1. What my brother (Matt) sets his mind to, he 99% of the time accomplishes. (FYI, this was not a surprise, just a big visual of this principle in his life was demonstrated.) Usually in the time frame he expects – the house broke him (for the better); the house was not in his time frame. He decided last year he really wanted to be in their house for Christmas this year. We all pitched in lots over the last couple months. He, his wife, and two girls moved into their new home on December 22nd! We had Christmas Eve with them at their house. I know I am biased, but – he now has the absolutely coolest house EVER!!

Scroll down in his post and you’ll see just a few pictures, I can’t wait for him to do a complete ‘reveal’. Think: steel Ibeams; utility lights; chain link “holding” floors in place; glass floor in the bridge & stair landing. It’ll be a while before he does much on the blog – a few hours ago he landed in the Philippines; his turn to visit Zach & family. It is just two weeks short of two years since my brothers have seen each other.

2. I can plan a successful event. Campaign season has started…in just over a week I made/printed/mailed and emailed invitations and got everything together. I had help with getting some of the decor up in the last minutes, and my 2nd mom (actually my mom’s best friend from college) bailed me out by picking up my son at the dentist. There were two horrible accidents between the fundraiser location and the dentist office that day and getting from point A to point B was not nearly as easy as normal. However, while I was merely inconvenienced, others’ lives were drastically changed, altered, and I believe one ended on that Wednesday, 1 week before Christmas. My heart aches for the families impacted.

3. Did you know, if you apply 3 thin coats of stain with a paint brush it just looks like they’re painted white … unlike 3 thin coats of white stain with a rag? See those really cool stairs in my brother’s house (6th picture down)…. You see, I’d done lots of other staining for him – all with dark walnut. “Lots” on the rag, wipe quick and rub until it’s blended. That day was different, he had to run errands and I was doing white stain. Up until that point we’d been staining with rags. But, he had a paint brush with a milky white substance sitting with the stuff he’d set out for me.

The day after the fundraiser, I went up to Matt’s to finish up the stairs for him – I’d been looking forward to it all week. He had everything set up. I was in a warm house – all by myself. Christmas music playing on Pandora. and all I had to do was mindlessly stain. making sure to cut in carefully, of course. for hours. It was blissful. Perfect recoup for the introvert who had been 150% peopled out after a really stressful day and very full three weeks. I finished the last step & my brother returned. He was shocked at the color. It wasn’t what he’d expected. He asked if I’d done 3 coats. Yep, just 3. When he came, he brought my children with him, then my mom showed up after work. All of a sudden there were lots of us there & we stained until 11pm. About 10p, I realized my son was staining the stair landing. white. with A RAG. so, 7 hours after I finished, I realized what I’d done wrong. The paintbrush so nicely laid out for me? That was for the verathane. … when we left that night, my brother was sanding the stair treads down. The next day they were re-done with a RAG. They still moved into their house on Sunday, the 23rd, as planned. 😀

4. In the first three weeks of December I made one website, redesigned another, and planned a fundraiser — but I still got Christmas presents done! (All gifts but one were made this year.)

5. I can learn to let something be “good enough” and I am getting better at adjusting plans. (psst…it did get easier the more times I adjusted. and no one else seemed to even notice.) I got most of the planned gifts made, even with one less week between Thanksgiving & Christmas. I had to let some things be “good enough”, and in the end I didn’t do EVERYthing I planned, but what I did complete I was happy with. My son received his blanket with the front being 4″ too short on top & bottom (he’s grown about a foot since I bought the material!) and it wasn’t put together — but now I still have a project. 😀

6. This I just learned – I’m so excited!!! I finally figured out how to edit some of the code in a Child Theme. I’m still working on it – I want to know this, but I really, really hate coding. I love seeing the changes when I do actually understand a little bit of what I’m doing, but I’d much rather design :-D.

Another note about December, not really something learned but definitely appreciated. Zach flew home after one month of flying relief. Dave Forney took amazing photos, in this post he talks about the logistics and the organizations that worked together providing relief to extremely remote areas devastated by the typhoon. Again, yes, I am a proud big sister – but I love seeing my brother in his element. (2nd picture in Dave’s post: my bro is the 3rd to the right of the guy in the red t-shirt. Funny God-only-could-have-orchestrated-this note: the one in red and the guy between him & my brother – are three of NTMA’s Philippine pilots, the other two were Matt’s (my other brother) friends at Moody.)

Well – it’s now 11:40pm on the 30th for me. It is still the day for posting ‘what I learned’. Oh well, maybe next month I’ll get it done sooner :-D. Happy New Year’s Eve! I’m hoping to work on a 2013 recap for tomorrow. I really do feel excited for the new year, I don’t remember feeling this way before. …

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Wow!  I can not even believe how long since I’ve stopped to post.  Not because I haven’t wanted to, but.because.I.just.couldn’t.  Now I’m going to ramble lots to catch you up a little bit :-).

First of all, our time at the cabin was AWESOME, cut short {I’ll explain in a minute}, not slow and restful – as anticipated, but just the idea I might get to stay for the month made it worth it.  I miss spending more time there.  We might make it back down this year, but I’m not sure.  I promise to go back and post more pictures from our time, but today I wanted to address 4th of July — and I finally have the moment of time.

So.  I am part of a political family + my dad is a state legislator + this is a campaign year + due to re-districting, dad’s district GREATLY changed this year = I have no “control” of my life this summer.  {I know that I know regardless of campaign status (or not) the illusion of control in my life is delusional – He has a plan, a perfect plan for my life.}

I am campaign manager, designer, organizer, shopper, planner, do’er.  My mom has been my side kick/second half, but for obvious reasons doesn’t want to be the one planning things for her husband.  BUT we make an awesome team – she calls people, talks to people, is capable of small talk, and genuinely is energized and enjoys being in groups/crowds of people.  I do not do any of the previous mentioned things well.At all.  I can design, plan, organize, send an email to nearly a 1,000 people; but, please, please, please – do not make me make phone calls, chit chat, or hang out in a crowd.  This arrangement has worked amazingly well for us.  So, while I say I am the manager, etc – I.could.not.do it without her her being right there too.  As for running a campaign – my dad knows how to do that and he says what he’d like.  I plan it.  Mom helps me orchestrate it & actually pull it off.