Category Archives: Whimsies

Thursday Thoughts

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Maybe Outhouses Weren’t So Bad
outhouseWell, our three-bathroom house is currently down to a one-bathroom house. After spending literally hours here yesterday, the plumber(s) finally located the area that is plugged up. Thankfully, we still have a working toilet, and even better, it happens to be the one in our bedroom. On the opposite end of the luck spectrum, we have company coming tonight, and whether or not we will have an additional bathroom for them to use is as yet uncertain. What is certain is that I could undoubtedly have thought of better ways to spend as much money as this will cost us! But as Bing Crosby crooned, “And when our bankroll is getting small, we’ll think about the time when we had none at all, and we’ll fall asleep counting our blessings.” Outlook on life according to the movie White Christmas.

Speaking of Blessings….
Our Vermont family arrived safely yesterday afternoon, and we spent some time with them yesterday evening. The plane ride was as good as it gets when you’re dealing with a 7-year-old and a VERY ACTIVE 4-year-old. But this happened…..

joseph-cockpit

Yes, it’s true. Joseph had the opportunity to sit in the cockpit of the airplane. I’m pretty sure he didn’t help fly the thing. Nevertheless, that’s pretty exciting business when you’re 7. And, by the way, the thing to the pilot’s left looks like it would hold an iPad. I’m hoping like hell he/she doesn’t read while flying the plane!

Willa Cather Started Someplace
dagny-2016I liked to write from the time I was a small girl. I have mentioned the stories I would write when I was in third grade when I decided I wanted to be a writer. Last night as the grown-ups sat around talking after dinner, 10-year-old Dagny got her parents’ computer, and was quietly typing away at something. Finally, we asked her what she was doing. “Writing a story,” she told us. I of course had to take a look at what she wrote, and was seriously quite impressed. Her story was about two very good friends who were at odds with one another because one of the girls had sort of betrayed the other. I found that her story telling was interesting and her plotting was creative. She didn’t just tell a story from beginning to end, blah blah blah. She used flashback and moved the story along via her dialogue. I was so impressed that I asked her if she would write my blog for today. “I can tell you what I would write,” she told me. “I would say ‘Dagny is a wonderful girl and I love her very much. She is the best child out of the four.'” So there. Consider this her contribution.

Golobki

Last night, in honor of Heather being in town, her mother cooked for us all, making absolutely delicious Polish food. We had fresh and smoked kielbasa, stuffed cabbage rolls (golobki), and creamed cucumbers. My mother — who was 100 percent Polish — always said she learned to cook from her mother-in-law, who was 100 percent Swiss. But I remember eating all of those things that Cynthia cooked last night, so Mom learned Polish cooking somewhere. It tasted wonderful, and made me think about my mom.

Ciao.

Christmas Chaos

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At the beginning of every episode of The Pioneer Woman on Food Network, Ree Drummond says, “Here’s what’s happening on the ranch.” Apropos of nothing in this blog post, I love when she says that, because I have a secret desire to live on a ranch. Let me explain something, however. I would be a very, very bad rancher. Considering how many times a day I make my way to the grocery store for one reason or another (like when I realized yesterday that I didn’t have a lemon for my lemon butter chicken just as I was beginning dinner preparation), living in the middle of nowhere simply wouldn’t work for me. Plus, if I was going to live on a ranch, it would be in the Arkansas Valley of Colorado where my ranch would be surrounded by mountains. It certainly wouldn’t be in Oklahoma. I have no beef with Oklahoma (pun intended), but every time Ree Drummond says, “Let’s have a picnic,” she looks like she and everyone picnicking with her are going to blow away. You know, OOOOOOOOOOOOklahoma, where the winds come sweeping down the plain….

Anyhoo, with a wink to the Pioneer Woman, here’s what’s happening at the McLain suburban non-ranch.

