Friday Report

New quilt in progress.

Just back from a chilly walk with Travis. It's 36 degrees outside, not so bad, really. Especially since I was wearing my brand new J.C. Penney fake rabbit fur ear muffs! Which is to say I look even more insane than I usually do.

My typical walking gear: An old LL Bean knit cap with a hole chewed right at the top, courtesy of puppy Travis. My dad's old black cashmere coat that needs a trip to the tailor's, as the lining has become unhemmed. Three scarves. Black leather gloves with pink and purple fingerless knit gloves over them. Jeans, tennis shoes, sunglasses. And now fake rabbit fur ear muffs over the holey knit cap.

It's a wonder my children haven't disowned me.

***

I've been thinking about the difference between fast social media and slow social media. Fast: Facebook, Twitter. Slow: Blogs. I think I'm too slow for the fast social media. I have friends who love FB, friends who Twitter all the time. I'm not against them. But my brain's pace is glacial. I need too much time to ponder. I'm not good with 140 characters--I need more! More, I say!

When I start paying attention to Facebook and Twitter, I turn into the rat tapping the lever for another pellet. I can't stay away. I have to know who said what and when! And if I've left my own pellet? Then I must know: Who likes me? Who tweeted back?

I'm not built for this sort of stuff. It doesn't bring out my better angels. It brings out the part of me that's compulsive, addictive and attention-seeking. There are some people who can have potato chips in the house, and some people who can't. Come look in my pantry: not a chip to be found.

***

My dream: To plant my front yard in lavender. Wouldn't that be nice?

***

Disc 2 of "Cranford" arrives today! Season 2 of Downton Abbey starts Sunday! The Man's birthday is tomorrow! So it will be a weekend of English countrysides and cake. Some quilting, some knitting. Grocery shopping. Cooking and baking. Reading? I just picked up The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton. More English countryside! I read Morton's The House at Riverton in December and thoroughly enjoyed it. She writes highly entertaining historical fiction, filled with well-developed characters and crisp, clear sentences. The pages practically turn themselves.

So, yes, a bit of reading as well. What about you? What does your weekend hold?

Sweet Peas, etc.

(Bento Box quilt, made for my mother-in-law, Christmas 2011)

I feel sort of bad about writing in my last post that I didn't much like Christmas, and I want to make clear that I had a very nice Christmas indeed. My favorite part of Christmas is December 26th, when we live on leftovers, Chex mix, and Christmas punch. We play games, and I spend a lot of time reading. This year I cast on a new sweater on December 26th with Christmas yarn from my MIL, and have been knitting on it a little bit each day. I hope I finish it before next Christmas.

So it's not that I had a rotten Christmas, just that the season in general is exhausting, and the meaning of it tends to get lost in all the errands and chores.

Okay, then, that's enough on that topic. Just wanted to say.

***

It's very cold outside--25 degrees at 8:37 a.m.--and our heat isn't working. We've been having trouble with it for a week. It must have gone out near dawn, as it's 67 degrees inside the house, which is just a touch chilly. Our furnace is only a year old, so it's a bit distressing that it's gone out, but I have a space heater in the room where I'm writing, and a fluffy dog snoring by my side. All to say, could be worse, but I really do hope the repairmen can figure out what's wrong. I won't be so sanguine if the heat is still off tonight!

***

We've had a warm fall and early winter up until now, which means our garden has stayed fairly productive--we've had lettuce, spinach, collards and bok choi since late fall. Looking out this morning, I'd say everything but the collards has called it quits. We'll plant more lettuce and spinach in February. The Man planted sugar snap seeds yesterday, so we'll have those to look forward to later in the spring.

Yesterday I ordered sweet pea seeds from Bakers Heirloom seeds. I planted sweet peas last year, but I planted too late, and by the time they started to bloom the weather turned hot. Sweet peas like cooler climes than North Carolina, but I hope that if I start them inside in January, I can at least have a month or so of sweet pea goodness outside in May.

***

A year or so ago, I picked up Lark's Rise to Candleford: A Trilogy by Flora Thompson, about village life in the English countryside circa 1880, but I put it down after a few pages. I was afraid of what it might do to me. I was afraid it might make me nostalgic for a past I never had and that would never come again. I feared becoming dissatisfied with my own life, with its combustible engines and iPods.

But I picked it up again the other day (I found a nice, hardback copy on the Friends of the Library sale shelf for four dollars) and decide to give it another try. I've been thinking a lot lately about trying to slow down and simplify. I've been thinking about trying to spend a little more time with my neighbors. I love the Internet neighborhoods that I roam through, but sometimes I think the Internet takes us away from our real, live neighbors, who might not be as easy to get along with as our blogging cohorts, but are still worthy of our attention.

