Christmas Stockings

Our move from Chicago to Cleveland was by far one of the craziest experiences in my life....and I didn't actually lift a single box. I packed almost all of them, but when it came to the physical moving I INSISTED we hire a company to move us. As with most things that I INSIST on, my stance on this subject wasn't even given consideration. You'd think I'd be mad about this (and I mean clearly I have some issues haha) but in this situation it saved us about $4,000. Which you know.....I had just hanging around in my back pocket. The kids and I moved home and stayed with my parents for a few weeks and then with Dave's parents for a few weeks till we could move into our house. Maybe if I'm bored in January I'll actually get around to showing you all the house. 

Back to my point. Our moving was done in stages, and trips back and forth. My Father-in-law and Brother-in-law took a trip, and then my husband and FIL took a trip, I think there was another trip...I don't recall I lost count and lost a few bits of my sanity. Each trip was riddled with problems, amusing stories, and death defying experiences. Running out of gas, typhoons....Can you even experience a typhoon driving through Indiana? During the trip my FIL and BIL made with our stuff the weather was so unbelievably bad that some of our items actually flew off the truck. We are certain we lost a plastic bin, and a basket of which I can't actually place in my mind. 

Two? of our Christmas boxes went flying off the truck as well. The Christmas boxes that were damaged of all things, held our special ornaments, the personalized ones and those reminding us of events or occasions. They also held our stocking holders, picture frame holders that we bought when we first got married. 

My FIL and BIL collected everything they could from the side of the road and had them all drying out in Cleveland by the time I'd seen them. We packaged them all up and moved them into the house, I figured I'd just manage it all once Christmas came around. 

Last week I got everything out and set up, Christmas tree all ready for ornaments and finally looked through the whole box. I kid you not, every special ornament was preserved and in perfect condition. None of them broke, none of them were water logged (like a majority of the packaging). They were all perfect (save the pickle...we lost the pickle and OJ will tell you about it nonstop if you ask her). 

The generic plastic bulbs and old hand me down glass bulbs that we had tons of were all completely destroyed. I swear it must have been some crazy Christmas miracle that we got all our special ornaments here in one piece. 

The stocking holders faired okay for the trip, they need polished which the Martha Stewart in me insists on, and the lazy Lindsey in me won't be doing, but the photos were destroyed. The photos are not a great loss to me; in fact they were downright creepy once they were water logged. We hang a stocking for Jesus because heck it's his birthday! And...well if that creepy water logged photo doesn't put the fear of God in someone I don't know what will. My photo looked like I had some sort of disease; it was all just beautiful. 

Anyway I ordered new photos:

And I've totally realized now....that Dave and I are TOTALLY loosing ourselves to parenthood. I couldn't find one recent picture of the two of us, or of us individually. So our stockings will be: OJ, 3D, 2D&3D, and Me&OJ. My goal for 2012 is to have more photos of just me, and just Dave and just us. This whole 'parenting thing' is SOOOO ridiculous. All these pictures look like we must like these children....which is clearly not the case. 

I'm just outraged.