Waking up was easy today. It was a warm morning with clear skies. The boys played while I “gschafftelt” around the bus, tidying, cooking, and enjoying myself.
After a while, we decided to head into town. I wanted to go to the grocery store and set up shop, but atreyu interjected to go to the park. Once we arrived, Galixy had fallen asleep. I decided to paint while atreyu played in the dirt. He saw me pull my paints out and immediately requested his own brush. But I couldn’t find any extra, so we fashioned one from palm tree. The hairy fibers made a good brush, tied with some string to a dense piece of palm stick. He was pleased. I finished painting my piece on the bus and handed my brush over to atreyu just in time for Galixy to awaken and ask to paint, too! So it was used twice.
After Galixy had just awakened, before we were actually painting with atreyu in this picture, we had some cuddles on the bus. He seems to have been having a temperature all day. Poor boy. A stranger came up to the bus and asked atreyu if his mom or dad were around. I went to the door and the guy hands me a $20, takes a look around and asks if it’s just me and the kids. I give him an affirmative and he proceeds to pull a hundred out of his wallet. I thank him profusely and wish him a merry Christmas. He goes and starts his ATV, but beckons me over to him and gives me another 100. I’m so overwhelmed. What a wonderful guy! Lo and behold, this man comes back and gave me more.
I was reeling. I’d gotten a few donations over the past days just chilling at the park. I was not expecting this, though. I couldn’t even think straight for a whole hour! All of the morning washed away and I felt sorry I hadn’t written about the awesome beginning of the day before this just totally blew my mind. I started brainstorming Christmas presents the kids would really enjoy, if something big then shareable like a camera. The answer came. A wonderful lady named Laurie came to chat and she said her daughter got her kids passports one year. What a lovely idea! Laurie is moving to North Carolina within the week to start her farm, so I got her number so me and the kids could go hang out and help around the land when we get to that part of the country.
After I collected myself and wasted the rest of the daylight hours, I decided to treat the kids to a “real meal” sit down restaurant style, what with galixy sick, I wanted him to have options to nibble at from whatever he chose. We went to the Black Bear Diner. Galixy drank a full thing of chocolate milk and had some bites of my salad. Atreyu ate mac and cheese and I had a country fried steak. Yum breading and gravy.
After we went into Albertsons and bought the few things we were running low on like bread, bananas, and pancake mix. We also found a teeny tiny tree for the bus, so Atreyu and I decorated once we got out to our parking spot. It looks lovely in here. Few more things from the dollar store and some battery powered twinkle lights and it’ll be Christmas wonderland in Matilda.
Also oranges and clove sticks to make smelly Christmas oranges with the boys… I wish I had my food stamp card, but it will all be fine.
Blessings blessings on this day before yule. Keep an eye out tomorrow. Full moon and meteor shower for the solstice. You’ll be catching me having a fire and eating sweets. Counting the blessings of the past year, ant invasion and all, and manifesting the sweetness into the upcoming year.
As a final note: Finding an oak log was a ton easier last year on the east coast was a lot simpler task without much forethought, and this year I’m looking at burning fir if I’m lucky. If nothing else, I’ll bow my head as they smite me in displeasure.
Matilda the Bugus 