It’s been a busy week because, as you know, we leave on Christmas Day for AZ, where we will spend the next four months soaking up sunshine and feeling sorry for all of our Colorado family and friends when the need to shovel snow arises. So in addition to preparing for Christmas – which in my case involves preparing two different meals on two different days – we are also doing the things we need to do to get the house ready for our departure.

This year, there isn’t as much involved in that regard because Allen and his girlfriend Emma are going to stay here and housesit while we are gone. The only reason that’s a panic situation for me is that my house is a mess. I would like to blame it on Christmas, and that certainly has added to the mess. However, I laid on my bed yesterday afternoon and glanced up and noticed about three-quarters of an inch of dust on the ceiling fan, and that can’t be blamed on Christmas. You know what’s really sad about that? That dust will still be there when I get back, because I certainly won’t be dusting ceiling fans any time before we go.

You’ve heard of Murphy’s Law? Well, we are experiencing Murphy’s Second Cousin Once Removed Ernie’s law, which is a step worse than Murphy’s Law. It all started last weekend when the temperature was hovering around 2 degrees and Bill went out to get our mail. Now then, there are lots of things wrong with cold weather, but not the least of these things is the fact that everyone is so clumsy when wearing heavy coats and gloves and hats and scarves. It is almost impossible to move. I always feel like Ralphie’s little brother in A Christmas Story. I’m afraid I’m going to fall down and need to yell, “Ralphie! I can’t get up.”

Anyhoo, Bill got our mail, but somewhere between our mailbox and the front porch, he dropped the mailbox key into the snow. It was 2 degrees, the snow was five or six inches deep, and it was almost dark. And there was poor Bill digging in the snow trying to find the key. The key which, to date, has not yet been found. Thankfully our kids had a spare, and we were able to make a duplicate key. But you know how those things BUG YOU? Both Bill and I have been out there on numerous occasions this week determined to find the key, and yet unsuccessful.

And then, of course, the toilet backed up. The downstairs toilet which is used in the neighborhood of 75 times a day. It happened the night that Court and the kids were over for dinner. Cole is our prime suspect, though he is wisely admitting to nothing. Bill is tenacious. He is determined to fix it himself, despite the fact that his degree is in law and not plumbing. He even ordered a special tool that was supposed to shoot whatever it is that is blocking to toilet (and only Cole knows for sure) to kingdom come so that the toilet will once again flush.

johnny-jolter-tool

So far, he has been unsuccessful. Perhaps I will send him to the grocery store and call a plumber while he is gone.

Not to be outdone, my car had to get its last-minute shots in as well. Suddenly the key remote stopped working. Thankfully, it was an easy fix, but Bill was not able to fix it before I sat in the parking lot waiting for Hobby Lobby to open and listening to my car alarm unceasingly screeching for a reason that I haven’t quite figured out, but which had something to do with my car remote not working. When the Hobby Lobby doors finally opened, the clerk looked at me as though I was driving a stolen yellow Bug.

Nevertheless, my presents are wrapped and ready for the weekend festivities. Our daughter Heather and her family arrive this afternoon to spend Christmas. We are warm and safe and healthy and dry, so I really can’t complain.

Even though it’s clear that I do.

And speaking of A Christmas Story, while the photo of Kaiya and Mylee that I shared yesterday is one of my favorites, here is another…….

Austin (on the left) is about as happy with the Christmas pajamas that his Grammie Jen bought him last year as Ralphie was with his pajamas he received from his aunt in the beloved movie.

Ribbons and Bows, Redux

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presentsYesterday got away from me with holiday preparations, so today’s post is an oldie but goodie (from December 2014), with one of my favorite photos ever at the end. Happy Tuesday.

As much as I have talked about how I have to move beyond the secular side of Christmas this Advent season, I must admit that I think the best part about Christmas are the presents under the tree.

Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t necessarily think I need any gifts at all. I am truly blessed, and have waaaaay to much stuff as it is. But I love those presents under the tree. I always have. They are so full of mystery. That gift could be anything at all. It’s a wondrous feeling, especially if you’re a kid.

