Day 22.

My relatively short to-do list...I thought the snowmen scurrying to and fro on this paper were too cute and appropriate to cover up:

Journal. Almost there!

Here's Day 21 of my Christmas Journal...we were supposed to take a picture of our home "as is" and see how it shows our state of readiness. Or words to that effect, it's all a little fuzzy now.

Day 20's prompt was about unexpected Christmas mail, but as we have yet to get anything really spectacular in the mail yet...I'm postponing that one. There's still a few days left to get something awesome, right?

Pooped.

Oof. I hit a wall sometime yesterday and now I want to sit by a crackling fire with a cup of tea and a British mystery I've never read before with a blizzard whirling outside and Christmas cookies on the table...and not have to do one blessed thing at all.

However. It's still in the 50's here, so no snow and no real need for a fire...I have no British mysteries to read...and I'm too tired to make cookies. Hm.

I guess I'll just have a cup of tea. And fold some laundry. And get dinner started. Sigh. I'm pooped today! Anybody else feeling that pre-holiday energy pinch?

One more.

Christmas Journal for Day 19:


I think this may be the first letter I ever wrote to Santa...we didn't do Santa when I was a kid! It felt weird, but that was what Shimelle said to do today, so...!

C is for Cookie.

One more post for today--the challenge at Two Peas is to blog about your favorite Christmas cookie.

I love cut-out sugar cookies, but they have to taste GOOD, not cardboard-y.

For years I made my mom's stand-by Betty Crocker cookbook recipe, which is good and tastes like home...but then five or six years ago, a friend shared her tried-and-true recipe with me.

Eva's Sugar Cookies

2 cups butter or margarine, softened
2 cups granulated sugar
3 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
6 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar. Beat in eggs and vanilla and almond extracts until light and fluffy. In another large bowl, combine flour and baking soda. Gradually stir flour mixture into butter and sugar mixture until blended. Chill for one hour, then roll out on a floured board and cut into shapes. Bake at 350 degrees on lightly greased (or parchment-lined) baking sheets for 8-10 minutes, until light golden brown. Makes 12 dozen cookies.

It's the almond extract that makes the difference here--these are some delicious cookies. The last time I made them, they never made it to the frosting stage--Todd and I devoured them all plain! But when I do manage to get them frosted, I usually add a drop of almond extract to the frosting, too. I just use whatever generic white frosting recipe is in my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook.

Mmmm...now I'm craving some!

Day 18.

Here's my December 18 page. I'm starting to get a complex--every single journaling prompt is about what do you always do for this and how do you always do that, and the fact is that in my life, no one Christmas is like any other one!


So...a typical Christmas dinner--there is no such thing! I'm going to put a couple recipes in the pocket, probably for the braciole and for my mom's rolls that I may try to make this year. I keep thinking of all these things to do and try and the fact of the matter is that time is rapidly running out to do or try anything!

Best thing since sliced bread.

Just a quick note: my friend Cheryl was asking me about the Krylon pens I mentioned yesterday, so I thought I'd mention them again, as they are one of the all-time bestest, most wonderful tools I've ever used. They are called Krylon Leafing Pens and they come in five colors. They don't really show in the pictures of the canvases I posted, since I used them on the edges, but trust me, the effect they give is wonderful.

For a while there it seemed like I was using them on every last thing I made, because they are so easy to use and look so great. I'm trying to find something where maybe they show up a little better so you can see...well, I can't find any saved photos at the moment. But they're perfect for edging things so you get just a little glimmer here and there. Love 'em! That's my commercial for today.

More journal.

I managed to whip out Days 16 and 17 this afternoon. I'm skipping Day 15, because the prompt just doesn't fit me and I can't think of a way around it. I'll come back and fill it in once I've finished the book--I'm sure there will be some thought I'll want to include that won't be covered in the journaling prompts.

Here's the last collage I did--it's a little different from the first three, as I used Basic Grey papers and didn't go quite as vintage-y with it. I am soooo loving the vintage look, though!

Humbuggery.

I've been determined to hang onto my Christmas cheer, but I must confess, I'm just not feelin' it today. I must have missed the memo that declared today Mental Defective Shoppng Day in the city of Newport News. And they were out in droves! How hard is it to drive like a normal human being and get through a simple shopping transaction? Apparently it's really hard for some people.

And it's like 75 degrees today, which would be wonderful in, say, April, but on December 18, driving around with the AC on makes me extremely grumpy. I was hot all dang summer long--I really was looking forward to being COLD for a few months at least.

And the music, the horrible, horrible Christmas music assaulting me where'er I go!

Came home to a house that looks like a bomb went off in every single room, and my neighbor doing something with a power tool that sounds like an enormous dental drill boring right. Into. My. BRAIN.

