The Ghosts of New Year's Present

I have to tell you I don't mind seeing the back of 2010. As I write this, a friend of 40 years is sitting with her dying mother. Three friends have divorced, after 25, 17, and 7 years of marriage. My beloved niece saw the end of a long relationship as well. My brother-in-law lost his father two days before Thanksgiving. My sister-in-law's brother and his wife were in the process of adopting a baby girl and kept her for three weeks before the birth mother changed her mind. My daughter's teacher lost her mother to a sudden heart attack which no one expected. So many of my dear, dear friends and loved ones are experiencing loss and heartache, and it makes me so incredibly sad for them. I hope that 2011 brings healing and peace to them and to all of us, and better memories.

I lost my big dog, BC, to bone cancer in November. I took him in for his regular shots and they came back and said he only had a few weeks to live, so I took him back home with pain meds and steroids. After about 3 weeks the pain medication simply stopped working and I had to take him back in. I had hoped he would go peacefully on his own, but that's not the kind of luck we have in our house with our animals. It took the Mountain Man 4 hours to dig a hole big enough for him. We let all the dogs sniff him so they would know what happened and not be looking for him. The two older dogs took turns sitting vigil by the grave for a few days.You'd think one dog out of five wouldn't be that noticeable, but he was so big that the gap he left feels like more than one dog is gone.

This is him next to the dining room table.

When last we spoke in July, I mentioned my visit to my grandmother. We went to the grocery store and I talked her into sitting in one of those wheelchair carts and I pushed her around the store. At age 97 she was getting unsteady on her feet and using a walker to get around, so I convinced her that since I didn't know my way around the grocery store it would be better if she rode around. We had a lot of fun and I was very glad to get to see her. As it turned out, it was my last visit. About the middle of August she developed an infection, and her systems just all gradually shut down. She spent about a week in the hospital before she died, but she had a few very lucid moments toward the end. At one point she realized she was dying, and her last coherent words were "Jesus" and "victory." Now I don't know what, if anything, you believe, and more to the point, not sure what I do, but that woman had an abiding faith that sustained her through a very difficult childhood in poverty, constant relocation as the wife of a Methodist minister (who went overseas for two wars), and the loss of two of her three children at young ages (one as a baby and the other - my father - at age 27) and her husband of 72 years in 2007, among other things. She turned 97 in April, and she told my cousin and me on separate occasions that she thought she would probably die at age 97, since my Granddaddy was 97 when he died. Whether that was a self-fulfilling prophecy, or she just sensed something I don't know. At any rate, their 75th wedding anniversary would have been Christmas Day, and they got to spend it together, and she kept her wits up until that last week, for which I am profoundly grateful.

School started August 4. We love the Queen's first grade teacher. During the week Grandmother was ill, the Queen participated in a play, Beauty Lou and the Country Beast, put on by Missoula Children's Theatre. This is a fabulous organization that travels around the country to schools. They audition kids on Monday and have a show ready to put up by Friday. It's an amazing process and was an excellent experience for all of us. They start with first graders, so DeBoy won't be able to participate until year after next.

Here's her solo. Turn it up.

September and October weekends were full of soccer. Over Labor Day weekend we went back to Nashville to pick up my share of Grandmother's furniture. On the way we stopped at Kentucky Down Under, where the Queen fulfilled one of her dreams - birds ate out of her hands.

They weren't on the same team, two different ages had the same color - the Mountain Man coached both teams, and he requested the same color so he wouldn't have to have 2 t-shirts. Trying to save the league of bit of money (the league buys the coach shirts), but it was a nightmare telling the teams apart.

DeBoy turned 5 in October. He's grown 4 inches since his 4th birthday. My baby is a baby no more.

The number 5 birthday pancake.

Since it was Sunday, we had cupcakes and favors for the Queen's and DeBoy's soccer teams and other friends. It was the only cold, nasty, rainy Sunday we had all season.

 The cake for the party at home.

The Queen lost a top tooth, courtesy of her brother 2 days before. The other fell out about 2 weeks later, and she was still singing "All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth" two months later. They still aren't in.

