Confrontation and bouondaries--Part one of ???

Tonight kiddo is going to spend the night at Grandma's house with the cousins. And I am going to have to set the first boundary: no baths. There was always something weird about the way my mother bathed me. I have been holding off saying anything about her bathing Kiddo, because 1) I was not totally sure anything odd was happening 2) Kiddo did not seem upset or bothered in any way by taking baths at Grandma's house and 3) I still want Kiddo to have the experience of Grandma that I had, as far as is possible.

Well, things change and sometimes become clearer. I know I tend to get creeped out easily over issues like bathing or any thing else that concerns my mother. And I know this is partially due to the fact that I don't have a good sense of what is truly creepy and what is not. However, the last time Ted went to my mom's house to pick up kiddo from an over night stay, he got creeped out because mom insisted on giving our child a bath because he got wet in the snow. In the first place, snow is not dirty. A change of clothes should have been enough. A full bath is really, really overkill. In the second place, this kid is almost 7 and has been taking showers alone for a couple of years now. And although Ted told her, a couple of times, that Kiddo should be left alone in the bathroom, she would not back off. We have been watching this behavior carefully since last May, since we were not sure exactly what was going on. Now we are pertty sure there is something odd about the whole situation.

So now I have to consider exactly what I am going to say to her, and how. THe first issue is, I need to establish my boundaries. I want to shout at her, "Quit trying to see my kid naked!" But that sounds childish, so I will porbalby say something along the lines of, "Kiddo is getting older now and he needs his privacy in the bathroom and when he is changing his clothes. Unless he has a specific problem and asks for your help, I don't want you present when he is bathing, using the bathroom, or changing his clothes. He had a bath this morning and I do not want him to have another one tomorrow." Then she will get all in a huff and ask what I am implying. This is where I usually waffle and start sputtering explanations. But I think I will just say "I don't want him to have another bath tomorrow. That's all there is to it." She will go off in a snit, but I don't care. I think that will be enough to solve the immediate problem. I am not really sure how to proceed in the long run because I am pretty sure kiddo is not being in any way harmed.

Drat. I am sooooooo dreading this.

Talent Show

I won't comment on what I thought were sub-standard performances from the other kids, but MY little darling was wonderful. We told jokes for his talent. I had to be his straight man. He was sooooo cute. And he stood still and looked at the audience and spoke into the microphone. These were the jokes:

Me: We have been studying really hard at home, and we learned a lot of interesting things. We wanted to share some of them with you. We have been learning a lot about animals. Kiddo, tell me,

What do sheep say to each other at Christmastime?
Merry Christmas to ewe!

What do sheep say to shepherds at Christmastime?
Season's Bleatings!

How do sheep say Merry Christmas in Mexico?
Fleece Navidad!

We have also been studying literature.What do you call an elf who steals gift wrap from the rich and gives it to the poor?
Ribbon Hood!

And just one geography question: Where was king Solomon’s temple?

On his forehead!

Dear Mom . . .

Dear Mom,

This is to let you know that you no longer need concern yourself with my son's education. I will never again ask you to attend any function of his homeschool group or any other group. I know your extreme self-absorption probably makes you incapable of understanding why I am angry, so I will explain it to you.

I asked you over a month ago whether you wanted to attend C's talent show with his homeschool group. First you said yes, and C was very happy to hear it. Then you decided you could not drive to the location of the homeschool group, so I would have to drive an hour out of my way each way to go pick you up and drop you off. I really should not have agreed to that, but I did. In spite of the fact that I worked extremely lat last night and did not get to bed until almost 5 a.m., I was still up at 8:30. I could have gotten at least an hour and a half more of precious sleep, had I not had to go get you. I also could have had breakfast.

Of course I was late meeting you, so I got the cold shoulder for that. I would have called and let you know I was running late, only I already know you refuse to turn on your cell phone unless you want to make a call. So even if I had tried to call you, I would not have been able to, and I still would have gotten punished for something unavoidable.

By the time we got to the McDonald's drive-thru, I was already tired, highly caffeinated, and actually trembling from the need to eat. I admit I yelled at C when he repeatedly kept me from hearing what the server was saying to me. However, it is not your place to question my discipline in front of my son.

Your displeasure at the homeschool group meeting was actually palpable. Although Ted and I made repeated efforts to engage you in conversation, you stayed hunched in your chair, arms and legs crossed, and resisted all our attempts at being pleasant. You stared around at the other home school families as if we were all a colony of child pornographers, committing the most heinous crimes against our children by opting not to send them to traditional school. And the rude way you responded to Ted, when he asked how you liked the talent show, was absolutely indefensible.