Time for a long cleansing sigh.......ahhhhhh.

In the mailbox today was a Christmas card from my sweet grandma, who wrote, "We are sorry you won't be able to be with us at Christmas but are glad for the new job, and thankful Christmas blessings don't depend on where you are."

Christmas blessings don't depend on where you are--I'm thankful for that, too.

In other news...my computer chair broke under me on Thursday, and the weekend was busy, so I'm four days behind on my Christmas journal. Now I have a new stinky chair (what in the world are they putting in/on these things that make them smell like this? It just can't be good for you!) and hoping to get caught up. Over the weekend I worked on these:


Which will all be belated Christmas gifts for my aunts on my mom's side, whom I hope don't read this blog! There's a fourth, but Blogger is being difficult as usual, and won't let me post it.

The squares are pasted on 8x10" canvases and varnished. I covered the raw edges with Krylon gold leafing pen, which is my absolute favorite thing in the world. Then I applied a few 3-D embellishments to the front. I'm pretty happy with them! They're a take-off of Ali E.'s holiday project from her November e-zine.

Little people.

The boxes are mailed, what a relief! Now I just need to finish my cards, come up with a few more things for Todd, and do a couple more odds and ends. But the boxes were the big Christmas hurdle--five of them to various homes in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Here are the little ornaments I stitched for the kids on my side of the family. I got the patterns from Hillary Lang's Wee Wonderfuls site. I mailed them to my mom to stuff and slip stitch them closed, as I was down to the wire with no time to spare. So they're deflated here, but still darling, I think. I can't wait till she comes out with the winter set!

The prompt for today's journal entry has me scratching my head, so it may be a bit before I get to it. I may have to come up with my own idea instead.

Today I'm packing up some project supplies to take to a crop in Virginia Beach tomorrow. Later I'll make some fudge to take, too. Tonight is Todd's office party, so I'll need to doll myself up, as I have to make a good impression on all these people I haven't met before!

Fa la la la freaking la.

Heh. The one thing this journal was missing was a good old-fashioned rant. Since today's topic was Christmas music, I got to unleash a few of my feelings about it. Fun!



In the pocket, I'm either going to put a CD with some of the Christmas songs I do like, or else a list of some of my favorite Christmas albums. The latter is more likely than the former--easier, in other words, so more do-able.

The little chorister is cut out from a piece of Daisy D paper, and he just slays me...so soulful and sappy. Like he could be the star of a Christmas special called, "The Gayest Choirboy of All."

Day 13.

This one is a semi-quickie. Topic: the present-giving ritual in your family. I substituted some random memories instead, as there really is no ritual.

I'm going to have to curb my "lumpiness" on the remaining pages, because the binder is getting full and I'm only half done! Oh, me.

Day 12.

I did a two-page spread last night for my December 12 entry in my Christmas Journal, because I found two pictures I wanted to use and needed the room.

The topic was sort of a pondering of Christmases past, present, and future, which made me think about the Spirits in A Christmas Carol. I ended up going in a different direction than I had planned earlier in the day, and although the spread is a bit of a mishmash, I got all the important stuff in. Here's the left page:

And the right page, which is an envelope page:

Journaling is on a card in the envelope page, with two more old photos:

In A Christmas Carol, Scrooge is visited by three ghosts: Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Yet to Come.

I dwell a lot on Christmas Past, which is a happy but dangerous place to visit. I pine for times and places that have come and gone, and the sorrow over what is past dims the joy of my Christmas Present.

Christmas Yet to Come I can hardly imagine. I’m afraid it won’t be as happy as times in the past, and yet, each happy Christmas Present was once a Christmas Yet to Come, as they were in these childhood photos. How could I know as a baby and as a child what joy was in store for me? But it was there waiting.

“Joy to the World” is my favorite Christmas carol…joy is the ultimate Christmas present…joy is what I will look for in this Christmas Present and all the Christmases Yet to Come.

Bad housewife.

There's a thread at Two Peas this morning about towels and how frequently you wash them. I'm dumbfounded at how many people wash them after each use, because they don't want to dry their face with the section that dried their butt the day before. Or because skin cells and dust mites give them the heebie-jeebies. Or whatever.

The lone guy on the thread said:

Um, WHAT?

People do that?

I guess I better not reveal here how long my bath towel goes between washes...

I have to go sit next to him...because there's no way I'd reveal how long towels go between washes around here.

I always have to lurk in shame on these kinds of discussion threads...when the wives and moms on the board start chatting about how often the sheets get washed, or the best way to dust blinds, or how to wash baseboards.

People do that? Wash baseboards? Really?

