I Still Believe in Santa Claus, And You Should Too

Santa and I have a wonderful relationship. I have never had a negative experience associated with Santa Claus, even when I discovered that *gasp* he wasn't real. And you know why? Because Santa IS real, and you will never convince me otherwise.

Where I grew up, I saw the same Santa Claus every year. I later came to find out that he his name was George, and he went to my Grandma's church. It was she, my wonderful Grandmother, who let slip to me that "George would be doing Santa at Bettianne's this weekend." My young heart stopped for a moment, but I didn't say anything, because I didn't want my Grandma to feel bad for letting it slip. I was a very intuitive child I believe, and I had seen the movies and heard the stories of children's lives being RUINED and parents feeling terrible about it when such a secret was revealed. 

I continued to defend Santa Claus to my elementary friends as if my life depended on it. One friend caught their parents stuffing stockings, and this was still not enough to sway my belief. 

Yet came one Christmas Eve when I lay awake, dealing with my sleep anxiety that I suffered with for years, and I heard a strange rattling in the living room and my parents talking quietly. It sounded like beads clanging against the coffee table. I thought nothing of it then, but when I woke up on Christmas it all clicked. 

I had received a beaded door hanger from "Santa Claus", and it was sitting on the coffee table for me that morning. At that moment, I knew Mom and Dad had put it there, and I knew the Santa from the movies wasn't authentic. 

But I wasn't crushed, I wasn't too sad, I wasn't angry at my parents for lying to me for my entire life. Christmas was still the best. And I began to wonder why I had so adamantly defended Santa's existence much longer than was probably normal. 

And simply put, it was because in my Catholic family, Santa Claus was St. Nick. 

If you've ever seen this movie, Nicholas: The Boy Who Became Santa, then you are a privileged individual! It's fantastic.

My family didn't celebrate St. Nick's Day on December 6th with a treat in our shoes (though someday I will most definitely do this with my children), but it was always taught that Santa Claus was simply St. Nicholas.

I won't get into all of the cultural origins of the Santa Claus of today, but in this movie I learned that throughout his life St. Nicholas secretly gave away many treasures. Most notably, he left sacks of gold in the socks (that were left to dry above the fireplace) of a father who was soon to be forced to sell his daughters into prostitution, saving them from a terrible fate. 

So naturally, this all clicked for me as a kid. I reasoned that by the grace of God and the magic that I was so sure existed in the world, St. Nick started in this way, first inspired by the gifts of the Magi given to Baby Jesus, and simply became more magical as time went on. And of course he had successors who continued on in the same spirit, gaining even more magic each time!

Guess what--I still believe this. I still believe that St. Nicholas's successors carry on his legacy, albeit differently. They're our parents and the mall Santas and the Santas named George from Lamar, Colorado. And I don't quite know how to describe it, but part of me still believes in the Santa that flies in a sleigh pulled by reindeer and slides down a chimney (or uses the special house key you leave out if you don't have a chimney). Perhaps believe isn't the right word; perhaps it's more of a deep yearning or hope that manifests itself as truth in my brain. But I think I believe more in the pure and utter joy that Christmas has always brought me.

So yes, I still believe in Santa Claus. I believe in the legacy of men who gave treasures to Christ, and a Saint who left gifts in the socks of those who needed them, and a magical man rooted in that legacy who gives gifts to children, and the joy that believing in such a being brings to those who embrace it. 

Embrace the joy of Santa Claus, of St. Nicholas, and believe in him too! :)

Reed It And Weep: Renovation Parts 2,3, & 4

Regina and Brandon quickly realized how tedious of a job painting cabinets, knocking out walls, installing floors, painting high ceilings, and installing new appliances was going to be. And oh, were they correct.

Soon after finishing their renovations, Regina also realized how tedious of a job writing out every detail of their renovation would be. So she isn't going to. But here are a ton of pictures and some descriptions of progress and problems! Enjoy! And beware before starting your own renovation project!

Hello, innocent kitchen. We will soon rip you apart.

Hello, mediocre dishwasher, sink, counters, and floors we thought we would keep.

Hello, ugly appliances.

