Living-Deliberately.com

Cold Is…..

• pouring water over one’s windshield to melt the ice and watching the WARM water freeze on the spot. And it’s NOON.
• laying meat out to thaw before bed, on the counter below the kitchen window, and coming to find it in the morning, still quite hard.
• coming in from outside to use the loo, only to find one’s hind end cheeks are NUMB.
• the pale, pale sky, with shades of ice pink and blue at the horizon, seen through sleeping bare branches

Warm Is…

• our kitchen, when the washer and dryer are running, bread is baking, the dishes are washed from breakfast, the candle is burning, and music is playing.
• The One I Love, in his new long johns and thermal socks.
• sewing hats and mittens and scarves for the chickens. There is something very primal, very deep, about keeping one’s children’s warm enough and being able to provide it myself. It’s not so unlike breastfeeding…being able to provide and feeling good that it’s the very best I can do.
• discovering that there is a settling calm and cadence to all that is winter. That hearty casseroles and soups, layers of clothing, firelight…it’s all moved from novelty to a requisite normal. It’s like all of the natural world sighs. It seems to be in the fighting against it that the stress comes.

Happiness Is….

• trudging through piles of leaves in knee high rubber “farm” boots
• getting to wear the wool ski sweater I bought in a thrift store in FL 13 years ago for 80 cents, and getting three compliments on it to boot!
• seeing the Fat Baby “dance” while his sister banged out a rythm on the pots and pans
• laughing with new found friends and aquaintances last night at the Spa Party, with wierd jungle music playing, eye patches and facial masks on, and a command to “relax”

That’s the title of a book I have in storage, one I’ve not been able to sit down and actually read yet, but whose title comes to mind as I look at this marvelous girl we have here.

Yesterday was the Mother/Daughter Tea for American Heritage Girls. They had a tea service company come set the table with those stacking cookie trays, matching tea cups and saucers. There was candlelight and everyone brought a wonderful variety of homemade cookies to share. It was beautiful. I got Celia’s jumper done and the matching one for her doll and we had our picture made together…the three of us LOL. Little girls everywhere sipping tea and punch and sitting oh-so-well at the table. Little Fatty sat next to me in the high chair and devoured three cookies, W was upstairs in the toddler room watching Larry Boy, and Andrew was alternately playing Game Boy and prowling around for a stray cookie or two.

When we left, the freezing rain had begun to fall. David was late so the Planetarium trip didn’t happen. Anyone’s and Everyone’s prayers of protection over him as he drives these hills and mountains in ice and snow are much coveted! We ran to Target for some ribbon and popcorn; I spent the evening decorating and hanging our garlands. They turned out so pretty and I think are so much more practical than a tree! More environmentally friendly too, as I’ve been pleased to realize.

Back to that girl…she’s got quite the social calendar this month, which makes her skip with joy. Another girl christmas party next Thursday (after cookie decorating with the Pierce family), a Merry Christmas slumber party tonight, a birthday party tomorrow. Her own skate day will be soon for her birthday, which was last week. She’s on cloud nine, either talking to her doll, or practicing her handwriting, or skipping through the yard with a candy cane.

Beautiful.

Maybe it was just being obstinate yesterday. After refusing to open even in safe mode for two days, the beast has remained awake this nearly 20 hours. I’ll go with it.

We had a cozy breakfast of waffles and coffee this morning. It’s so nice to sit together in the morning and linger a bit while the world slowly brightens outside. We’d hoped for snow this morning but the very clouds that should have brought it also kept our temp up just far enough to make the moisture rain instead. They are predicting snow again for Friday; I hope we have a little before christmas. I can’t believe I actually live in a place where a WHITE CHRISTMAS is actually a possibility! The kids are positively bessie-bugs with anxiety!

I’ve got cookies to make today and a mother/daughter tea with Celia for American Heritage Girls. There isn’t childcare for brothers so I don’t know how much I’ll be able to actually sit. She’s been carrying around her doll, which she named Rachel, since she got her from Grandma on Monday. I’m hoping to get thier matching jumpers finished before the tea party. Dressing alike, and doing the hair the same, has become a BIG DEAL. It turns out 8 was the perfect age for an American Girl doll with hair.

I think I’ll stop at Horn of Plenty today and get the garlands. I can decorate them tonight when David takes the crew to the holiday planetarium show for cub scouts. I like that we didn’t rush the decorations…we couldn’t have because of the move anyway, but this slower pace, with one thing at a time, leaves alot more time to enjoy and contemplate. With the stockings up, everyone is wondering what goodies will get dropped in. Even David was overheard muttering how he’d like some black licorice and pipe tobacco in his :-). Guess you’re never too old!

We are definately house dwellers. And we LOVE this little house! It’s cute, historic, cozy, imperfect, a bit clumsy and rough around the edges (just like us), forgiving of little ones with thier noise and explosive life…what a great place for us right now.

The move went well; hope I don’t have to do it again for awhile. I”m sick of moving! I got the nicest surprise of dinner brought by a friend yesterday….what a treat! Today I hung the stockings and rearranged the dining room; got back online (but with the testy computer, have no idea how long that will last!). Yesterday we raked our rather large yard of tons of frozen leaves. It was good for my soul to be getting to know a patch of ground again. Coulda just wallered in it….