In my defense, I come from a long line of haphazard housewives. I mean, we all do our best, and there's no out-and-out filth in my house, but cleaning is at the very bottom of my daily necessity list. I try to give things a swipe as I go along, or else just ignore them until Todd gets fed up and does something about it--an excellent scheme, particularly with vacuuming, which I hate.

Part of it is that we don't have kids or pets, so things don't get as dirty here as they do when kids are smearing things on the walls and grinding them into the carpet, or when pets are leaving pounds of hair on every flat surface and vomiting nasty things up.

Still, I fear it says bad things about me that I was shocked to hear someone say she has four bathrooms and what a pain it is to clean them every day.

Every day?

People do that?

Day 11.

Monday's entry in my Christmas Journal:

The journaling prompt was to write about your Christmas tree, what kind you have, what sorts of ornaments you put on it--and to include an ornament hook somewhere on the page!

Christmas Journal update.

Here are days 8, 9, and 10 of my journal!

For December 8, the topic was changes we see around us as Christmas approaches. I used pictures of my house decorations.

The flap opens to reveal my journaling. I'd like to put a picture of our front door wreath under the line from the song and the holly...but I have to actually make the wreath and hang it before that can happen!

For December 9, the topic was traditions. As I journaled, we've never really had any hard-and-fast traditions, but then I did think of one thing we did when I was a kid that I still enjoy doing today. I'm going to add a card to the pocket with some of the other things we've done off and on over the years.

Today's entry was a simple one...we had to use the wrapping paper we're using this year on the page, add a tag, etc. I wrapped a square of chipboard for my tiny "present."

Me and him.

We went out in the backyard yesterday morning to get a picture of the two of us for my holiday newsletter. Here are a couple of the good ones; here we're sitting on our deck:

Here we're in front of the neighbor's holly bush and our pine tree:

And here we're on the other side of our yard with the other neighbor's fence behind us. This is the picture I used for the newsletter, cropped down a little:

I'm pretty happy with them...it's been ages since we took a nice picture together. Thank goodness Todd was able to find his tripod.

More journal pages coming soon!

Stranded.

Many bloggers are talking about the Kim family right now, and their ordeal. I was so happy to hear that the Kims' little girls were safe, but it's terribly sad about their father. At first I was shocked that in the twenty-first century, a family could still get stranded and exposed to the elements for a week, and that a dad could die in the cold trying to get help...then I started thinking about the years we lived in Idaho.

Here in the east, being in such an isolated place seems almost unreal, but out there it's all too real. I started remembering the weekend day trips Todd and I would take into the hills, through mud and snow drifts, down dirt roads and up over ridges. If we'd gotten stuck, no one would have known where we were or where to look.

Todd would also head into the mountains to pan for gold, usually alone, and an accident could easily have been fatal since I wouldn't have been able to pinpoint exactly where he was.

And in our trips to and from Salt Lake City in the fall and winter, if we'd had to take back roads for any reason, we would have been just as isolated, and again, no one would know where we were. We used to just take off and never inform anyone where we were going or that we were leaving town.

It makes me shiver a little now, thinking about it. We manage to close Nature out most of the time, but it certainly doesn't take much to remind you how little control any of us have.

Day 7.

Here's my journal page for December 7...the theme is Christmas shopping. This year's shopping list peeks out of the pocket. I feel like I've got a lot of stuff on this page, and none of it goes together, but...oh well!

It was a timely topic because I had to go out and do a little more shopping today before my guitar lesson...I am so close to being done I can taste it. Then comes the packing and mailing--ugh.

Day 6.

I'm home doing boring housewifey stuff today, but here's Day 6 of my Christmas journal. Today's prompt was to write about a good Christmas and a bad Christmas. I'm afraid my memories of both are pretty vague!

More journal.

Here are my Christmas journal pages for December 3, 4, and 5.

This page features an old Christmas card. You open up the card to read the journaling, like so:

I'll be adding a handmade card to the pocket once I pick one out.

This page for December 4 is a little personal...I don't know if it is readable or not, but the topic was "daydream about the perfect Christmas" and I wrote about part of the reason why the holidays aren't perfect for me.

The topic for December 5 was Advent, which instantly made me think about the Advent wreath at church when I was a kid. I'm going to put a few of my favorite verses from Isaiah into the envelope...if I ever get my Daisy D tags I ordered last week!

More decor.

Here's my tiny kitchen tree that I put up a few days ago.

And I got a nice ornament picture in the late sunshine today.

Can you tell I'm having a totally nonproductive Monday? I have a "to do" list a mile long, and I've been just dithering around all day. I feel very distracted!

Practicing.

Being a semi-rational adult human female, I understand that all worthwhile things take time, that the journey is just as important as the destination, and that practice makes perfect.

