I'm no one...

...and I'm surprisingly ok with that...

(For the record, I think I actually did sign up for a Twitter account one time, used it for a day and never went back. I did Plurk (a Twitter-esque application) for a while, but I quit because I didn't get it. The main reason to Plurk was to raise your Plurk karma and get rewards for doing so...but if you didn't Plurk in the first place, you really didn't know you were missing the karmic rewards, right? Uh huh. I mean, the dancing bananas were fun, but really? There are so many better ways to spend my time. Twitter? Sorry...I'm just not going back there.)

What it all comes down to...

Being an evangelical Christian isn't all that popular in today's world climate. I think it gets a bad rap because of those extreme personalities in the media who make the world think we're all a bunch of uber-conservative whackjobs. But I am a Christian, and I do consider myself of an evangelical bent. While it isn't something I try to hide, it isn't something I talk about all the time, either, which probably makes the "evangelical" part a bit ironic. I don't think I'm perfect, and I don't think I live my life better than the rest of the world, nor do I presume that I know what Jesus would do/say/think in every social, political or relational situation. But the bottom line is my faith is important to me, and I'd gladly talk about it to anyone interested in knowing more about it.

That said, here is a Youtube video that states it beautifully. I just saw it recently and can't help but watch it again and again. So...at this time of Thanksgiving, I offer it to you...watch it if you want...or not. Either way, Happy Thanksgiving!

Things that last...

I've been trying not to dwell on it, but it's hard. I have been in such a blue state lately, since the election. (And by "blue state," I am referring to a state of melancholy as opposed to political blue state/red state.) Anyone following my Facebook page that night knows how distraught I was at the outcome. But I promised myself that I would not allow myself to dwell over it. When I woke up Wednesday morning, I made a conscious decision to keep my faith in God, because he IS bigger than any of this, and to believe that things will work out ok.

My faith is still in God, but I am not doing a good job of not dwelling. And this is rather unlike me. I'm not prone to ongoing bouts of anxiety and worry. Not like this. Yet here it is. Every time I hear mention of the president-elect's plans for things like civilian security forces and for confiscating 401Ks and IRAs, my stomach tightens. It scares me. I cannot shake this sense of foreboding. I feel fear that I've never felt before. 

Maybe I am over-reacting...I pray I am, I pray I will be wrong about all of this. I really do. But what if I'm not? I know I'm not alone in feeling this way. But it makes me feel small and alone to feel these feelings, like there is so little I can do, if anything, to change the course of things. And so I pray, because I know that is the one thing I can do that can make a difference. And then I read or knit or listen to music, because those are really the only things that divert my attention from the ominous feelings.

I was out having coffee with a friend the other day, and we'd been talking about a lot of this stuff, so it was fresh on my mind as we parted ways. Before I left, I stopped to use the bathroom, thinking about how much all I really wanted to do was go home and get lost in the book I'd been reading earlier in the day, Eclipse. (I find that these stories of vampires and werewolves and undying love are a wonderful distractor from life's true terrors.) 

It was then, in a bathroom stall in Starbucks, that I had this strange epiphany: no matter what happens in the future, no matter how bleak and terrifying things might become, even if our country is torn from its foundations as a safe, free place, the stories will live on. Stories written through the years, all of them...their words will live on because no matter what the government tries to take away from us, they cannot take away the beauty of the words we've read, or the images of the art we've observed, or the notes of the music we've listened to. Those things -- even if their physical manifestations no longer exist -- their spirits will live on inside of each one of us who has had the privilege and honor of enjoying them. 

And as odd as that thought might be, it was a comfort to me. And I was so thankful for it. Thankful because even though I've never managed to finish a novel myself, as a writer, I fully know how much of one's heart and soul goes into writing. It's a part of you. It is significant. And for it's significance to simply disappear because some worldly entity has chosen to destroy the world around it, that would be so unfair, a true injustice. There's a reason that art manages to sustain throughout the years...it lives despite the odds. Paintings on cave walls, stories passed down orally from generations past. They live. They have life and they give life to us at times when we otherwise feel lifeless. They are important.

So, that is the odd little epiphany that is acting as my glimmer of hope in what is otherwise a dark time for me. We can all use some hope, can't we?

Vision...

Ok. Morning after. Moving on.

After a short night of sleep, I woke up with incredibly blurred vision in my left eye. At first, I thought I'd forgotten to take my contacts out last night...that's how it felt. Still groggy, I actually went in the bathroom and checked my lens case. Yep. The contacts were in there. Thus, they were not in my eye. Looking at my eye, it seemed completely normal. No redness or crustiness or goo that might indicate a problem. Just the blurriness, like someone had put a big fingerprint right in the center of my field of vision. I admit, I started freaking out a little because this didn't seem good.

My mom worked as an optometrist assistant for about 20 years, thus it would seem fortuitous that I am at her house. It would seem that way, but no. She is not a good person to go to about weird eye issues because she immediately informs you of the worst possible scenario. "Detached retina!" she posited when I explained my blurriness. I then did what I do and got on the Internet and Googled. The symptoms kind of matched, though it said detached retinas usually have no pain associated with them, and I was having a tiny bit of discomfort in one area. I went up a notch on the freak-out-o-meter nonetheless.

