The English Geek

In Case You Were Curious

this sums up how I'm feeling about everything I have left to do (Namely: baking and wrapping) :

(This photo uploaded on a dare.) 

Poem for All You (Us!) Busy Santas:

Santa's Workshop
~ William Stafford

The doll bodies glide past on little
wires that glide through their eyes.
They never meet—the boys and girls
turn a corner side by side and
enter a distant room to be boxed
separately. One at a time they are
released from the wires. Their eyes
rest. WIth folded arms they
take their place, lie down,
go out to save the world.

I Miss Blogging.

I have a half-written blog post saved and awaiting, well, a finish. And I have all these blog posts written in my head. Unfortunately they are staying in my head because hello: December? I cannot even get to the stuff I MUST get to, let alone the extraneous stuff like extracting blog entries from the crowded spaces in my brain.

Throw into the usual December stress (shopping, and money, and spending money while shopping; traffic and having to drive in it; all the customary family issues) one wedding (which really took up two entire days, and entire days are precious), one 11-year-old whose answer to "Jake, what do you want for Christmas?" is "I don't know, Mom, you decide," the same 11-year-old who suddenly desperately needs new shoes but whose father is genetically incapable of shopping for shoes the easy way but must compare prices and features and coolness factor, a husband who still can't really do much because of weight restrictions from that time his chest was ripped open, plus there's just the everyday chicken-without-head feel my life has even when it is not December, and yeah: I am sort of scatterbrained.

Not enough time for blogging.

Not enough time for almost anything. That's why this is my letter to Santa Claus:

Dear Santa:

OK, I probably haven't been very good this year. The best I can get to "good" is "good enough," and let's face it: even my "good enough" isn't anywhere close to good enough.

Can we just go with "it's the thought that counts"?

At any rate, if I have been good enough to warrant a gift, all I want for Christmas is two or three extra hours in a day. Just until I get caught up?

love, Amy

PS: thanks for doing all the magical stuff you do. No one tells you thank you enough!

What's in your letter to Santa?

Making Happy, Music Edition

My parents didn't set an awesome musical example for my sisters and me. Kenny Rogers, Roger Whittaker, Barbara Mandrell. Actually, when I stop to think about it, I'm not sure my mom cared about music at all. My dad did, though; he was a stereophile before they invented the term. At Christmas he'd play the Christmas records of all his favorites, and even then, even at eight or nine, I'd roll my eyes and yearn for something a little more cool. It's a miracle I didn't grow up to be a country-music fan (although two of my sisters did; I do still love them but have been known to gently tease them, too).

Thank goodness some of my favorite musicians have at least one Christmas song for me to track down.

I'll confess: I've bought an entire Christmas CD just to get one song by a musician I love. (Like the nearly-completely horrid Kevin & Bean KROQ CD I bought---used, at least---just so I could have Tori Amos singing "Little Drummer Boy" on my Christmas playlist.) Of course, downloadable MP3s have made this process easier. As has the fact that Sarah M. has a Christmas CD, and then there are the bits and pieces I've found on the Very Special Christmas anthologies, and there's the Barenaked Ladies CD, and I also love the Celtic Women (who don't really fit, but whatever: It's MY Christmas playlist!)

So when I discovered, completely by accident in Walmart, that Tori Amos has a Christmas CD, I purchased it without delay. Without even doing any sort of price comparison! It's been getting fairly heavy rotation since I bought it. I don't love every song on the CD (the song "Pink and Glitter" could not be more annoying to me; when Haley heard it---playing on the stereo in the kitchen---she said "what kind of a weird song is this?), but that's OK, because most of the songs are perfect. What draws me most to Tori Amos's music is her lyrics; she has a knack for an elegant metaphor, a skill at dropping obtuse references that makes me shiver a little bit (in a good way, as in, for example, "Don't Make Me Come to Vegas"---not, obviously, on the Christmas CD---which has this lyric: don't make me pull him out of your head/Athena will attest/that it could be done and yeah: happy shiver), and a way of stringing words together that makes me think we could be friends.