Being a supremely impatient perfectionist, I have a hard time believing all that crap.

Today was actually a good day for me and the guitar...I played three chords that actually sounded like chords, and plucked my way through four or five simple tunes, and didn't end up with too much neck or arm pain at the end of 30 or 40 minutes. I have to remember this good practice next time I have a bad practice...which will be soon!

After all these years of looking at notes and wondering what they say, it really is sublime to look at a note, know it's a B or C or G, and be able to play it on an instrument. Sublime, I say! I try to keep focusing on that feeling.

Christmas journal.

So I decided to take a month-long "Journal Your Christmas" class online, through Shimelle Laine's website. I took a mini album class from her in January that was a lot of fun, and this Christmas class gets rave reviews from people who've taken it in the past.

Each day in December, you get a journaling prompt. How you interpret it is up to you, but the idea is to end up with a journal of your thoughts and memories of Christmas.

Here's my December 1 page.

I think I might try to put big numbers somewhere on the pages, for each day's date, but I haven't found the right thing yet. For December 1, we were just supposed to write about why we wanted to make a Christmas journal. I don't know if my journaling is legible...it reads:

"I used to love Christmas and everything that went with it. But time, age and general grouchiness have taken away much of the pleasure and joy I used to feel at Christmastime, and turned me into a bit of a Scrooge at times.

"My hope is that creating this journal with my memories and feelings about Christmas will help rekindle some of that holiday pleasure inside me!"

For December 2, the prompt was about Christmas weather, snow in particular. We were supposed to create a snowflake and put it somewhere on the page.


I hand cut a snowflake, and then decided to glitter it up, forgetting my cardinal rule about glitter: don't use it! I adhered it with a glue stick, instead of wet glue, and it just didn't take well at all.

So I layered a transparency over it, thinking I'd contain it a little bit that way...but glitter pours out around the edges every time I touch it.

So I tried taping up the edges of the page...but that glitter is still sneaking out. Glitter sucks!
I'm sure my journaling for this page is illegible, being on the transparency and all. I picked a bad font, I'm afraid. Here it is:

"Living in Virginia, Christmas always catches me off-guard. I’ve never lived in a place where the weather is still warm well into December. Each chilly day makes me hopeful that winter is finally here—and each balmy day makes me impatient for some real winter weather, the kind that makes you ready for Christmas.And as far as snow goes—that is even rarer here than cold snaps. I loved the Ohio Christmases where the snow would come in time for Christmas Eve…so perfectly magical."

You can see some of the other students' interpretations of their Christmas journals at Written Down. Very inspiring!

More pages to come, and I'm still working on the journal cover. I'm using a square Sarabinder with tabbed and pocket and envelope pages...it feels good to finally use a long ago purchase instead of hoarding it!

Holiday project.

Here's the holiday project I did with my at-home class on Friday morning.

The idea came from Ali Edwards' blog and the e-zine she puts out periodically. In November, she had a holiday collage project that you can see here, if you scroll down to Holiday Project #2.

The idea is to construct an 8x10 piece using 20 2x2" squares. Ali did a lot of stamping and used large images in hers...I didn't have quite as many good large images, so I concentrated more on pattern, using some of the new Basic Grey holiday papers as a base.

Placed in an 8x10" mat, some of the edges get cut off, so I'm thinking one might have to have a specially cut mat, or else mount the piece raised on a matboard background. I'm not sure how Ali managed to get hers looking the way it does--maybe spacers?

Anyway, it's a fun and easy way to use up holiday odds and ends, and the possibilities are really endless--you could use bits from old Christmas cards, or old Christmas postage stamps, Jolee's dimensional stickers, etc. I'm thinking about making a few more vintage-y looking pieces for holiday gifts for my aunties.

More pictures.

This week I pushed through my Christmas malaise and got the tree up. I think it's the prettiest tree I've ever done. We haven't had a full-size tree in years.

I have a collection of vintage ornaments, and there were enough of them to decorate a 4-foot tree, which I did for one or two Christmases. Last year, at a yard sale, Todd came across a whole box full of smaller vintage ornaments for something like a dollar, and picked them up for me. So with that addition, I ended up having enough to cover our new 6 1/2-foot tree.

I don't think I've ever put tinsel on a Christmas tree of my own, but I felt like I needed some this year, so I found this white garland at K-Mart, plus strings of shiny red beads and red bows. I absolutely love how it all looks together.

I've been searching for the perfect tree topper for all the years we've been married...I think I've been trying to find a replica of the star my mom made from cardboard and covered with aluminum foil when I was a kid, which I guess is impossible. So I was at Ten Thousand Villages waiting out time before a dentist appointment last week, and I spotted this angel, made in Nepal. She's so colorful, and she's holding a guitar, which is just perfect!