For his part, Bill can barely keep a gift a secret. He loves to give gifts to people, but the whole waiting and anticipating part of it, well, not so much. Of course, we are both so independent and difficult to buy for since we usually buy ourselves what we want or need. I literally have to tell him with firmness to stop buying himself things as Christmas nears so that there is something to give him as a present. As the years go by, we generally simply tell each other what to buy, and often are present when it is being purchased. I, for example was with him Sunday when he bought my present. In fact, I picked it out. He will wrap it, and I will act surprised when I open it, though we both know I won’t be.

I have mostly been good about not peeking at my presents. I remember, however, one year when I was probably 10 or 11 years old. I wanted a watch. I kept my eye on the gifts as they grew in number under the tree. Finally, one day there was a gift for me that might have been that watch. I would pick it up and shake it and then put it back under the tree. A bit later I would pick it up and hold it to the light to see if I could possibly see what it was under the wrapping. I wanted that watch so, so much.

Finally, I could stand it no longer. At some point when I was alone in the living room, I carefully pried open one side of the wrapping paper. Sure enough, I could see the ripple of the plastic Timex watch box. I took great care to tape the side back up. But here’s the thing. While I was so happy to know that I was getting the watch I wanted so much, the surprise had been ruined, and that made me sad. I never did it again.

Some people are really good at guessing gifts. Jen, for example, is somewhat psychic. I remember one year when Bill and I were first dating and he bought me a Christmas gift. It was a small box, all wrapped up. Jen took one look at it and told me it was a gift card to take a hot air balloon ride. Having never had any desire to take a hot air balloon ride, I didn’t take her very seriously.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, it was indeed a gift certificate for a hot air balloon ride. To this day she swears he hadn’t told her. Now that I have been married to him for 22 years and know how incapable he is of keeping gifts a secret, I’m pretty sure he told her. She will deny it, of course, as will he.

My grandson Alastair is another one who is very good at guessing presents. With a single shake, he will tell me, “this is such and such,” and he’s most often correct. Of course, he is aided by the fact that I get them some of the same things each year – a pair of pajamas, a Christmas ornament, etc. And let’s face it, you don’t have to be psychic to identify a box of Legos.

But the funniest story I have about Christmas presents took place a couple of years ago when Kaiya and Mylee were 4 and 2, respectively. Their mom and dad had placed the wrapped presents under the tree. A couple of days before Christmas, the two kids could wait no longer. When their parents came downstairs that morning, all of the gifts had been opened and the kids were happily playing with the toys. Here is the picture taken after they were scolded and put in time out. Talk about looking guilty….

kaiya-mylee-doghouse

Joseph’s Wonderful Life

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Therefore the Lord himself will give you this sign: the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel. – Isaiah 7:14

Every year, the readings for the fourth Sunday of Advent remind us of the good news that the Jewish people had/have long known because it was foretold by the Hebrew prophet Isaiah – a savior was going to be born of a virgin, and he would be king of all.

And each year when I hear these readings, I immediately think about Mary, and her surprise visit from the Angel Gabriel telling her the shocking news that she was going to be the mother of this Emmanuel. Because I have a granddaughter who is 13-1/2, I can easily picture the look on Mary’s face because I can picture the look on Addie’s face. And I always remind myself that rather than saying, “Let me think about it,” or “Let me look at my calendar and see what I have going for the next nine months,” Mary just said, “Yes.” Oh, she expressed an appropriate amount of confusion about the fact that she was going to bear a child even though she was a virgin, but after getting angel-based clarification, she said, “Yes, I will take on this responsibility.”

But while I use Mary as my model for how to turn my life over to God, I rarely think about Joseph, and his role in this marvelous story of grace.