Actually, you hit it right on the head when you said "[Your wife] already knows how I feel about home schooling." I do know. I had hoped you would behave as a grown up and put C's needs and feelings first. I have asked and even begged for your help and support in many small things. I have tried to include you in field trips and activities. I have offered to design a unit for you to teach him. I have even just asked you to help him finish a simple assignment or review a poem he is memorizing. But time and again, you have subtly attempted to undermine me. This was totally the last straw. Rest assured, I will never again ask you to so much as supervise C finishing a worksheet, or to read him a story.

As long as we are on the subject, don't think I didn't notice your attempts to manipulate us into spending the rest of the day with you, and the childish way you calmmed up when we refused your offer of lunch, but only if we drove all the way to Plainfield to get it. Ditto on your insistence that C needs a new winter coat, and he needs it now. There is absolutely nothing wrong with his old one. I'd rather have that money for his college fund, if you want to know the truth. He certainly can wait until after Christmas.

I want you to know, I will no longer be tolerating this behavior. I have attempted to be polite in declining your Trojan horses, but I'm afraid I have to resort to being more direct. I have some new rules, and I intend to apply them.

1. Our visits will have an definite ending time. Whatever can't get done by the time I need to leave, won't get done. If it didn't get done first, it must not have been all that important.

2. My first loyalty is to my husband. We see little enough of each other. I will no longer be spending long Sundays with you while Ted is sitting home waiting for me. See rule # 1. And while we are at it, I will no longer be listening to your veiled criticism of Ted. He is a good man and treats me well, and that is all you need to know.

3. My son is my and Ted's responsibility. I will no longer tolerate you questioning my parenting, discipline, or judgment in front of him. I am raising my son to my own standards, not yours. I can choose whatever standards of behavior I deem appropriate. Because I am the mother, that's why.

I'm sorry it has come to this. If you continue to disregard my boundaries, my time, and my rules for my son, then I will be forced to see you less and less often.

Sincerely,
Your daughter

RUDE!

Normally I love what I do. It's fun and interesting, reasonably challenging without being terribly demanding, and you can't beat the hours. And then there are days . . . .

Today was one of them. It started out rough because I worked in two places yesterday, and didn't get into bed until 3 am. Roughly 3 1/2 hours later, I was awakened by a mighty urge to pee (this normally never happens) and a driving desire to write about recycling. And no, it's not that time, and no, I'm not preggers. Then I would up spending $77 on a doctor visit for kiddo's unrelenting cough, and $40 on antibiotics. Ted told me what he had spent on kiddo's Santa gift, and it was 3 digits. And there is another part of the gift that needs to be bought. And then I got to work late and the bar was empty of anyone but girls.

Ordinarily, I am very patient and forgiving when men say weird, bizarre, or just plain rude things. In all my years of dancing, I have learned that silence is usually the better part of discretion. But given the circumstances, I think any reasonable person can see why my fuse was a tad bit short today. Note I said a reasonable person. We had a shortage of those today. Here are some excerpts my night at work.

Me: Thank you for those two dances, I had a wonderful time. (Lie, lie, lie. This guy was handsy, smelly, and all over despicable. He slobbered on my neck.)
Him: Let's go have another drink.
Me: Let's settle up for those dances first.
Him: Didn't I already pay you?
Me: No.
Him: Yes I did.
Me: Nope, sorry. Look in my purse, I don't have any money.
He grudgingly produces payment for one dance.
Me: No, that was two dances.
Him: No, it was one.
It just goes on from here, with lots of "did not's" and "did too's" with the end result being that I did not get paid for the second dance. Funny thing is, I had a premonition in the middle of the second dance that that was going to happen.

Me: Hi
Customer: I don't want any dances, I'm here to forget someone.
Me: Sweetie, a few dances with me and you'll forget everyone.
Customer: She was a dancer. I hate dancers.
In my thought bubble: Then why on earth are you here? This is the only bar in Crown Point that has dancers.

Me: (After some random chit-chat) So, let's go have some fun!
Customer (who is around 55 years old): I don't want a dance with you. You know what I see when I look at you? I see a middle-aged woman who . . . (trails off after scathing look from me)
Me: Yes? Who what?
Him: Uh, uh. Well, middle aged, you know.
Me: And you know what I see? I see one homely m*ther-f*cker who I wouldn't even give the time of day to, if I wasn't at work.