Old slide in stove out, so the back counter and the trim on the bottom had to be cut out to fit our new
free standing range! 

Trying to be organized in the obvious chaos, I put sticky notes on the cabinets
so I knew where all the kitchen items were stored. 

Cabinet doors off to be cleaned! The beautiful oven looks like
 a prom queen in a trailer park after a tornado.

Priming!

Labeling for sanity!

Help from family on our makeshift pallet painting station!

Drying station. Coat 1 of 1 billion.

1st coat!

Kitchen still a mess, 1st coat done.

Small wall=gone! Linoleum ruined in the process. Time for new floors!

3 coats later, kitchen is back to kind of normal! Don't be fooled...it took multiple
weekends to get to this stage.

I considered leaving the counters salmon pink because obviously
they look so fabulous with the white cabinets. Please note the missing ugly vent
 hood above the stove. 

We took off and hauled away the old counters the day before the granite came.
Do you know how many times I almost set a glass of water into the top of one of these drawers?

The fridge camouflages itself in an attempt to be forgotten and not
 doomed to the garage

Beautiful granite being installed. Be still, my heart.

*Tears of joy*

But wait! The sink was supposed to be an undermounted! They cut it wrong! WOE IS ME!

**

**

**The above 2 pictures come after the granite was installed on a Tuesday. As mentioned, the hole for the sink was cut incorrectly. We planed and paid for an undermount sink, and that is not what we got. This started a whole fiasco, where the counter people had to cut the hole larger, buy us a new, bigger sink, and very kindly threw in some free granite back splash to make amends for their mistake! Hey, we didn't complain about that. But it did suck not having a sink until they came to fix things on Saturday. I don't care what you say, washing non-dishwasher safe dishes in the bathtub doesn't seem sanitary to me. You'll also note that we painted the kitchen this gorgeous blue/black/gray color that is fabulous.

We lived in the new house for almost 6 weeks without a microwave! Baking? Better put your butter in the toaster oven for 10 minutes to warm/soften it for brownies. In a rush and need to eat some leftovers for lunch quickly? EAT THEM COLD LIKE AN ANIMAL. Accidentally let your coffee go cold? Sucks for you. Forgot to leave some meat out to defrost for dinner? Cereal. Microwaves are the backbone of this country, and you will never convince me otherwise.

Getting ours was quite the adventure. We were told that to hire an electrician to wire an outlet for an above the range microwave would be $300!!!!! So we said, hey, let's just get an on the COUNTER microwave! 

Well, after waiting FOREVER, our counter top microwave arrived. Or shall I say, it sailed in BECAUSE IT WAS AS BIG AS A BOAT. Please look at the picture of the stove--the microwave was literally as big and square as the top of that. No joke, it could sit on the stove and completely cover it. 

We moved it around the kitchen to find a suitable place for it, but the only place that microwave should have gone was the ice age, because it was as big as a mammoth. 

So what did we do? Brandon became an electrician and expertly wired an outlet above the stove so we could get an over the range microwave like every other normal house in America. This also meant cutting the cabinet above there in half. So we now have a beautiful, normal size microwave and a miniature cabinet to store the world's tiniest violin that I would play sad songs on every time something else went wrong in the kitchen. 

Oh--that's the other thing. Once we victoriously installed the microwave, we ceremoniously turned it on and it popped the breaker for the entire kitchen/living area! That's another electrical adventure that we actually resolved rather quickly. For once. :) 

Then we moved on to the floors that we never planned on doing! 

Ripping up carpet!!

So much wall to paint.

Painting the ceilings broke my neck.

Note our pile of flooring yet to be put down before the painting is finished.

You can't tell in the picture, but the entry way of the house is SUPER TALL!
And painting it waaaaayyyyyy up high took about 11 years off of my life. The worst.

Beautiful floors throughout the main floor, and pulls added to the finished cabinets and drawers! 

Done just in time to host Thanksgiving. :)

In the end, all the struggles and work were of course worth it. We have so much--almost too much--to be thankful for. As nice as the final outcome is, we won't be doing any big projects again for a while! My brain hurts just thinking of that. 

Before.

