End of the year

Today is the last day of 2013.  When I was a kid, I used to think there was something magical about the last day of the year and would try to finish whatever I was working on before midnight.  I still have that sense of it, but I know whatever is left undone today will be there tomorrow.  I still strive to get things done, don't get me wrong, but there is not the childhood idea that things will fall apart if I don't get it done.

I haven't taken time to review 2013, a year a lot of people will be glad to see the end of.  I guess it was an ok year.  My daughter got married.  Now I have a son and daughter.  Nice, huh?  We have a few "challenges" as the yuppies say, but managed to come through them ok.  I am happy to have my husband to wake up to every morning, no matter what outside forces press in on us. Work continues to be a never-ending series of emergencies and routines.  I enjoy what I do, most of the time.  I work with some pretty great people ( along with some people whose behavior is so outlandish that if I put them in a book, the editor would chide me for being unrealistic).

I don't really make New Years' Resolutions.  My resolutions are the ongoing kind and have nothing to do with the supposed "magical" properties of the New Year.  The changes I am making for me are FOR ME and not because some flip in the calendar.  My usual resolution is to do one new volunteer thing this year.  It's fairly simple to do.  This year I hope we get a chance to travel a bit.  Every year we talk about going to the Grand Canyon, something I have yet to see, but we can never quite get it together to go.  I will be looking into how we can do it this summer, after my nephew's wedding in August.  At least, that's my plan and my hope.

So, do you have hopes and plans for the New Year?  Any resolutions you won't keep after the first week?   Resolve to be happy.  That works for me.

Monday morning already?

Where does the weekend go?  When you work all week, at least one of those two precious days is devoted to doing all the things you couldn't get to in the week.  In my case, that's laundry and grocery shopping.  I don't mind doing the chores, just sometimes, there HAS to be more than  finding all the socks.  I have a whole PILE of random socks that don't seem to have a mate.  I wonder if House Elves are stealing them.

A sad weekend around here.  Chris' aunt had a heart attack and was on life support.  I believe they have removed her, but have not heard.  My thoughts and love go out to the rest of the family.  It is never easy to say goodbye.

Chris and his mom came back from their road trip tired and sore from all the walking they did.  Apparently, half the planet decided to go to Vegas this weekend.  The place was a zoo! Kind of makes me glad I had to work.  I really hate crowds.  I am short and crowds tend to run me over.  Not fun!

As we wind down the year, I am thinking of 2013 and what sort of year it was; like any other, filled with joys and sorrows.  There was something online about putting "good things" notes in a jar, starting on New Year's Day and opening it on New Year's eve.  Sounds like a good idea, but frankly I would probably get the first month and then forget to do it.  Much like this blog, which I had tried to write every day but sometimes I am not inspired or running late and just can't muster the energy to do it.

Post Christmas thoughts

Christmas is over, pretty much.  The tree is too dry to turn the lights on and I need to see where to take it for recycling this year.  I think last year, the city just let you put it at the curb, but I have no idea.  It was a nice tree and a good Christmas, spent with eight of our friends and family in our little tiny apartment.  It's good to be able to have people in our home.  There was a time when I was in another place and it was not such a happy home.  Sure, it had all the "trappings" of "happy', but that was just the surface that the outside world was shown.   There is nothing like waking up and feeling a peace in your heart and that sigh of contentment that comes from being truly happy.  You can have all the material comforts of life and not be happy.  I am looking at my life and realizing I have it pretty good.   I am blessed with the love of family and friends and that in itself is my "Christmas miracle"

I have to work the rest of the week and I missed a trip to Vegas with my mother-in-law and my husband, two of the best traveling companions in the world.  I hope they are having a blast and come home with great stories and GREAT winnings!  Sunday can't come soon enough for me.  I am taking time to reflect on the year and count my blessings, being grateful for what I have and not looking at what I don't.  I have wonderful friends and family.  My life is peaceful, I no longer live in the center of the cyclone and for that I am eternally grateful.

Christmas Carols vs Seasonal songs

I have been trying to get my FALALALALA working and it's JUST NOT going anywhere.  But singing songs I consider Christmas songs got me to thinking; just how many songs we consider Christmas songs DON'T mention Christmas at all?

Jingle Bells.  We ALWAYS sing this at Christmas, but does it mention the holiday?  Nope.  Sing it for yourself.  I'll wait.....   SEE????   Why is it a "Christmas song" anyway?  it mentions snow and things that people who live in snow DO in the winter.  No Christmas, no baby Jesus, nada.

Winter Wonderland.  Not a whisper of anything remotely Christmas.

Frosty the snowman.  Sung by children at "Christmas" Concerts, but definately NOT a song about Christmas.

I like to think of Christmas songs as the ones I sung as a child in church, the "religious" part of the holiday.  I have been singing "The First Noel" and "Do you hear what I hear? , trying to get into the spirit of the season.  "Deck the Halls"  which celebrates the love and fellowship of the season has been playing in my head. YES I sing "don we now our GAY apparel"  lol.  Making the song PC and being afraid of the word GAY, for goodness sakes is just freaking crazy!