Same customer, who is not content to let me be but chases me down and attempts to continue the conversation:
Customer: (in confrontational tone, grabbing my arm) I wasn't trying to be rude.
Me: No, you were succeeding at being rude.
Customer: What did I say? I mean I didn't want to hurt your feelings or anything. I was just being honest.
Me: I don't consider 38 middle aged. (Turning away now)
Him: Well, don't go away hurt. I don't want to hurt your feelings. You ARE middle aged.
Me: (Losing patience now) Dude, neither you nor any other man in this bar matters enough to me to hurt my feelings. Only one man matters to me right now. He is six years old and believes Santa is going to bring him a hideously expensive train set which, thanks to cheap asses like you, I cannot afford. If you want to apologize or make me feel better, you can buy a dance. C'mon, let's go.
Him: I wouldn't get a dance with you, you're old.
(This same asshole then contented himself with tormenting the bartender for the rest of the night.)

Some young guy, possibly a friend of the last guy: I can't get a dance with you, you would not be able to handle it.
Me: I can handle anything, baby. Let's go find out.
Him: If you saw my c*ck, you wouldn't know what to do with it.
Me: Eye roll and walk away
In my thought bubble: What in hell makes his schlong so different from all the other ones I have had time to see in my advanced years? Does it do tricks?

What is is about the holiday season that makes men act this way? Every year about this time, the bars fill up with mean people, the physically grotesque and socially stunted, who possibly cannot even pay escorts to spend quality time with them. So they come into bars full of attractive women who would ordinarily never have any thing to do with them and anyway who are NOT there to get a date, and act in the most obnoxious way possible to guarantee that even if there were a remote chance one of us might have once considered leaveing with a customer, it would not, in a million years, be with them.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Still thinking about the environmental and consumerism issues that go along with modern Christmas celebrations. This is leading me to think about New Year's Resolutions and how I can reduce waste all year round.

I have to admit, I am pretty good at that already. I produce only 1-2 bags of trash a week. The rest goes for recycling or re-use and the food crap of course goes for compost. These are some things I do:

• I save electricity and propane wherever I can. E. g., turn out lights, unplug appliances, etc.
• I use the clothes line as soon as it gets warm enough in the spring up until it gets too cold and rainy in the fall.
• Everybody in my family has a sweater or sweatshirt to put on when they are cold.
• We have ceiling fans instead of an air conditioner (although I do want to get a small window unit for the bedroom, just to use when we are in there.)
• I don't buy anything disposable if I can avoid it. I use rags instead of paper towels, cloth napkins, plastic freezer containers instead of bags, and so on.
• I donate old things to a local thrift store, instead of throwing them out. If clothes are too far gone to donate, I try to cut them up for rags.
• I hardly ever buy anything new. I shop at thrift stores and consignment shops. I love garage sales and I especially love "junking," which really means picking up stuff at the side of the road, out of other people's trash. I get some great stuff that way.
• I avoid using the plastic bags from stores as much as possible. I try to remember to carry in my own bags, or if I am buying just one or two small items, I refuse a bag altogether. When I do forget my bags, I opt for paper ones, which have other uses. If I do get stuck with a plastic bag, I try to find a way to re-use it.
• Uses for paper bags and newspapers: Of course they're good for craft projects (like my holiday wrapping paper), or for putting under craft projects to protect the floor. But then what? I have found that you can put them in the garden around the plants, cover them with grass clippings or other mulch, and ta-da! no more weeds. You can also flatten out cardboard boxes and hide them with mulch. I did this to kill a creeping-Charley problem in my garden.
• I use old plastic trays and non-recyclable carry-out containers for paint pallets.
• The plastic boxes that tofu comes in make great organizers. They are just the right size for crayons and other small objects.
• I save glass jars and their lids for storing dried foods from the dehydrator, teas, dry beans, and all the other stuff the mice like to eat out of my cupboards.
• I re-use the plastic bags that bread, apples, and so on come in from the store, to keep my own bread.
• Uses for the plastic containers that come with a pound of yogurt or cottage cheese: Start plants in them, freeze food in them (put them inside a plastic freezer bag. The bag can be re-used indefinitely.), store things in them.
• Uses for coffee cans: Line them with the inevitable plastic bags and make a small waste-paper basket (the size to keep by your desk or bedside to catch used tissues and candy-bar wrappers), store plastic bags in them for future use, plant things in them, melt candle wax or soap in them, let small children make them into drums, punch holes in the lid of one and string a shoe lace through it to practice knot tying.
• I have two plastic coffee cans that I use for counter-top compost buckets. I fill them as I am cooking, then run them outside to the compost pile during clean up. They wash up very nicely, too.

