On the big screen

Here in the teeny tiny rental house, we're not allowed to put up the redneck pool. (no fence, liability, bla bla bla) And so summer is not quite the hot splash it's been for the past forever years. Quite frankly, there's not a lot to do that's not hooked to an electric cord or internet connection when you're 10, 13, and 44. (Seriously, we do read. We're marching through the entire Harry Potter series. Curt's read almost all the Jack Reacher books. I'm mixing up some teaching reading books with books that I actually read to enjoy.)

Today we went to the movies. 

To watch somebody else's plug-in. 

It hit me while we were watching Monsters University that around ten years ago, Monsters Inc. was Camden's first movie in a theater. 

Oh, he already knew movies in a big way by that time. 

We'd watched Babe at least 99 times on VHS.

Camden was two and some, and I was knocked up with Benjy and still in the throes of morning, afternoon, and worse-at-night sickness. The Tanglewood cinema wasn't yet a Barnes & Noble. Edie, our neighbor friend who adored Baby Camden went with us. Camden was the perfect movie viewer. No extraneous noise. No bathroom breaks. Happy without the large popcorn. (Those were the days.)

Monsters Inc. was special. Like Babe, Mike and Sully make me puddly, to a degree. To this day though, when I hear its theme song, I almost feel that prenatal nausea. But it's all worth it to see Sully and Mike scare because they care.

Fast forward 10 years to today. And then 6 hours from the time we started Monsters University at the Enfield theater. We gathered in the living room of the teeny tiny house and watched Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire not on HD because it's cheaper that way. Camden had seen it, read it, and opted for an evening on his own playing Star Trek. (geesh) 




Benjy, who was kicking in utero during Monsters Inc, was shushing me whenever I got anxious about Harry and Cedric, et al. We had traded brightly colored and happy monsters for the dark and spooky He Who Shall Not Be Named. We'd grown up a bit, I suppose. 

Camden eventually joined us to present his eye tooth he'd finally, finally, lost. The very eye tooth he'd recently sprouted when he first met Mike and Sully. 

A light in the attic

Growing up, attics were pretty much the stuff of books. We had a shallow attic space you could peer into after you pulled down the ladder steps, climbed them, and then balanced your hunchbacked self on the rafters. I figured if you couldn't walk in the attic space, it must be a fake. But it was all I had.

Grandmomma Stapleton lived in an apartment. No attic there. 

Grandmomma and Grandaddy Gibson lived in a trailer. No attic. (But the day the shed came was almost as good!)

So pretty much everything I knew about attics came from V.C. Andrews.

Probably not the best source of all-things-attic-y. 

My sons, on the other hand, know attics. They have Mammaw's attic. When we go home, they beg her to take them up there to dig through the boxes of old toys she's stored from Curt and his sister's childhood. Even in the dead of summer when the temperature must hover at 150 degrees. 

And she agrees. 
Every single time. 

Bless her heart.

Curt's sister and Benjy strung this contraption a couple of years ago. I had no idea till I came snooping with my iPhone camera. 

Check out the wallpaper. Attics were wallpaper-worthy. 

Curt's mom can tell you the history of every square inch of their house, including the attic.  Curt will simply tell you that the attic fan is the way to go. It's the poor man's air conditioner. 

This room was once a dance studio with a mirror across one wall and a piano propped to the side. Little girls twirled to its tunes during the depression. It also once served as the maid's room. There's even a little sink in the corner. 

In the roaring '80s, Curt slept here and hosted some mean Dungeons and Dragons games. He brought the first ever real air conditioner home to this room and his parents found themselves hanging out in their son's room much more than was necessary, according to Curt.

This is the room that hides the boxes that fascinate my boys. (And, if I were totally honest, me, too.) 

There's an old English broad sword of Curt's that Benjy dreams of hanging in his room. This is also home to various Air Force pieces of Papaw's that Benjy simply MUST HAVE.  I'm rather attracted to the vintage Little People doll house. 

I think of all the things hiding up here, though, the windows have to be my favorite.

From what I recall of my childhood vision of attics, they all had dormer windows. 

Just like this.

There's something secret-y about the space that leads to the window, the light that shines a good 10 feet away from where you stand. That light in the attic beckons. I'm glad Mammaw lovingly keeps it burning. 