So I didn't really expect her Christmas CD to just be singing the same songs everyone else sings, and I was right. Most of the traditional carols she sings are reinterpreted. In "Star of Wonder," for example, the wisemen speak: "some say we have been in exile/What we need is solar fire." Or "Coventry Carol" (a carol I both love and detest, because it puts you right into the Herod's raging) which has a sort of pre-song introduction thing. What works with the songs is that they sound like a Christmas carol should sound. Except also with the Tori-Amos sound. The new songs (written by her) do, too. "Winter's Carol" is my favorite.

It is, like the rest of my Christmas music, happy making.

Just for fun, the rest of my listen-to-all-December list:

Wintersong by Sarah McLachlan (I love, love her version of "What Child is This?" and "River" and "First Noel" and...well, the entire CD)

Celtic Women (Especially The Carol of the Bells, which is my favorite carol ever)

Joy by Jewel (I think her version of "Joy to the World" is perfect)

and these individual, long-sought-for songs:
Winter Wonderland, Jason Mraz
New York Christmas, Rob Thomas
Little Drummer Boy, Tori Amos (NOT on the new CD...this was the hardest one to find, but worth it as it gives me chills)
Winter Wonderland, Eurythmics
The Coventry Carol, Allison Moyet (Again: chills, even more than the Tori version)
Christmas Day, Dido
I Saw Three Ships, Sting (although I wonder every time I sing along: didn't the writers of Olde English ballads know that Bethlehem is, ummm, landlocked?)
Children Go Where I Send Thee, Natalie Merchant
O Holy Night, Traci Chapman
Oi to the World, No Doubt (This is Kaleb's favorite Christmas song, which never fails to crack me up)
I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, Sarah McLachlan (not on Wintersong)
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Barenaked Ladies & Sarah M.
The Night Before Christmas, Carly Simon
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, The Pretenders

One of the perks of being a grown up is that I have forgiven my parents for their musical sins. Haley, I'm pretty certain, thinks that most of my music comes straight from the musical garbage heap, which I think is my bad juju for mocking Dad over his Country Christmas Allstars record. It's a good thing, listening to Christmas music your own way.

Now if I could just get over feeling guilty for failing to provide a constant stream of MoTab all December, all would be peaceful and bright.

What's on your Christmas playlist?

PS: writing about music is HARD. Unless you, the reader, has heard the song I am writing about, none of this matters. Must learn more about writing about music!
 

Making Happy #2: List-Style

A continuation of the things I am thinking about, the things that make me happy:

 

 

1. This ad for Levi Strauss. So much that it's the second time I've mentioned in on my blog. We debauch upon a new and mightier world, O Pioneers! I love it.

2. Snow, snow, and snow! Even though I had to drive in it this morning in my little car, which is like driving a soda can in the snow...spins at the tiniest provocation. Still, the peaceful, the-world-won't-end-this-year feeling that snow brings: I love it.

3. New haircut and color, and I got my eyebrows waxed. WHY do I wait so long between haircuts? (Not between the waxing though. What kind of a slacker do you think I am???) Haley got a haircut today, too.

4. Wearing my hiking boots to shovel snow in. Why didn't I think of that before? They don't slip at all, and they're warm.  Toss in a brand-new snow shovel (wheeeeee! We are big spenders at my house!) and I almost don't mind the fact that most of the shoveling this year will be done by moi. (Because of his surgery, Kendell can't lift more than five pounds for six more weeks.) (Boychildren, however, are being encouraged to help.) Honestly, once I am out shoveling I really like it. It's just those first, few, very cold moments.

5. Going through the bag of new Christmas decorations I forgot I bought last January at a 90%-off sale. Do you see that? 90% off! I got some cute things. Lucky I found them before Christmas is over, yes?

6. These little beauties:

I'm not Martha Stewart when it comes to frosting cookies (obviously!) but I do make a mean sugar cookie. The secret: almond extract in addition to vanilla. Gives them just a little edge in the yummy factor.