Transformed :)

Reed It And Weep: A Four Part Tale of House Renovations

Buckle in, dear friends, because today I'm going to start a novel in parts titled,  Reed It And Weep: A Four Part Tale of House Renovations 

In this epic young adult novel, you'll follow Regina and Brandon as they pursue an exciting kitchen adventure in the rainy, sun deprived Olympia, Washington. They'll experience hardship, rage, and an emotional rollercoaster propelled by exhaustion and fast food. At some points all hope will seem lost, but with the help of friends and some luck,plus 1 Bazillion trips to Lowe's, the haggard couple will come out the other side forever changed. 

Chapter 1

Brandon and Regina walked through the empty house with big, naive eyes. It was in great condition, having been well taken care of since it's construction in 1989. There was a green yard for the dogs to run and play, a sprinkler system to keep said yard looking nice, and a beautiful garage to protect both vehicles from the rain. The price was right, and it would be fun to gradually update some of the dated hinges, doors, baseboards, and other small things here and there. Both were thinking the same thing--they wanted to buy this house. They went into the kitchen and it gleamed at them. It was clean and well maintained, but it would definitely need to be changed right away.

A well maintained, yet dated kitchen.

"It's not so bad!" Regina exclaimed as she slid her hands across the salmon pink countertops from the late 80s. "We can just replace the counters, and the cabinets are in great shape." Her voice trailed off as she said this, realizing the stain on the cabinets wasn't very appealing.

"And some new appliances, obviously," Brandon added, eyeing the almond colored dishwasher and oven.

"Right. And I bet we could paint the cabinets white!"

"With dark appliances."

Their eyes bulged in excitement and they simultaneously jumped into the air, high fived, and shouted, "WE'LL TAKE IT!!!"

Somewhere in the distance, the kitchen reno fairies chuckled and prepared their evil pixie dust.

Chapter 2: Appliances Schmappliances

Regina and Brandon moved into their first home without delay. Moving was easy. Beginning to unpack went smoothly. And soon came the day that the Lowe's truck pulled up to the house on a Sunday morning with an oven range, a dishwasher, and a refrigerator in lovely black stainless steal. The microwave was ordered, but that's another chapter of its own.

Woe on this day.

The fridge was installed, and Brandon stood gazing at it with joy when suddenly, he didn't recognize it. The inside wasn't supposed to be that color. Where was the "showcase" door? Where was the slim drawer above the freezer to store deli platters and cheese plates?! THEY DELIVERED THE WRONG FRIDGE! Not only that, but the door scraped against the left wall when it opened.

That won't do. That won't do at all.

He picked up the phone and discovered that the boy with long eyelashes who put in the order at Lowe's messed up. The fridge that the young couple thought they ordered didn't come in the size they needed. AND NOW THE SALE WAS OVER! And to get the fridge they so desperately desired, a small wall to the left would need removed.

Brandon looked at Regina. She shrugged in dismay.

"Order the new fridge, and I'll come to the store to discuss the sale price with the manager," said Brandon into the phone. He hung up and then turned to his wife.

"Looks like we're knocking out a wall."

Regina smiled because knocking down walls on HGTV's Fixer Upper always looks so fun! #demoday

After quick fixing (at least in their heads) the fridge problem, Brandon and Regina proceeded to install the dishwasher. The hole was the perfect fit and slid in easily. Until, alas, it would budge no more! It was sticking out a good inch from where it needed to be, and the still bright eyed couple realized that the copper piping stuck out too far for the new fancy dishwasher to fit. The pipe stabbed the dishwasher in the back, literally, and stabbed the couple in the back metaphorically.

Brandon had to cut the pipe shorter, because why the heck was it even sticking out that much in the first place? And then to make sure it wasn't leaking they had to tape it up and then pull the dishwasher out of its spot every day or so to make sure there was no leak that would slowly rot away back there for the next 20 years. Luckily, Brandon was a great handyman, and there was no leak! The dishwasher was in, and there were only 3 more appliances, granite counter tops, and painted cabinets to cause problems and make Brandon and Regina wish they had never been born.
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Stay tuned for the following chapters on knocking out that pesky wall, painting those pesky cabinets, and the fiasco that new granite countertops caused for the once naive and bright eyed couple!