From 5 till 10, what a way to make a living

I've held this folder close since Dad died. It's filled with pictures, letters, postcards, even Dad's resume from when he applied for the town manager job with Coeburn in the late '70s and his letter to the town council 30 years later announcing his retirement. His obituary from the Coalfield Progress is even here. It's a folder I turn to again and again when I need a dose of Dad.

Let me just say that there's a year's worth of blogs here, my friends. 

Tonight I am loving this.

Dad. At 10:00 a.m.

Dad. At 5:00 p.m.

Dad, shirtless, cigarette dangling from his mouth, working at the typewriter in the office of the Coalfield Progress. I can only assume that air conditioning was not a luxury the newspaper could afford. 

My own recollections of Dad working at the town newspaper include visits to the back room where the giant presses churned out freshly inked papers. The smell is potent. To this day I am drawn to the scent of newspaper print.

 I don't now if this picture was a joke or seriously shot on a deadline. But for whatever reason, Dad was half-naked at 10:00 a.m. He's working at something. Many of the papers in the Dad Folder I have are typewritten. The capital C hangs up slightly above the line in many the documents I read. 

And then at 10:00 p.m., he's still there. Typing away. That C must be hanging up.  He's not stopped smoking. Where's the smoke? What's he typing? Is it really 10:00 p.m.? Were the Norton street lights really that bright in the '70s? 

I'll never know. What I do know is that Dad had a work ethic that could not be topped. Apparently, this wasn't lost on the photographer of these photos. 

No picture, though, could capture what Dad taught me. You could work from sun-up till sun-down and never get the job done if you didn't put your entire heart and soul into your work. 

You had to work with integrity. You had to know that when you took a job, you gave your word that you'd accomplish it. Frankly, it didn't matter if you loved it or not. If you promised to do it, then, by golly, you'd better do it right. 

Oh, how I have failed.

Like when I worked at Hardee's during college and quit the night before the Spring Formal. Or the time I quit being a bank teller after maybe a week because a better job in human resources with a competing bank came along. 

It's been some years since I quit a job willie-nillie like that. I like to think that the job I have now is the one God has called me to do. I teach. I teach with a sense of urgency. I think of it from the time I wake up till the time I go to bed. (Except, perhaps, during summer vacation.) I don't teach half-naked, and I don't smoke. But I do keep the work I do in mind every moment of every day. 

Thank you, Dad. Thank you for the work ethic you gave me. Thank you teaching me that my job requires my heart and my soul and that it all belongs to God. 

A Little Unplugged

Summer vacation is hard when you have a 13-year-old and a 10-year-old, and the owner of the house we rent says NO to putting up the redneck pool. It's hard to entertain this age without 4 feet of water.

Today was Day One of summer vacation. Technology time limits were in place. Even for me. I was content to sit in the back yard and read my latest freebie from the Take-It-Or-Leave-It shed at the town dump. (Dennis Lehane's thriller, Sacred). Benjy was happy to play with his 43.6 billion Legos. Camden couldn't close the 5th Harry Potter. All was well. 

Lunch was easy, pizza - freezer-to-oven. Then I dragged the boys to Aldi's with me just to get us all out of the house. Once home, technology times were burned. Then boredom set in. 

NO, I said, to computer time. 
NO, I said, to iPods. 
NO, I said, to X-Box. 
"You need a hobby," I offered. 
I could hear the eye rolls.

Nonetheless, Benjy started the first Lord of the Rings book, then went back to his Legos. Camden drifted back into Harry's Order of the Phoenix. I slipped out back to my thriller (oh no, nobody can be trusted in this book!).  Whew, the day was salvaged. We topped it off by watching one of the Lord of the Rings movies while I crocheted the blanket that I hope to finish by 2020. (Yes, a movie is technically plugged in, but we were all four together plus the cat. That counts for something.)

I think we'll take this summer thing one day at a time. With any luck, we'll actually be able to talk about a few novels when school starts again. I'll settle for anything but Mine Craft.

One thing I'm sure of, at least we won't drop a book in the pool.

I Will Not

     Tomorrow morning
I will not
crawl out of bed at 6.
I will not
iron a skirt.
I will not
prop open the door to Room 3.
I will not
hold it till 11:15.
I will not
count children.
I will not
give homework.
I will not
nurse boo-boos.
I will not
say "I love you" at the door 
when it's time to go.
I will 
miss that.