Plus, know what else I love about sugar cookies? I am usually so exhausted after staying up late to finish decorating them, I don't want to eat one until the next day. I have cookies, but I don't have a compulsion to eat them.

I will tomorrow. First, though, I am going to sleep while my counters look like this:

mostly because I think the mess looks so pretty!

Not a Snow Picnic,

but further proof of my general housewifery lameness:

Why does my back porch look like a snow picnic?

Well.

See that cute tin with the angels on it? I've owned that for about 15 years. It's good for a lot of things: a place to set the golden stuffed-bear angel on, a platform to pile gifts on under the tree on Christmas Eve, a storage for things during the rest of the year. Last year, as the previous year, I stored my Christmas plates and cups in it. I unloaded them from the dishwasher, and then dried them with a clean towel. Then I wrapped each item in a freshly-laundered Christmas dishtowel, and topped it all with a floppy reindeer for extra padding. Put the lid on, set the angel tin on the shelf, thought all was well.

But slowly, all year long, havoc was being wrecked inside the angel tin. For who-knows-what reason, mold was quietly growing on the contents. MOLD! I cannot figure out why. The dishes were clean. The towels were clean. Even the tin was clean.

Still, when I lifted the lid of the tin yesterday morning---the last Christmas stuff I had left to get out---I breathed in a lungful of mold. The towels---my favorite holiday towels---were coated with a layer of fluffy, delicate fuzz. And the dishes---the ones I could see after removing the only-slightly-moldy reindeer---had a dust of mold, too.

I put the lid back on very quickly.

Then I carried it out to the porch, set out the dishes so the wind could blow away the mold dust, piled the fuzzy towels and reindeer back into the fur-lined tin, and shut the door. Then it started snowing.

Of course, the tin and the towels and the reindeer will be thrown away. But I'm thinking the dishes are OK. I soaked them in bleach, and then I washed them with hot water, and I rinsed them again in boiling water. And then I ran them through the dishwasher.

But I'm still perplexed: how did all that mold grow? Dishes, tin, and towels were all dry and clean. I can't figure it out. So I'm chalking it up to yet-another Amy failure and moving on. This might, however, delay that housefrau-of-the-year award just a little bit.

Making Happy #1

I'm still in my funk. My grumpy, grumpy funk. I've still got Thanksgiving decorations piled up in my front room, waiting to be put away so that I can haul out the Christmas stuff. Except, I need a bigger box for them, and I've been to Target three times in the last 24 hours, and every single time I've gone, I've forgotten the Rubbermaid aisle.

Still, I've made a resolution. Maybe it's not a really wise choice, but right now I'm going with things. Things that make me happy. I know: things aren't supposed to make us happy, people are, right? But, well, I'm funk-ified right now. I'm going to try to focus on the happy things, the objects I love, surrounding myself with them, and see what happens. I've got Christmas music playing (must blog about how much I love the Tori Amos Christmas CD), and I've bought a few new little Christmas decorations (I'm trying to figure out how to hang glass balls along the ceiling vault without using nails, as nails in the wall are one of our household's Ten Deadly Sins) and a couple of Christmas gifts. And I got out my new Christmas quilt.

Now, I have to say this: I stink at getting things done on time. I started this quilt last October, with the goal of using it during the 2008 Christmas season. I finished the piecing really quickly (probably because the squares are pretty simple), and I found someone to quilt it for me (because I can't do that on my machine), and I sewed the binding onto the front. But that was as far as I got. I finished sewing the binding onto the back in January. Yeah: so not on time. But at least it was ready to go this year.

It is de-funk-iifying me, just a little bit.

Kaleb and I snuggled underneath it last night while I read him his three bedtime stories. I remembered that I love this quilt. I love the fabric.
It's the Mary Englebreit line, and holy cow: I love her stuff. Then I found a different line that worked well with the Mary E one, the fabric with the white swirls. Oh! I love that too. Plus, the back. I love a pieced back.