 DeBoy sums up his birthday.

A quick trip to the Knoxville Zoo for fall break. This is the same lion where we took in October 2007.

 

Hiking in the Lilley Cornett Woods.
 

Halloween: The Red Power Ranger and Sleeping Beauty

This is me with a very dear friend - we decided to dress up as 80s rock divas. We couldn't decide whether to call ourselves Desperately Seeking Dignity or The Gone-Gones.

And we come to November. For the End-of-the-Season soccer party, the league rented the roller skating rink. The kids had never skated before, and the Mountain Man and I hadn't been in about 12 years, so it was slow going at first. The Queen was getting the hang of it. DeBoy fell down a few times, but was doing pretty well. Then about an hour into it, DeBoy did the classic skating fall: both feet fly out, twist in the air, catch yourself on one arm, break the arm. Both bones. Fortunately, the Queen's best friend's mother is a PA at the clinic, and she had him splinted up and called the ER for us within about 10 minutes. We went right in and were only there about an hour and a half. He was x-rayed and they put a proper splint on it. We had to go to the orthopedist the next day and he said it was a greenstick fracture (meaning it didn't break all the way through), so he would have to break it completely and reset it for it to heal straight, and while some orthos will do that sort of thing in the office (it happened to my sister-in-law), he thinks that is cruel and unusual punishment (as do I), and we scheduled an appointment the next morning so DeBoy could be put under anesthesia and have the bones set. He was such a good little patient and very brave. He complained very little about pain. I was very nervous about the whole business after my horrendous experience in the hospital, but apparently if you're a cute little 5-year-old, you get better treatment. Which is OK.

And how many people do you know who had their cast signed by Santa Claus?

The obligatory arty shot of the Christmas Tree, put up the weekend after Thanksgiving, as they should be.

This was the Christmas card. It wasn't intended to be the Christmas card, but I liked it best.

And then it snowed. And snowed. And snowed. Friday December 3 was the last day of school until January 3. There was talk of going the week after Christmas, but it snowed then, too. We had snow on the ground from December 3 until December 30. (There for a few days we were afraid we wouldn't have a white Christmas, which after dealing with all that mess for the previous 3 weeks would have been highly annoying.) So the kids went back to school on January 3 - 6, then on the morning of the 7th it was snowing so much they dismissed school at 8:30. Apparently if you call off school before the day starts, you also have to cancel the ball games. So they went to school for 35 minutes in order to keep the ball schedule. Give me strength.

My Mom came to visit the first full week in December. In a way the snow was good because the Queen didn't miss out on any Grandma time, but we did missed some activities.

The Queen is showing off the three baby rabbits that came with her Littlest Pet Shop set. I thought we had escaped the Littlest Pet Shop craze, but she discovered them about 3 months ago, and that was all she wrote. DeBoy asked for a Buzz Lightyear and was much happier with it than it would appear in this picture.

One of our snow days included an 8-hour power outage, so we did this.

Sugar cookies!

And here we are in a New Year and the Queen turned 7.

And of course, more snow, with more to come.

And I'll leave you with this view of yours truly, discovering the best use of our driveway.

Decompression

They moved it even earlier!!!!! For a full rant about this subject, go here and here.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Yesterday was the show we put on. The weather wreaked havoc on our rehearsal schedule, but we ended up with 24 kids ages 2-12 participating. That was not including my children. I was iffy on DeBoy, but I thought for sure the Queen would participate because she loves being on stage (wonder where she got that? :) ). But she didn't want to. Which meant the Mountain Man had to leave work at a reasonable hour to pick up the kids while I was in rehearsal (I tried taking them with me a couple of times, but it was a disaster). So he's at work today to try to make up some of the time.

All our kids did really well. I was in great fear that a couple of them would be running all over the place during the show (because that's what they did in every rehearsal), but once I told them that if they left the stage they couldn't come back on it, they behaved fine. :) Once again, I deplore my skills, or lack thereof, as an accompanist, but I don't think too many people noticed except during one song when my little soloist panicked and ran through her line lickety-split without observing timing and such. But in general they seemed to enjoy it and have fun, and we raised a good bit of money for our local Humane Society.

