Someone asked Ally this week what she wanted to be when she grew up. An innocent question to engage a child and far better than telling a little girl she looks pretty. But I quietly bit my tongue and shuddered. I think it would be a special kind of hell if a child knew what they wanted to be when they were nine. We are verbs, not nouns. If you think of yourself solely as a noun, you are putting yourself in a corner. And no one puts Baby in a corner!

I want to be, and I want my kids to be, people that do things and if they don’t know exactly what they are going to do next that is quite okay. Too many people think they need to know who they are and what they are before they act. Please, no. Writing, religion, life, art, creativity. None of it has to do with doctrine or belief. It’s about action. It’s about practice. Do the thing and then figure it out.

The writer Mary Karr was once asked to make a case for religion. Her response? “Why don’t you just pray for 30 days and see if your life gets better?”

I love that. And it applies to far more than just faith. It’s about the practice, the discovery, the action.

Be a verb, not a noun, girls.

And after preaching action…. we mostly stayed in the house all day. It was a long week. When Michelle comes home on a Friday night with not one, but four pints of Ben & Jerry’s, it sets a tone.

I anticipate seeing this face from Ce 90% of the time for the next seven years.

I am sure there were things I wanted or collected as a kid that my parents didn’t understand. Maybe not. I really only wanted flash cards and books. Maybe baseball cards? But there is a secondary market for those. I made a profit.

I cannot understand the current fascination with fidget toys and putty.

This is always gives me hope we can still teach him to use a toilet.

Sometimes I walk by a room and Ally is deep is some project and I find it best to just keep walking. This one involved lights, and mints, and stale marshmallows.

A lot of great cards this year. The trend seems to be larger, or funky sizes. I’m always freaked out by these. I fear extra postage requirements and actually having to go into the local post office. You could lose a whole Saturday in there.

Transfer Station holiday hours. Not open Christmas or New Years, but just about every other day in between.

Christmas carols was the soundtrack in the big house on a busy and wet trip. Mommy was kissing Santa Clause. Wasn’t Santa married? I think the diocese was right to ban this filth.

Just like I used to make flash cards for Michelle back in college (I really knew how to court ’em), I’m now teaching Ce what it takes to be a flash card black belt.

She is taking issue that my cards are more ‘note’ cards and not ‘flash’ cards due to the amount of information on them. I told her she’ll need both for passing the bar exam.

Either way, we are both learning all about the Roman empire. Seems like a good excuse to go back to Italy.

We made it approximately 43 seconds into Cinderella’s Christmas Wish before I pulled the plug to save us all.

The rest of the day was spent with Mary and Paul and a marathon of classic Christmas masterclass episodes.

And Ben & Jerry’s, of course.