Welcome to Kim Kulture Club Musings! I'm so happy that you've decided to join me on this journey. We're going to explore a lot ...
Hey Friends! I was asked by a couple of people to put together a handy-dandy guide to gifts from "The Office". So here you go! Enjoy & shop away!!! (Many of these are on great Cyber Monday deals so don't wait too long!) Each link will take you to a website that has lots of other options to choose from too.
| Presents are the best way to show someone how much you care. It is like this tangible thing that you can point to and say 'Hey man, I love you this many dollars worth.' ~Michael Scott |
Let me preface this blog with a couple of things. First, this was my husband's idea (he has more faith in me than I do sometimes) and second, we're dipping our toes in the "personal" side of our lives a little again. I really do try and keep that separate from the business side of operations for a lot of reasons but this is one of those things where to truly express this sentiment, I need to bring a little of our real lives in.
I'm not going to lie or sugar coat how this year has been. It's been one heck of a ride. We've dealt with isolation. Our family was horribly sick for over 2 months this spring. Covid antibody test was negative (they weren't doing widespread testing for it yet), but I still think it might have been that - I've fought some nasty illnesses in my life (bronchitis, pneumonia, bronchial pneumonia, mono, etc., etc) but NOTHING like that. We've seen the really ugly side of people come out fighting over everything (masks, toilet paper, politics, distancing...everything they could fight about, they have). Vacations, holidays, birthdays were all canceled or drastically changed. As the sole financial support of our family, I lost my job of nearly 7 years this summer (that's a whole other post unto itself) and being high risk, my options for employment in a pandemic are extremely limited. My husband was diagnosed with cancer and underwent surgery 6 weeks ago to remove a 5"x4" tumor, leaving a huge hole in his back that will have to be fixed with a skin graft once it heals a little more. Because of the cancer and the obvious elevated risk to him, we've had to completely redo everything in our lives even more. Our kids are doing school from home (their school planned for the entire first semester at home from the beginning of the school year and has approved them to do it the entire school year if need be).
(I told you I was going to cross the line into personal) It's not been easy. Not even close.
Starting a business from home, in the best of circumstances, is hard. Starting one during this madness, is harder than I can even express. Re-inventing myself when I'm a lot closer to 50 than 40 is a terrifying thing to be doing. There are days I want to just give up, but I can't. I have to keep going, I have to keep working, I have to push myself as hard as I can for as long as I can (24/7 isn't as much of a stretch of the imagination as you think at this point). Here's the thing...I know the instant I give in to the doubt, the fear, the fatigue, the uncertainty...I'm defeated.
What pushes me in those moments (other than knowing I have two kids watching me)? Determination, sure. More than that? Hope. I have to believe that there is value in what I'm doing and I have to have faith that I'm on the right path and I have to hope that it all comes together. Will everything that's happened and continue to happen in our lives ever make sense? I don't know, but I hope it will. Without that hope, everything else falls apart.
Here's the kicker though...how do you find and hold onto hope when it seems like you're at the end of that proverbial rope? Sheer determination can do a lot, but it's not enough. Our family and support system help, but that isn't necessarily enough. Our faith in a Higher Being? Some people can hold onto their belief system to carry them through, but not everyone can. (Remember the second line of this blog? Yeah...one of us in this house is struggling a little more than the other, but that's another story)
Regardless of how much internal fortitude or support you have, sometimes having something extra helps. Sometimes we need to CHOOSE to fill our hearts, our homes, our lives with things that strengthen us and carry us through. We need to be active participants in CHOOSING HOPE.
I started playing Christmas music about a month ago and our tree went up 2 weeks ago. Prior to that, you'd find me constantly listening to the music they pipe into the Disney Parks because it makes me happy. I discovered Disney Ambience music on youtube and it has been a constant source of calm and peace when I've struggled. And I have struggled. A lot. Honestly though, who hasn't this year?
So to help you find ways to strengthen your hope and your heart through this weird, weird time I've put together some suggestions. These aren't your typical "Chocolate can fix anything" solutions (although I've heard it keeps the Dementors away), but things that have more of a lasting impact. I hope you find something that helps. And I hope, if nothing else, we can all come through the remainder of this year full of hope for what comes next, grateful for the time we've had with our families and at peace with whatever is going on around us.
