Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

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Originally uploaded by ..Kristen...

Love from all the Roedners

The Week after Christmas and Anticipating Change

I can hear you. I can hear you ask, "Why don't you write any more?" And the answer is things have been crazy busy in the Faux-Toes department getting everybody's holiday photo on for size. And taking care of Amy's twins on Tuesdays and Thursdays and then it was the week before Christmas when running errands becomes a cruel joke of survival of the fittest. It is the hardest thing to keep focused on the real reason for the season. It's easy to get caught up in the wrapping paper and tape and ribbons and bows. Not to mention the bank account. I don't know how we would have gotten through Faux-Toes crazy season if Don hadn't been home these last few months. Soon everything will be changing in our world. Don goes back to work after seven months at home. Seven months in the eyes of toddler is as far back as she can remember. I'm excited for change but I want to do better, be better and set some attainable goals: Like real weekly dinner planning and working out on a regular schedule to be fit and have energy and lose the weight that's found it's way to my hips over the last stressful time. I have joined Beachbody as a Coach to add accountability on this front. Would love to have you join me on the path to fitness. Ask me how! I have big goals for my Faux-Toes business, too. We're planning a shoot tour and hopefully my sidekicks will be able to travel, too... Houston, Dallas, Nashville and Boston. Other locations are under consideration. So if it seems like an overhaul on goals and ideals, well it is... but after 2008 and the craziness that ensued... it's the least we can do for 2009. I'm taking tips and recipe ideas for homecooked dinners. So post your ideas now... don't be shy! :-)
Here's to what is sure to be the most amazing year yet! Hang on to your hats!!

And Life Goes On...

As a celebrator of life and individuality I enjoy spending time around the family during the holidays. I try to savor every minute with what are now our elders, which is really my parent's generation. I lost both sets of grandparents years ago through debilitating disease like Alzheimer's and Parkingson's. But seeing my nephew who looks just like my grandfather, it begs the question if he also acts the same. I'm dying to *really* know how our grandparents and so on and so forth acted as a child. I don't know if it's just me, but I'd love to have seen the toddler President George Bush. I just think it would be hilarious and so telling. So insightful to the person they are today. My grandmother with Alzheimer's lived with us during my tumultuous high school years. She'd always ask me if I was really going to wear my hair (longer on one side)like that, and if I was really going to leave the house in that outfit. She also always wanted "a little bit of color: on her dinner plate. which meant she really wanted some kind of brightly/artificially colored Jello salad concoction on her plate. I think of her often and feel sad that I really never did "know" her b/c by the time I was of age to know her, she'd already lost most of her personality. Still I was thinking of her this morning as I dressed as brightly as a rainbow. I wonder if she also loved colorful clothes and if I got that from her.

I like to think so. Happy Thanksgiving... belatedly, but with a very full heart.