The quilt I made for my SIL this Christmas. She liked it.

How's the attic purge going, you wonder? Well, admittedly, I've lost the teeniest bit of steam, but I have accomplished two things on my list: I organized the big plastic bin of DVDS (which probably shouldn't be stored in the attic, but so far they've survived) , and even more importantly, organized my wrapping paper bins.

Why is it important to have a neat stash of wrapping paper? Why does it feel so good to walk into my attic and see the wrapping paper rolls standing upright, all the gift bags nested together, the ribbons and bows tucked away in plastic bags? This is why people make fun of Martha Stewart, isn't it? For caring about neatly ordered gift wrapping supplies?

But, my dears, I can't help myself--I feel better having done these two small tasks, organizing the DVDs and the gift wrap. I feel like my life makes sense in this one tiny corner, if only there.

Anyway, if you open the attic door and look straight ahead, the attic looks neat and orderly. Just please don't look to your left. Please, no---arrrggggghhhh! 

***

I've mentioned that I'm volunteering the the N.C. Folklife Institute. Yesterday, I proofread a document that profiles traditional artists, musicians and crafts people from three of our northeastern counties. Interestingly enough, the profiles included a beekeeper and two cantaloupe farmers, expanding one's notion of arts and crafts in a way that I like. I learned that there's a cantaloupe festival every July in Warren County, and I could not be more excited. I would like to spend my summer trekking around to various fruit and vegetable festivals, wouldn't you?

Do you have interesting festivals or pageants where you live? Tell me about them! I love the idea of getting everyone together for a parade or a festival or the Miss Halifax County Hog Queen Pageant. At the New Year's Brunch I went to last week, I suggested we should have an annual neighborhood parade. We could all just walk around in a big group chatting, or else we could make the parade about something. The First Tomato of Summer parade, or a Winter's Finally Over, Thank Goodness parade.

***

Okay, I'm going to the gym. I don't want to go to the gym, but it's time to get back on that pony. Wish me luck! More soon, if I survive.

Yes, it's me again

See, I told you I'd post more often this year! Aren't I good?

I'm sitting in my study, which for the last month has been ground zero for Operation Christmas Madness. Today I spent several hours putting it to rights while the boys were as lazy as they could possibly be, tomorrow being the first day of the spring term. None of us is ready to go back--or at the very least, none of us is ready to get up at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning. It won't be pretty.

My study is a small, upstairs bedroom that for the most part serves as a storage area for my books and papers, though I'm thinking about making it my actual work space. Normally I write on the living room couch, Travis by my side, but after a very serious effort at finishing a draft in November, many hours a day spent hunched over my MacBook, my back protests at the very thought of sitting anywhere other than a proper chair at a proper desk. As it happens, my study has one of each--a chair and a desk--plus a comfy club chair on loan from my friend Danielle if I need to kick back.

I should take a picture of my desk, which I'm quite fond of, even if I don't ever work there. It has cubby holes where I put my mail--such as it is--and other bits of paper that I collect. Today I went through all the cubbies and sorted and recycled and generally made my desk look like the place where a girl could sit each morning and peck happily away at her computer. Sadly, I did not get to the drawers, which are filled to the brim with decisions to be made--should this paper be saved? Recycled?  Shredded? I try to be ruthless, but it's so hard.

Next up is the study closet, which is jammed with all sorts of nonsense, including several half-finished sweaters and lots of yarn ("wool" to you UK gals) that I will never actually use but don't know what to do with. I feel like my whole house if filled to the brim with things that we don't use but I don't actually know what to do with. That would describe 95% of the stuff in my attic. It's the figuring out the proper disposal which puts the kink in the system. I wish I felt okay about just dumping all of Will's Star Wars figurines and all the plastic flotsam and jetsam he's collected over the past five or six years. But I feel I should re-purpose it somehow. In fact, one idea I've had is to systematically box up every bit of junk--here's a box of Star Wars figures, here's a box of plastic building blocks--and then sell the boxes at a yard sale, cheap. One buck a box of fun stuff your kid will love. My guess is there are lots of families with little kids who would eat this stuff up. Food for thought ...