The aftermath of a show is always odd for me. Usually there's a set to dismantle, but in this case, all I had to do was pick up a couple of programs off the floor and take the name tags off chairs. So I went to Taco Bell and sat all by myself and ate a grilled stuft burrito. Then I went home and ready to go back to some semblance of a routine. My house is in deplorable condition and my mother is coming next weekend. Let the panic begin!

Perhaps I Quoted the Wrong Poet

"In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley . . . "

To A Mouse, On Turning Her Up In Her Nest With The Plough, by Robert Burns

"Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans."

John Lennon

Let's take inventory on the resolutions, shall we?

Kicking the habit. Pffft. The Queen has been to school 3 days THIS MONTH. And the rest of this week isn't looking good. I did go without buying Coke for a few days, but I developed incredible headaches from the lack of caffeine. This one has been shelved until spring.

Yoga twice a week. Pffft. However, I've hiked the driveway a few times since we haven't been able to drive it, and danced to a Wiggles video every day during the week we had it borrowed from the library. So at least I'm moving, which was the main point.

Cut down on Facebook. I have been doing better, and they may have just made it easier for me by changing the format again. I don't like it at all.

And I still haven't found that staple gun.

Now for the container project.

The little slips of paper remain in their little containers. When we put the Christmas decorations back in the attic, we got this down.

This was a present for the Mountain Man's mother one Christmas about 9 or 10 years ago (chime in here, in-laws!). She had this vision of making a dollhouse in which each room would have as its theme a children's book (she was a children's librarian for years). Or it may have been fairy tales (more chiming, please!). Anyway, she and my father-in-law went to work putting it together, and this is as far as they got before they decided to pack everything up and go full-time RVing. (All right, Blogger, I know you don't recognize that word, leave me alone.)

So they handed it over to us to finish, and it's been in our attic for about 5 years. We are finally to a point in our lives where we can work on this and the kids can help. So far the kids and I each painted one of the inside rooms. We're working on the doors and windows. I have to tell you, if I hadn't helped the Mountain Man build our house, I'm not sure I could manage this dollhouse. They packed trim pieces that have to be cut to fit. I can't imagine anyone with no woodworking experience being able to manage this successfully, because the directions tend to assume a working knowledge of such things.

I have the doors painted and put together, and I'm now working on painting the window and door trim pieces. The windows can open, but this means each window is 6 pieces (front and back with a window pane between - no, not real glass).





Here's what the picture on the box looks like.


We have all the paint they were going to use, but I'm not sure what was supposed to go where, so we just decided on a scheme and went with it. Right now there are 60 pieces of window trim on my dining room table, and various window parts. And that's only the side trim. I expect this to be an ongoing project (possibly for years), but we'll have to get this much done and get it off the table.

And the other thing is I'm helping put on a benefit show for the local Humane Society that features kids singing different songs about animals. Right after that we're doing Charlotte's Web. While I love being back in the theatre swing, my poor little projects have gone by the wayside. And we won't even discuss the housecleaning. I also forgot that I have to do the taxes.

But I finished the 2009 Christmas cards!

Caught this one between snowstorms.

Resolutions, Schmezolutions

Last year I only made one New Year's Resolution, which was to finish all of the big projects I had started. I was fairly successful with this one, with the glaring exception of the painted border in the downstairs bathroom, which you will not see until it IS finished, so don't hold your breath. So that resolution still partially stands, sort of like those Scottish castles. They'll never crumble completely, but every now and then stones will disappear.

However, I did start a number of new things, including the recovered chairs. The first day we were snowed in, I thought I'd finish those. I can't find the staple gun. Obviously, I tucked it away somewhere safe so I would have it again when I needed it.

So, a New Year's Resolution for 2010.

Write down the location of anything I put "somewhere safe." Of course, where to write it down where I can find it again poses another problem entirely.

Another one, blog more regularly, has already been broken, so we won't even pretend to list it.