Christmas is TOMORROW ( we celebrate on Christmas Eve)  Am I ready?  NAH, but I will be as ready as I can be for the day. All of us here have had a small bout of something like the flu.  I slept for fourteen hours this weekend.  Stress, maybe?  I hope that's all it is.  I don't have TIME for the flu and I HAD my shot!

Wake Keeping

There was a wake keeping, a Nigerian tradition, last evening for my friend Ogechi Anum.  although she was not born into it, Ogechi embraced Nigerian culture and raised her three children well taught in the traditions of their father.

A group of us came from LAPL.  we were there at the appointed hour and the people just laughed and tried to instruct us on "Nigerian time"  It was lighthearted and I hope that the family knew that so many more of us wanted to be there.  We loved her.  She was the type of person you loved right away.  The minister did not seem to know her, but gave the sermon of Ruth and Naomi and applied it to her life.  They asked us to speak, but I just could not.  I loved that girl and as everyone seemed to be having warm, happy remembrances, I was afraid I would start to cry when I spoke.  Someone else did.  Here is what I would like to have said:

I knew Ogechi for about 15 years.  I met her when she became the Area Assistant in the Western Area Office.  She was always so up-beat, a good friend with a  great attitude.  She was shoulder to lean on.  Her children were her everything.  Family was everything to her.  No matter what disappointment life tossed at her, she never ever gave up, she had an indomitable spirit; she ALWAYS rose. It was fitting that she was born on Valentine's Day Those of us who loved her will miss her every day of our lives. I know I am better for having known her.

I am glad I went last night, although I did not get home until well after midnight.  It's hard when I had been up since about 5 yesterday morning.  I had to go to show love and respect for my friend and her family.  I think it was important that people knew the impact she had on her co-workers.  It was good to see her children, so grown up and strong.  They had her beautiful spirit, which shone through their eyes.  The room was full of love for her.  I am glad that I went.

I DON'T enjoy being a "girl"

I went to meet with a construction supervisor yesterday.  While staff and I discussed the placement of the proposed gate and the ramifications of said placement, the supervisor listened and then said           " It will be a gate of 24 fee where ever we put it.  You girls decide where you want it and tell us when we get out here."   GIRLS??????  Two of us "girls" have Masters Degrees and I have been spearheading projects like this for twenty-seven years.  GIRLS???  I haven't been a "girl" for 40 years!  OOOHHHHH  I held my tongue, but seriously that guy needed an education.  I run into this patronizing attitude from time to time, but really!  I wonder how he would have reacted to being called a "boy"  ( he was an older-than -me white man.)   Probably would not have phased him.  It's just that as a woman, working in a field where I interact with lots of construction people ( read- mostly men) I occasionally run into what I call "the little lady syndrome".  The Big Strong Man is going to help the Little Lady make up her mind and make decisions for her.  It drives me to distraction.  I know what I want. I have been making decisions on my own since I was in my teens.  It reminds me of a appliance store I went into when I was 19.  I had done my research and went into a local store to price the model I wanted from that store.  I wanted ( now mind you this was the 70's)  a top and bottom, avocado refrigerator.  The salesman tried to steer me to a DENTED side by side, in BRONZE.  Uh... NO that's not what I wanted- at ALL.  I told him so.  He pressured me.  You really want this.  No I don't.  I don't LIKE side by side, it was the wrong color AND it was damaged????    No I asked again about the model that I had come to look at and he again tried to dissuade me and sell me the damaged one.  Fine, I said if you are not going to show me the one I want, I will go elsewhere and turned on my heel and marched out of the store.  "You'll be sorry" he called after me ( seriously? I'll be SORRY????? ) NO I WON'T   I shouted back at him.    And I never was.  That avocado fridge lasted twenty plus years, as I knew it would.
Some guys just need a reality check.  In this day and age to call a group of professional women "girls" in that patronizing tone is not going to do you any good.

Christmas baking

When I was a kid, my mom would dedicate about a week to baking Christmas cookies.  We would frost and decorate and generally get in her way.  We gave the cookies to friends and neighbors.  I still do this, although not to the marathon degree that she did, or that even I did.  I once baked- I kid you not- 90 dozen cookies.  All types; chocolate chip, peanut butter ( pre-allergy, which I developed later) oatmeal, lebkuchen ( a traditional German Christmas cookie) and sugar cookies.  I made press cookies too.  Alas, my time these days is more limited ,so today I will be baking- or attempting to bake- the following:

Pumpkin bread
Chocolate chip cookies
Anise cookies
oatmeal cookies
sugar cookies
fudgies
haystacks.


I baked fruit cake and cranberry bread yesterday.   I would have done more, but we went out and got a tree, which we will be decorating today as well!

I will be baking some breads for my office mates.  I hope they are not disappointed, but I think I am going to make My Grandmother's spice cake, as my gift to them this year.  I have no idea why I am always looking at a tighter budget around Christmas time.  Isn't it always the way?

Still baking makes me feel close to my mom and my long ago childhood memories of baking cookies as part of the holiday tradition.