It's a beautiful book, and I don't think it sentimentalizes village life at all. You get a feel for how hard people worked, how worn out their bodies got from lives spent in physical labor, how circumscribed their lives could be. I wonder if I'd be happy living in a small village, where books and art were scarce and where everybody knew almost everything there was to know about me. I wonder how much time I'd spend thinking about how happy I was.

When I read books like Lark Rise to Candleford, I wonder if I lived in that place, during that time, if I'd actually appreciate it, or if it's only from a remove we can appreciate something fully.

By the way, I'm watching the BBC series "Cranford" right now, and it's marvelous. It's another story about 19th century English village life, and the characters are funny and fabulous. Worth a look!

Happy New Year!

Travis, recovering from the holidays.

Okay, I'm back.

So, every year Christmas kicks my butter, and I've decided to come up with a plan for next year. Actually, I just got some help from Debbie, who left this comment on my last post:

No wonder you haven't had time for blogging! I've finally learned the secret to a relatively stress-free Christmas; buy presents all year long, don't send any cards, keep decorating to a minimum, don't put the tree up too early, and have everyone that's coming to Christmas dinner bring several dishes. This makes Christmas a piece of fruitcake or at least a plum pudding!

Great advice! I'm thinking about running out tomorrow and buying wrapping paper, ribbon, and boxes and storing them for next Christmas. And this year, I'm definitely going to buy presents in May and take a break (maybe) from homemade gifts (unless they're made super-early). And make Christmas cookies early and freeze them.

These are things I think of every year, but for some reason, when I have a fleeting thought in October that I ought to start on Christmas, I tell myself it's really not that much work. I also resent the idea that Christmas preparations should take half the year.

Can I be honest? I really don't care for Christmas much. It's just such hard work, and it doesn't let up for weeks. I never feel the deep spiritual feelings I think I ought to be feeling; I just feel cranky. I would love to celebrate it as a religious holiday, with minimal decorations, food and gifts (though I do like gifts, don't get me wrong). As things go now, I give up a month of every year to making sure Christmas is everything it's supposed to be.

But we're not stopping Christmas here; the Grinch will not be slipping and sliding down the mountain to steal our roast beast. So I will start buying gifts in February and make address labels for the boxes I'll mail in December. Maybe it'll help. Fingers crossed.

***

My best gift this Christmas? It was the Christmas miracle of Jack's presence. He came out of his room and ate snacks and listened to Christmas carols and was in general cheerful and good company. This went on for days. He was nice to Will. He chatted. He made conversation with our neighbors when we went over for a Christmas Eve visit.

Jack's very sad that Christmas is over. He observes Christmas better than anybody I know. He loves it. He's already counting the days until next Christmas. 358. Time to get to work!

***

My New Year's Resolution: Stand up straight. It's the same one I make every year. One year I'm really going to do it. I'm going to have excellent posture. Maybe it will be this year. Maybe 2015. Who knows. I'll just keep resolving until I get 'er done.

What's you're resolution? Have you ever made a resolution you kept? Do tell!

A Childlike Christmas #4, Plus Quilts

I've not been blogging much this month, mostly because I've been making quilts--and getting ready for Christmas, which as you know, is a huge undertaking, one that often leaves you muttering, "Bah! Humbug!" under your breath as you roll out yet another round of cookie dough.

I never muttered "Bah! Humbug!" when I was a kid.

Christmas was a much dreamier affair for me way back then than it is now. The days between December 1st and the 25th seemed a million years apart. My brothers and I counted them ... a million days until Christmas, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand days before Christmas ...

And every day, it got darker a little earlier. When I was a kid, I didn't know anything about the Winter equinox, so I didn't understand why the sky started darkening around four o'clock. I must have thought the darkness meant the mystery of Christmas was closing in. Christmas does seem the most Christmas-like when the sun goes down and the lights in the windows you pass on your way home burn all the brighter, and the lights in your own window burn brightest of all.

Now my Christmases are filled with lists and errands, and two weeks before Christmas I tell all my friends how much I hate it, and they tell me how much they hate Christmas, too. I calm down once the shopping is done and the out-of-town presents are mailed. But the fact is, I don't really start enjoying the season until right about now. When I was a kid, I enjoyed it all December long.

***

I have been making quilts for Christmas presents, and I wanted to share two of them I've finished (I'll post a picture of the third soon).

This quilt is called "Razzle Dazzle," and it's for my sister-in-law, Jessica, who sent me the fabric last year for Christmas. She didn't send it so that I'd make her a quilt, but these are definitely her colors:


And this is the finished pinwheel quilt, for my editor, Caitlyn:
I finished a third quilt last night, and now I'm not sure what to do with myself!

A Childlike Christmas #3: Presents

(Me and my little brother seeing what Santa brought us, circa 1969)

We put up the Christmas tree on Saturday, and immediately Will went to work making presents to put under it. Actually, I think he's been working for a while, drawing things and cutting out pictures. Will is a big believer in homemade presents.

