I'm done with resolutions, so here is my New Years Aspiration!

Step on scale:
I really need to lose some weight. No, that would require eating less and exercising more. Ignore that annoying voice.

Step on scale next day:
I really need to lose some weight. Maybe if I just lock myself in my bedroom with the TV and a bag of chocolate the weight will go away, right? Oh well.

Again with the scale:
I need to lose thirty pounds. Maybe I should try for twenty first. Well, maybe ten is a more friendly number. I guess I'll have to eat less and exercise more. But if I quit eating when I'm not hungry, what will I do when I'm bored? And I don't have time to exercise. I'm so busy . . . blogging. It would be so convenient if rather than lose weight, I could just misplace it. I misplace my keys and glasses all the time with no inconvenience or trouble whatsoever.

Hello scale, my old nemesis. I really need to lose some weight. Oh, now I need to lose more than I needed to lose yesterday. How delightful. You know what else is delightful? That bag of chocolate Dove chocolates my daughter gave me for Christmas. I haven't had one of those today. I'm off to the kitchen.

…and this is working for me how?

What kind of resolution/aspirations are you all cooking up for the year?

2010 Christmas Letter

As usual I never got around to sending out Christmas cards this year, but I did write a Christmas letter. I doubt I will actually mail it, but I figure I'll post it in all it's cliched glory...

Dear Random Family Member and/or Friend Who Happens to get This Card (because I love you and stuff but am too lazy to individually address this many letters).

It is the final stretch here at Casa De Ellis. I'm hoping to get this in the mail prior to Christmas, but in the past five years it hasn't happened...but who knows. So in that case, Merry Christmas, possibly Happy New Year, but if things go as I rather expect they will - Happy Valentines Day!

Our family has been rather busy this year. What have we been up to? I am so glad you asked. Most of the grand-kids have been accepted into MENSA, Mckinley danced Clara in the Nutcracker. The reviews were amazing, and she has been invited to dance with Ballet West on a continuing basis. James is in talks with NASA to be a consultant for the 2011 year and Brooke will be studying the whole drama Queen thing with Julliard. Paige is modeling for Vicki's for their new children's line and looks so cute in her wings. Parker is keeping busy working out at the gym. He is touted to be the youngest male gymnast at the 2012 Olympics. I have been taking phone calls from agents who would like to represent Treagan and Riley as well. Preston and Kaden have been involved in a variety of humanitarian service projects, including helping to fetch and carry bricks and mortar for Habitat for Humanity. They will be starting a new foundation that includes furnishing a coat for every child on the globe as well as ending world hunger.

No, I'm totally lying. I just figured stretching the truth is what people typically do in Christmas letters, might as well make them really GOOD lies, right?

Honestly, I do have a wonderful family. My children and grand-kids are my life. The grand-kids all have learned to bat their eyelashes at Grammy and get whatever they want.

Basically for myself this year, I have made not having my stuff together my goal for 2010 and I am so very proud to announce I have succeeded. Maybe this new years resolution thing isn't so bad - I just need to be careful about 'what' goals I choose.

I know I don't very often share my serious thoughts, and things I know to be true. But it has been a season of love and sharing around here and I would feel ungrateful if I didn't take this opportunity to share a few of my thoughts. I know that my Savior, Jesus Christs, lives and that he loves me unconditionally. I see his influence every day in my life. It appears in the faces of friends, the hugs of grandchildren, the thoughtfulness of my children, the love I see in my home and in the homes of my children and their families. He is, simply put love in its greatest, most selfless form.

During this season of presents and things and rushing and food and family and friends and light, I must take a moment to acknowledge the greatest light in my life: my knowledge of who I am and what my purpose is in this life. I am here to get better at being me. And this me is an eternal being created by a loving Father and Mother. And the individual who makes it possible for me to improve, to dust off my knees after each stupid mistake is my brother, my Savior, Jesus Christ. During this season, I celebrate Him. For where would I be without Him? In this world so often enfolded with darkness, He is my light.

I hope you have/had a great Christmas. Mine will be wonderful, because I get to spend it with friends and family. And ya know - the presents will be opened in 20 minutes, broken or lost in 24 hours, but the memories, they’ll last forever. Sniff.

With love...

Looking for my Match

As I was growing up, we had a basket that sat atop the dryer in the garage. It was filled with socks. Baby socks, sports socks, my dads socks, white(ish)socks, and striped socks. Socks, and socks and more socks...I mean this basket was huge!

Every month or so, my lovely mother would get the itch for a 'Super Chore Day'. Along with the usual mopping, cleaning out the toy boxes, bathrooms, and yard work the most dreaded chore of all would inevitably show up: the sock basket was dumped in the living-room and it's contents were to be sorted into mates.

It was, at the very least, a dreaded job. Sure, you were occasionally paid a penny a pair, but once started, you were stuck until the basket was emptied and mom was sure that there were no additional mates. Year after year the baskets contents grew. Some of the socks as old as the basket itself, others, the dryer and gym lockers of the world had swallowed up the mates whole. Even still, I was sure that some socks just disappeared into thin air. Today, I throw those lonely socks away if the mate doesn't show up in the next round of laundry. But back them, my frugal father never allowed us to throw away a thing. He held out hope that one day the missing socks might return.

I seem to remember a small yellow baby sock with lace haunting the wonder years of my childhood.

You know where this is heading, I'm guessing, this sock story of mine. But then, maybe you don't fully understand. You see, I've been thinking how very much I feel like a faithful member of the mate-less-sock basket. I have not enjoyed being a matchless sock, and have recently begin to feel the need to pull out the basket and begin looking for my mate.

In the past I have tried to have put a blue sock with a black sock, and in the right light I pulled it off, it took a while to see the truth--that it wasn't a perfect pair. Now, at my age the sock basket has significantly dwindled. The left over socks have started to look like some quirky modern art collection. As I begin to attend single events I can't help but wonder "Where did the basket gather so many strange socks?" There's a pink fuzzy house sock with a novelty pink Easter sock featuring a carrot. But while both socks might be pink, yes, who could stand to spend a day in such attire?

So I have jumped in the dating pool and unfortunately this poor fishnet socking sat at dinner with a leg warmer and it was every bit as awkward as you might imagine. So the fishnet and the leg warmer were again returned to the mismatched sock basket atop the dryer to sit and wait. Meanwhile, I can't help but wonder if the other fishnet is hiding in the back drawer somewhere waiting to be discovered and reunited with its mate.

New Endeavors

I don't know what, exactly, one writes on a blog.
Do I reveal my deepest darkest secrets?(Yes, I do have them!)
Do I post a stream-of-unconscious ramblings ?
Do I divide into topics and subtopics and sub-subtopics?
I've never blogged before.
I'm clueless.
In the past I've thought blogs were, well, kind of strange, kind of narcissistic.
Maybe a little entertaining.
As a means of keeping up with friends and loved ones, I think it is perfect.
Much more aesthetically pleasing than the email--more photos, more info, more creativity.

So here is my great hypocrisy--I've got to swallow my former beliefs on blogging because I want to try this myself.

I, Julie, am creating my first ever blog.

Call me narcissistic.

I'm still gonna try it.

So, here goes nothin'. I hope you enjoy.