"The Top Ten Reasons We Like Working With Wendi" - by Em and Jodie, analyzed by Me

I found this the other day when I was going through some old folders and flash-backed to Fallon Park Elementary School.   I was in the 2nd grade trailer, the room in the middle between Em and Jodie. The trailer with  a sweeping view of the parking lot where we had recess. My desk with a Macintosh SE and a flower pot full of markers was shoved against the wall to make more room for the Story Tower Curt built. Posters and bulletin boards and words lined the walls and the carpet was littered with pencil shavings but NOT head lice. The kids were gone, and we three were hanging out laughing about something Em heard on the radio that morning. The memory was palpable. I could practically taste the Snack Pack pudding I kept stocked in the tiny fridge. 

I read through the list and almost remembered everything. 

10: Yes, I did have perfect hair. I worked hard on my Big Boy sweep permed up-do. God help us if it rained.

9: I don't recall what this dirty work was, but I'm sure I found a way to get out of it. I probably went to the restroom or the mailbox in the main building.(I would have picked up their mail, too, just so you know.) I might even have gone to make a copy if I could rummage up some paper. 

8: I always, without fail, volunteered to stay inside with the kids whose behavior was so lousy they managed to lose recess. But only if it was too cold or too hot outside. I love this about me. I'm perfectly medium.

7: Pudding Time. Ah, yes. Snack Pack chocolate. 

6: Spinners? Jodie? Em? Huh? Did we play probability games after school???

5: Bus stations - ugh! Kids messing up my room! Kids who didn't belong in here moving my things to places where they don't go while waiting on their bus number to be called? Ridiculous. 

4: OK, I can easily see this happening, but I don't remember it. Switching with a reason just seems so predictable. Not switching for no apparent reason sounds downright intoxicating. We should all do it.

3: My aversion to field trips began here in this trailer. Leading a group of 7-year-olds on a tour without losing one is a weary task. Riding on the bus with them on the way to and from the tour is sanguinary. You just want to poke your eyes out and call it a day. But you can't because you have to count children when you get back and verify that everybody is safe and sound because of your diligence. To this day, I would gladly stay back with the kids who were too naughty to go on the field trip. I'd even combine them with the no-recess kids. That's how I feel about field trips. 

2: I might be a tiny bit OCD about my room. I might bite you if you don't put a book in the right bin. 

1: "Where's George's book? I can't find George's book!" 

This one is vivid. I'm storming around the room, doped up on the hormones of pregnancy. George wrote a book at home all by himself and I cannot find it. I simply must find it! David Duchovny is in that book - a beautiful picture of FBI agent Mulder gracing the cover of TV Guide is on page 7! Then, out of Jodie's room comes the strains of Bono: I stiiiiiiiiiill haven't foooooound, what I'm looking foooooooor." We laugh and laugh and laugh. My manic melts. I eventually find the book and get my Mulder fix. I go home to Curt a happy wife and a happy teacher, thankful for friends who truly get me. 

Plowing Way Back When

This message was shared on Facebook today. It was a timely reminder that there are real people driving the snow plows that are still digging us out of last weekend's blizzard. 

I live on a main road here in Windsor. Our road saw plows up and down it all day Friday and Saturday. But from the pictures friends posted, I know many roads were still impassable even as late as today. I get it. And I believe that if I lived on one of these snowed-in roads, I'd still get it. 

There's a lot of snow out there. 

Growing up on Poplar Street taught me to handle it. We lived on two steep hills. Walking home from school was torturous. Riding a bike downhill wasn't worth the trip back home. These were big hills. Snow was common in our mountain town, and eventually, the plows would make their way to my house. As any school-age kid understands, I moaned and hit my pillow when I finally heard the arrival of their chugging and scraping. 

What I remember most about those long winters in Southwest Virginia is my dad's abhorrence of snow. He hated it. He lived in dread of snowy forecasts. How could someone who could make the best bowl of snowcream in the land despise something I loved? Easy: He wasn't thinking of himself getting out of school. He was thinking of his men down the four-lane who had to be out on the crooked slippery roads of Coeburn in the very snow I loved. 