Happiest of Sundays to you friends! I hope this weekend was an enjoyable one for you and you were able to find joy in whatever you did. My sweet kids took it upon themselves to get some Christmas decorations put up outside (they learned a hard lesson about why we check lights before we hang them from the roof, but whether they're lit or not there are lights out there and I love that they did that).
Like every Sunday, we enjoyed a wonderful dinner with my parents and watched a silly movie together. Here are a couple of recipes from our Sunday dinner that I hope you enjoy.
Hi friends! This weekend we changed things up a little with our Sunday Family Dinners. We did it on Saturday to try and lessen the chance of my parents having to drive in the snow. Ha!!! It was snowing when they left Saturday night and here it is, Sunday evening, and it's snowing again. I think someone forgot to tell Mother Nature it's too early for this stuff!
We did a whole Seafood Smorgasbord this weekend. So instead of your "normal" one recipe on Sunday, you're ending up with a whole mess of them. Enjoy! (And shout out to my mom who staged the picture at the top! Notice she put a little shrimp on her chowder and crossed the line into Slumgullion territory? More importantly? She liked my Remoulade and she does NOT do spicy. Ha ha!) Send some feedback. I love to hear from you guys. I really do.
This afternoon I did something I haven't had a chance to do in a long time, I sat down and turned on the TV. It seems like that seldom happens anymore. And with all of these choices available to me what did I choose? I went to YouTube and turned on videos of the Christmas decorations at the Magic Kingdom.
A little while later my husband pulls himself away from the project he's working on, walks in the living room, sits down and asks what I'm watching. I tell him and offer to change it.
Slight diversion here. My honey and I started out our relationship (23 years ago) with polar opposite views of Christmas. I grew up in the family that made a big deal out of the holidays, serving others, being an anonymous Secret Santa to a new family every year, lots of family and friends, decorations, singing, goodies...it was a special time. Even in those years where we didn't have much we still found the joy, the beauty and the magic in Christmas. It never occurred to me that anyone wouldn't feel the same way. Then I got involved with Scrooge himself.
His childhood & family was nothing like mine and his view of Christmas was quite the opposite of mine. I swore someday I'd change his mind. I even went so far as to take him to Disneyland (for his very first visit) for Christmas 4 years into our relationship. The iceberg cracked a little, but I definitely still had my work cut out for me.
Over the years, little by little, he started to come around. Then we had our first son and I made it very clear that our children were going to grow up knowing the magic of Christmas whether he liked it or not. I didn't care if he embraced it, but he wasn't going to ruin it for them. (He never did ruin it.) It didn't take that long to change his mind once he saw it through those sweet little eyes. Once in awhile he still gives me grief over my love of the holidays and he seems to think we can't put decorations up until after Thanksgiving, but it's half-hearted and to be a stinker more than anything.
Fast forward to this afternoon. Instead of changing what I was watching, he sat down and watched it with me. We sat and talked about a lot of things and one thing we talked about was how people were embracing Christmas early this year: sales, lights, decorations, Secret Santas, Christmas Trees going up, movies, Christmas songs...it's not just a few people either - it's wide-spread.
Then he said something that absolutely turned on this lightbulb for me. (I'm never going to live it down when he reads this, huh?) He said this year, more than ever, we need what Christmas is. I asked him what he meant. He said HOPE - the core of Christmas is Christ and people look to Christ for hope.
That started the wheels turning in my head as I realized just how truly, deeply right that is. Think of your own Christmas. What is the hub at the center of your Christmas Wheel formed from? For some it's Jesus Christ, for others it's Santa, for some it's the Spirit of Christmas and for many (including us) it's a combination of all of those. The embodiment of all that is good and right about Christmas is based in the principle of Hope.
Regardless of how the elections turn out, if dinosaurs come marching through our subdivision, aliens invade, giant winged snakes take over New Mexico or what other surprises this year has in store for us, we all need to HOPE for better. We need to feel like this is temporary, this too shall pass. Christmas is the physical expression of that hope.
So my focus is going to be on creating Christmas in our home, our lives, our hearts and I hope that you will too. If you see me in my yard putting up Christmas lights and singing, stop and sing with me. Then go home, turn off the news and put your tree up, make crafts and cookies with your kids.
May you and yours find the HOPE that Christmas brings and may you embrace that and share it with those around you. No, 2020 is not a "normal" year by any stretch of the imagination, but that doesn't mean we can't look forward to the future with HOPE growing in our hearts.