This actually started as a New Years resolution when my son was little. One of the naturalists who taught his nature class mentioned that she had stopped using paper towels. She had twin toddler boys at the time, and I figured if she could do it, so could I. That was 5 or 6 years ago. I haven't bought paper towels since. When I saw how much the trash was reduced by that one action, I started searching for more.

I love how a lot of the things we do ostensibly to help the environment actually save us money, too. For example, I don't spend anything on paper towels and napkins, mulch or fertilizer. I save money on my utility bills by conserving electricity and propane. And think of all the money I save by shopping used instead of new!

Next year I want to plant a big garden, so much that I can get almost all my produce out of it in season, and preserve a lot too. I saved and dried all the seeds from all my squash and pumpkins. Free squash from free seeds! Wooo-hoo!

As for a Resolution, I think I know what mine is going to be. Besides losing that last 15 pounds, I am going to start eliminating my use of Styrofoam coffee cups. I will have to invest in several more reusable " go-cups", enough so that no matter how many are floating around in my car waiting to come in, there are still clean ones to take with me. Then I will have to actually GET OUT OF MY CAR to go inside somewhere and give them the cup or fill it myself, rather than going to the drive-through. OK, that's gonna suck in the winter and n the rain. But consider that I bought 3 cups of coffee on the road yesterday. I reused one cup ( when you are a regular on the night shift at the Circle K, you get privileges like that) and saved myself a buck. But if I had my own cup, I could have saved about a buck and a half, and two disposable cups. That comes to maybe $5 and ten cups a week.

Some fancy road mugs from Starbucks would pay for themselves pretty quickly at that rate. Especially if I get them at a thrift store.

My anti-wrapping paper campaign

This started as a diatribe against wrapping paper. I hate the stuff. It is the biggest waste of time, money, and natural resources around. It seems to me to represent all that is wrong with current holiday thinking. How on earth did the celebration of a saviors' birth turn from a religious holiday to all-out consumerism carnage? How did spreading a little holiday cheer become an excuse to destroy the earth?

Well, anyway, I refuse to buy any more wrapping paper. Several years ago I started collecting gift bags after everyone was done digging through them. At least they get a few more runs before they ultimately wind up in the land fill. This year I found a large container of very nice fabric literally by the side of the road. (It turns out a woman was emptying out her mother's house in preparation for selling it, and I found several useful if not beautiful objects in that stash.) Some of the fabric has a holiday pattern to it. Guess what I will be wrapping gifts in this year! There were also quite a few large white pieces of pretty good quality. These turned out to be some very nice paint-stamp art projects. (see pictures) What a nice way to have re-usable gift wrap material!

We have also done paint-stamp paper made from paper bags, and finger paint paper from paper bags. Now I am wrapping presents in the paper and using, instead of bows, all those bazilion Christmas cards that get sent to me every year in the hopes of securing a donation for something or other. The cards make very nice decorations/gift tags/greeting cards all-in-one. I will save the bag paper after the presents are opened. If it's not fit to re-use, it can go in the garden to keep weeds at bay.

I'm trying to save a little wear & tear on the earth by the presents I choose, too. We are doing some home-made and some kitchen gifts. I snagged a gift for my Mom at a garage sale this summer, and a few for my kiddo, too. One of kiddo's main gifts is going to come from e-bay. I have my eye on it right now.

Christmas Stuff

I am alone in the house today 'cuz Super Ted is at work, and Kiddo spent the night at Grandma's. We went to Ted's company Christmas party yesterday and meant to go out and do some Karaoke afterward, but in a fit of largess I bought a round of drinks that used up most of our cash, and we didn't know where to go singing anyway. The party was kinda fun, but it was not as much fun as previous years, and would have been much less fun without the benefit of copious amounts of wine. The after party was really boring, so we came home and took advantage of the empty house.

I am going to get motivated to take inventory of all our gifts and start wrapping soon. It's a good day for it, since Kiddo is not here to get underfoot.