Let me know if you want some cookies!

"Winter Holidays"

It's that time of year again.  The season of love and joy.  The season where everybody complains that everyone else's holiday traditions are ruining theirs.  Ah yes, the holidays....

I wonder how celebrating MY traditions lessens anyone else's?  It's the same STUPID argument being levied regarding Gay Marriage rights.  Somehow, someone else having something make what I have less?

Here is what I have been thinking about ALL the Winter Holidays- Christmas, Hanukkah, Solstice and Kwanza.  (I've been hearing about a humanist Holiday called "Human Light, but that's a new on e on me)  ALL of these holidays hold one theme in common: hope.  The birth of Christ gave new hope for salvation according to the Christian religion.  Hanukkah celebrates the hope that when all seems lost, faith will carry you through.  Solstice celebrates Winter and the hope of Spring. Kwanza celebrates the hope for unity and wisdom.   Winter is traditionally a time of reflection, a time when we remember the hopes and fears of the fading year and look forward with hope toward the new one.  Instead, we have turned it into a loud bickering shoving match.  Commercialism runs rampant and we forget the joy and wonder of the season.  We forget this is a time to count our blessings, remember our friends and the good that people have brought us this year.  We are inundated with BUY BUY BUY in the media and in the stores.  We strive for the "perfect" Martha Stewart holiday, not remembering that perfect is having your friends and family together not that magazine glossy photo style dinner on the table.  I have had a "perfect" holiday cheeseburger with friends.  The laughter and the warmth mean more to me than anything else.  As I place my food on the table this year, I will remember two things.  One- the main ingredient in a perfect holiday is love Two- Martha Stewart has a cast of thousands getting her meal camera ready!

December 8

I know I haven't posted in a while, but I have been SUPER busy, getting ready for our annual Holiday Boutique at McGroarty Arts Center.  I "run" the bakesale.  This means that from about 8:30 until after 6, yesterday I was up at the Center , dealing baked goods.  This year, I had a feeling we were going to be a little light in the baked goods, so the NIGHT before and the morning of, I was a baking demon.  I made TWO kinds of cupcakes, some brownies, some fudgies, and some cute little hot chocolate dippers.  We sold out to the walls!   I had one tray of random cupcakes and banana bread bites, which our vendors and volunteers dove on at the end of the day.  By my count, the bakesale raised about 500 bucks.  Pure profit, as all the goods are donated.  The chili-bowl sale went great guns as well.   We sold almost every bit of chili- also donated.  I made my famous California BBQ chili.  Chris says it needs a more tantalizing name.  Any suggestions?  I guess I will have to make a pot and have people come over to give it a new name! I had to fight my way into the kitchen with the line of people waiting to pay for their purchases from the vendors.   Everyone seemed to have a good time and after an initial downpour in the morning the weather even cooperated. It was colder than a well-diggers butt on the porch though.  After about two hours I couldn't feel my feet.  It took me several hours until I was warm enough and that's when the pain hit. My body CONSTANTLY reminds me I am not twenty or even thirty anymore.  Thank goodness for Bushmill's and pain meds!  I fell into bed around 8 and woke up around 7 this morning.  It was a good day and I am looking forward to seeing the financial report from this event.  I talked to a lot of people who had never been to the Center before, gave out more than a few class schedules and talked to people about getting on our mailing list.

Yesterday marked the anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attacks that jump-started  the U. S. involvement in World War II .  It is important to remember this day, no matter what the truth is- sneak attack or conspiracy theory that Roosevelt KNEW and wanted us in the war so badly that he let the attack go forward.  In any case, lives were lost and forever changed by this day.  By honoring the dead, we celebrate the lives they made possible for us.

We got a message from Julian Lennon ( well, not me personally, but in a global way on Facebook).  He is asking us NOT to dredge up the fact that today marks the anniversary of his father's murder.  I have to agree with him.  It can't be easy for him and Sean. They must both miss him terribly in a way that all those who light candles and sing "Give peace a chance" on this day never ever can.  Their loss is one we can never understand.  I posted this on a friend's page:

"At the end of the movie "Brian's song" , the voice-over reminds us NOT to remember how Brian died, but "that he lived. OH How he LIVED!" I think of John that way. His murder was tragic, but NOT the sum of his life. His impact, his life force, is still felt."

I think it would be more appropriate to celebrate on October 9th than to mourn on December 8.

The last Day of November

I do realize that it is  now the second  day of December and we have begun the Advent.  It's been a month of counting my blessings. I am thinking, in no particular order of things I need to remember to be thankful for:

Obviously, family and friends.  Without them, what is the purpose of life?

A job I can say I love, even if it does frustrate me from time to time.  I believe what I do has impact, makes someones life a little better.

I need to remember to be thankful for small things, like green lights when I am running late, good weather, a smile from someone, warm hugs.  I am constantly thankful for good books and my love of reading. 

I am trying to remember to have an "attitude of gratitude"  I am truly blessed.  I need to remember that what I want isn't always what I need, and that I have more than most in the things that are really important.