Tis the Season?

This is a slate roofing shingle, hand painted with much detail by Mom... At the top of the list, if you look closely, you can kind of see that it looks like the name starts with a K... Kimberlee...

I haven't decorated for Christmas since..well... I guess since 2007... since I moved into this apartment...Christmas 2008... Mom was in the hospital... Christmas 2009, she was gone... and 2010...well.. I just wasn't feeling the whole decorating thing...  However, I have, each year, hung this slate.

My Mom, one year for Christmas, painted a few of these and gave them to some of my close friends... today,  my friend Kris, sent me a text message.. a picture.. of her Santa slate, that she hung today as part of her decorating.  She said she loves hanging it every year and, blaming it on her hormones, shared that she got a little teary putting it up... well... I decided to put mine up too... and  have been tearing up since...

There are so many things in my life to be happy about... other than work, my stress level is pretty low... so sitting here crying seems somewhat dramatic I suppose... but... I miss her...

Betty calls the way things are now... Plan B... not exactly how we all anticipated things to be, but given that things are not as we had anticipated and probably hoped... Plan B is a good place to be... True.  Very very true.  But... I still mourn the loss of Plan A... That does not take anything away from my happiness about Betty and Jacey being in our lives or us being in theirs... it just means it still hurts.

I love having pieces of Mom to hang up, to see, to cherish... but it makes me miss her even more.