One that I haven't officially started yet is to kick my coke habit. Oh, settle down. This kind.

About 10 years ago, I was trying to save money so I gave up buying soda at lunch and in my house. That's all I did. I lost 5 pounds in a month. Anyway, I certainly cut back after that, and went cold turkey again when pregnant and nursing. Especially nursing. The last thing either of my kids needed was a caffeine infusion. So I kind of got used to doing without. Once all that stuff was done, I would get a coke whenever we went out to eat, unless of course they only had Pepsi.

(Where I grew up, everything was referred to as a coke, as in:
"Would you like a coke?"
"Yes, please."
"What kind?"
"Sprite."

Of course, there was no Diet anything or bottled water. Coke and Sprite, Pepsi and 7-Up. The "diet" drink was Tab. And RC cola, which is what my grandfather drank up until he died at age 97.)

But I digress (you can look all you want, but curbing that tendency will never be one of my resolutions - that's an exercise in futility that is beyond pointless).

I don't drink that much coffee, except at the weekend, when the M0untain Man makes it. Toward the end of last year I started buying cokes beyond my usual one or two a week. However, it pains me to pay more for the 20-oz bottle than a 2-liter costs, so I started buying those. Maybe one every couple of weeks. Now I'm going through one every couple of days. I haven't weighed myself but everything's getting tighter, so it's time to cut back. (Pause whilst the Mountain Man laughs himself silly. Of course, he drinks it, too, if it's in the house, but his caffeine of choice is coffee.) This snowed in business isn't helping matters either.
Once we finish the 2-liter in the fridge, I'll not buy anymore, except when (or if - we're on day 8 of no school because of snow, and day 11 of me not having left the property) I go eat with the kids. I need a treat now and then just like anyone.

I downloaded a yoga program in August which I did exactly twice. I really enjoyed it and felt better after having done it, so I'm going to shoot for yoga twice a week. So far, I haven't done it yet, but now that it's out there, maybe occasionally you good people will call me on it.

And then there's Facebook. Yes, I know what I said. But then a number of good blogger and IRL friends said try it, so I did. And I was hooked, quickly and hopelessly. A lot of things were similar to blog stuff, quizzes, etc. And then there were the games. I started a farm in FarmTown and MyFarm, but I avoided Farmville. Then I got rid of MyFarm, and got fairly bored with FarmTown, but started CountryLife. Now I mostly hit ignore whenever anyone sends me anything.

The advantage has been reconnecting with many friends from years and years ago. I guess the best was that my mother's best friend from college found me, thus allowing the two of them to get together again after 30+ years (they had kept in contact for awhile, then lost touch for some reason when I was still in high school). And it happened at a most excellent time, when Mom was having radiation treatments for her recurrence of breast cancer.

Facebook is one of those things you can control or it can control you. So I need to do a better control job. But I still think I won't be twittering anytime soon. Not unless I get a Blackberry or something.

Lauri found a website called The New Year Resolutions Generator that will make up resolutions for you. She listed some fun ones. These are the ones it gave me.

Sing in the shower. (Excellent - I already do that!)
Dance. (I do that, too!)
Read a Dr. Seuss book. (Actually, I'd like to have a day or two NOT reading a Dr. Seuss book if it's all the same to everyone.)
Focus (!!!!!)
And I got this one 3 times. Call Mom and Dad more often. Maybe it's a hint?

What did you get?

The First Post of the New Year (or) I've Been Snowed In For A Week - Send Fudge

One of my resolutions was to post more on my blog. You can see how well I've started out.

Last Monday morning we got up in preparation of the first day back to school. We woke up the Queen, fed her breakfast, fixed her lunch, put her coat on . . . and looked outside.

Then we went upstairs, turned on the computer and checked the school closings.

Yep, no school.

And it snowed some more that day.

And some more the next day.

And a little more the day after that.

And it was cold. The week's high temperature was 24. It usually hovered around 18. Now, I realize that my friends in Canada are laughing right now, but seriously this is NOT normal for us. Thankfully, we have power and water this time around. Many folks in town still are without water due to frozen lines.