Last week, I mentioned in a post that I watched the movie It’s a Wonderful Life for the first time ever. In the movie, George Bailey – played marvelously by Jimmy Stewart – had his life planned out. He was going to travel. He was going to make lots of money. He was going to leave his crappy little town and live a rich and elegant life with his wonderful wife someplace new and exciting. But, things just kept creeping up that prevented his imagined life to happen in the way he had planned. And finally, just as he had given up hope, he learned the valuable lesson about what is important in life.

At Mass yesterday, our homilist reminded us that Joseph, too, had quite a rude awakening when he learned that his bride-to-be Mary was pregnant, and he knew HE wasn’t the father. But rather than publicly humiliating her, he quietly set out to end the relationship in a way that would be less embarrassing to her and her family. And then, the Angel Gabriel (who seemingly had quite a busy few days) told Joseph in a dream to not freak out because she is with child via the Holy Spirit, and in fact, she is going to give birth to the Son of God and the savior of all.

Like George Bailey, I would imagine that Joseph had his life planned out as well. He and his young bride would marry, kids would soon come along – maybe some sons who could learn the carpentry business and help him, and a daughter or two who would help his wife with her hard work – and they would live a quiet and joyful life in their community of Nazareth. Maybe he would run for mayor. Eventually their children would marry and have kids, and he and Mary would be grandparents, at which time they could feed their grandkids all of the sugary figs they wanted and send them home on a sugar high, like all good grandparents do.

But just as soon as he had that dream, Joseph knew his life wasn’t going to go the way he wanted it to go. God had other plans for he and Mary. And, like Mary, he didn’t Google flights out of Jerusalem, but instead, said, “Whatever you say, God.”

The children from Wellshire Presbyterian Church performed a living nativity Sunday night in the frigid weather. The little shepherd kneeling in front is Maggie Faith. The shepherd behind her wearing glasses is Dagny. Addie is the wise man wearing the gold robe. Dagny and Maggie chose to be shepherds because, well, live goats were involved.

The children from Wellshire Presbyterian Church performed a living nativity Sunday night in the frigid weather. The little shepherd kneeling in front is Maggie Faith. The shepherd behind her wearing glasses is Dagny. Addie is the wise man wearing the gold robe. Dagny and Maggie chose to be shepherds because, well, live goats were involved.

According to St. Matthew, Emmanuel means God is with us. And so the very name of Jesus means that he is with us always, even when it seems he couldn’t possibly be further away. He is within us. We just need to get out of his way and let him lead us.

This post linked to the GRAND Social

Saturday Smile: Bunny Tracks

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On my birthday, Bill and I had breakfast with Jll, Dagny, and Maggie Faith. Alastair and Addie had long since left for school, since they are on their bus by 7 o’clock every morning. We sat down at the counter, and I casually told Jll that Bill and I would be unable to attend the music concert that Dagny and Maggie’s school was holding the next night at Thomas Jefferson High School because of a scheduling conflict. I didn’t think much about it until I looked to my left, and saw that Maggie was silently crying, literally with tears rolling down her cheeks. Her parents were also going to be unable to attend, and she was so sad that she wasn’t going to have a big audience to see her performance. Jll told us that the dress rehearsal was that night, and we all agreed that we would attend the dress rehearsal. That cheered her up a bit.

The performance was not simply a Christmas musical concert; it was sort of a musical play with a holiday theme. The story took place in a magical forest, and featured a variety of forest creatures, not the least of which were the rabbits. And Magnolia was a rabbit extraordinaire…..

maggie-musical-performance

None of us are quite certain as to why her bunny ears were not sticking straight up as all of the other rabbits’ ears were, but it likely has to do with the fact that Maggie Faith does now and will evermore STAND OUT.

The dress rehearsal, while truly a rehearsal, was tons of fun, and Maggie’s rabbit scene was not surprisingly the best of the show. As for Dagny, she chose to act as stage crew. No need for the spotlight for Dagny Tess.

Have a good weekend.

