Wanna See Some Giant Balls?

 I went for a walk! I wore a winter coat! And a thing that went around my neck sometimes and around my ears other times. And real mittens, with fleece inside. The temperature is officially at 'my face hurts' level. But it's also sunny and I kind of love it, it feels a bit like pouring grapefruit juice through your head from one ear to the other. We had such a long weird fall that when the wind whipped up you were liable to be smacked by a current of madly whirring snow AND a clutch of elm keys. 

I'm in a pretty good system for decorating. My aim is to get up the stuff I like the most without also having a bunch of bins and boxes also decorating the main floor, so I go down every couple hours and bring up one box, take whatever I want out of it and bring it back down before bringing up another one. I do this all very carefully because I have a constant fear that I'm going to break my neck falling down the stairs when Matt's not here and not be found for days - wait, I guess if I broke my neck it wouldn't really matter if I was found for days. Except for Matt, that would be unpleasant for him. 

Anyway. 

My favourite pieces are out.

The card stocking is up. It is reminding me that I am way behind on my Christmas cards, which is lame because I was so excited that I could actually mail some this year, but oh well, we do what we can. 

There's nothing on the tree yet but it's nice to have it lit. I don't know about you, but my philosophy in December is 'give me all the crap that lights up and give it to me NOW'. I will probably put the generic ornaments on before the kids get home, and then we'll have our decorating session and photo shoot where they put all their personal things on.

I am going to share the most ridiculous thing that is making me so happy right now, which is the result of a not-great thing. So I mentioned that my running shoes and my boots and orthotics all needed to be replaced at once, which is annoying financially but we can afford it, so, grateful. I got new running shoes, got fitted for new orthotics, and remembered my friend Nat had generously given me a pair of Docs that didn't fit her well. 

Both my old running shoes and my old Docs were really tough to get on. I know it's hard to think about how you put on shoes when you're not doing it, but if I'm standing up I lift the shoe up, stick my foot in, pull the back mostly on and then rely on putting my foot down to get it the rest of the way on. This didn't work with my last pair - I would have to bend down or stick my foot on a step or something and really crank my thumb in to not let the back fold over and drive me insane. Similarly with my Docs, it was a real struggle to wrestle them on. I would often be driving to visit my parents and pick up Lucy after work and actually cringe at the thought of having to get my boots off and then back on, with my feet tired and sore after working all day.

BOTH my new Asics and new Docs slip on like a dream. I guess I got a slightly different style of Asics, and Nat's boots are a slightly different style. And oh my goodness it makes a disproportionally big difference to how easy it makes getting ready to leave the house. I used to feel so frustrated and ungainly and like this must somehow be related to being too fat (my feet being too fat? I don't know, self-loathing is complicated). 

Comfort and Joy!

Oh, and lest I be accused of click-baiting...