I was, too, when I was his age, mostly because it was fun to put gifts under the tree, especially in the early days of the season, when you wanted that space to fill up quick! I still like making gifts, come to think of it--check this space soon for pictures of the quilts I've been working on and just might have finished in time for Christmas.

I'm actually not a great gift buyer. Mostly what I like to receive is books, and sometimes it's hard for me to imagine that other people like gifts they don't have to read. I still give a lot of books, but I also fill boxes with handknit socks and quilts, and lots of pink stuff for the nieces, since my boys don't much appreciate pink stuff.

In third grade, I took lots and lots of quarters to the post exchange, where there was a vending machine with small plastic NFL football helmets inside clear plastic domes. That's what I got for my brothers that year. I think my brothers liked them.

Every year at Christmastime, I had a 6" tree on my beside table that my mother made by wrapping pink tulle around a Styrofoam cone. I wrapped up small white cardboard jewelry boxes and matchboxes, put them around the little pink tree, and imagined what might be in them.

***

How old was I when my grandparents started sending me money instead of gifts? Second grade? Third? Ten dollars--a huge amount! I never wished they'd sent a gift instead, and yet I still can't bring myself to send my nieces and nephew gift cards, no matter how much I suspect they'd like them.

***

My parents gave us all sorts of presents via Santa Claus, but probably the best present they gave us was the gift of family traditions, many of which I still keep. Today I spent the afternoon making small loaves of bread for the boys' teachers. Will, coming down the stairs as if drawn by the wonderful smell of good things baking in the oven, asked, "Is it time for banana bread already?" I thought it was nice that he knew the scent of banana bread by heart. My mother made banana bread for friends and neighbors every Christmas, and it's what we nibbled on as we opened our Christmas presents on Christmas morning. It is one of the most distinctive smells of Christmas I know, and now Will knows it, too.

A Childlike Christmas #2: Magic

My younger brother and I used to sit in front of a lit Christmas tree in a darkened room and tell each other stories about Santa Claus and Christmases past. We were transported from our living room to some place larger, grander. When we were really little and talked about what would happen on Christmas Eve--Santa landing on the our roof and bringing presents through our sliding glass door (we didn't have a fireplace)--we would get all shivery and exited. Magic was about to happen in our very own house!

What I loved at Christmastime: how pink the sky got around 4:30 on the shortest days of the year. Driving through other people's neighborhoods to look at the lights. The smell of banana nut bread, my mother's traditional Christmas gift to our neighbors, baking in the oven on the day before Christmas Eve, what my brothers and I called Christmas Eve-eve.

I loved the holiness of Christmas, which is what people are really talking about when they talk about the magic of Christmas. I loved running my fingers over the ceramic figurines of the manger scene my mother set out every year, lightly touching the folds in Mary's violet-blue dress. I loved lighting our Advent wreath on Sundays, each Sunday a new candle adding its glow to the table.

I loved when my father put Christmas tapes on his reel-to-reel player. Did you have a reel-to-reel tape player when you were little? Do you remember the smell when the motor heated up? And the loud click of the buttons as the reels were set into motion? Those were Christmas sounds and smells to me, just as much as the smell of the tree and Christmas cookies baking.

Mostly I loved sitting in front of the tree and dreaming, all the lamps turned off. It's still my favorite part of Christmas, and I think that's why I'm always a little sad after all the presents are opened on Christmas morning. Ah, the possibilities that exist in a wrapped present! That's a wonderful moment, isn't it--the moment you lift the package toward yourself, test its weight in your hands? The moment right before you open it, and everything is possible?

Awakenings

Today at church our preacher was Sister Helen Prejean, best known for her book Dead Man Walking. One of the perks of attending a university chapel is that you get amazing guest preachers, and Sister Helen was quite moving. Part of her sermon touched on awakenings, how grace awakens us to God's purposes and plans. It can start with just a nudge--her work as a counselor to death row inmates started as a casual suggestion she be a pen pal with a prisoner--followed by another nudge, and another.

That is how my faith life has seemed to me--a series of awakenings. A chain of nudges. People showing up in my life unexpectedly. Angels stopping by to be entertained unawares. The other day I prayed to be more obedient, and five minutes later I got a phone call from someone who needed my help. Took me half an hour to make the connection. A year ago, it would have taken all day. Maybe I'm a little more awake this year. Maybe I'll be even more awake next year, and it will only take me five minutes to figure out why the phone rang.

I don't know if we're ever fully awake in this lifetime. I imagine that in the coming kingdom we will be astonished by we did not and could not know during our time in this world. All the angels unawares will be revealed to us. All the things we called coincidence. All the wake-up calls--the ones that we heeded, and the ones that we ignored because we wanted to sleep for five more minutes.