The Mountain Man parked the Jeep at the bottom of the hill and hiked up and down to go to work every day.

Here it is the following Monday, and the Queen still has not been back to school. Given tonight's forecast, it's not looking good for tomorrow either. At this rate, we'll be going to school until the end of June. Assuming we ever start.

In the meantime, the Queen had a birthday! She turned 6. She requested a pink princess cake. (I know you're surprised to hear that.) I sent the Mountain Man into the cake decorating aisle of the crafts section of Walmart for a package of fondant, and anywhere in the store he might find some princess figurines. (That was the day they were predicting 8 inches of snow ((which didn't actually materialize; it was about 3 inches)), so 4 million people from the surrounding tri-state area were in Walmart. He came home twitching.)

I wrapped one of her Barbie dolls in plastic wrap and stuck her in a cake, then wrapped the fondant around her. It didn't drape as well as I would have liked, as I needed the cake to be different shapes and sizes than what I had, but it turned out OK. I covered up all the seams with the regular frosting. It was my first foray into the land of fondant (please do NOT send me to Cake Wrecks - she only posts professional cake disasters), and it may be my last. That stuff was really hard to knead, and I ended up with pink hands for a couple of days getting the food coloring in there.

We did not have decorations which the Queen thought appropriate, so she hiked down the hill with her father on Saturday and they went to 3 different stores for supplies. It certainly serves the purpose of a lover of all things pink when her birthday is this close to Valentine's Day.

This pink feathered heart wreath was the pièce de resistance.


Here she is with the cake.
An arty shot of the birthday girl through the aforementioned wreath.
DeBoy looks on as the Queen opens her present from him (a game of "Hi Hi Cherry-O - did you know that now it also has apples, blueberries, and oranges? It's just wrong.)

The Queen is ready to go back to school. She misses her friends. She and DeBoy have been playing very well together, and it helps to have new Christmas and birthday presents to fall back on. This morning they made Pirate Soup (soup with pirates in it, of course!). Right now they're playing School. I'm procrastinating about taking down the Christmas decorations. (The tree is out since it was becoming a fire hazard, but now we've already passed the Epiphany excuse for the rest of it.)

Of Pups, Spaceships, a Pumpkin Patch and Marriages and Things

Um. Hello?

Remember me?

Yes, I'm back.

Where to start.

When last we left you, we were in possession of 5 of the 6 puppies. We found homes for 3 of them within 2 weeks (which indicated to me that these people did not even TRY to find homes for any of them, they just dumped the puppies). One of them ended up with a former student of mine, which was pretty cool. The two that we kept are now 5 months old and weigh about 40 pounds each. These are going to be big dogs. They're already bigger than Zoey.

On the Monday after we delivered the last puppy to her new owner, I heard the dogs making a huge racket and then I heard what sounded like a cat being tortured, and I ran out in the yard and found this little guy.

This one was promptly named Buster Brown and weighed in at 5.8 pounds. Here he is next to Chewy, the "little" puppy.

And for comparison purposes, here he is next to BC. We found a good home for him after about a week.
Until we're sure they're completely housetrained (Gadget is being slow), the puppies live in this kennel. One day while they were outside, BC decided to try it out. Please note I would NEVER attempt to put this giant dog into this kennel. Until I saw it I wouldn't have believed he'd fit. (The red by his leg is a chew toy, not blood.)

I baked bread one day. I'd like to do it again. This is my mother's recipe and I was very pleased that I managed it.

We have two sets of dining room chairs. One set was my grandmother's, the other set was the Mountain Man's grandmother's. My grandmother's set (on the right) was recovered by my stepfather along about 1988. The other set was last done around 1965.
So I recovered them. I haven't quite finished. I have 3 more to do. What you see underneath the torn part is brown vinyl. Underneath that were two layers of a black upholstery which was quite pretty and predates my mother-in-law. And then some fluffy stuff that used to be padding and wanted replacing.

Here are two of the finished ones.

