a day for counting blessings

I'll be heading into the kitchen soon to get my cooking done. Yesterday I did all my prep work...cubing the bread, frying the bacon, chopping the onions and celery, making the cranberry sauce...

   

while Marc made a pecan pie from the pecans I've gathered and shelled. 

Now all I need do is throw all the ingredients together and get the dressing in the oven. Our target time for departure is 1:30 PM.

Earlier this week I got the finish work done on the Bee with Wild Ranunculus but still have to glue the two pieces together and then next week I'll be working on my display for the open house making all those decisions about pricing and placement.

But today is for being grateful for all the good in your life even if the country is being led down a dark road by a small group of dark hearted people that think it's fine to give a pass to a despot that tortured and killed an American resident because money and have given the army on the border the order to use lethal force on a group of unarmed, exhausted, and hungry people.

I am grateful for many things, my family at the top of the list. I am grateful for who they are and that I have family to spend today with and share a meal with when so many others don't.

blessings in disguise...

beginning with that little 3 month old puppy someone dumped in our neighborhood two years ago and who made her way into our yard and hearts. It's not that she has brought a lot of joy and laughter into our lives, which she has, but that without her I would never have met the neighbors on the street who I now stop and visit with while walking her in the evenings and most especially Rocky and Melissa. I would not even have known that Rocky was a contractor/carpenter and without Rocky, I would have been at a total loss as to how to find a good contractor or one that would jump on the work immediately and not take advantage of me. I trust Rocky to be fair and do good work and he did not hesitate one minute when I finally walked down to his house last Sunday and asked him to come assess the rotten wood I had uncovered.

And while it would appear that half the house flooding would be a disaster and the aftermath would entail long hours of hard work, which it has, it too is a blessing in disguise for several reasons. The first of which is that we would never have discovered the damage to the structure of the house if it had not flooded and we hadn't had to tear out the sheet rock in the back bedroom and little bathroom and two layers of siding on the outside of the upper house. The damage there was not caused by the flood but the flood caused it to be revealed.

The second reason is that, while we did lose the bed and a chair and the futon and bookcases and my art and design books and everything else that was within reach of nearly 18” of water, we really didn't lose anything that would have devastated us.

And third, while we talked a good talk about remodeling those two rooms, in truth, we probably never would have done it. Now we get to.

And last, ditto for the shop and the four built-in rooms in the big metal building. They were awful but in the going on four years we have had the shop we have done nothing. That part was unusable for many reasons and for the last two days, Rocky's crew have been engaged in not just tearing out the part of the walls that got wet, but demolishing that entire part of the shop. I'm thrilled! Once he has completed the work of rebuilding people's homes damaged in the flood, he will start on rebuilding the interior rooms of the shop and I will have work space over there that I can heat and air condition and be able to work in over the summer.

And finally, while we have been inconvenienced for a few weeks and now have a great story to tell about the great flood and suffered some loss, so many more lost everything. For all this I can be grateful.

growy bloomy things

I haven't put my winter clothes away yet but they have become a less important part of my wardrobe and even though I'm going to need them next week for a few days, some of the things that froze to the ground are already coming out while the angel trumpet, the star of india, and the morning glory bush are still dormant. Green, but dormant.

yellow bells

penta

confederate rose

philippine violet

(stupid camera wouldn't focus on the tiny green buds)

lantana

redbud tree

fringe flower

iris

the buddha contemplates spring

gerber daisy

azalea

carolina jasmine (at the city house)

ground orchid

edit: I guess I'm going to have to go out there and push the leaves back over all the new growth as it is supposed to get down to 32˚ tonight. Winter is being a very bad sport.

edit: Everything is frozen! The weather liars missed it by a mile. It was 26˚ when I got up this morning. While I did bring in all the pots that I could carry, I left the plumerias out thinking they would be OK with just a quick dip to 32˚. I hope they survive.

being outside

I wish I didn't have to work this week.

The weather is going to be wonderful, which is good for work too, but I need about a week in the yard.

My giant 'bonsai' redbud tree (it's been in a pot all it's life, is at least 14 years old) is budding out and they grew visibly today.

Today was overcast mostly, but warm with a nice breeze and the sun poking out now and then. Puttered around in the yard all day. Just little things, just being outside. I couldn't settle on any one major task with so much to be done so I just flitted from one little thing to another.

I finished the little bit of pruning I missed Friday and hauled two cart loads to the burn pile.

I raked the leaves that had collected on the driveway and around the gate to the Little Backyard and out from around the rocket larkspur that has jumped out of the bed and into the grass and bagged some up to mulch the future tomatoes in the garden and hauled the rest to the compost pile.

I have a sheet that I use for that. For hauling leaves to the compost pile.

I moved all the cold sensitive plants out of my workroom and back outdoors and gave them all a good watering. The plumerias were already green at the tips and starting to sprout and the desert rose got fat.

I did fire ant remediation in a couple of places (soapy water with orange oil).

