"We're all just fragile threads, but what a tapestry we make." – Jerry Ellis

Archive for the ‘Holidays’ Category

My Epiphany on Old Christmas

twelve drummers drumming

If we were living out The Twelve Days of Christmas song, today I would receive the twelve drummers drumming. Since I’m not very far into the new year of organizing my house, I’m not sure where all the people and critters from the song would be stowed away, but it would be a houseful!

Today is Epiphany—traditionally celebrated as the day the Three Wise Men came to see Baby Jesus after the following the star—hence the twelve days of Christmas. Modern Biblical scholars can’t agree on when exactly it was the three made their visit—some say he wasn’t a newborn at all when they saw him, and the twelve days came from something somebody made up. Today’s secular society doesn’t really believe in dragging out the holiday season beyond the post-Christmas sales. Once evening rolls around on December 25th, the radio stations who have been playing only Christmas songs since November 1 abruptly go back to regular programming without much fanfare. I think that’s why I like Christmas Eve better than actual Christmas Day. Because on Christmas Day all the anticipation is behind us and it’s all over. It always makes me a little sad when things are over.

When I was growing up, my Grandpa Long’s birthday, on January 6th (Old Christmas), marked the end of the holidays for us. Maybe it was a little too much family togetherness, but I liked how we “eased” out of the holidays. We kept the Christmas tree up until then, and there wasn’t such a rush to return to the “normalcy” as soon as the clock struck midnight marking the start of a new year. While I love eating and drinking too much and staying up too late over the two weeks of Christmas, as an adult I appreciate the return to schedules and routines. I like buckling down in the New Year and thinking fresh. But still, the idea of a whole twelve days of celebrating Christmas sounds like fun—even if there’s not enough room for those lords a leaping or ladies dancing!

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Category:

Christmas, family, Grandparents, growing up, home, Personal Essay

What’s Going On These Days…

One of the things that I do that drives my kids crazy is to start a sentence and not finish it when I’m talking. Sometimes it’s because I assume they know the end of the sentence, but other times it’s just because I’ve gotten distracted. I realize that my blog has kind of gone in the same direction as some of those unspoken sentences.

Here lately, I’ve been very distracted from blogging and writing in general. As a Financial Peace University graduate, it’s good, because the reason is that I’ve been working a side job as a form design contractor. It’s a great gig—I can work in my PJs on the couch on my laptop. However, as a paid gig, it takes precedence over other things—like writing. I wish I could put things on hold like laundry or housework instead, but for some reason it’s frowned upon to go out with no clean clothes.

So as to not leave some of the more recent blog topics dangling like a participle in one of my unfinished sentences, I thought this would be a good time to follow up to some “goings on” around here recently.

The Wall

The new view from the living room into the kitchen.

The new view from the living room into the kitchen.

The wall we removed the week of Thanksgiving was successfully taken out without incident. Over that weekend, Darrell removed the wall and finished it with the wooden trim he painted, leaving a strip in between the two floors of the kitchen and living room unfinished (for now—I’m not the only one who runs around like a loon).

The strip that needs to be covered. There's a teeny little hole that peeks into the basement.

The strip that needs to be covered. There’s a teeny little hole that peeks into the basement.

He touched up the paint on the living room side, and I decided that it really was time for a new color in the kitchen. My friend brought over a gallon of paint she had leftover from a project at her house, so we tried it out in a couple of spots in the kitchen. The color is “smoked taupe” and it looks pretty good. Now we just need to paint!

Here's "smoky taupe", the color we'll probably go with.

Here’s “smoky taupe”, the color we’ll probably go with.

 

Robotics

 

Our Engineering Notebook

Our Engineering Notebook

Last Saturday the Nuclear Unicorn Girl Assemblers (NUGAs) attended the FIRST Robotics qualifier competition. After an (almost) all-nighter the night before, complete with printer issues and a few robot hiccups, they managed to do quite well. (By the way, the girls did win the 3D printer, we just haven’t received it yet!) The game, called the Cascade Effect, required our robot to try to score points on the game field by knocking out the kickstand of a container that had wiffle balls in it, and then trying to loft them into these tall beakers. The teams were assigned other teams as alliance partners for six separate matches. The girls had to make sure that the robot was programmed keeping in mind that another robot would be in the same general area, trying to do the same general thing. One robot starts on a ramp and the other one on the floor (hence, two possible programs to use). There is also an “interview” type of judging session (our girls rocked!) and an Engineering Notebook they have to turn in documenting their work and how it progressed.