I know, I know, I've mentioned my attic, and now you're all snickering. "Oh, here she goes again, like she's ever going to get that attic cleaned out." But I proclaim that 2013 will be The Year of the Attic. My friend Amy has offered to help me with it in exchange for quilting lessons, and I might just take her up on it. I need to purge! I want to get rid of stuff and then--and here's the big thing--not replace it. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I say, Watch this space. It will happen, ladies. It's only a matter of time.

Happy New Year!

Well. I had not meant to be gone so long, but Christmas took me in its glittery teeth and chewed me to bits, the way it does every year. I'm happy to report that a fine Christmas was had by all, in spite of a bug that knocked us down like dominoes, starting with Will. Jack didn't even open presents on Christmas day, which was a sadness, as he is Christmas's biggest fan. But my parents came and made it feel like a party, even when the Man spent most of Christmas Eve upstairs taking a long winter's nap. It's surprising what fine feelings I have about this Christmas, given our collective, icky state, but really, it was lovely.

Right now I'm taking a break from breaking up Christmas. The tree has been de-ornamented and hauled outside, the ornament boxes have been brought down from the attic. We're about two-thirds done and might even finish up tonight, if we can only muster the energy.

Today: a waffle and champagne brunch at the neighbors' house down the street. I saw many of my neighbors who I haven't seen since the last waffle and champagne brunch. Mostly I talked with my friend Katherine, who agrees with me that something must be done with all the plastic bags in our lives and 2013 is the year we're going to learn how to knit totes out of them.

My New Year's Resolutions are the same as always--improve my posture and lose ten pounds. I lost eight pounds in 2012, but I still slouch. If I lose ten pounds in 2013, I will be five pounds away from my lifetime goal (which is not all that low).

If this year has any sort of focus, I am hoping it will be on living frugally. At the brunch today, Katherine and I were talking about wanting to buy more of our clothes secondhand, and later the Man said he wants to try that too. This surprised me, as the Man, while not a fashion plate, is a spiffy dresser. No frayed collars or droopy hems for him. He's all crisp lines and good fit. Me, I'm sort of droopy, but I'm trying to get better.

***

I got braces three weeks ago today. Here's how they look:

They are quite goofy, although my friends are being sweet and saying, no, no, why they're not goofy at all. But they are. And they make eating much less fun. The good news is, I've lost two pounds since I've had them.

***

I got plenty of neat things for Christmas, but one of my favorites is a box of old community cookbooks from around the state. I will be especially interested in trying out recipes for deviled eggs and pimento cheese, two of my favorite food groups. Do you have a deviled egg recipe? Send it to me if you do! Right now mine is quite simple: mayo, a dab of mustard, cider vinegar and salt. But I'm looking to expand.

***

One of my goals for 2013: to post more often! Life has been crowded these past few months, but I'm always so happy to have a record of my days, and more importantly, it makes me happy to be among my friends out here in the Interwebs. I hope this is a marvelous year for you and yours, filled with joy and blessings. Happy New Year!

Home All Day!

Rubber duckies! I took this picture on the Hillsborough (NC) Historic Homes tour Sunday. Lots of inspiration to be found, though most of the decor I saw wasn't as affordable as this.

I'm home today! I didn't go out to breakfast or brunch or lunch or coffee. I didn't do a school visit or a doctor's visit, I didn't partake of any volunteer opportunities at Our Fine School. I just stayed home. And I'm here until it's time to pick up Jack at 3:30. Two more hours of Me Time!

I've spent my Me Time working on a proposal I'm helping draft for the North Carolina Folklife Institute, where I've been volunteering since the spring. Here's a secret: Sometimes, when I'm working on my NCFI stuff, I pretend like I have a real job. I write drafts of proposals and grants, and I make phone calls and send emails--it's all so grown-up!

So, yes, I've stayed home today and played grown-up job holder. I guess I should be doing some Christmas shopping, but I'm have such fun enjoying the Christmas season that I hate to ruin it by buying stuff. I've been listening to Christmas carols and reading Little Women and Christmas Gift and going on historic home tours with the youth group moms from church.