I planted seeds for love-in-a-mist in 4 places in the yard and planted seeds from the candlestick tree and the mexican bird of paradise in trays for sprouting.

I noticed that a shrub that grows by the front door is blooming and the flowers smell really sweet. This is the first time I have ever noticed it bloom. The flowers are very small, maybe 3/8”.

I tidied up, emptying and gathering up stray pots.

I raised my little wrought iron work station up off the ground before it sank further into the ground and rusted away by putting bricks under the feet.

I had a very good enjoyable day just being outside and breathing in those little bacteria that make us feel so good. It sounds like I did a lot but it was mostly just putzing around

I'd have more pictures to show you but I dropped my camera last Thursday and it mostly doesn't function. It is stuck in AUTO mode and none of the other buttons work and it has gone silent. It will take a picture but the focus is squirrelly. It's still in warranty so I have to send it off for repair. Good thing I still have the old camera, well, Marc has the old camera, or I might have to fall back on my iPad for my Friday selfies.  

post christmas post

Some of you might have figured out that this has not usually been my favorite time of year. In the past for many years I actively hated it. The constant christmas carols and winter songs everywhere you go, the encroachment on Thanksgiving and now Halloween, the sappy christmas shows and specials on TV that take over, the ridiculous over-commercialization, the unreal expectations, the obligatory nature of the gift giving, the absurd claim that any tragedy that happens in December is somehow worse because it happened at this time of year, the so-called 'war on christmas' because other people celebrate other holidays at this time of year and like to have that acknowledged.

If it could just be contained to a week or so it would be so much more tolerable.

I'm not nearly so bad about it as I have been. Mostly these days I'm fairly ambivalent about it though I still avoid going into stores from Thanksgiving on.

And actually there are some customs I like about it like the outdoor lights and the ornaments, especially the glass mold blown antique ones. I have several from my childhood that I think I've finally figured out how to display, if I can find room. And bringing trees in the house. And even the idea of gift giving.

But these are modern variations of the ancient, older than christmas, mid-winter solstice celebration customs and if I think of this season in those terms, I find I am starting to reconnect with some of the pleasure. Eat, drink, and be merry. And be generous.

Yes, I can definitely get behind that.

Maybe next year I'll light some luminarias on the longest night and bring in some pine or cedar boughs. Can't in good conscience bring in a tree. They are, after all, living sentient beings. You don't just cut one down to display it's corpse and then throw it on the trash pile.

The reason for the season is much more fundamental than any one god's claim to a day or festival or celebration. It is the end of the long night, the promise of the warmth and life to come, food is still abundant from the harvests, the ale and wine made earlier in the year has matured, there is more leisure time while the fields lay dormant. The turning of the wheel.

It is the rhythm of life.

Merry Yuletide

The longest night is done and the light and the sun are reborn. Eat, drink, and be merry!

This event has been celebrated with feasts and festivals in cultures the world over into antiquity.

My ancestry is weighted with Germanic and Nordic lines and Yuletide was the pagan Germanic/Northern European mid-winter festival that lasted anywhere from the solstice to the new year or mid-November to mid-January.

People gathered for the festival bringing food and ale. Livestock, which often starved in the fields during the winter, was sacrificed and the meat boiled and shared. Toasts were made to the gods, to the king, for good harvests and peace, and to the ancestors.

Wandering groups would go door to door singing songs of good cheer and blessings and were rewarded with cups of cider or ale.

Bonfires were lit and a large log or whole tree was brought into the houses and burned in the hearths to provide light and heat, representing the return of warm days and growth during the long festival. Evergreens, symbols of life since they stayed green and 'alive' all year, were decorated with fruits and small ornaments depicting the gods and boughs were brought into the house as was mistletoe, a symbol of fertility, the continuation of life.

Solstice was the time of the Wild Hunt when Odin would ride through the sky leading a hunting party on his horse. Children would set out their boots by the door filled with hay and other food for his horse and small gifts of fruit and nuts were left in gratitude.

If all this sounds familiar, it is because these are the ancient traditions and celebrations that have come to be associated with the celebration of Christmas. The fledgling christian church was not having much success convincing pagans and even it's early converts into abandoning it's heathen celebrations so it did what every conquering nation did. It absorbed the popular festival and rededicated it to their god.

For many of us though, it is still the pagan mid-winter festival that celebrates the end of the long nights and the coming of the light.

a major achievement

My youngest grandchild, Robin, was Bat Mitzvah last Saturday. Bat Mitzvah (Bar Mitzvah for boys) is the coming of age ceremony in Judaism which marks the celebrant as an adult in the eyes of god and the community.

Robin on the bima

They are not adults in actual growing and legal terms, but at this point in their lives and after years of study, they are old enough to know right from wrong and bad behavior is no longer excused as being too young to know better.

In Judaism, while the Rabbis generally lead the services as the very learned teachers they are, any Jewish adult can lead the community in worship and so to introduce and welcome a new adult to the congregation, the Bat/Bar Mitzvah conducts the worship service.