Thursday Thoughts

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Speed of Light
bill-and-google-homeIf you read my blog, you probably remember that I told you about the “other woman” in Bill’s life – namely, Goggle Home. Thus far, she’s worked out fairly well. She’s not terribly cooperative about music yet; for example, she won’t play a particular song when requested. Instead, if you ask her to play Fight Song (as did Dagny on a recent morning), she will fix you up with what she calls a “Fight Song playlist,”which is a play list that includes many songs, but apparently doesn’t include Fight Song. She’s a bit contrary that way. But let me tell you about the funniest thing she has done thus far. Every morning when Bill comes downstairs, the first thing he does is say, “Hey Google, what’s my day like?” She then commences to say something like this: Good morning, William. The temperature in Denver right now is 26 degrees. The high today will be 48. You have an appointment with Joe Blow at 11:30. However, inexplicably, the other morning after he asked her that question, she did her spiel, but at the end of it, she added Your commute time this morning will be approximately 28 minutes. Hmmm. Now that’s interesting, because he is mostly retired, and even when he did work, for all of the years we’ve been married, and many years prior to that, he’s worked out of his house. Bill and I looked at each other, and I said, “I wonder where she thinks you work?” The next morning, he asked her the daily question, and she did her regular spiel. And this time at the end, she added Your commute time this morning will be approximately 18 minutes. Somehow his commute to wherever she thinks he works was 10 minutes shorter. So it got us to thinking….and led Bill to subsequently ask her this question: “Hey Google, where do I work?” She immediately responded, You work at 9109 E. Elmwood St. in Mesa, AZ. Bill did the math and figured out that to get from Denver to the job she thinks he has in AZ in 18 minutes, he must travel at a speed of somewhere in the neighborhood of 3000 mph. As my sister Bec put it when I told her the story, “Apparently Bill is an astronaut.”

Boobly
My grandmother crocheted and knitted. All of her grandchildren were on the receiving end of all sorts of her handicrafts – afghans, bedsocks, vests, booties, sweaters, and so forth. One of the things she often made was stocking caps, and every single stocking cap she made had a pom-pom on the top. Without fail. Always, always the pom-pom. Except she never called it a pom-pom. She called it a boobly. As in what color boobly do you want on your stocking cap? So that is, of course, what all of her grandkids call, well, booblies. In fact, my brother pointed out during winter NFL football last year that all of the professional football players at a particularly cold game were wearing imgresstocking caps with booblies. “I wonder if Peyton Manning is comfortable wearing a stocking cap with a boobly?” I remember my brother asking me. I was channeling my grandmother yesterday afternoon as I was finishing up some of my Christmas gifts, two of which involve a boobly. I am not too proud to admit that I had a HELL of a time making that boobly. First I didn’t use enough yarn. Then I had trouble tying the yarn together by myself. Once I had my yarn cut and tied, the final step is to trim it up so that it looks full and perky. My friends, I had yarn EVERYWHERE. I don’t even want to think about how much yarn I inhaled. One boobly – ONE SINGLE BOOBLY – took me something like an hour to make, and remake, and remake once again. As I finally tied the boobly on the last hat, I looked to the heavens and recalled that Grammie used to crank out these booblies like nobody’s business. One more thing to admire about the woman.

They Say It’s Your Birthday
Yesterday was my 63rd birthday, and I don’t know how in the hell THAT happened. But I am banking on the fact that you are only as old as you feel, and I feel pretty darn good. My birthday started with breakfast with Dagny and Magnolia and the celebration will conclude on Saturday when Court and the kids come for dinner and make me a birthday cake. Bill took me out for dinner at one of my favorite restaurants, a neighborhood Italian restaurant called Farro’s. That restaurant has one of my favorite things to eat – a dish they call Seafood Farro, but which is basically cioppino.

seafood-farro

Oh, yum.  And it was as good last night as always. They offer a special deal where when it’s your birthday, you get the percentage that equals your age off of your meal. Smokin’ deal. I asked the server what was the largest percentage they’ve ever had to honor. She told me it was for a woman who was 99 years old.