Pretty, and swirly, and paisley. And cute. A Making Happy thing if I've ever had one.

So! Here's a challenge for those of you who are also in a funk. Find a thing that makes you happy. Use it and admire it and love it. See if it doesn't help your funk, just a little bit. Maybe even blog about it!

P.S. Gift of Words starts tomorrow, but you can still sign up through the ninth, if you're interested! 

on a Rant

Ok, yeah, I know: It is shocking. Surprising. Utterly unheard of. But: I am in a funk.

Funk as in grumpy. Funk as in: the thought of putting up my Christmas decorations makes me want to scream, slit my wrists, and then take a nap. Funk as in: ZERO ideas or enthusiasm over shopping. Funk as in: I don't want to go running, I don't want to go to the gym, I don't want to do anything except eat Hershey's kisses.

Funk as in not at all fun to be with.

I mean, hello? I didn't even write about what I'm grateful for, which I usually do in November. We ran out of mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving (I think I had one tablespoon of them) and I am still annoyed about it. Thanksgiving is usually my favorite holiday (because it isn't about "what did YOU get" but just "what did you bring to put on the table?") but this one ended with me feeling out-of-sorts and superfluous and old. I finally, a few days after Thanksgiving, finished the Thanksgiving quilt I started six weeks before last Thanksgiving, but I don't even care (in fact, I am annoyed by how I arranged the squares and am thinking about dumping the entire thing into the D.I. box).

In the immortal words of Nathan: what the?

I feel like everything has already been done. Like I am remembering my life instead of living it. Books haven't made me happy, and poems have failed me, and even writing itself hasn't snapped me out of my funk. The occasional long walk I've taken with Kendell gives me a bit of reprieve---for about three minutes. Partly it's the weather: the nothing weather. The fall colors are gone, but it's cold. There's no snow. It's just brown and chilly and grey and dry and indefinable: nothing weather. I hate it. It makes me feel like the world is coming to an end.

Coming to an end tomorrow.

And the dumb thing is, my life is just fine. Kendell has a job (for now!) and I have a job. Our kids are healthy. We are all OK. Don't get me wrong: I could catalog my woes. But in general, in comparison, I have nothing to complain about. And it's not even complaining, really. It is just persistent, stubborn funk. Funk that won't lift.

Anyone want to come and slap me?

Have a Cookie. Please. Or I Will.

Today's mental to-do list looked like this:

• Put away all Halloween decorations
• Get out Thanksgiving decorations

Instead, I did this (listed in no meaningful order):

• Four minute discussion with boys about turning their own socks right side out, complete with demonstration
• Laundry, laundry, and more laundry. (There is, alas, still more laundry to be done.)
• Started making thank-you notes
• Putzed around in the general creative frustration I am currently experiencing. I'm not really sure why, but it is hard for me to work on scrapbook stuff when Kendell is at home. This is a problem because A: he's going to be home for many more weeks and B: I am trying to work on a new Big Picture class.
• Tried to make my sewing machine cooperate for just one more witch. I want to finish this witch quilt so next year I can, you know, actually use it during October. My sewing goals are always larger than the time I allot for them.
• Took 47 pictures of Kaleb spinning on the swing.
• Costco, bank, craft store, Target, gas station, post office, another bank, grocery store.
• Made children do their jobs.
• Ran for the first time since my race...almost three weeks ago. Discovered endurance, strength, and lung capacity have diminished to that of an 89-year-old couch potato.
• Read Becky's blog about my dad and cried. Wished I could have gone with her yesterday (had to work) but am alternately glad I wasn't there, so she didn't have to share her moment.
• Tried to start reading my SDBBE novel three times. Afraid.
• Went to Haley's school to bring her some cough drops and ended up being finagled into taking her to Sonic for a slushy to bring back to class. (She has a cough but NO FEVER or any other symptoms and no: it's not the swine flu.) I still haven't decided if this makes me the dumbest mom ever, or the coolest. Admittedly, she was only gone for 12 minutes, and it was during Flextime anyway, but...I don't know.
• Coughed. A lot. (Again: just a cough. No fever, sore throat, runny nose, sneezing, puking, or oinking.)
• Read the newspaper and cried over the Fort Hood thing.
• Breakfast: Refereed the argument over who got the last Eggos. Poured cereal for the Eggo-less children. Made toast with butter for Kendell. Protein shake with raspberries for me. 
• Lunch: tuna fish, with pickle. I explained to Kendell that the reason I forgot the cheddar cheese on his tuna fish sandwich (with pickle...borrowed from my neighbor) is because tuna + cheddar is unnatural. He pointed out that so is apple pie + cheddar. Touche.
• Plus: the pulse-taking and pill-giving and post-sneeze-comforting and awkward sideways-getting-out-of-bed helping and other stuff that goes along with the heart-surgery-recuperation thing. Which has, admittedly and blessedly, been far easier than the hip replacement surgery he had last year. (I really, really, really hope he doesn't have another surgery next year.)  
• And other boring stuff.