Who knew that if you want to feel the Christmas spirit, you have to do it before Christmas gets ruined by errands and present wrapping (which I do not enjoy) and baking cookies (don't mind the baking, do mind the mess and the little sugar sprinkles all over my kitchen) and stressing out about spending too much money. Lesson learned.

We're putting up our tree this weekend, a full week earlier than usual, but now that I'm an early celebrator, I no longer get grinchy about folks putting up their trees the day after Thanksgiving (what's next? Trees right after Halloween? Oh, don't get me started!). Nope, I'm an early Christmas girl. Joy to the world!

***

By the way, tomorrow, December 6th, is my friend Danielle's birthday. It's also the day the 13th amendment, the one that abolished slavery, was signed by Abraham Lincoln. And, finally, it's St. Nicholas Day. So happy December 6th, everyone, and happy birthday to the marvelous Miss Danielle!

I Am Celebrating Christmas Right This Very Minute

I finally finished Will's Harry Potter sweater! Yay! The sleeves are way, way too long, but, oh well.

Every year I think I'm going to spend the week before Christmas reading some sort of wonderful, Christmas-y books, and I never do. You know why? Because the week before Christmas, I am far too insane to read. I pull out A Christmas Carol or Ferrol Sam's wonderful Christmas Gift!, and I try to read, but I can't.

Last night my eye fell upon Little Women, one of my favorite books of all time. It's another one of those books I think it might be nice to read around Christmas and then never do. Of course, I've read it so many times I could probably recite it, but that's neither here nor there. So last night I pulled it off the shelf, started reading, and thought "Merry Christmas!"

Oh, my dears, it was a stroke of genius! Why haven't I thought of this before? To have the Christmas I really want, I need to have it the third week of November. I need to get out my Advent books and Philip Yancey's marvelous The Jesus I Never Knew and start reading them NOW.

And every year I think that the week before Christmas I'm going to give out Christmas cookies and dollar bills to the homeless guys who beg at the intersections of Garrett and 15-501, and of course I never do, because I'm far too insane to be charitable the week before Christmas. So I'm doing it next week, before I go insane. I am brilliant.

Travis and the laundry basket and Will's sweater

Have you read Little Women recently? Oh, it's fabulous! Santa Claus gave it to me in 1974 (I know this because, bless my little heart, I wrote my name and "Christmas of 1974" 0n the flyleaf), when I was in fourth grade. I knew little about the Civil War, and a bunch of stuff made no sense to me whatsoever, but I loved it then as I love it now. Reading it makes me want to re-read Geraldine Brooke's book March, which is Mr. March's story as he's off caring for the sick and wounded while his little women are having adventures back home. Good stuff!

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. We are staying home, because we're all sick. Actually, the boys are better, but the Man and I still feel out of it. We're sad about missing the family gathering, but feeling okay about not having to drive ten hours to Kentucky. More time to lounge about and read and have Christmas in our hearts before it's driven out by the terrible, horrible Holiday Season.

I read the obituary page almost every morning. It's not that I'm maudlin, I just find people's lives interesting. Now, not all obituaries are created equal. There are the "just the facts" obits, and then there are the "He was a titan of industry and won lots of awards and served on lots of boards and committees" obits, lengthy to be sure, but not actually revealing.

This morning I read of the best obituaries I've ever come across, and I wanted to share part of it with you:

Born on a farm in Lincoln, AL, one of nine children, she picked cotton, pulled fodder & stripped sorghum. Being chosen as housekeeper & nanny for an Aunt in town afforded her the ability to leave the country, finish school and meet the love of her life, JB. He was the local iceman and Uncle Richie let the ice melt so "Fan" could see JB more often. They married in '38 and moved to Florida in '41, where JB's entrepreneurial spirit blossomed… she worked beside him in all of his endeavors from a small gas station, an orange grove, installing jalousie windows and finally, becoming one of the first licensed swimming pool builders in Florida. She was proud to have been born during the Great Depression and learned not to waste anything. From an early age she would pull threads from flour sacks and use those to sew little doll clothes. Her husband's success was not wasted on her as she appreciated every different color and type of fabric she was able to buy… She used all that creativity to make a good home and raise her children… one in each of 3 different decades. Sewing formal dresses and skating skirts in the 50's, making waterski long johns and cooking burgers in the 60's and then rows of ruffles which turned into mod bell bottom pants for her last little "surprise". This is the way she showed her love, by making and doing things for others, from clothes she made for the Russell home, the thousands of "bone" shaped pillows and knitted preemie hats during her volunteer days at Florida Hospital, and the countless quilts and crafts and collectibles she shared.