Ciao.

The Ugly Side of Christmas

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Ho, Ho, Ho, there’s really nothing better
Than a beautiful girl in an ugly Christmas sweater
Ho, Ho, Ho, and now I can’t forget her
That beautiful girl in an ugly Christmas sweater – Garth Brooks and John Michael Martin

Singer Andy Williams and his brothers proudly wear their Christmas sweaters. Admittedly, this was back in the 1960s.

Singer Andy Williams and his brothers proudly wear their Christmas sweaters back circa 1960.

For as long as I can recall – at least in my adult life — beginning on Thanksgiving Day and going on through Christmas Day, I have worn a Christmas sweater. There was a time when I owned so many Christmas sweaters that I could just about wear a different sweater to work every day during that period of time.

As you can imagine, in order to own that many sweaters, they can’t all be tastefully designed. In fact, you might be in the rather large camp that believes there is no such thing as a tasteful Christmas sweater. For much of my adult life, that didn’t matter, because the fact of the matter is that the gaudier they were, the more I liked them. I accented them with holiday-themed turtlenecks, Christmas socks, and Christmas earrings. It became, well, my thing. People would come to my office to see what sweater I was wearing that day. My sweaters ranged from fairly dressy all the way down to sweatshirts (those I saved for the weekends).

A lot of my Christmas sweaters disintegrated with age and had to be tossed away. The bells no longer tinkled when I walked and the Santa lost the cotton ball on the tip of his hat. After I retired, I will admit that I gave away some of the more garish styles to Goodwill, where I’m certain they were purchased and worn as jokes. After all, NOBODY would be seen seriously wearing such attire.

Still, in the boxes that I store under the bed in our guest room live a fair number of Christmas sweaters, and a relatively embarrassing number of them would be considered within most social strata to be eligible for Goodwill.

All of this is background for a story I have to tell you. Late morning on Sunday, my cell phone rang. I was alerted that it was a call from Addie. When I answered, she greeted me unnecessarily with, “Hi Nana. It’s Addie. I have a favor to ask you.”

Hmmmm.

She went on to tell me that later that evening, her youth group at her church was having their annual Christmas party, and the theme was – wait for it – UGLY CHRISTMAS SWEATERS. There was, in fact, a contest for the ugliest sweater.

“Nana, do you have any sweaters that my friends and I could use for our party?” she asked me.

Oh. Do I ever.

You see, I’m not sensitive to the fact that my Christmas sweaters are ugly. I know now – have always known, in fact, that they are garish.

So a bit later, our doorbell rang, and there were Addie and some of her friends to take a gander at my sweater collection.

“Oh my,” they said in unity, and with great awe and, well, joy as they gazed at my sweater collection. So many from which to choose!

Perhaps unnecessarily, I will tell you that the sweaters worn by Addie, Alastair, and their friends were a hit at the Wellshire Presbyterian Youth Group’s Ugly Christmas Sweater Contest. In fact, one of the sweaters won the grand prize for the ugliest Christmas sweater, earning its wearer a $20 gift card and the pride of wearing the ugliest sweater……

Left to right -- Spencer, wearing the prize-winning sweater; Alastair Luci, Addie, and Mettie. Apparently, when it comes to Ugly Sweater Contests, all sweaters are gender-neutral.

Left to right — Spencer, wearing the prize-winning sweater; Alastair, Luci, Addie, and Mettie (who, by the way, is wearing someone else’s sweater; happily, I must not be the only one in possession of such items). Apparently, when it comes to Ugly Sweater Contests, all sweaters are gender-neutral.

I’m happy for him (though frankly, I think the sweater Addie wore should have taken the prize), and delighted that the kids had such a nice time. But now I need my sweaters back so that I can wear them once again!