My point? I didn't accomplish the two things I really, really wanted to accomplish today. But those other things I did are good too, right? And part of the laundry was the Halloween towels, which had to be washed before they were stored away 'till next year, anyway. And then, while I was making oatmeal-chocolate-chip cookies just now with Haley, I looked over at my pretty spot, and my favorite-ever Halloween decoration which I finally actually put together this year after talking about it for the two Halloweens before this one, and I thought even though it's six days past Halloween, I am going to blog about that decoration before I put it away. Here is my Halloween tree, which I love beyond reason:

Have I ever told you that I love, love, love Mary Englebreit's designs? When I saw this hot chocolate three years ago, I bought it just for the tin. The hot chocolate, which was orange flavored, was sort of grody, so I threw it away and kept the tin. Immediately I had my creative vision: spikey black twigs holding up little Halloween cuteness. I didn't find just the right ornaments until last year, and I didn't manage to put it together until this year. The twigs came right off my maple tree. I filled the tin with rocks and black beans (after putting it all together once using just florist foam and everything promptly fell over). And then, every time I walked into my kitchen this October, I fell in love all over again.

It's been a good long while since I have been enamoured of a decorative object.

I think maybe I love it because it is the rare piece that turned out just as cute in real life as it was in my head. And because it's one-of-a-kind. And because I got to use spray paint. (Which, by the way, you are ID'd for at the time of purchase! The last time I was ID'd...well, it didn't go as well as buying spray paint did, twenty-ish years later.)

At any rate. As a thank you to whomever is still reading this very odd and unfocused post, I'm going to share my super-secret chocolate-chip-oatmeal cookie recipe. Actually it's not very secret. But it is very good. One of the secrets: just a touch of cinnamon. Usually I'm all about adding extra spices to recipes, but this one? It's just a little bit, and a little bit is perfect. Subtly perfect, without overwhelming anything. It is, after all, an oatmeal cookie, not a spice cookie. What you must have to bake anything with oats in it: old-fashioned oats. The quick-cook kind are just....ehhhhh. Flavorless. So:

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies, with Apologies to Whatever Spot Your Weight Tends to Gather (mine is everywhere except the chestal region, of course, but hey: I'm lucky like that)

1 cup butter (shortening is an option here, of course, but I think I'd rather smoke a cigarette than consume shortening anymore...I need to blog about my trans-fat obsession)
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup white flour
2 cups oatmeal*
2 cups chocolate chips

*if you, too, have a home that's bossed around by Pickies, you can put the oatmeal in the blender and process it until it's oatmeal flour.

Cream butter and sugars; add eggs one at a time and beat thoroughly between each. Add vanilla. Combine salt, soda, cinnamon, flours, and oatmeal, then add to creamed ingredients. Stir in chocolate chips. Bake at 375° for 10-ish minutes.
mmmmmmmmmmmm.