Dad was the town manager in Coeburn forever. My whole growing up years, save the very beginning when he wrote his column At Random for the Coalfield Progress.(He even had to put the paper to bed before he could make my own birth!) During those winters as the town manager, Dad spent most snowy nights with his men. He'd tell Mom, Shell, and me goodbye before pulling on a jacket, or two. Then he'd whistle for Candi, our Shepherd/Elkhound mix, and the two of them would disappear slowly down the driveway and off our double hill. I think we always knew he'd be OK as long as Candi was with him.

I don't know how many plows Coeburn had back in the '70s and '80s. But I do know that Dad and Candi operated one of them, taking turns with the other men so that nobody'd get too tired. I doubt that it made the job get done any faster, but I imagine the comradery may have boosted a few spirits. I recall that Dad wouldn't dream of staying put in a warm cozy home while his men were not. 

Decades later, standing before Dad's casket down at the Hagy-Fawbush Funeral Home, one of these men reminded me of Dad's snow plow trips. He remembered Candi, "the Snow Plow Dog", and he was teary-eyed as he recounted the number of cold nights they'd endured together. This didn't surprise me, but it did touch me on a deep level. Dad had a passion for people's needs - not one he just talked about, but one he acted on. 

His snowcream may have been the best, but his sense of duty and genuine concern for others topped even that. 

In which I wax nostalgic for butter

Growing up in the mountains of southwest Virginia, I rarely ate Chinese cuisine. In fact, I never did, unless you count Chicken Chow Mein as served up in the John I. Burton cafeteria. A nice scoop of chicken and some vague veggie soaked in a creamy soup topped with crispy chow mein noodles. This was as authentic as it got. (Of course, I also believed that Velveeta was the realest cheese there was. Velveeta beat Kraft Sliced American by a country mile.)

They don't make cafeteria food like they used to, is what I'm thinking tonight. Cafeteria food used to equal comfort. Spaghetti. Hamburger, Minute Steak and Gravy. Hot Roll with Butter. Yes, butter. A hunk of real, straight-from-the-cow butter.

Now the school cafeteria menu looks like something from a vegan support group - garbanzo beans, carrot sticks, celery sticks (w/ Ranch Cup), kidney bean salad, pea pods. Seriously. It makes me long for a can of Vienna Sausages and a Del Monte Pudding Cup!

How do today's kids stand it? Benjy wants to pack a lunch most every single day. He's like me - picky. I drink a V-8 for my veggie supply. He eats an apple for his fruit obligation. We get by on the bare minimum of health standards. (No, I'm not proud.) 

Still, while I know that these new foods are meant to make our kids healthier, I'm nostalgic for the menus that made me look forward to the lunch line.

That sauce with the Minute Steak and Gravy?
To die for!!!

And the butter?
I would slide it to the corner of its little sea-green compartment in my lunch tray and then smear my Not Whole Grain Roll into the greasy cube before each and every bite.
   Pure.
         Buttery.
                Bliss.

The most lasting and nostalgic of all meals was the annual Spaghetti with Meat Sauce fundraising dinner at the high school.  This dish attracted spaghetti lovers by the droves to the annual Raider Football Supper. (Or was it Raider Football that prompted people to eat the spaghetti???)

Every fall, a gathering of fans would form down by the basement entrance to the cafeteria. Band music blared as the woodwinds and what-not warmed up and the drums banged out their beats from down the hall. There was a line - a real actual line of people - to the cafeteria where the meal was served.

We all gathered on that night - musicians, athletes, spaghetti lovers. Gorging ourselves full and then waddling over to the stadium. Football players, cheerleaders, the band, and the fans, united by noodles and Hot Buttered Rolls.

Winter Surprise

There is nothing so sweet as the sound of the words snow day. From the time I was a little girl lying in the dark of my room waiting for the WNVA announcer to cancel Norton City Schools, those words have been the super star of winter. They're enough to make winter my favorite season, snow my favorite precipitation. 

This morning I awoke at 4:30 and peeked outside. Snow. Glistening white and still pouring down. The streets were covered, no signs of any tire marks, much less snow plows. I knew, but didn't actually know, that this would be a snow day.

And of course, I could not fall back to sleep. So I just lay there. 

     Waiting. 

           Waiting. 

                 Waiting.

It wasn't unlike being a kid and waiting for the local DJ to make his way through the alphabet to the Ns, in between relaying the sports scores and playing ads for Piggly Wiggly and The Swap Shop.

