And it was!  Mr. C made a pretty amazing turkey.  However, it was his homemade apple pie that stole the show for me.  I'm quite sure I ate about three quarters of it.  That's what he gets for inviting me to dinner.

Soren and one of her besties...Love these two littles so much!

Every photo I took of Evelyn was with a mouthful.  She gets that from her mama.

Our Lady and the Tramp moment with a bun

How many blond kids can we fit into one house?! The answer...at least six!  

Brody and his buddy...more blond kids

Two handsome Vesely boys

We also celebrated Thanksgiving/Christmas with Colby's family.  The weather was ridiculously warm and pleasant which doesn't really set the mood for Christmas spirit.  You know what does set the mood?  Presents.  And there were lots of those.

Soren playing cards with her great grandma

The family tradition continues...lots and lots of cards are played at Vesely gatherings.

Our 3-year-old nephew wanted to take tons and tons of photos.  This one isn't so bad!

The reason he is staring at my tongue and looking angry??  I couldn't roll my tongue into a "hot dog" like he could.

Another funny photo of me and my man

Wanna fight?

Cousins!

One big, happy, THANKFUL family

Brody had some time to watch the Bears game.  Go Bears!

Grandpa and Grandma with their grandkids. 

 As you can see, we have many, many blessings.  We have food, shelter, friends, family, and most importantly we still have all six of the Vescapades clan happy and healthy.  I am thankful every day for my four little turkeys.  

The House: Part One

The question I'm hearing over and over from friends and acquaintances is, "How is everything going with the house?"  So, I though I should start a series on how our house is recovering from the fire.  These photos were taken within a week of the fire which happened on October 28.

You can see the charring on the front of the house under the bedroom windows, and the garage door is replaced with boards.

This is a photo of the stuff inside the dumpster.  Looks like my showers...

So, ceilings aren't usually black, but mine was.  They already had a lot of the walls torn down by this point.

This used to be the living room. 

Here's the kitchen.  You can't tell from the photos, but even inside of the cabinets are black.  The inside of the dishwasher was black.  We didn't dare open the fridge.

You can see where I had decorations hanging on the dining room wall.

This was the upstairs bathroom.

You can see all the way through the house...

Another photo of the kitchen. 

This is the garage.  When I took this photo there was still tons of dust floating around in there which is what made all those little spots in the photo.

Our bedroom was the cleanest room in the house.  You can still see on the wall where photos were hanging.

Another photo from the master bedroom.  Luckily all of our scrapbooks and most of our photos were in here, so most of that stuff is salvageable.

This is the basement bathroom/laundry room, but it is hardly recognizable.

Basement closet

Here is the yoga statue Colby bought me.  It was in the house at the time of the fire, so it is black.  It is made of concrete, so we put it outside to start its new life.  It looks pretty peaceful.  

That's part one of the house's journey.  I will be sure to post updates.