We’ve spent quite alot of time contemplating how years of careful thought, prayer, and planning on what form we want our christmas holiday to look like, and why, we find it’s still frustratingly out of reach. After picking our favorites, the things we really looked forward to each year, and discarding all the trappings that only stressed us, and our finances, out, we thought we’d made big progress. Maybe we have. But it seems, through a variety of circumstance, that we are now left without the very favorites we thought we’d be focusing on. It seems we’ve communicated poorly, and in the meantime, life went on hyper drive. Nothing left for it but to adapt. And so we will, and January will come, and there will be 11 months to refocus and try again.

What does adapt look like? I’m excited about our decorations….real garland, decorated with lights and our ornaments around the windows. Seems wonderfully practical too, as they will be out of reach from our curious toddler! Deep red placemats on the table, and soon that table will be our big one! Can hardly wait! We’ve had almost continual christmas music playing in the very cozy kitchen….while I cook hot breakfast for the man who just came in from the cold airplane job, the sleepy headed children coming in sucking thier thumbs, and the baby who has been happily playing for hours. The kitchen almost qualifies as a family room! I’ve picked out 6-7 new cookie recipes that we’ll get started on next week. My cards are coming along well; not as nice as my big computer photo cards in years past, but they’ll more than do. I’m hoping to pick out a special book and slippers for each child for christmas eve and to pack thier stockings fat. After the weekend, Grandma and Papa will be here and maybe there will be a little bit of snow! Okay, they probably wouldn’t like that but it wouldn’t stick long and a little would be oh-so-picturesque!

If I don’t blog for awhile, it’s because this computer bit the dust. I hope you all have a happy holiday! God bless!

Will it ever end? Of course. But this slow procession across town, consisting of many, many trips back and forth, feel endless at times. Note to self: think twice before ever moving somewhere *upstairs* again.

Today will be more little trips for the small stuff and then some friends are coming to help move the furniture tonight. If all goes according to plan, we should be sleeping there tonight and building shelves tomorrow. Yiddish Proverb: When we plan, God laughs. So we’ll see ‘eh?

That means that the computer gets unplugged today and because of the jack location in the house and the fact that I haven’t gotten around to arranging for hook up yet, there may not be another blog for several days. Until then, here is a poem by E. E Cummings that I stole off my friend Sarah’s blog. Perfect for our current weather:

#20

the wind has blown the rain away and blown
the sky away and all the leaves away,
and the trees stand. I think I too have known
autumn too long.

(and what have you to say,
wind, wind, wind—did you love somebody
and have you the petal of somewhere in your heart
pinched from dumb summer?
O crazy daddy of death dance cruelly for us and start

the last leaf whirling in the final brain
of air (!) Let us as we have seen see
doom’s integration…..a wind has blown the rain

away and the leaves and the sky and the
trees stand. The trees,
suddenly wait against the moon’s face.

One of the great mysteries is how I could have possibly given birth to a morning person. But I have, twice. It’s taken Celia these 8 years to get where she’ll “sleep in” until 7; Rowan thinking 5 am is a groovy time to crawl over mom. Yesterday it occured to me that I am not accomplishing much, not even sleep, by trying to convince him to stay under the covers with me for another hour or two, and I might as well get up.

That is how I came to be folding laundry long before dawn, watching the local newscasters grasp for something to report that early in the morning. It’s a good thing I know about the exact details of that fender bender at I 40 and Cherry Street and that the weatherman’s blue shirt and purple tie match the colors of the morning’s map.

Feelin’ snarky on not enough sleep….

Mr. He Who Does Not Care For Sleep was into everything, in typical fashion. The boxes that are sitting around half packed, the toy box, and more annoyingly, the laundry I was trying to fold. Okay, I was in the middle of the floor! But the panties flew, the towels got folded 4 times each, and the socks I was gamely trying to match, went back into the basket to be sorted at a more coherent hour.

Today the kids are going to the Pierce’s to play. Bless, bless my friend Jennifer, who is being extremely helpful this week. Besides this day of kid-care, she’s also brought me dinner and boxes. The bulk of the move will happen tomorrow night. Today’s task is to get shelf paper in all the closets and cabinets in the house, get the hanging clothes moved, and the bulk of the boxes packed.

Speaking of that house…it’s GREAT. Tiny, sure, but CUTE. Glass doorknobs, real, heavy, wooden doors, window sills and surrounds and deep baseboards….it would look great if they’d let us redo the wood floors but they are carpet lovers. The kitchen has limited counter and cabinet space but the cutest little shutters on the windows. I’ve always wanted little shutters like that. There’s tons of light and a deep front porch. The bedrooms will be tight but doable. It will be fine for as long as it needs to be.

I want to say more about our total-blessing, kindred spirit landlords (she’s even going to teach me to pressure can and is bringing me over a clothesline!) but I”m running out of time. The natives want thier sausage and eggs. And those eggs won’t come from Lucy anymore; the girl who was taking care of her contacted me to say she’d died. They moved as well and the chickens just didn’t take to it well. We’ll get new chicks in the spring. Even though I knew this was very likely what happened, I find I miss and grieve my “Loooooocey”.