All this gift giving and materialism at Christmas really irritates the shit out of me. If you read accounts of Christmas 100 years ago or even 50 or 60 years ago, it was nothing like it is now. People gave each other a couple of things that they had bought or made or even--horrors--something that had once been their own, that they were now passing of to someone else. People decorated a little, had a nice dinner, and maybe visited with some friends or relatives. Santa Claus dropped off some fruit and nuts and maybe a little candy. And that was it.

Oh yeah--people thought about Jesus, whose birth is ostensibly the reason for the celebration.

I wonder how things got to be the way they are today, with this insane drive to spend more money, give better gifts, light more lights, spend more money, decorate more garishly, go to more parties, do more activities, and SPEND MORE MONEY every year. I hate it. I can't afford it. I get sick to my stomach every year when I think about it.

And this year, I quit. Contrary to Super Ted's reasoning, I don't really believe my in-laws will hate me if I can't afford to do a lavish Christmas Eve dinner AND give amazing gifts in the month when work is the most difficult and tips are the lowest. I don't think anyone will resent that I chose to buy propane and make my house payment instead of spending an extra 30% on gifts. This is a lean year, and that's that. I may have to once again resort to gifts from the kitchen, and you know what? It's OK by me.

This year, I am also trying to teach my kiddo something abut the true spirit of giving. He wants to make Squid kites for his cousins. A candle for his auntie. A birdhouse for Grandma. Another birdhouse for Daddy. I really really believe that this sort of giving is far superior to the semi-random distribution of store-bought gifts.

I am also trying to reduce the amount of trash that goes along with gift-giving. I have been saving and re-using gift bags for years. Eventually they do fall apart, but what the heck. Better to get 5 or 6 uses out of them than one. And better to get them for free than to pay for them, too! ;) *wink*

Faith and the Bible (and laziness and Bible-thumping)

I grew up Catholic and went to a Catholic school for the first eight years. I can't say I learned much about religion, God, or prayer, even though those things were forced on me every day. The only part of religious instruction I found interesting was the Lives of the Saints, because I liked learning about how other people lived.

In the Lives of the Saints, at least in the versions I have read over the years, equal emphasis is placed of the prayer and spiritual lives of the Saints, and on their public lives of good works. In fact, it is often easer to place more emphasis on their works, simply because the lists can be so long. My family's patron saint, for example, St. Brigid, is known for founding a huge double monastery (male and female dormitories) in Kildare, Ireland; for her kindness to the sick and poor, and for influencing many of the missionaries who spread out over Europe during the dark ages. Few details are known about her prayer life or her spirituality.

I only learned a few Bible verses in school, and Bible reading was not encouraged. IN eight years of Catholic school the only things I took away were this:

"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what's coming to you in this kingdom. It's been ready for you since the world's foundation. And here's why:

I was hungry and you fed me,
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
I was homeless and you gave me a room,
I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
I was sick and you stopped to visit,
I was in prison and you came to me.'

"Then those 'sheep' are going to say, 'Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?' Then the King will say, 'I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.' (Matthew 25 34-40)

And this:

"The most important [Commandment]," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these." (Matthew 22:37-39)

Call me crazy, but these two verses, which made the most impact on my religious life, sound to me like a call to action. We are meant to do something. I myself am not a shining paragon of virtuous action, but I do what I can. Most of the time. I don't do stuff because I want something in return, and I don't do it because I am trying to work my way into heaven. I do it because, as near as I can tell, it's the right thing to do.

I have always been perplexed by people who claim you don't have to actually do anything in order to be a good Christian. I think everybody knows a few hypocrites like this. They have convinced themselves that all they have to do is proclaim to themselves and whomever will listen that they believe in Jesus--usually in the loudest, corniest, or most obnoxious way possible--and then all their sins will be forgiven and, without further effort or exertion on their part, they will be taken bodily up to Heaven at the time of the Rapture (the end of the world). People like this creep me out for a number of reasons, but mostly because I find this view to be a poor excuse for laziness and hatefulness and a perversion of what is really a very simple faith.

People like to quote bits of scripture, taken out of context, to justify the most atrocious things. If you take any bit of text out of context, you can make it mean almost anything. Here is a good example, that lots of people like to use:

So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief;^{[or little faith, or lack of faith]} for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.(Matthew 17: 20)

So people say, "I have faith. My faith is much bigger than a mustard seed, really. It's so big that I can't even contain it. I have to tell it to everyone I meet. I believe in Jesus Christ as my own personal savior. I need do nothing else. " All too often, this line of reasoning runs on like this: "My only Christian duty is to now try to force everyone else around to this same way of thinking!" which sometimes leads to "Jesus wants me to force everyone else to believe in him and his way of thinking, and I will be richly rewarded with the spoils of my crusades!" Which sometimes leads to TV evangelism, and sometimes leads to wars.