A scene from the qualifier.

A scene from the qualifier.

In the robot matches, the girls came in tenth out of thirty-three teams, which was amazing. They did not make the cut to advance to the next competition, but we are attending another qualifier next month to try again. This month we will spend updating the robot, its programming and the presentation to wow them at the next competition. The girls all learned a lot from Saturday’s competition—and I know I gained valuable insight as well. I can’t begin to tell you how amazing the kids that do the FIRST Tech Challenge are. The atmosphere at the competition is one like no other. Yes, they are competing against each other, but teams are continually helping each other with troubleshooting and supplying items that a team may have forgotten. Officially it’s called “gracious professionalism” and it’s stressed throughout the competition. It is so encouraging to see it being practiced by these very mature, very smart young adults.

Adelaide/NaNoWriMo

Maybe next year???

Maybe next year???

Poor Adelaide. She never saw it coming, which is kinda crazy because seeing things coming is a big part of her story. Adelaide is a little bit psychic, but not of anything of importance. Just weird, small stuff that doesn’t really amount to anything, so she really keeps this “gift” a secret. Until this nudge causes her to uncover the plot of a murder. Now, usually-reserved Adelaide has to go out on a limb to protect people she loves. Will she risk leaving behind her “normal” life to set the story straight?

That’s the premise of my silly little story I started for NaNoWriMo at the beginning of the month. I’m not anywhere near the 50,000 words that is the goal by month’s end, mostly because I didn’t see my side job coming. It’s not a huge deal, so it does fall into the realm of possibility to be the type of thing that my character would get a heads up on.

I haven’t completely shelved her at all. I just have gotten swamped with home improvement projects, robots, work and Christmas. Hopefully someday Adelaide will get all the attention she deserves so she can be brought to life on the paper. In the meantime, I just keep writing her story in my head.

When I’m not thinking I’m George Jetson on the treadmill screaming, “Jane, stop this crazy thing!”

Category:

coaching, Dave Ramsey, family, Financial Peace University, FIRST robotics, HGTV, home, NaNoWriMo, Personal Essay, Thanksgiving, weekend, writing

Oh Christmas Tree, How Lovely (and FEW) Are Thy Branches

Today’s post is another story by my dad from when he was a teen. I wish you could see his face and hear him chuckle as he tells it in person. When I was growing up, I always begged my parents to put up the Christmas tree in early December (Christmas stuff in November was unheard of)! Today, when the Christmas season starts the day after Halloween, it seems unusual to wait to decorate for Christmas the week before, doesn’t it? He used to tell us this story about the year Grandpa tried to get a cheap tree from the grocer.

 The Magic Christmas Tree

A story from his youth, as recalled by Dad Christmas 2007

It was a Saturday morning in December when I was awakened by the noise of an argument. It was between Mom and Dad. Dad got a free Christmas tree from Kroger’s, a local grocery store. Dad bought several fruit baskets for his business customers and as a reward, Dad got a Christmas tree of his choice. Apparently Dad’s choice wasn’t very good because Mom was quite perturbed. Then I heard Mom’s voice call out”Paullll!” I thought I was in deep trouble and I wasn’t even out of bed yet. So I answered, “I will be down in just a minute as soon as I’m dressed.”

They both met me in the kitchen. Dad emphatically stated that by hook or crook, he wanted the Christmas tree put up by the end of the day. Mom nodded in silent agreement.

