Today I am... Reflective. Nostalgic. Thankful.

It is the one-year anniversary of my father's passing. One year ago today we experienced tragic loss when a brain tumor took my dad after a mere 5 and a half weeks after his diagnosis with Glioblastoma - the Tsunami of brain Cancer.

It seems like yesterday and it seems like 5 years ago that all of this happened. The images are blurry and truncated and edited haphazardly in my mind. But the mind, ironically as we're discussing, is an amazing instrument. My brain conjured up a moment-by-moment recount of every scene that took place one year ago today.

5:45 a.m... we were waking up from our non-sleeping stupor at the hospital, anticipating the inevitable.

9:15 a.m.... hearing someone wailing and shuttering and realized that it was me. My dad was gone.

3:45 p.m.... picking up our son from school and telling him the news and feeling like I punched myself in the stomach while watching his poor little face contort and attempt to comprehend this ridiculous story we were telling him. How could it possibly be?

All 364 days after... trying to piece together the new normal. It's not easy. We were a close family. We lost our rock. A healthy, vibrant, young mountain of a man who seemed impossible to break. How do you rebuild your life when your king of the mountain falls? How do you sketch a picture of the grandfather your young (and unborn) children, nephews and nieces will never know? How do you continue to answer mind-blowing, spiritual, medical, philosophical and non-sensical 7 year-old questions from a grieving grandson who idolized the very air that his hero-Papa breathed?

I don't pretend have solved the riddle or had some big epiphany and now magically possess the answers to any of these questions. What I do know is that I've tried to emulate how my father lived and it has helped me heal a little more each day. My dad was strong and stubborn and smart and so very supportive. He was beloved by his family and friends and co-workers and neighbors. He was honest and lived life to the very fullest. He stopped to smell the roses and his glass was always half full.

Capturing that vigor, zest, joy and adventure and infusing it into my life a little bit has been a particularly challenging effort, but I am not giving up. My parents also gave me the type A personality gene which means (and close friends already know this!) I am pretty high-strung, a neat freak, a worry wart and like things just so. I've pushed harder and tried new, difficult things, worried less, called old friends and let the dishes sit for a minute. I am still working on 'uni-tasking', as a guest author so comically described in her short essay in this month's Real Simple. That is going to take some time but I am getting there. (As I sit here, eating, writing, checking email, cleaning out my purse, making a Thanksgiving shopping list and picking out a paint color for the dining room while on a conference call).

There is not really an adjective to describe how I am today or how I feel. All I know is that I feel differently than one year ago, hiking through this, as my sister called - life lesson. We're learning as we go and are trying to grow. Grief doesn't have a stopwatch, an hour-glass, an expiration date. It also doesn't have a face, as Cheryl Strayed said in Wild (just finished this morning, btw). So you never really know how or what or where or when someone is grieving because it can take on an immeasurable array of styles, forms, stages and expressions.

I decided that today my face of grief is appreciative, thoughtful and hopeful. A friend has said that he thinks 2013 is the year for good things to happen. He's been repeating this mantra for a few months now. It's starting to catch on.

So here's to you, Dad. I'll miss your gigantic smile, your killer cooking, your infectious holiday spirit, your amazing energy, your larger than life love for our boys, your incredibly generous heart and unconditional support.

What I never said or even thought to say when you were here was how proud I was of you for all of those things. We said 'I love you' regularly. We knew how very honored you were to be our father, but I wish I could have told you how proud I was to be your daughter and was lucky enough to be loved by you.

Cheers from down here.

Suffering Sugarplums... Where Did I Put That Blanking Elf on the Shelf?

Every stinkin' year my husband and I play this accidental game of 'where'd we stash the Elf'? You know who I'm talking about right? This little imp:

We introduced Noah to the Elf concept around age 3-1/2. I thought it was brilliant, what perfect candy-coated holiday bribery to assist us in our discipline and behavior model. I was seduced by his cute facial expression and playful story. We enjoyed moving his magical little self around the house and reveled in Noah's adorable reactions when the Elf, tada, had appeared the next morning in another silly and peculiar location. Pwah! I giggled but was surprised a few years ago when a friend said that 'those perfect Elf on the Shelf mommies' were annoying. Hmph, I thought - this is cute, fun, the kids love it. But then I had my second child. Our elfin spirits (Skinny Girl White Cranberry is nice for the holiday season) went down the drain.

This effing E.O.T.S. has become nothing more than a pint-sized pain in our rears every time the holiday nears. Cringe... Sorry, I did just say that, friends who really look forward to this tradition and have six kids to my two and think I am a humbug. Not exactly, I adore the hap-happiest season of all! Especially the parties for hosting and marshmallow (martinis) for toasting.

But back to the Elf-capades in our family. See... Noah got older. We got lazier. Noah became almost hostile (hands on hips, curled up lip) if the elf remained in his current location we forgot to move the elf. It was tramatic. We felt enormous mommy-daddy slacker guilt. And, we started running out of perfectly reasonable reasons why the Elf did not move even though Noah was well-behaved that day. It really started messing with the kid's head. Poor guy.

Courtesy of ElfontheShelfideas.com

Same story every year in our house - Elf (a.k.a. Mickey-Mouse-Baby-Elf, a.k.a. Chippey like in the 2011 E.O.T.S animated feature...) arrives from the North Pole around Thanksgiving (some years we considered Easter if Noah was being particularly persnickety), with the same game plan: trick the children into thinking that this rosy-cheeked spy is keeping tabs on them all day long and sending his TPS report (cover sheet included) to St. Nick daily.

Yet, over the last two, here's a sneak-peek into our house:
Me: Oh, crap, where did you put the Elf?
Husband: I told you to remind me where I hid it.
Me: Where did you hide it?
Husband: I don't remember, I asked you to remember to remind me!

Then insanity ensues as we argue over where it could be and might be and I moved those boxes to the other storage shelf and why I did that and no, don't look in there that's just holiday decorations from 10 years ago and why am I saving them and OMG why do we continue to put up with the chaos around this Elf?

It ends up this way... around December 5th-ish...

Husband: Look what I found in my sock drawer?
Me: Wow, didn't you see him everyday for the past 11 months when you got your socks?
Husband: I think this thing is possessed, I opened the drawer this morning and he was peeking out at me with those beady little eyes.
Me: That is just creepy. Clown-creepy.

Courtesy of ElfontheShelfideas.com

And so, we begin the Elf on the Shelf tradition all over again. I cannot wait to share these stories and memories with Noah and Rowan when they get older and how one year I debuted the Elf in our mailbox and scared the living daylights out of the postal carrier.