People of this ilk are overlooking a few things. In the first place, Jesus preached and lived a life of love, kindness, and forgiveness. He taught; he did not force. Furthermore, an entire Chapter of Matthew (Matthew 6) is devoted to the idea that people should pray and do good works in secret; indeed, those who blow their own horns about their own righteousness have already gotten enough fun out of being seen and heard. They will get nothing else from God.

And the most important part of all:

A mustard seed is a living thing. If you have faith like a mustard seed, that is a living faith. It may seem small from the outside. (In fact, many modern translations of the Bible focus on the size, putting in Jesus' mouth the words "If you had faith only as big as a mustard seed. . . ." which seems to me like a self-serving bend of the truth.) But the thing to remember is, it grows. It makes a mustard plant which in turn makes more seeds. A living faith, like a child (another often mis-used quotation (Matthew 19:14)) will grow and change and eventually go out into the world and do things.

People who have faith like a mustard seed, get it. They get that a living faith means acting as Jesus did when he was among the living. They get that we are called to help each other. To be good to each other. To tolerate each other. To act with love.

People who have mustard-seed faith, even a tiny little bit of it, get it. They get that believers are called to do more than just believe. A person who truly believes in Jesus and the Bible, understands that believers are compelled to do good works, because the Bible tells them so.

But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? (James 2:20)

Cooking up some Christmas Cheer

There was a big huge ice storm this morning, so we couldn't go to church. The 4-H Christmas party also got canceled, so I had a whole long day which did not involve running around. What a treat. What did I do with my whole long day? Why, I baked, of course!

I do a big formal Christmas Eve dinner for Ted's family every year. I have to start early because it is a lot of work, and I hate trying to do it all in the last few days before Christmas. So today I leaped on the opportunity to get ahead. I made:

Cookie dough for 5 dozen cookies (to be rolled out and baked tomorrow)
Home-made applesauce from 3 lbs of apples (Made slightly more than a quart)
Butternut Squash bread from Holly's recipe
Pumpkin Butter
Honey-Wheat bread.

Then I made Spaghetti Squash and Tofu for dinner.

My Holiday menu will also include:

Maple-brined turkey (This is Ted's thing. I try not to look)
Cranberry sauce made from real cranberries (Already made and in the freezer)
Pumpkin bread (Already made and in the freezer)
Marbled mashed potatoes (White and sweet potatoes prepared separately and swirled together)
Some kind of vegetables
Apple cider and peppermint sticks for the kids
Wine and coffee for the grownups.

Coffee and cookies and the chocolates my kid had to sell for 4-H for dessert.

Am I missing anything?

Santa letter

Here is my Kiddo's Santa letter. He is asking for a Geo-Trax train for his little doll, Jessica, whom he says is his daughter. And he is asking for passenger cars for his own train set. We are going to e-mail a Publish Postletter to Santa. Later: Kiddo is on the Nice list, of course.

Snow Day

So, I blew off out homeschool group today, even though we have are supposed to turn in our orders for the fund raiser, and even though it is Scholastic Book Order Day, because it snowed today.

It wasn't a big snow, only a few inches. The plows were going all night, and by morning all they had to do was scrape the new slush off the roads. But when we woke up this morning, the whole yard and the field behind us and everything we could see was covered with a blanket of fresh white snow. It was beautiful. Kiddo wanted to run outside in his jammies and play in it. As it is, he went out in a rugby shirt and his cub scout uniform pants, and snow boots with no socks, before I noticed he was gone.

I bundled up more carefully, but went out and joined him. We played Frisbee in the snow. Had a snowball fight. Loaded his sled with snow only to move it across the yard and dump it again. I also put up some Christmas decorations, brought the lawn chairs in to the garage, filled the bird feeders, and stacked bricks around the base of the chimney. (The previous owners finished the outside of the chimney with particle board and plaster, and of course it has not held up to the winters. The bricks are not a complete solution, but they are better than a gaping hole at the base of the chimney.) I decorated my front porch for Christmas and put away all the autumn things. I never thought I would have a house with a front porch, and I never ever thought I would be able to decorate it seasonally. But it looks lovely out there.