So I just lay there awake, knowing something was going to happen. An hour later I got the first text from the Hartford news station. Then my phone dinged again, a text from Trinity's Parent Alert system. Shortly afterward, the Parent Alert automated call. All confirmed we were closed today. 

But I still couldn't sleep. 

My husband texted from sunny Florida, where his work department is meeting this week. "Back to sleep?" 

I texted back, all thumbs and squinty-eyed in the brightness of my phone, "Not till all the texts and calls are done. Grrrrr."

I still had to wait for the call from the staff phone tree. I grew restless just lying there, fearful I wouldn't be able to fall back to sleep. Finally, I gave up, agitated that my morning off was being wasted with wakefulness. I jumped the tree and called my person, then rolled over to wait for the person ahead of me to call. They never did.

I did fall back into a blissful sleep. No dreams. I didn't wake till Camden tiptoed into my room. "Mom? Are we closed today?"

"Yup, we sure are," I told him. 

"Yesssssssssssss!" 

I wonder if that's what I used to say before rolling back over, my 13-year-old self satisfied with the gift of a winter surprise.

My First Crush

I've been catching up on my favorite author's blog tonight. Pat Conroy doesn't post often, but I don't catch up often. So it works. 

I read tonight about his lost love from 8th grade, a crush that reminded me of my own love life back in 1982. Me, a pale four-eyed sub-sub freshman - yes, we called ourselves that because having a name was almost like being a senior! I was a frumpy shyish girl, clothed almost entirely from the Sears & Roebuck catalog and Park's Belk and Dave's, one who didn't at all worry about my big hair and its resemblance to the Shoney's Big Boy. I faithfully toted to school my green-cased clarinet along with my armload of books and notebooks. No backpack for me, or for any of my friends now that I think about it. When exactly were backpacks invented? I also carried, much to my embarrassment, a lunch box that was actually a brown vinyl drawstring pouch with hangy-down ears and a dog face drawing and the words "doggie bag" along the bottom. Cool is what I was not. 

But I was madly in love with Michael McElroy. It started in 7th grade when Patricia Moore dared to name her crush, and then she rated him a perfect 10. I, feeling pressured to cough up one for myself, hastily picked Michael. I think I called him a 9.5. He was a year ahead of me, but his locker was right across the hall from mine. I was drawn to his smile, I think. I'm not positive, seeing as how I didn't even know him at the time. But I chose him. And I made it my business to eyeball this mystery boy who could be found between classes trading books and jokes with friends in the dim light of the 7th and 8th grade wing. I spent the next several years (yes, I'm a committed sort of girl) loving the idea of loving this boy. 

And to think we actually became very good friends, even after a brief stint of "going together".  It was very brief as I recall, but I'll always remember riding bikes with Michael and Maureen down around the post office and Maureen calling out to me, "Michael wants to know if you'll go with him." I replied seductively, "Huh???" And she said, "Believe it, it's true." And for a minute or a day, we did "go together." Michael and I. 

It was purely innocent. We never touched. We hardly talked. But I tell you, we did "go together." Like peanut butter and jelly and chips and dip and rama lama lama ke dinga de dinga a dong, remembered forever like shoo bop shoo wadda wadda yipitty boom de boom. 

I was Michael Mac's girlfriend for a moment in time. And that was just enough. Then in later years, we became real, true friends, hanging out after lifeguard duty in the summers and during the weekends and breaks of college. Tied together by laughter, the Pet Shop Boys, Coca Cola shirts, and spring socials. He and Candace. I with Jon, for a few times. Friends, the all of us.

Michael was decidedly my very first crush. And to this day, I smile when I think of him. 

As providence would have it, a decade later, Michael became best of friends with my sister Michelle. He found his way to Shell's world in Florida and took up with her and her husband, Brian. Together they created a boatload of laughs and memories. Shell possessed both a giggle and wistfulness when she talked of their crazy adventures. She thrived in helping Michael out, the newcomer to Florida. She loved her life down there with husband and friends. She was so good at it all.

When she died, we cried together. I will never forget Michael and me sobbing at her funeral, bound together by that unspeakable grief. We took a break from the formalness of it all and walked out to the parking lot at Hagy-Fawbush Funeral Home, not "going together", but going together. We could breathe out here, outside of the carnation-scented parlor where she lay. We could freely laugh at Shell's funny moments, remember her gifts, eulogize her way with people. Just be. 