I'm trying to take a few close-ups of my nicer ornaments, but I think that will require a tripod. I'm going to see if I can get a few good shots before the holidays are over.

More decor: Here's one of my thrift-store bowls with greenery and berries, on top of a pretty quilted runner my mom sewed and sent me this year.

I also have a tiny kitchen tree but Blogger won't let me post that pic. I'll try later, and maybe get the mantel decorated and get a picture of that, too, for later.

So I managed to move past my Christmas dislike for now, and I have to say, I'm enjoying having the house decorated. This weekend, I'd like to have Todd do some outside lights, but he's currently embroiled in fixing a snafu with the Passat that's keeping it from passing state inspection. Fun, fun.

Pictures.

I have a few decent pictures from Thanksgiving...if I ever master the art of taking pictures of kids and adults in ever-moving groups in indoor light, I will be truly happy. As it is, I always end up with either dark, chaotic shots, or flash-blown, whited-out faces. Ugh!

Here's my niece Natalie with the Little People Thanksgiving set I brought for her and Marissa. Next to her, I think my brother is illustrating the concept of "little" for whoever he's talking to.

Natalie and I playing with the set...I confess I bought it so that I would have a chance to play with it as much as for the little girls!

Marissa giving her dad a high-five.

We read a bunch of books together--Marissa loves books and can point to things and name them.

My goal for the day was to get one really excellent picture of Marissa, but that didn't happen. She is too fast for a digital camera, and I was distracted with all the activity. Someday I'll get that great shot!

Holiday movies.

Today's blog challenge at Two Peas:

Blog about your favorite holiday movie.

I have two faves, one classic and one more modern. But they both take place at roughly the same time: the 1940s.

The Bishop's Wife with Cary Grant and Loretta Young is not really well-known, but it's a super-Christmassy movie--way more Christmassy than the better-known Christmas in Connecticut, whose story could really have taken place any time of the year.

The Bishop's Wife was remade as The Preacher's Wife with Whitney Houston in the 1990's, but let's try to forget that ever happened, shall we?

The reason to watch The Bishop's Wife is to see Cary Grant play an angel, which in my mind, isn't too much of a stretch. And he's perfect at it, the kind of angel you secretly hope Heaven is full of. He's come down to teach David Niven a lesson about the important things in life, like his wife and daughter whom he's neglecting in favor of earthly glory.

The movie is so full of the kind of Christmas scenes we picture when we think of how Christmas Used to Be: stopping by the greengrocer's to order your Christmas tree, ice-skating at the pond while the band plays, buying a holiday hat in a hat shop, children singing hymns, tinsel and snow and angels. I highly recommend it.

My other favorite Christmas movie is one that was released when I was a kid, but that I didn't discover till college: A Christmas Story. Most people I knew hadn't heard of it when I first started spreading the news about it, but in the past ten years or so, it's become a holiday staple, and yippee for that!

So many of the scenes in this movie are reminiscent for me and for Todd of scenes from our childhood, although we grew up 30 years later than when this story takes place. The big old house looks like the house Todd grew up in...my dad wrestled with the furnace just like Ralphie's dad did...the school looks just like the old elementary and high schools that were recently torn down in our hometown...and who doesn't remember being ensconced in a snowsuit, or catching a snowball full in the face?

I love the humor of this movie, and the holiday big-band music in many of the scenes, playing on the huge radio. Every actor is note-perfect. And it's so quotable! If you haven't seen it, don't wait for the 24-hour marathon on TBS--rent it now!

Tuesday.

Well, things are in motion today. I went and picked up supplies for my Friday class, and realized that if I'm having class and Todd is having a poker game this weekend, it might be nice for the house to be decorated.

So I moved the living room around, and ultimately left the big bookshelf exactly where it was, which means that all that moving of books and breakables, which led to the books-and-breakables avalanche, was completely not necessary. Which is the big old cherry on top of THAT crap sundae!

My darling husband got out the super glue tonight and set about restoring my stuff. The broken-bottom big teapot and the broken yellow bowl are virtually good as new. Or old, since they're both ancient.

The tiny teapot from Taiwan is definitely the worse for wear, with chips and holes, but set to the correct side and viewed from a distance, looks fine. The big yellow teapot has part of its big chip restored, and can be set with that side on the rear so it doesn't show.

The yard sale creamer may or may not be worth keeping...it's pretty hole-y. And the lid to the Carnival canister is a total loss. Still, Todd salvaged more than I thought was possible. He's a darling!

I put up our new pre-lit tree ($25 at Lowe's on Black Friday) with no problems...it's weird to have a tree with white lights instead of colored lights, which we've always had. When I get it decorated I'll post some pictures.