Meanwhile, my two younger brothers whom I shall call Ra and Ru got up. They heard the commotion too but played dumb. So we three had a hardy breakfast and proceeded to get to work. The tree was to be put outside the house facing the rear picture window of the sunken living room. The patio had a see-through corrugated roof. Ra and Ru and I struggled with “Dad’s prize tree” to get it into place on the patio, when disaster struck. The tree snapped in two. Ra and Ru looked at me in horror and said in unison, “Now what are we going to do?” Dad answered in a heartbeat because he was checking up on our progress. “You’re going to get a hammer and nails and nail it back together and if that doesn’t work, you’re going to wire it together. And another thing—that tree better be put up and decorated by this evening or there’s going to be hell to pay!” With that said, Dad got into his car and drove off. He had a doctor’s appointment.

Mom, meanwhile heard Dad’s harsh pronouncement and laughed. She said, “I never did like that tree,” and went back in the house. So Ra and Ru and I struggled to get the tree to the garage and proceeded to try and nail and wire it back together. Brother Ra, who was the practical one, shook his head and said, “It ain’t going to work.”

We stood the tree up and it broke in two again. Brother Ru, seeing the hopelessness of our situation, proceeded to go into the house and tell Mom of our plight. Mom came out and looked at the “bedraggled tree” and again laughed. My brothers and I didn’t think it was funny. Mom ordered us into the house. She went to her purse and handed me a twenty dollar bill. “Now,” she said, “there is a fruit market down the road and I’ve heard they have some very nice trees. Get one!”

We were in luck, Dad took the nice family car and left the 1954 Ford Station Wagon, with a rack on top. I always looked forward to driving (I just got my license that summer). We proceeded on our quest for a tree. Ra and Ru and I were a team. I drove, Ru picked out the tree and Ra made sure we didn’t pay too much for it. After some minor haggling, we got what was the “perfect tree”, even by today’s standards. I forgot what we paid for it, but it was within the limits of the twenty-dollar bill Mom gave us.

Mom was standing outside, waiting for our return and was to see “our prize” tree. “Hurry,” she said, “get it down so I can see it.” We unfurled the tree from the roof of the station wagon. Mom’s proud comment was “I have three sons that know how to pick out a Christmas tree.” We all proceeded to do our thing, set up and decorate our “perfect” tree.

Meanwhile, Dad returned from his doctor’s appointment. “Where are the boys?” he asked of Mom. Mom replied, “They are decorating the Christmas tree and you leave them alone.” Mom asked Dad, “By the way, how did your doctor’s appointment go?” Dad replied that doctor said his weight was the same, but his blood pressure was high.

Mom stalled Dad off until nightfall. We had a pleasant evening meal. Dad was anxious to see what we got out of chaos. The big moment finally came, Mom turned on the switch and “Voila!” a lighted Christmas tree. Dad was even amazed and said, “I sure know how to pick ‘em, don’t I?” Mom rolled her eyes and said under her breath, “There are some battles you can’t win.” Dad never did find out that his “prized tree” was replaced; in fact we made a wreath out of part of it for the front door.

A day or two later we had a calm, quiet Merry Christmas.

Category:

Christmas, family, family history, Grandparents, Holidays, home, Mom and Dad, Personal Essay

“Perfect” Balance

It’s time for the holidays, a time of year that I both love and dread at the same time. I cherish my memories of cozy Christmases past and creating new memories with my family. I love the smells of Christmas and the excitement of the kids. I dread the hectic schedules, the feeling that there’s too much to do and the worry over buying loved ones that “perfect” gift. Such is Christmas in this modern world; no time left to reflect on the miracle of the birth of our Savior—I’ve got baking and shopping to do! Boy, am I ever guilty! While I don’t lack of a plan, I lack a mindset. The mindset of balance, moderation and contentedness.

In the book of Ecclesiates, “The Teacher” laments about the meaninglessness of life. If you’re experiencing a rough time in your life, it’s not going to be a pick-me-up to read, but it reads as if it could have been written in today’s world. The Teacher was wealthy and popular—and very unhappy. He feels that there is nothing in this world that has any meaning. His luxurious lifestyle has left him in despair. But he does make observations that are true, and you can certainly have empathy for the emptiness the guy goes through. One of the observations that he makes that I’d like to share with you is in 7:15-18, where he addresses balance in being both overwicked and overrighteous. His observation? “The man who fears God will avoid all extremes.”

