A little cheese with that whine?

I have seriously been put to shame. Spanked. Settled in the corner to 'think' about my actions of late. I have been whining about being bored. Whining about having nothing to look forward to any more. Whining about the futility of my day to day activities and chores. Not thinking outside of my little world like I should be.

During a recent online conversation, my sister responded with 'it's getting to be that time of year for you, isn't it?' How could I have forgotten?

I hate the holidays. I hate the money that is spent. I hate the feeling that I have not 'given' enough. And I have always been totally torn about where to spend them, how and with whom. When my stepdaughters were smaller there was no question. Whenever we had them we spend that time with my husband's family. Christmas Eve one year. Christmas Day the next. My sister would drag her husband and kids from their warm southern climate to our ice and snow to be with my parents and us. My steps became teenagers and the decisions about where they spent holidays was no longer ours. Our son came along and there was even more incentive to spend holidays with my far flung family. My parents moved south and traveling during the holidays became expensive....and necessary. My daughter arrived from Russia, I became a part time teacher and the money was no longer there to travel with four. My sister's family decided to spend holidays at their home and we all snagged bits of time here and there to be together. And I hate the holidays.

But today I logged on and started transversing my favorite blog sites. At the Eleventh I saw my cutie, Rabbit, in her Halloween costume and at Blood Signs, my comrade in stepmomhood was lamenting about steppers finding their 'place' on kid holidays (you're lucky P...we very rarely had the girls on Halloween but I have made several of their costumes.) At Snacks Please, it was a delightful rundown of the new vocabulary of my favorite baby girls and their big sister. ( I want them....seriously. ) But it was when I logged on to The Pioneer Woman that I was taken aback. The Marlboro Man and her two oldest punks are headed for a week in the Dominican Republic to see the work being done by Compassion International.

I have been trying to get our finances in order this month. We have more money coming into the house because of my return to an almost full time position. I sent a donation to Shaohannah's Hope, the Chapman Family's program for adoption. It was the money we got back for our tickets when we couldn't attend the rescheduled concert of last summer. Adoption is important to us. I know we will contribute there again. I signed us up to give monthly to Mercy Corps's hunger program once again. I also wanted to start sponsoring a child some where. You know...send money to the program and letters of encouragement to a kid. I figured mine are old enough to be involved as well. I had been twiddling about where...which program to use. There are so many to choose from. The Pioneer Woman's post was perfect timing.

So now my already international family has ties with one more country....Korea, Russia and the Dominican Republic. We are sponsoring an older boy because we figured - like with adoption - the older ones tend to be overlooked. Anthony is 10 and a soccer playing dude like the rest of my children. Soccer? Gads. You'd think I would have learned......