Heck, if I get the house decorated, I might as well go ahead and have a Christmas party since the hard part will be done. Well...maybe not.

In other news, I am totally struggling with playing chords on my guitar. I don't see how it's possible for the human hand to contort that way!

And Todd came home from work last night, picked up my guitar, and after I explained the notes and fingering I knew--he sat down and played his way through everything I know so far. Now he's trying to move on to the next string. Chuh. What a tool. A darling, yes, but a tool, too.

I am pooped. Beck tomorrow with a completed Friday project, I hope.

Bah, humbug.

How was everybody's Thanksgiving?

Mine was sort of blah and depressing. I cooked a big dinner, but it was depressing doing it all by myself. I grew up in a big family, and it doesn't seem like a holiday without a million people around. I went to bed at 5:30. Hey, it was dark, so why not?

Friday was blah, too. Todd had some big Black Friday purchases planned, but since he got to the store at 5:15 AM instead of camping there all night, he missed out. (Who in their right mind would camp outside a store to buy a TV or computer? Madness, I tell you.)

Saturday we went to my brother's house three hours away and had dinner with their family and my sister-in-law's parents, and that was fun...I got to get in a tiny bit of quality time with the nieces, which is always great. Marissa is saying so many words now, and is just such a busy little person, and Natalie amazes me with her sharp little mind and sense of humor.

Sunday we went out Christmas shopping all afternoon, and that went quite well--the stores were not busy at all, and I got about 75% of my shopping done.

I went back and forth all weekend about whether to do any holiday decorating and what the extent of it should be--I do this every year. I feel guilty because I hate to decorate, but I feel like I should, especially since this is our first year in our new place. One of the many reasons I hate Christmas.

Yes, this year I am going to be open and honest about it...I hate Christmas. Not the Jesus part--I love Jesus, and the nativity story. I don't even mind buying and wrapping presents. But the rest of it, I hate. I was going to try for a good attitude about it this year, but today's events decided me: Christmas sucks.

In my dithering about whether to decorate or not, I decided to at least start moving the living room around this morning. For the tree to go up, the furniture has to be moved, and even if I decide against putting up the tree, I though it would be good to try a new arrangement.

I started with my big bookshelf, taking off all the breakables first, and stacking them carefully on the dining room table. Then I started making piles of the books.

As I placed the last stack of books on the end of the dining room table, I had a fleeting thought that it was probably too heavy on that end. No sooner did the thought go through my mind than the table tipped and an avalanche of books, pictures, and very breakable breakables went crashing to the floor.

I chipped one teapot, broke the bottom off my very, very favorite teapot, smashed the lid of a heavy Carnival canister, smashed to bits an adorable creamer that I bought this summer, broke a chunk out of a heavy yellow pottery bowl...and the worst thing, I pulverized a tiny teapot that Todd brought me from Taiwan ten years ago, which was one of my most cherished possessions. The two teacups that went with it are mostly okay--one is chipped. But I don't think the teapot is salvageable at all.

I had to suppress the instinct to go sit in the corner and rock myself until the shaking stopped. And you know whose fault it is?

It's Christmas's fault. Yep, it is. Maybe I'll go to my corner and not come out till January 2.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I woke up early this morning, and it's still raining! What a turn the weather took this week--cold and rainy and gray--perfect November, finally. Now if we can all keep from floating away!

"Morning by morning new mercies I see, " as my favorite hymn says...we have so many blessings to be grateful for this Thanksgiving. Two wonderful and loving families, eight beautiful and smart nieces and nephews, a warm safe home, plenty of food in the pantry, our own health and the health of our loved ones, this peaceful country to live in, good friends, and so many other things. "Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!"

I'm going to try to stay off the computer the rest of the holiday weekend...I've strained my right arm, and mousing is definitely one of the motions that exacerbates the problem. Today we're hanging out here and having a turkey dinner in the late afternoon...tomorrow Todd is attacking a few Black Friday sales and I haven't decided whether to join him or not. Saturday we'll be spending the day with my brother's family and having another turkey dinner (yay!) and Sunday...I dunno. More hanging out, probably.

I am roasting a ten-pound turkey today, and I think it may be my very first turkey in 15 married Thanksgivings. I've done Cornish game hens and turkey breasts on our few Thanksgivings alone, but I don't remember doing a whole turkey before. Should be fun. The rest of the menu is very traditional: mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, green beans, pumpkin pie. We both love all the traditional Thanksgiving components and look forward to them all year, well, at least I do. And there is nothing better than Thanksgiving leftovers.

Hope everybody has a blessed day with lots of food and good memories!

Race you to the bottom of the slide.

I'm loving this long slow slide into middle age, and how the angle keeps getting steeper, oh, every week or so.