Wonderful Life

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As I have been madly crocheting this holiday season in preparation for gift-giving, I have watched all manner of Christmas movies. I have seen Miracle on 34th Street (the newer version), White Christmas (in which Rosemary Clooney makes being distraught an art form), Love, Actually (yes, yet again), A Christmas Story (which is now and will be forever more be my favorite Christmas movie), Holiday (in which Jack Black is an odd love interest for Kate Winslet), Last Holiday (there’s probably not another Christmas movie that leaves me feeling happier than this), and Holiday Inn (I could watch Fred Astaire’s Fourth of July solo dance a million times).

And Sunday, when I decided I couldn’t stomach watching the Broncos not have an offense any longer, I watched It’s a Wonderful Life. Shockingly, it was the first time I had ever seen this movie.

imgres

Whaaaaaat?

Oh, don’t get me wrong. I have seen bits and pieces of the movie throughout my life. Really, how could I not have ever seen the ending where Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed are embracing and all of the people are dumping cashola on the table to save his butt and the bell rings, indicating that Clarence had finally gotten his wings? I feel comfortable not having indicated SPOILER ALERT because I’m pretty sure I’m the only living person of reading age who hadn’t seen the movie.

But I had never sat down and watched the entire film from beginning to end. I had never, in fact, seen the beginning of the movie, which of course sets the stage for the whole point of the film – that George Bailey had wanted and planned on a much more exciting life than the one he ended up having. That’s pretty important context to have known about for the ending to make any sense. But Christmas movies really don’t need to make sense. Is there any universe in which Jack Black would be a love interest for Kate Winslet except in a Christmas movie?

However, it’s true that hardly anyone’s life turns out exactly as planned, mostly because as of yet, we aren’t able to see into the future. What’s that old Yiddish adage? Man plans and God laughs. Ain’t it the truth? It’s interesting to think about how I would have imagined my life in 50 years if asked to predict when I was 10 years old. I certainly wouldn’t have guessed that I would live in Denver, Colorado and have a second house in Mesa, Arizona. Since at that point I hadn’t been any further than Omaha, I undoubtedly wouldn’t have guessed that I would have been on two transatlantic cruises and seen such things as the Parthenon in Greece, the pyramids in Egypt, climbed to the top of St. Peter’s in Vatican City, and sat on the grass at the base of the Eiffel Tower.

In fact, I would have been expecting and frankly, wanting, a life just like the life of ol’ George Bailey.

We all get caught up in the preparations for Christmas. I have awakened at 3:45 a.m. on a couple of recent mornings unable to go back to sleep because I’m mentally counting the gifts I have purchased so that I don’t make that fateful mistake of having one more present for one grandchild than I have for the rest. Did I remember to set aside enough cookies to share with the neighbors who faithfully keep an eye on our house while we’re in AZ? Will Bill’s gift arrive in time?

STOP! It’s Advent. The time for quiet reflection and preparation, not for the gifts that we are going to give or receive, but for the birth of the one who is sent to save us. Advent gets lost in the sea of Christmas frenzy. Like George Bailey, we need to remember to be grateful for what we have and for those who make our lives special.

The one thing that all of those Christmas movies have in common is that life is full of surprises, and it’s not what happens to us, but who we share our lives with and how we accept our life as it has played out.

Bookshelves

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I follow a number of bloggers, mostly general interest, some cooking blogs. Interestingly, I only follow one book blogger, and hers might have been the first blog I signed up to follow. I know almost nothing about the blogger, not even her real name.  She writes very little about her personal life. I think she lives in Australia, and I know she gravitates towards psychological thrillers.

And the last thing I know about her is that she must spend every waking moment of every single day with her nose in one of those thrillers. How do I know how much she reads? Because she writes a post almost every single day in which she reviews a book. I read a lot, but I couldn’t post a book review every day. Her taste in books is very different from mine, so there have only been a couple of occasions in which I have read a book based on her recommendation. Still, I’m impressed by the amount she reads.