DeBoy and I accompanied the Queen's kindergarten class on a field trip to a pumpkin farm. He was VERY proud of himself and got to ride with the big kids on the hay wagon.

He's feeding the goats here. That's him sporting his new short haircut. I took him in to get the bangs trimmed, and he kept telling the stylist "shorter!" I might get over it. Someday.

The next day was his 4th birthday - the theme was "Dinosaurs from Outer Space."
The blue spaceship cake he requested. They continually test my creativity.
Not a baby anymore.
They both played soccer again for the 6-week recreational league. DeBoy is #12. He scored like a madman, but wasn't necessarily discriminating about which goal he aimed for (in this particular picture he was correct).

Also in October we traveled to South Carolina for our niece's wedding.

At the rehearsal dinner.
At the reception, DeBoy discovered DeMicrophone.
The Queen with another family friend - they gave out rose petals to all the guests to throw at shower gently upon the newlyweds on their way out. I made the dresses and my mother-in-law made the baskets.
After a full day that threatened rain- the wedding ceremony was dry, and followed by the most beautiful sunset.

Bustin' a move on the dance floor.
The Queen dances with her cousin and new cousin-in-law. The flower arrangment on the mantle was done by the Mountain Man's mother.
Reflections . . .
DeBoy admires the lights decorating the bushes on the path the bride and groom left by.Collecting the used petals. We still have the basket. And the petals. Actually they make quite a nice potpourri in her closet.
We stopped at a scenic overlook on the NC/TN state line on the way home.
Halloween!

Superman and I attended the party at the Queen's school. It was quite the occasion. The kids all parade around the football field dressed in their finery and then go back to their classrooms and eat lots of sugar until it's time to go home. I dressed as Belinda, the Unmentioned Witch of the South. There are no pictures.

SuperMan and the Fairy Princess
The Mountain Man puts the finishing touches on the Jack o' Lantern.
A Rainbow for trick-or-treating!
And a sunset.
We got in one last day of rock climbing in November. Here the Queen scurries up a route next to the big boys.
We went to the Mountain Man's parents for Thanksgiving. The kids took a walk with their cousin.

And now we come to December . . .

Santa's elves help decorate the tree.

Visions of sugarplums . . .
December 5 - the puppies experience their first snow.

And it's tasty, too!

The Snow Princess



Airborne puppy.







And in addition to all that, I've been doing some sewing for pay, as well as making some Christmas gifts. Tuesday the Queen started running a really high fever, and the doctor said she had the flu so now all four of us are on Tamiflu and she's not allowed to leave the house until Tuesday. She missed her last dance class which was to include a performance for parents, the American Girl party at the new library (which opened October 12 and is one of the reasons I've been away so long), and she will miss the Christmas performance of the children's choir at church on Sunday. She started in choir after soccer was over, and they had a Thanksgiving program, so she didn't miss everything, but it's still pretty lousy timing. She'll have 4 days of school then she's out for Christmas.

School has been interesting. I thought I would have more time once she started school, but it turns out I have less. Part of it is the hour in the car every day to pick her up from school (the Mountain Man takes her usually, though DeBoy and I have done it a few times), but there's homework (very limited since it's kindergarten - gets them used to the idea and I certainly don't mind it) and other things like class parties and such.

And the fundraising. We've had around 6 this semester, although I lost count. Every time I turn around it's another fundraiser. But the Queen loves kindergarten. She's missed it this week while she's been home.

The puppies are taking a lot of time. They require training and I'm really not that good at it so it's taking awhile, because the Mountain Man has absolutely no time for it.

My mother came to visit for about a week, and the Mountain Man's parents were here for DeBoy's birthday, so the house has been cleaned more than usual. :)

I am REALLY not prepared for Christmas now. There were a number of things I wanted to do that aren't going to happen. I've lost most of this week because of the Queen being home sick, and I was already behind before that happened.

I'm sure there's a lot of other stuff but I can't think of it right now. And I'm sure the 5 of you who showed up gave up several pictures ago.

I plan to come visit all my buddies, but I don't know if I'll try to read all the posts I missed. It might take another 3 months.