There are so many details here I love. She pulled fodder and stripped sorghum, she pulled threads from flour sacks to sew doll clothes. An aunt "chose" her to work as her housekeeper and nanny in town. There's a novel in that line alone! Maybe Fan was the poor relation, and her aunt deigned to give her work. Maybe she slept in the corner of the kitchen and was up before dawn stoking the woodstove. Did she miss her eight brothers and sisters? Or was she happy to be done with picking cotton?

Bone-shape pillows! Sorghum! Jalousie windows! Formal dresses and skating skirts! This obituary should be used to teach writing everywhere. It's all in the details, people. I read this obit and had a sense of who "Fan" was and how she lived. By the end I felt like I knew her.

Now I'm wondering who wrote this obituary. Was it one of Fan's children? Or was it Fan herself? I'd vote for one of her children, because there's appreciation in every line. Which leads me to wonder ... what will my children remember about me? I hope it's not the mess or the crankiness, but rather banana pudding and trips to the beach, the handknit socks and the quilts and the time I grew wheat in the backyard.

I hope this isn't too morbid. I think a good obituary makes you appreciate a life well-lived, and I was glad that this morning I got to know Fan just a little bit. May she rest in peace.

Read more here: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/newsobserver/obituary.aspx?n=fran-l-newton&pid=161088738&fhid=4109#storylink=cpy

Hello!

 Will, the Halloween Birthday Boy!

Have I mentioned I'm a room parent for Will's class this year? It's a nice gig, because everyone's insanely grateful to you for doing it (so they don't have to), and after the beginning of the year it's not all that much work.

My fellow room parent is a truly lovely woman, but I must say I think she picked the wrong year to RP, as not only is she working fulltime, she's also doing coursework in her field. So she's sending out reminder messages with the wrong date, and then sending out corrected reminder messages, only this time with the wrong time. Oops! So then I have to send out a correction to correct the correction.

The thing that gets me is that when I send out the correction to the correction, there's always one parent who emails me, not having actually read the correction to the correction, and tells me that the information I've sent out is incorrect. So then I have to gently correct him (and yes, it's a him, and yes I'm beginning to understand the source of his child's myriad social problems), which usually ends the cycle ... until the next time. And there's always a next time.

Last week, I volunteered at the class Halloween party. I do this every year, because Halloween is Will's birthday (Will is ten! Yikes!). We finished all the planned activities with twenty minutes left in the period, so we sat in a circle and told ghost stories. If you want to have fun, ask a group of kids to tell you ghost stories. They tell the exact same stories you heard and told as a kid! I'd love to find out where they got their stories from. I'd bet older siblings and cousins. I don't remember my parents ever telling me ghost stories, and I've never told any--at least any of the old standbys--to Will or Jack.

Here's a funny thing: Today I was a driver for a class field trip (I know, I know--I'm a saint), and I was telling one of the moms about what a great job her daughter did telling ghost stories at the party last week. "She knows a bunch!" I said, and the mom looked at me wide-eyed, like, really? She said she had no idea her daughter knew any ghost stories and furthermore, Mia was a real scaredy-cat. I thought that was so interesting. Was Mia trying to be brave by telling the stories? Was there something cathartic for her about telling them? Or does she have her mom totally fooled?

So anyway, do you remember the scary stories you and your friends told each other when you were kids? The one that I found deliciously terrifying was about the babysitter who gets a call from someone who's threatening bloody murder when suddenly the police break through on the line and say, "Get out now! The call is coming from inside the house!"

Not a ghost story per se, but boy did it send tingles up and down my spine!