Nice soap compliments

I got a really nice compliment today. Dahm always talks me up at work - he managed to sell two $30 bags of assorted soaps and bath bombs for stocking stuffers before Christmas. This morning he told me his co-worker said his wife loved everything and was more excited about my products than the $200 earrings he bought her. I always feel nervous when I send my products out into the world to people I don't know - especially when I have literally no specifications on preferences to work with. It was a really nice surprise.

To my mother, who hates Christmas - a "Thank you"

(p.s., the text color on this post is weeeeeiiiird and I don't know why? So... Sorry!)

The very nature of childhood is that one does not have any preconceived notions on what should exist, only the appreciation for each moment as it comes.

Christmas with my family is a magical time for me. The glittering, twinkling of lights in the middle of the night when you sneak out to see if santa has arrived, the sugary splendor from a stocking snagged hours before everyone else has awoken, the drowsy warmth of morning after not being able to sleep the entire night from excitement. Every time I think of it, I can almost hear a twinkling tune of shimmering bells, the kind you hear in all those Christmas movies after a miracle has been delivered.

Oh, the anticipation! Eyes fixated upon the opener of presents, hope and anxious excitement watching the others! Will they enjoy the careful gift planning, and in turn, understand this special moment of our appreciation for them? (Three words: yes, of course!)

And, oh! The handmade ornaments placed on the tree one by one, filled with stories of not only love, but of survival! The absolute smorgasbord of their size and shape: the gifts and memories and symbolism they hold! The simple, tiny tree with button ornaments that stands proudly in a place of honor, preaching in itself a message of determination.

How did they do it? How did they manage to instill such love and gratitude into our hearts each Christmas? The sheer magic of it each year woven by careful hands, the history of our family and all our hopes and dreams, rolled up into a ball of our own brand of perfection. Never mind what my parents thought Christmas ought to be or should have been, each year I relive the absolute happiness of each year previous - finding joy in being a family, my eyes transformed into those of a precious child once more.

It absolutely devastates me to be far from my family during the holiday season. Bitter tears, missing the sweetness of beloved parents and siblings. And missing that sparkle (like literally, thanks string lights!) in each other's eyes. The heartbeat of Christmas proclaiming! We belong together!

We are a unit of people with the exact same type of weirdness as each other. We carved out our own niche of joy in one another through the rough times, celebrated on this day with a certain degree of magic and a special kind of holy, brought together by the love of two parents.

Both of whom very strongly dislike Christmas.

Whoops, I guess I didn't get the memo :)

I kept trying to post this, but it wouldn't work

But then i forget. Here are photos of me post surgery and my teeth. Yay!
First 3 are the day of. Then each of the other photos are the days after while i was still swollen. The socks in the fourth picture are holding bags of frozen chicken broth against my poor, swollen face.
The last teeth photos show my bottom teeth before braces and the already marked improvement that is visible today. I have spacers (little coils of wire) on the top two gaps and one on my bottom right gap. And the tooth that is next to my bottom left gap is being pushed by a spring so a bracket can be put on the tooth it was overlapping. It was weird to have one tooth move completely crazy, but I know the orthodontist knows his job better than I do lol.
I had a surgery post-op appointment a week after surgery and everything is healing nicely. They gave me a thing to wash out the back of my mouth, but until like yesterday, when I investigated further, i didn't know that the holes were still partially open. It is REALLY hard to see them, they're closer to my cheeks than my teeth, and they're pretty small. I thought the stitches closed them up all the way, but no! But at least now I can rinse more accurately.
It is weird having them out. There was always more of a ridge behind my molars, even before the teeth grew far enough in to be taken out. So now a lot of that is gone. And my mouth feels different not only structurally, but texturally as well because of the way I was stitched back together. The gaps are odd as well. The bottom ones are healing much faster than the top ones, and they just have tiny little holes where the teeth used to be.
But the rest of my mouth really does feel better (aside from the absolute weirdness of my teeth moving again from this last adjustment). My braces were pushing my other teeth into the ones that were supposed to get taken out. I wish I could've scheduled the surgery sooner, but they're busy people I guess. It worked out. I got my braces adjusted the monday after the surgery; the orthodontist said it was great because the jaw bone hadn't had enough time to heal and the teeth would be able to move much easier because of that. He said it was perfect timing. So yay me. That was the day I was a vomit comet though, so the appointment took a bit longer than usual because I had to keep taking breaks. But everything has been uphill since then.

What we did yesterday and today

Faux shiplap wall <3 <3 I love it so much.
Make sure to show these to Jack - he helped us tear off the horrid wallpaper!!! <3

Meh soaps

The ugly one is the first one I made, the other is from yesterday