This is not an easy task. Robin attended special classes for 3 years twice a week and religious school once a week and in the 6 months preceding her date, that study intensifies. She not only learned about being a Jewish adult but she also learned to read Hebrew as most of the service is conducted in Hebrew.

Generally, because the congregation is so large, each Bat/Bar Mitzvah has a partner and the services Friday night and Saturday morning are divided between them but Robin's partner was going to be out of town all summer and couldn't start the intensive preparations so they gave her a different date. Which meant that Robin didn't have a partner so for her, they decided to forgo the Friday night service.

When my kids were Bat/Bar Mitzvah, they led the service for the entire congregation both days. Now, because the congregation is so large and there is a Bat/Bar Mitzvah nearly every freakin' weekend and they started getting complaints from members who just wanted a regular service on Saturday mornings, the congregation in general holds services in the Chapel while the celebrant and their family and friends hold their Saturday service in the Sanctuary.

The Torah (old testament to Christians) is read in it's entirety every three years (one third of every book every year). They start at the beginning of Genesis after Yom Kipper (Jewish New Year) and end at the end of the Days of Awe (the 10 days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kipper). Every congregation no matter where in the world they are reads the same Torah portion on the same day.

And so Robin found a lesson in her Torah portion and spoke about the importance of forgiveness.

She did a great job and we are all very proud of her.

And then it was all over except for the partying!

Marc's immediate family and spouses minus 8...brothers, sister, children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, great nieces, great nephews.

ready for the party, all we need now are the guests

Robin

Robin and Thor

RobinThor

grandparents, parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends

a little line dancing

her uncle's questionable taste in footwear

Autumn with her balloon headwear

before and after

before

after

The family arrived about 1:30ish, food and kids spilling out of their truck. Still too cold to hang out outside so Xbox games were played, TV was watched, words were chatted while we waited for the turkey to finish cooking and then the dressing and then the warming up of the other dishes. I never think to take pictures these days.

Mike and Sarah went across the street to check out the auto shop that's for sale. Mike's hobby and nascent business is restoring old cars and trucks and he's ready to get a place big enough to hold all his toys and to have a place out in the country. Their plan is to put their city house up for sale at the beginning of the year and hopefully buy that place and then rent in the city until the kids all get out of school. I'd be very happy to have that happen as the only drawback to being out here is that I'm so far away from the kids and grandkids on a daily basis.

It will be weird though, once their house sells, not to have them next door when we are in the city. For most all of 36 years I have had Sarah and then Sarah and her family either in my house or right next door. I'll have to make the special effort to go visit them every time.

I've always liked the Mexican family compounds. Every part of the extended family has their own little house, sharing a central courtyard and as it is right now, the whole family, when we are in the city, is together in a 100' x 100' space. The Boy and Leesa will still be close though since they are still in the city house.

Anyhoodle, as my friend Janine says, eventually food was eaten, dishes done, candles lit, presents opened, and the parental unit skedaddled home.

About twice a year, I let the grandkids divvy up all my accumulated change and this year I added in some rolls of quarters and dimes and nickles I had rolled up years and years ago and Marc threw in one of his containers of accumulated change and they scored $30 and some change each. So we played dreidel for awhile and eventually I went to bed.

So now I have a house full of sleeping teenagers. Except for the grandboy. He's always up early no matter how late he stays up.

in response to the rain and shop talk

This morning, walking the yard, I noticed the gifts that the rain last week brought, as if the rain itself was not enough of a gift.

yellow rain lilies

not exactly a fairy circle, more like a fairy conga line

miniature amaryllis

We got home early yesterday evening after spending 3 ½ days in the city getting the glass logo sign for the bank finished. I had ordered the glass, an oval, before I left for the residency and when we finally picked it up, it did not fit the art work from which I had made the pattern. Neither did they return the pattern so I had to make another one and try again. Only this time, I made two patterns, one to give the fabricator and one to keep to check the glass against. We picked it up Monday and it fit so while we had had months to do the job, we actually ended up with only a week since they wanted delivery by the end of the month. Installation is set for next week.

I'm almost done with the full size art work for the other little job we have, a window between the master bath and the closet. It used to be an exterior window before they added a huge closet onto the house.

Their closet is bigger than my bedroom. And it is crammed full of clothes. She has a floor to ceiling cabinet with just all her purses in it. She must have 50 purses and an equal number of shoes. Maybe more. Why do people acquire so many clothes? So they can wear a different outfit every day of the year? And it's not just her. He has an enormous amount of clothing as well.

Marc and I could fit all our clothing in 7' of closet space. Winter and summer combined. And we could probably get rid of some of those.

I do have a design sketch to do for a new job but the other proposals aren't moving. There was some movement on two of them earlier but neither has responded to my reply last week about what they needed to do to get things moving.

Ah well. Back to business as usual. But that's OK as I'm ready to get back to the casting work which I haven't had time to work on for nearly a year.