I wanted to find other examples where the concept of balance is put in a Biblical perspective. It overlaps with the areas of temperance (moderation) and self-control, but those passages didn’t address the times when balance is thrown off. The more I thought about it, the underlying cause of imbalance is a dissatisfaction of what we have and who we are. We are not content with where we are and what we have. Isn’t that when we try too much, and in the process reach too far? When we are trying to create the “perfect” Christmas, it is easy to move too far from Christ, who should be the center of the holiday.   If I had more time/money/creativity, Christmas would be perfect. Spreading ourselves too thin, we are out of balance, discontent, stressed and generally not enjoying the Spirit of the Season.

If that’s not you, I am happy for you. Because you have learned to be content. And there are several verses that advise us on being content. Hebrews 13:5 says “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have…” And Paul tells Timothy in 1 Timothy 6:6-8 “But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.” I’m ashamed to admit it, but this time of year, I need to be reminded of that.

As we head full throttle into the Christmas season, remember how the extremes in the life of The Teacher didn’t bring him joy “under the sun”. Being content can be hard when we are bombarded daily with reminders of what we don’t have. It’s something we have to remind ourselves of. But we have something that The Teacher in Ecclesiastes didn’t have. We have, in the baby Jesus born in the manger, the antidote to that meaninglessness he described. The joy that can only be found “under the Son”.

Category:

Advent, balance, Christmas

Ode to Thanksgiving Home Improvements

Erin with sledgehammer

We have a weird Thanksgiving tradition in our home. We tend to start extensive home improvement projects just as the holiday season is kicking off. Sometimes they’re not very huge undertakings—one year we just replaced the dining room chandelier the night before company came for Thanksgiving. (When we bought our first house, the chandelier there had been held up in part with toothpicks. Really.) Other projects are much more intense—like the year we ripped out our master bathroom the Friday after Thanksgiving and used the kids’ bathroom for almost a year while Darrell re-built it pretty much from scratch. (On HGTV they do entire houses in an hour!)

The first year we were married, we wallpapered the kitchen of our condo the night before Thanksgiving. We were hosting my family for the first time; so excited to have our own place to have the holiday as a newly-married couple. When we came downstairs to the kitchen the next morning, we found that the wallpaper had all peeled off the wall (we’d wallpapered over paneling) in long, curled-up sheets. We had prepped it properly, but it was such a long sheet that the weight of it caused it to fall off the wall. Frantically we managed to get it put back up before company (family) arrived, finishing it just in the nick of time.

One would think after that episode, we would have learned a lesson, but gluttons for punishment that we are, we didn’t. I’m not sure if it’s because the weather changes and we find ourselves inside more or what, but it seems like we’re always doing some kind of construction when Thanksgiving and Christmas roll around. While other people are trimming the tree with gusto, we’re trying to figure out where to put it where there will be minimal dust for the lights and ornaments.

This year, Darrell got super-industrious. He took out the wall between our kitchen and the living room. We’ve talked about doing this for years, but I never dreamed we’d do it this week. Erin’s been watching a lot of HGTV, especially Property Brothers, and had been begging to get to take the first whack at the wall with a sledgehammer. We all did get a few licks in, but Dad, being the Project Manager Extraordinaire, put the kibosh on it and took the rest of it down “neatly”. Ahem.

I hope to have some after-photos to share with you by the end of this weekend. Yes, I’m hosting Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow, so it’s going to be interesting to see exactly how finished this wall is by mealtime tomorrow. At least all the dusty stuff will behind us by the time tonight’s done. I hope.

Progress

Progress!

