Crunch Time (Part One)

Tomorrow morning we have our rendezvous with Ned. 

He's our accountant, and we've been with him for many years.    He's the one who genuinely thrills over all our dependents, who has watched our vehicular size grow with our family, and who has helped us make sense of each year's crumpled Wal-mart receipts and Aldi lists.

Correction:  piles and piles of receipts.  And checkbook registers.  And calendar notations of daycare income and attendance.  And proofs of purchase, valid vouchers, sales slips and stubs.  Yep.  It's all there.  Our 2009 lives, in one big box.

Ned likes seeing us because he gets the "Annual Big Picture" of our lives.  He also gets the paper thin computer report that summarizes it.
I'm left preparing that report from the quagmire of "proof" of how we lived it.

I really struggle with all this.  In fact, I mostly dread it.

It's not that I fear looking at the reality of the Sieve of my Checkbook, or how much we don't put into savings, or how our emergency fund is drained every month, usually via the plumbers, or mechanics, or doctors.  (Kel can do a lot of things like build and lead and cook and clean... if only he could prescribe!  Sigh.)

The struggle is that I'm the one who sorts, organizes, and enters all this data into the computer.  That's a Big Ugh.

Because of my daycare, I use a Quickbooks program that allows me to take each receipt and catagorize it by various line items... like "Paper Goods", "Cleaning Products", or "Lawn and Garden", all of which are relevant to the "bottom line" of our taxable income status.  This takes a lot of time!

Forgive my sour mood, but what I really need are categories like "Stuff", "Crap", and "Things We Impulsively Bought But Never Should Have Left the Store With".  Surely the IRS would understand these universal designations!

So now you know; the only reason I even blog is so I don't have to deal with the data entry of receipts. 

Wanna  see a cute picture of my kid????

Eye Blinks

I noticed by chance today that I need to flip my calendar month to February... and I am still a long way away from not misprinting 2-0-1-0 on my checks.  And in the blink of an eye, I've lost blogging about the end of 2009 and the whole start of 2010. 

I've missed sharing a really great story about getting a professional family portrait taken the week of Christmas.  It was a HUGE accomplishment, but I'll definitely save that story, and the photo, for another time. 

I could have written several blogs about families and Christmas... like what it takes to get our family to Christmas Eve Mass, the dinner we share when we get home, and the gift-giving afterwards. 

Many people think that with all these kids our house must be madness during present time.  But on Christmas Eve, the children get a gift from a sibling who drew their name weeks before, and a gift from their parents.  That's it... really!  And their gift from us?  Well, if we can pull it off, it's their hearts' desire (within reason!).  Birthdays might be a Shell gas card and a case of favorite pop.  But Christmas.... well, Christmas is truly special (and truthfully, it doesn't happen without a sprinkle of "magic" that even I can't explain.  "Blessings", pure and simple).

Go ahead and call us selfish, but many years ago, Kel and I decided that WE wanted to give them "the big gift".  We got tired of the guy in the red suit getting credit for all that good stuff.  Afterall, he never needs to fight for parking spots and stand in long lines!  

When the kids open the gift that says, "Love, Mom and Dad", they know it's not Santa doing the scrimping and saving and sacrificing.  (And it works wonderfully in our favor when we've told them "No" to something; we don't hear "Well, I'll just ask Santa for it!") 

Pictures speak for themselves in explaining their joy when big kids get their hearts' desire, and babies get babies, which is their hearts' desire. 

So, it's a good thing we have these pictures, because after months of preparing, it's over in a blink of an eye.

But there's more... there's always more.  Afterall, Christmas truly is not about the gifts and the stuff.

Since December 22nd and my last blog entry, we created faces for Mimi's poor faceless yard decorations. (We also gave her a whole stack of other angelic grandkids so she can switch them out anytime!)

We got to spend time with Big cousins and Little Cousins.

And we said Goodbye to cousins who moved far far away.

And with them, my sister and our fun-loving brother-in-law.  We already miss them.

We rang in the New Year and a new decade with friends we have known for ages, who have joined us year after year despite the fact that there is increasingly less room at the game table.  Our kids invite friends of their own and it ends up being a raucously good time.  We love their playfulness, and we love watching them grow up.  It happens in the blink of an eye. 

It doesn't go unnoticed that we end one year feeling immensely blessed, and start the next one feeling even more so. 

 Since my last blog, the extended Krenz Family said goodbye to our snowbird grandparents and sent them off with a new GPS and enough peanut M&Ms to get to Florida.  First, however, we were treated to newly found home movies of camping trips and early attempts at cinematography.  Who knew Kel could, at such a young age, produce-direct-and star in such a dramatic tale of dog attacks and severed limbs?  We laughed at the hilarious "fashions" too.  You know, filming those home movies just didn't seem that long ago.  Blink of an eye. 

We united the Big Sky of Montana and East coast New Jersey with a gathering of college friends in suburban Chicago.  We shared sorrow and loss, and celebrated engagement and hope.  That we can all see each other once in a few years and literally pick up where we left off is a testament to... well, I don't know what it's a testament to.  All I know is these people will always have a significant place in my heart because they've always been there... for decades.  

A blink of an eye. 

We helped observe the first birthday of a dear Goddaughter, went sledding on the closest hill in Chenoa (the overpass), built an ice rink, and hosted a "Slide on the Ice" party in subzero weather under a big moon and oudoor lighting.  8 adults, 25 children.  No one complained about the cold.  Afterwards we had to have rootbeer floats because it was also Report Card Day, and we always have rootbeer floats on Report Card Day.  We do this just 4 times a year, but it seems like just yesterday when were were last slurpin' suds. 

A blink of an eye.

   

Since the last blog, we clowned around at home, made batches and batches of chocolate chip cookies, and limbo-ed at a family dance celebrating Catholic Schools Week.  One daughter legitimately took second place!  Could you guess which one?

We also clowned around with some real clowns at the Illinois Association of Agricultural Fairs held at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Springfield.  We've never attended this before... never had a reason to.  But this year we did (with a whole posse of support), because Kieran was chosen last summer to represent Fairbury in the Junior Division of the talent competition.  Was that already 6 months ago?  Blink of an eye.  I must add, from a tremendously subjective point of view, not only was Kieran stunning, but her voice was simply radiant.  I won't ever hear "Think of Me" from Phantom of the Opera, without thinking of her.

I must note that it has not even been 6 weeks since my last blog, and in that time we have lived a lot of life.  Do we look tired?  Even so, we are not without perspective.  Just recently we received a letter translated from Spanish from a special Guatemalan boy named Juan. This little first grader is included in the salutation of our bed-time prayers every night ("God Bless momdadbrennancamdenallykieranmaddiemerrynandyfinanrosieand juan..."), and we keep his picture on a wall in the hub of our house.  Right next to his photo is a special cross from Mexico, given to us years ago by a dear friend, Fr. Terry.  We haven't seen him in forever, but it feels like just yesterday he was helping us in the wee hours of Christmas morning, assembling toys and filling stockings... and when his dogs, Angel and Jude, ate all the chocolate out of those stockings.  His out-of-the-blue phone call just a few weeks ago brought back a flood of love.  And next to that cross, and that picture, is a little heart embossed with the words, "The most important things in life... aren't things."

Now, this is what we are really trying to live...

in the blink of an eye.