my room is stiffling. too hot to go back to sleep. i find this a little bit tragic. the rest of the house is cool and comfortable. i think esther and tanya turned the heat up when they were in there chatting yesterday. somebody did anyways, and it wasn't me. add to the heat a little bit of the crampolas and a sore neck, and voila, you've got a person who can't go back to sleep despite being desperately tired.

my neck is actually a lot better though. it's just stiffer in the morning. i mean, i have mobility back for the most part. it just gets sore and tires easily if i do a neck straining activity. like i still have a big knot at the base of my neck on the right hand side. as soon as i arrived here on the 20th, dad had me lay down on the living room floor on my back. "why? what are you going to do?" i asked feeling a little bit nervous. "just lie down." he said with stubborn confidence. "what. i don't get to know what you're going to do? i just lie down?" "well you don't have to do it, if you don't trust me." i could see this was going to be a case of blind faith. mom decided to be the intermediarry and said "he's probably just going to stretch it out. that's what you're going to do isn't it doug?" he didn't answer, but i lay down anyways. well yes. it was stretching. he knelt above my head and grabbed my jaw and pulled. he pulled and pulled. i was worred my jaw was going to snap in two or something. after that i was still in pretty bad shape, but i thought i might have been able to move with a little more ease. a couple of days later i was sitting here, typing and he asked about my neck. "still sore?" he seemed surprised. so he put his massive forearm around my neck and lifted up. a few times i had to stop him from strangling me. i managed to gasp an alarmed "i can't breathe!" before it was too late. "well take a deep breath!" said dad, a little annoyed at the interruption of his work. i took a huge breath and hoped for the best. then as he lifted up again he instructed "you aren't supposed to lift up with me, you're supposed to hang from my arm." that's how you hang people i thought as i clutched wildly at his arm until he released me. "dad, you can't crush my windpipe." i explained. so he made an adjustment and stretched some more and it felt like it helped. in a couple more days, like on christmas eve, i was a lot better. i could sleep in other positions and turn around fully to look behind when i was backing out, so that's the story of that.

mom got dad a key finder. you whistle and it beeps. he just showed me, and demonstrated the whistle to beep process. karen got mom a key finder. i can see some satisfying whistle beep mix ups happening. attempts to organize or fight the chaos that is this family can turn into more chaos. the chaos just eats it up. swallows it with a big burp. for example, when we go caroling, we usually just go in a big caravan. you follow the car in front of you and so on. well on occassion we've lost part of the caravan on route somewhere. actually i can only remember that happening once. so anyways this year someone thought we could be organized. ha. they made a list ahead of time of places to go to, and put it in order of how we would go. well what was born of this attempt to reign in the chaos? more chaos. nobody followed anybody, and dad made additions to the list, but not everybody heard him, so some people went to the addition and others went to the next place, and they took some people off the list, and people got lost... it was the worst case of any year! sigh. i hope we go back to the old way next year. the problem with our family is that we all have opinions and we all argue our point.

bethany was the first to bed on christmas eve. amay stayed up making pillows and wrapping gifts in odd places. layne and tanya also stayed up. i went to bed around one thirty. but woke up at two when speshulamay arrived. bethany woke me and the christmas pea up at five forty. she can be a meanbean. even on christmas. our stockings held many a delight, mine especially. this was a christmas when i recieved my request of lovin puuuuuuuuuure lovin in abundance in stocking and under the tree. when sarah and kyle arrived, we were ready. we all went in to the tree. but we had to wait for mom and dad who needed to do the turkey right at that very moment. this induced a long chorus of "common mum, common dad!" from us, sung and called out in many a way. when mom and dad were finally done, we had to wait for layne and his boys. what's wrong with kids at christmas? they have to be woken up?? so anyways, we finally got everyone together and it was a fun morning, seeing how everyone liked their presents. one of my presents from amy was wrapped in the lamp. one was wrapped the the piano stool and one to the arm of the lazy boy, but the best one, was the one that hung like a pendulum from the coffee table. note to my peeps: i got a new cell phone with a new number, so if you need it, ask me for it.

last night i played some rook with dad and kyle and dough, but dad and i got crummy hands on the most part. it was the kind of rook that leaves you unsatisfied because you're always waiting for a good hand to come along and it doesn't. then we played cranium adding katie, brent, esther and evan. at times the background din of noise was deafening. when everyone went home i sat, exhausted again, in a chair listening to the silence. the din is created by the sheer amount of people gathered together, children's screams and laughter and whinning, ethan's loud debates, a piano playing, and many different conversations going on everywhere, add to that a loud talking brent, and evan, and kyle's incessant tapping at our table. it was the tapping that finally put me over the edge. i had to tell kyle to stop or i would go crazy. funny that that was the straw to break the camel's back.

now it's sunday and my hair is yucky. it's been yucky since last sunday. what to do about it?