I started stitching a Christmas ornament for one of my nieces tonight, and had to prop my glasses ON TOP OF MY HEAD the entire time so I could see what the heck I was doing. You know the glasses on top of the head maneuver--the one your parents and grandparents and great-aunties all do? Yeah, that's me now. Dear Lord.

Here are the patterns at the Wee Wonderfuls site...if you scroll down you can see the fall set, and I'm doing the little girl with beret and backpack for Kylie, who started school this year. And the summer set above it just came back out today and I ordered some--I was too late to snag them when they were out earlier this year. These are great--you just iron them onto whatever fabric you like and backstitch or chainstitch or do whatever you like with them. So cute!

I can't wait for the winter set but I guess those won't be out till after Christmas. In the meantime, you'll find me stitching on the couch with my glasses on top of my head. You know, the head with all the gray hair.

Monday stuff.

Today's blogging challenge at Two Peas:

1- your worst habit? Procrastination.
2- your best feature? I guess my toes are kind of cute.
3- what you like most about your significant other/spouse? To keep it G-rated, I'll say...his big brown eyes with long lashes.
4- if you could travel anywhere, where would it be? Switzerland/Germany/Alps.
5- what do you admire most in a dear friend you have? I'm going to pick two friends--I admire my friend Bev for her twisted sense of humor, and I admire my friend Cheryl for her outgoingness (is that a word?).

Now, a holiday PSA:

I picked up Wintersong at Target today, which is Sarah McLachlan's new holiday album. It's lovely. LOVELY.

When you were a kid, did you ever lie under the Christmas tree at night and stare up through the branches at all the lights and squint your eyes to make them all flow together? This album would be the perfect thing to have playing softly if you were to relive that memory this year. Very soft, very quiet, a little melancholy as all of Sarah's stuff is, but melancholy in a nice way. And oh, that voice. I recommend it!

Flying high.

What a gorgeous fall day we're having here today. This afternoon Todd blew and I raked leaves and twigs down the yard to the edge of the retaining wall, and down into our improvised yard waste pile in the trees. The remaining leaves on the trees are glowing orange against the blue sky--just lovely. Now Todd's watching the Steelers/Browns game, and I'm up here in my study trying to map out my week ahead. The primary tasks this week are to grocery shop and get the house cleaned for Thanksgiving, and to get started on holiday gifts.

Yesterday morning we went over to the Yorktown battlefield and Todd flew the giant plane he built here in the last couple of months. He's flown it before, but this time it really flew correctly and landed perfectly, with no crashes. He could tell you all the technical stuff behind it--actually, here's a link to his "Big Red" RC airplane page on his website. And here's the pictures:

After a couple of runs, Todd attached his little camera to the bottom and got some aerial video, too. If we can figure it out, I'll post it here, or at least a link.

In the late afternoon, we drove to Richmond, ostensibly to do some Christmas shopping, but we ended up stopping at the VA Aviation Museum by the airport, and then having a very nice Mexican dinner, and then walking through a shopping center that I really like...but it was so crowded and crazy, I couldn't really get in the shopping mood. I'm leaning toward letting Amazon help me this year...no crowds that way!

Learning to think.

This is a rough piece I wrote a few weeks ago...it was sort of a late-night insomnia session. It's not polished, but I wanted to get it out there before I forgot all about it.

Learning to Think

The strangest memories come into your mind at night when you’re heading toward sleep. Tonight I found myself thinking about some of the people in my early life who taught me how to think.

In eighth grade, I attended a fundamentalist Christian school, and we got a new and different teacher. For one thing, he was male. For another thing, he was from outside the church’s little community. I think he was a Christian, and I know he was at least a religious person, but he wasn’t part of the fundamentalist evangelical group of teachers I’d always had. Mr. French was my homeroom and history teacher that year.

I was lucky to have many good teachers in my school years, but Mr. French looms large. He talked to all of us like we were adults, which was a heady and novel feeling for a bunch of thirteen-year-olds. (I vividly remember sitting in the cafeteria talking with him about the 1984 presidential primaries, and this fabulous feeling of being listened to and respected for what I had to say—which couldn’t have been all that profound.) He had a tremendous sense of humor, which was also a new thing in a teacher. More importantly for me, he was the very first teacher I had who showed me the glimmering of a new idea: that I could listen and assess everything that was told and taught to me, and that I could question it.

I was a very serious and…I don’t want to say gullible...child, but I definitely took the voice of authority as truth. And elementary education, and religious elementary education in particular, is all about learning to follow rules, to trust in authority, to believe what you’re told. Mr. French was the first person I remember in my entire life who punctured that bubble for me, and encouraged the questioning and skepticism I was already starting to feel.