In this parking lot I realized just how precious my first crush was. Michael was not just my first love, he was my friend for life. Bound by Michelle's love for this world and him and me. I may have met him in 7th grade, but I truly knew him at my sister's funeral. We loved Shell for everything she was. We loved her ability to love. 

Shell freely loved people. She loved their goodness in spite of their flaws. She loved with all of herself, without the selfishness I have or the judgment of the world. Shell loved. 

That night, under the blanket of stars and cloud of parking lot smokers, Michael and I wanted to be more like her. To this day, I am moved to love like Michelle did. I remember how her friends from far and wide gathered to remember her awesome, big love. And I want to live up to that. I want my 7th grade self to love like her big-hearted Michelle-ness did. 

Looking Forward to a New Order of Things

It was difficult. 

Last night. 

Hard to feel good finding joy when I knew there were families an hour away who found only sorrow.

I watched my boys sing and act in the school's Christmas musical, my heart swelling with love and, yes, a touch of pride.

I knew I had them for that moment. 
But that's all I knew.

 I have to embrace it all.

I can't take a single moment for granted.

So we cried. 
A whole lot of us there.
And we prayed. 
Because that's the only solution in this whole tragedy. 
God is the only hope that shines through this war with evil.

 John Stott wrote: “I could never myself believe in God if it were not for the Cross. In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?” 

And Tim Keller responded: "Do you see what this means? Yes, we don’t know the reason God allows evil and suffering to continue, but we know what the reason isn’t, what it can’t be. It can’t be that he doesn’t love us! It can’t be that he doesn’t care. God so loved us and hates suffering that he was willing to come down and get involved in it. And therefore the Cross is an incredibly empowering hint. Ok, it’s only a hint, but if you grasp it, it can transform you. It can give you strength."

Keller's entire post on suffering can be found here. 

There is comfort there, 

in God's word. 

In His promises.

“The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” (Psalm 34:18, NIV) 

"He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” Revelation 21:4 (NIV)

Looking forward to the new order of things.

In memory of...

Not only am I short, but also I am not a black belt like my husband. 

Still, this post is not about me. I was downloading pictures of our Christmas tree hunt (which was more like a perusal) when I found this on his iPhone. I had to download it. It reminded me of that all-important night when he tested for his black belt and earned it. What a night.

Our taekwondo school in Greensburg, Pa., had some serious tests. There was indeed the chance that you would NOT earn your belt after the night. Mess up your form in front of the judges and not ask for a redo. Miss your board break. Puke. (OK, the puke part was a figment of my own testing nightmares.) Nevertheless, there was no guarantee you'd actually PASS the test. Failure was an option. 

But for Curt on this night, he nailed every move. He sparred right. He did his form right. He broke his boardSSSSSS. And he looked like a black belt in every way. 

This was a proud night. He felt overwhelmed when it was over, tears leaking out of his eyes. I felt immensely proud of his work - three years of dedication to this one night. And though this school doesn't exist here in our neck of the woods, he's still a black belt. Nobody can take that away from him. 

Picture this, if you will...

I'd give my eye teeth to have pictures to go with this post. I'm sure I have some stored up somewhere, but that was before the digital age. And though I'm willing to search my Shutterfly account for old photos, I'm absolutely not gonna go digging through a stack of boxes for a picture I can't even be sure exists anymore.

In my mind, however, I can see everything clearly. There's the dining room table set for twelve (extended with a card table, but covered with one giant Christmasy table cloth and matching cloth napkins). Mulled wine simmers in the crock pot; the Blue Willow teacups are waiting to be filled. Curt is cooking because it was just safer that way. 

This was a tradition back at 618 Walnut where we lived till Benjy was born, not long enough. Every December we hosted our own Old Southwest Christmas Parlor Tour dinner. We invited friends and told them to dress warmly and be ready for walking. And then we'd feed them, fill their flasks, and be off. The tour is, to this day, an annual fundraiser for the historic district neighborhood we called home. Roughly 10 homes were on the tour every year, and we'd traipse through each of them ogling their decorations and wood trim and original windows and impossible kitchens. Every house smelled of Christmas - all cinnamony and apply and sprucey. Candles floated in bathtubs. Fresh greens stretched from room to room. And polite oversee-ers stood in every room keeping watch.