But a recent post of hers struck home. Her posts rarely deviate from a book review, but on this occasion, she wrote about her love of book stores. Her first line, in fact, states that there is no place in which her hearts sings more than in a book store.

Book lovers will undoubtedly be able to identify with that feeling. I know I do.

When I still worked hard for a living, I often spent my lunch hour perusing the book stacks at Denver’s amazing locally-owned bookstore The Tattered Cover, which was near my office. They have a little lunch counter where you could buy a sandwich and an M&M cookie (one of my secret pleasures), and I could nibble my sandwich while looking at the newly published hardback books or books that were newly published as paperbacks. Often I would buy a paperback book that appealed to me, but more often than not, I would dig in my purse for my tablet and a pen, and write down the names of books that caught my eye so that I could look for them at the library.

I always anticipated that at some point, a Tattered Cover employee would to come over, grab my little tablet, tear out the sheet on which I’d written the book titles, and shred it into little tiny pieces, saying, “How on earth do you think we can continue to make a living if people like you don’t buy the books?”

It never happened.  But I really do wonder how book stores make a living these days where so many people – me included – read entirely using an e-reader. I haven’t read a book made out of paper in probably three years. Bill and I have a running joke. Whenever we see a person reading an actual book, we look at one another with obvious puzzlement in our eyes and say, “What is that weird-looking thing that person is holding?” We are hilarious.

I know that many bookstores have gotten into the business of selling e-books along with paper books. But I would bet that Amazon has cornered the market on e-books with their Kindle books. Heck, if I find a book I want, I can buy it by pressing a single button on my iPad, and within minutes, that book is in my library.

When I think about how Bill hauled the box of books in and out of our car trunk every time we would change locations when we were on our big European adventure, I cringe. God bless him. When we embarked on our journey, I promised him that I would read the book, and then leave it behind. Voila! We would end up with an empty box at the end of the trip! I did that occasionally, but more often I thought, “I might want to read that book again,” and back it would go into the box, along with the two or three other books that I bought at an American book store I stumbled upon in Rome or Barcelona or Paris. Again, God bless him; he never complained.

As time goes by, I am less inclined to keep all of the books that now take up a full wall of bookshelves in our bedroom, and a half of a wall of bookshelves in our family room. I rarely look at a single book, which have just become dust collectors. Still, all those years of collecting the entire Hercule Poirot series by Agatha Christie…..

book-shelf

By the way, I still enjoy going into book stores, because not many things can make me happier than seeing a display full of reading options. But I still bring along my tablet and pen. That book store employee is bound to strike at some point. Tick tock.

This post linked to the GRAND Social

Saturday Smile: Peanuts and Cracker Jack Amidst the Holly

Posted in Whimsies by

Last Sunday Bill and I attended church services at Wellshire Presbyterian Church, where Dave and Jll and the kids worship. The church was having what was basically a carol worship service, and Addie sang in the youth choir and Dagny and Maggie Faith sang in the children’s choir. The church was packed to the gills.

dagnymaggie-2016-2Each week the church allows children to pick up a worship bag in the back of church that contains crafts for them to work on rather than being bored and whispering loudly, “How much longer, Mom?” Dagny and Maggie Faith each had one of the bags, and because the church was so full, they sat next to the rest of the family on the steps leading to the altar. As we listened to the carols and heard the word of God as well as those of the pastor, the girls diligently worked on their religious-themed crafts. Dagny was working very hard on a white board she had pulled out of the bag. I envisioned that she was writing a prayer with the blue and red markers she was using. Or maybe drawing a picture of the Holy Family. Finally, she held up the white board so that we could see what she had drawn. In red and blue letters, and extravagantly decorated, she had written…..

GO CUBS!!!!

Dagny and most of the rest of the family attended a Cubs game in Chicago this summer, and proudly wore Cubs hats.

Dagny and much of the rest of the family attended a Cubs game in Chicago this summer, and proudly wore Cubs hats.

Let’s hope God is a Cubbies fan!

Have a great weekend.