Maybe tomorrow I'll get it all put away. Have you put away yours yet?

 

Spooky...in Unexpected Ways

Halloween this year was downright strange. Kendell was hanging out in bed, recuperating from open heart surgery. That in itself set off a chain reaction:

We're trying to keep him germ free (can you imagine having a cough when you've just had your sternum cut open?)

so

I had to hand out the Halloween candy to the trick-or-treaters

so

my kids didn't have parents to take them trick-or-treating

so

the surrogate parents started stepping up.

Haley went with Jade (granted, she wouldn't have gone with me anyway),

Jake went with his friend Reilly,

Nathan went with his friend Jacob,

and Kaleb went with his friend Lucas.

How strange is that? Each of my kids, begging for candy from the neighbors, with a different friend. I'm not sure I even remember for certain which Halloween was the last one when the four of us all went trick-or-treating together. Quite possibly it was 2005. I hate it when watershed moments pass me by and I don't even notice. So I sat in the front room, waiting for trick-or-treaters and thinking about how this Halloween is probably the new normal. Of course it is. They're all only going to get older, and want to do more things with friends instead of their mom. My brain understands that it's normal.

My heart? Not so much.

Another strange thing: I didn't get a group photo of everyone in their costume together. I always have a group photo! This year, though, Jake left earlier than everyone else, so I just got him by himself. (Note the costume: prison convict, which I found by sheer luck, on clearance, at Joann. Two days before Halloween. It was way too big for him, but he'd not had any strong "I want to be this for Halloween" ideas, so we went with easy rather than fabulous, as in years past.)

Later, I did manage to get Haley, Nathan, and Kaleb together for a snapshot, too.

Haley was a fairy, courtesy of Jade's grandma, who made her fairy skirt for her. (Haley and Jade were twin fairies, although I didn't get a photo of them together, either. Dang.) Nathan reluctantly wore the werewolf costume, which almost doesn't look like anything without the mask, which he hated and wouldn't wear. Kaleb wore the knight costume, which he has worn almost without pause for the past two weeks, so it's all bedraggled and worn out.

Yeah: not the year for fabulous costumes.

Kaleb was the first kid to come home. He didn't want to keep going, even though his friend wasn't finished, so they dropped him off on their way out of our cul-de-sac. He was happy to get into his 'jammies, sort through his candy, and then help me pass out the loot to the trick-or-treaters. He'd stand by the window until he spotted a new group of kids, and then he'd say "Mom! There's a new bunch of customers coming!" He'd wait very impatiently (running around in circles, mostly, stopping occasionally to hug me) for the "customers" to knock on the door, and then he'd put one piece of candy into everyone's bag. Plus, he'd comment: "wow, guy, that is a cool clown face ya've got there!" and once he said "you sure are big for a trick or treater guy!" which made me laugh.

They slowly trickled in, the rest of my kids: Haley and Jade first, and since Haley is trying to achieve her goal of going an entire YEAR without candy (she started in February and is still going strong!), she let me sort through hers to pick out my favorites (Almond Joys, Reese's, Hereshy's bars, and banana Laffy Taffys) before she gave the rest to Jade. Jake came next, and handed over the few items with peanuts he hadn't managed to trade with his friends (he's allergic to peanuts). Finally Nathan, who was nearly glowing after eating dinner and trick-or-treating and watching a movie with his friend's family (thanks so much, Jamie!).

Somewhere within all those comings and goings, I did have time to sit for a minute, all by myself, and just think. About how life moves on, despite hardships, regardless of whether you want it to or not. About how sweet those long-gone Halloweens were, when all my little ones went out together with me---Haley protecting Jake from peanuts (very helpfully putting Snickers and Reese's into her bucket), or Nathan toddling along between Haley and Jake, or the year Kaleb was a baby and we took him trick-or-treating in the stroller. How I usually have more energy and enthusiasm for cool costumes. How it's OK that things have changed, because it was still a pretty good holiday, despite everything.