And then we'd turn into the last room and tumble out the door, whisk our flasks of mulled wine out of our pockets, and sneak a sip before heading to the next house. The entire tour took about 3 hours. And by the time we got home, we were convinced we had the shabbiest house in the city. Our fake greenery and aged decorations surely wouldn't attract a rat, much less a $10 ticket. 

What I know now, almost 10 years later, is that my aged decorations look just as good in the dim light as the ones I saw on the Parlor Tour. And I can float candles in water as well as anyone. But I don't think it's the decorations that make the house, in fact, as much as the love that fills it. Whether the houses we paid to see were filled with love of family or love of the season or love of kitchens, each and every one had somebody filled with a love of something fixin' them up for the rest of us. 

This teeny-tiny house we live in now has tons of that love. So much love we're a muffin-top kind of home. We love each other fiercely. We love the anticipation of the season. We love the Christmas lights  shining in every room. We love the good smell of Glade candles that masks Ein's litter box. The bottom line is, we love. 

One day, with God's blessing, we will make it home, and we'll resume our Christmas Parlor Tour dinner parties. But until that day, we'll happily count our blessings that we've found the real beauty of a parlor tour in our own living room of our rented 1950s Cape that's just right for us. If you want a tour, we promise not to charge you.

On using the word SANS

I had big plans for this year's Christmas card.

Something along the lines of Photoshop and Santa hats and family frolicking on the beach.

Alas, my version of Photoshop is hopelessly outdated.

There were no Santa hats on the Picmonkey, the free online photo editor I use now that I'm hopelessly out-dated.

My whole family frolicked on the beach, indeed, but nobody took a picture of us.

(Somebody else's family frolicked - danced up a storm! And I got loads of pictures of them. 

But it didn't suit for the Christmas card. 

I was blown away by this fun little dance team, but I doubt you would be.

So anyway, I placed my order for the cards at Shutterfly, and then I went back to play on PicMonkey. And, do you wanna know what I discovered? Lo and behold, I can draw my own Santa hats!!!

I can make the card I have been dreaming of since August!

So, if I'd only been an hour ahead of myself (perhaps if I'd lived somewhere in the Atlantic ocean), I'd have discovered this before I saved 40% and scored free shipping on cards sans Santa hats. As it stands, I'm gonna have to draw dingdang hats on each and every card. Or you're just gonna get the boring one shown at the top of this blog. DRAT!

-- One of my last shots of Roanoke as we left home at 5:58 a.m. Sunday morn. I was awake for only three more minutes.

This was the parting shot I was after. Note the price of gas. It's a bit more than the all-time low of $2.97 spotted on this trip. It's still far less than what we Connecticutonians pay on any ding dang day of the week (near $4.00).

I was sound asleep 45 seconds after snapping this. 

(What's with lighted holiday pigs???)

The good news is that I took Monday off. I figured, hey - I am due a break after that drive from Ct. to Va. (Even if Curt drove it and I napped and read and napped the whole drive home.)  

      Thank you, Johns Sanford and Irving, for something to read. 

And so I took the day off to play. Actually, I went to Costco with Curt and to Chili's for enchilada soup and Home Depot for clear storage boxes and Michael's for lighted outdoor trees, and back home to set up Christmas decorations, so I'm not positive that is considered "play", but nonetheless, I didn't work that day for any sort of compensation short of my own happiness. And I'm happy now. I sweep in the door and flick on my lights and - voila, I'm in Christmas land!

Back in Costco:

I wonder if I should invest in this for Christmas dinner. It's complete! It serves 8-10! It's fully cooked! (Then I remember the Pioneer Woman brisket....)

Curt wondered if I would take a picture of his pride and joy - the first decoration to go up on our day off. (It's a major award!!!)  It's not that I wasn't game to tread outdoors in the freezing 30s. It's more like I needed a reason to. Yesterday, clad in my pajamas, there was no reason. Today, on the way home from school, I found reason.  This is real love, friends. I light this leg every night of the Christmas season for my one. true. love. And plus also I sort of think it's cool.

Winning!

Winning in pictures

trophies don't even count.

Benjy's sparring event

He took 3rd place!

So thankful it's over!

Camden's 2nd place for forms - after two tie-breakers!!!

And now for sparring...

It wasn't pretty by just a tad, but the dude held his own. 

So proud of my guys!