 

 

Until then, here’s a little poem in honor of this wonderful family tradition:

Sawblades are buzzing
Dust is everywhere
We took the kitchen wall out and
We haven’t time to spare
 
The Home Improvement Monster
Reared ambitiously this week
A project this size before Thanksgiving
Is not for the weary or the meek
 
Somehow this time of year
Is when we get the bug to change
From installing chandeliers and flooring
We get the itch to re-arrange
 
Most likely our week’s timeline
Isn’t quite enough to git ‘er done
We’ll face our guests on Turkey Day
Hoping they won’t turn around and run
 
We wish to beg your pardon
As we‘ve made our home a wreck
We promise that, when you return
Of dust you’ll see no speck
 
It wouldn’t be the holidays
Without some project underway
Happy Thanksgiving, friends and family
Please enjoy the holiday

 

 

Category:

family, HGTV, home, poems, poetry, Property Brothers, Thanksgiving

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Labor Day: What is America Celebrating?

As a kid, Labor Day meant the end of summer and the beginning of school. Even though the kids start mid-August now, the first Monday in September still feels like the Last Hurrah before we go full speed into school and all their fall activity schedules. Today’s Labor Day doesn’t even dictate fashion choices as it once did. Fashion gurus and etiquette experts (Emily Post’s Etiquette, 17th Edition, published in 2004) now say it’s even acceptable to wear white after Labor Day, but I still don’t. Call me old-fashioned (I prefer traditional) but I like to think some things just belong to summer—like homegrown tomatoes, flip flops and Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy beer.

So why do many of us have the day off for Labor Day? I’ve often wondered what the full history was to this holiday and found out there’s a lot more to it than I realized. This is my attempt to put together a brief summary of what Labor Day is about without boring the average reader silly. The date-specific information I gathered was found on the US Department of Labor’s website (www.dol.gov/opa/aboutdol/laborday.htm) as well as some information from good old Wikipedia. If you want even more in-depth information, I also found some good information on About at http://usgovinfo.about.com/bllabor.htm.

To start, we can thank the early Labor organizers for wanting to rally the American working class back in the late 1800s. The first Labor Day was celebrated in New York City on September 5, 1882, with a parade that apparently looked more like a protest. As far as who masterminded the idea is disputed. Some credit Peter J. McGuire, who was the co-founder of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), while others attribute it to Matthew Maguire, who was part of the Central Labor Union (CLU). I found it ironic that they had similar names—no wonder there was confusion! Some people claim that Matthew Maguire got slighted for the honor because he ran for office for the wrong political party and made people mad.

The holiday started out being recognized at the municipal level, but the first state to sign Labor Day into law was Oregon in 1887. Later that year, Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York also signed the holiday into law. It wasn’t until 1894 that President Cleveland and Congress signed it into law in an apparent move to do some damage control to his re-election campaign after the Pullman Strike.

The Pullman Strike was basically a boycott that railroad workers had against running trains pulling Pullman cars in response to the Pullman Palace Car Company cutting worker wages when the company’s bottom line was losing money. George Pullman, the company’s owner, didn’t lower the rents on company housing the workers lived in, so many of the Pullman factory workers joined the American Railway Union. As more workers and strike sympathizers got involved, rail transportation was interrupted, prompting intervention by the federal government, and things got ugly. Federal troops were called in, and you can guess how that ended—in a violent mess.

Six days after the Pullman Strike ended, Cleveland signed the observance of Labor Day into federal law in 1894 to honor the working man. By the way, this attempt to smooth things over with the various Labor parties didn’t work—he didn’t get the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 1896.

Another interesting thing I learned about when researching this holiday was that September was chosen to celebrate Labor Day in an effort to not commemorate the Haymarket Massacre that happened in Chicago on May 4, 1886. The Haymarket Massacre was another situation where what started as a peaceful protest ended in violence and death when someone threw a bomb. President Cleveland and Congress did not want the federal holiday to be associated with that event. As a national holiday that is celebrating the American worker, flags fly proudly at full staff for Labor Day. (So please don’t call your local municipality the day after Labor Day and scold them for not having it at half-staff. I work for the City of O’Fallon, and was told we get phone calls complaining about this every year.)

Even though today’s notion of Labor Day doesn’t have the Labor Movement as a primary focus anymore, I like to think the people who originally wanted to celebrate the achievements of workers in America would be happy that we’re doing exactly that. Having a day off to spend with friends and family seems like a fitting reward for the everyday working person. Happy celebrating!

Category:

family, friends, History, Holidays, Labor Day, Long Weekend

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