A year or two after that, our church hired a support minister for the first time. This was a unique hire, because David Byer was a backsliding sinner from way back. Brought up in the Mennonite Church, he married and put his family through a lot of miserable years of wild living. His kids were roughly my age, and around the time we all entered adolescence, he came back into the fold, pulled his life together, and entered the ministry at our church. I believe he had some formal education, but I think he was also working on more seminary education while he worked at the church.

David became our youth group Sunday School teacher. This was around 1985-86…I was in tenth grade. One of the prevailing issues in the Mennonite Church at that time was the Reagan administration’s military build-up, the arms race, our attitudes toward the Soviet Union, and how a peace church should respond to all that. David had a unique perspective because he’d grown up in Canada and saw the United States more critically than many of us were raised to.

As I was still attending the fundamentalist school, I was hearing a lot of hyper-patriotic, hyper-conservative stuff in Bible class and chapel. The religious right was flexing its muscle for the first time, and there was a quasi-religious belief in Reagan and the U.S. and our military that seems familiar now but I think was a new thing then. New to me at 15 and 16 years old, anyway.

Sitting on uncomfortable folding chairs in the church library, David challenged all of us to look at the things we were hearing in school and on the news, and again, to question the things that so many people around us took as Truth—the ultimate rightness of the U.S., no matter what our actions, the glory of our military power, and the supreme evil of our enemy. What were the reasons for this attitude? What could be the benefit of making everyone believe in it? And what would be the result if people chose not to believe it?

It wasn’t very long before David backslid once again…his job and marriage dissolved, and a lot of people were hurt by his betrayal. But I always appreciated the perspective he gave me at a time when I really needed it. Like Mr. French, he saw the world I lived in from the point of view of an outsider. As an outsider, he was perfectly positioned to help me see my world in a new light. I’ve always felt like an outsider in my own life. Both of these men helped me see the value in that, and helped me to think critically about what passed for truth all around me.

A couple more years passed, and I ended up at a small liberal-arts college…an insulated community with its own set of truths and rules. As a freshman history major, I landed on day one in European History 115 with Dr. Bill Hartel. I will never forget those afternoons hunched over a desk with the fall light pouring through the window, and this feeling of absolute giddiness as I learned things I hadn’t known before, and looked at the things I already knew in a whole new way. I remember it so clearly because it was the first time I’d ever felt that way in a classroom.

Dr. Hartel was all about making connections, cause and effect. He taught European history backwards…we started in the present-day, which was the beginnings of the collapse of the Soviet Union at that point in time, and worked our way backwards through that semester and the next. I learned to read critically, and even though many of our texts were biased toward his own left-leaning point of view, he was able to help us see through the bias in everything we read. He was one of the professors who taught me, at age 18, how to read. Really read.

Again, Dr. Hartel was an outsider…an elderly holdover from the radical sixties, right down to his sandals and his bicycle. Sporting a tank-top and shorts most of the year, he was a complete anomaly on our buttoned-down preppy campus. And his classes were scary—but I remember the feeling of exhilaration after closing my blue-book and walking out of a final exam, and knowing I had not only given him what he wanted but woven a lot of my own thoughts and conclusions into the exam essays, and done it well. Which was probably what he wanted even more.

I had Dr. Hartel for several more classes, including American Foreign Relations, which was a semester full of knocking down accepted truths, and although we didn’t part well, I have always remembered him with tremendous respect, as I think just about every history major from that time does. He passed away a few years after I left college, and now has a program in his name that provides mini-grants for students who want to pursue activist causes.

It's interesting that it was primarily male teachers who taught me how to think. I had so many wonderful female teachers, and learned so much from them, but these three men are the ones who taught me to question, and thus, to think.

My Friday.

I have just about had it with this perpetual headache. I don't know if it's an artifact from my cold of two weeks ago, or if it's just some new delight my body cooked up for me, but I am so OVER it! It's cramping my style, not that my style was all that hot to begin with.

I had my first guitar lesson yesterday, and now I can play E, F, and G on the first string. I am quite proud of myself.

Took seven bags of groceries to the food bank drive that one of our local radio stations is running this weekend. I'm still Grocery Gaming after 14 weeks, and my stockpile of cheap groceries is so large I can donate all that and not even miss it. Kind of nice.

The Office was great last night--I wish every episode was "super-sized." They can get in so much more funny stuff that way. I love seeing Pam get her comeuppance from Jim...she blew him off so much last season, it's time for her to be the one wearing her heart on her sleeve. And oh, how sweet for Jim to be promoted over Dwight and Andy...too, too perfect.

That's about it. It's too hot here and I am feeling totally paralyzed thinking about Christmas and what needs to be done. Ho hum!