On the upside, my mom works right next door to the local hospital, so it was very convenient for her to drop me off at the ER on her way to work, which she did. She even came in long enough to go to triage with me and have the nurse ask me how much I weighed. I do not talk weight issues with my mom. Ever. It has taken me YEARS to get her to stop harping on me about my weight, to get her to understand that not everyone in this world can subsist on a cup of yogurt and an apple to get them through the day, to get her to understand I have bonafide medical issues, not simply a lack of will power, that make my weight difficult to control. 

And it has taken me years to come to terms with the fact that no matter what I do, no matter how zealously I watch my calories or carbs or fat grams, no matter how many minutes of exercise I get in a week, I am never going to be thin. It has only been in the past two years that I've honestly come to accept myself for who I am regardless of what the outer package looks like and to not let my mom's judgmental attitude depress me and make me feel bad about myself. (It's helped that in the past two year period, my mother has lived 15 hours away from me for the first time ever.)

Yes, I've made these strides, but as of this moment, they had not been tested in any up front way. And now I had to verbalize my weight to this nurse in front of my mother? (And it was a male nurse, to add insult to injury, for Pete's sake.) 

Had I been thinking more rationally, I'd have written the number on a slip of paper, but I was still on my vision-related freak out, so I took a deep breath and said it out loud hoping my mother would give me a pass on this one, due to the nature of why I was in a position to be saying that number to begin with at that time. But no. She sighed, loudly, audibly, accompanied by her patented head shake of disappointment with grimaced jaw of repulsion. Fortunately, she had to leave and go to work shortly after that, so I was spared any more visible signs of incredulity, let alone the possibility that she was going to start lecturing me. 

On the upside, I was in and out of the ER in record time, about an hour, and the issue causing my problems was a scratched cornea, not a detached retina...much less scary and far easier to cure. 

Already my vision is far less blurry than it was first thing this morning, and it seems that today of all days -- the morning after, so to speak -- this is a pretty symbolic thing. Last night, my ability to see an optimistic future for our country over the next four years was severely blurred. Inside I knew God was bigger than the outcome of our election, as he would have been bigger than it had it gone the other way. But when you're faced with disappointment borne out of a blow to your strongly held, viscerally felt convictions, it is hard to not come across a little bitter. Or maybe a lot of bitter. Or at least angry and snipe-y. 

I gave in to all of that in the hours before I went to sleep, but even in the midst of it, I knew I would greet today with the decision to accept what has happened and move on. As the Obama campaign said over and over, it is time for change. And I know that is true for us as individuals as well as a country. We each have the responsibility to really live our convictions, to question what is presented as truth and weigh it against the absolutes that guide each of our lives. If they do not align, it is our responsibility to do something about it in a constructive way. Over the next few weeks, I intent to make it a priority to figure out just how that might look for me. 

Here's to new vision for us all.

Insert heavy sigh here...

"So this is how liberty dies -- with thunderous applause." 

Padme Amadala, Revenge of the Sith

I am very sad. Profoundly disappointed. Not surprised, but still...sad.

:::heavy, heavy sigh:::

McCain's concession speech was classy. I wish he  hadn't had to give it.

Tomorrow, I will begin to think about how I will live my life in response to having Obama's politics running the country I love. But tonight, I will wallow in the realization that liberty, as we've known it and as this country was built to offer and protect it, has been dealt a death blow. 

Vote...

I'm wondering what percentage of Facebook status lines today contain a message about voting? I'll bet it's high. Of the 29 of my FB friends who have updated their status lines since this morning, 24 of them have referenced voting or the election in some way. (Granted, several of them are automated messages generated by the "Causes" application encouraging people to vote, some for one candidate, some for the other, or some just to go do it.) Not that my 29 friends are a truly representative sampling, but it does work out to just under 83%. So the real question is:

Why is Lisa doing ridiculous math problems like this?

Yeah. Well. Lisa has to do something with her morning other than risk obsessing about how the election will turn out. And this prompts yet another questions:

Why is Lisa speaking about herself in the third person?

There is no answer for why Lisa does the things she does, other than the fact that she is a passionate, modern nerd. That probably explains it all. 

Honestly, just under my questionably sane surface, I've been on edge about this election for weeks (well, the election and the economy). It took me a while to realize that, and when I did, it both annoyed and troubled me because I do not tend to get rilly-rilly anxious about most things. Yes, there are certain issues that can send me into full-on spirals of anxiety, especially things involving supposedly grown, mature children and middle-of-the-night phone calls of dread, but what parent doesn't get anxious at times like that? I'm talking about normal life stuff. 

As a general rule, I do not get overly anxious. I actively believe that God is bigger than anything I might be tempted to get anxious about, so I try to put these things in his hands and go about my life doing my part to improve the situation or, at the very least, to not make it any worse.

But this election...this so-called pivotal election (I think we should consider every election pivotal, really) and its campaign has gotten the better of me. I can't wait for it to be over today, but at the same time, I cannot help but dread how it may turn out. And that could lead to four years of dread. So I'm trying to remember, today of all days, God is bigger than this. 

So, instead of focusing on politics today (after all, I voted before I left for vacation and my FB status line is doing it's part...so, I can do no more), I'm going to focus on more pleasant things. Like taking myself to lunch at my favorite lunch spot here in Fernandina Beach, Cafe Karibou. And I'm going to seek out the art of Wyanne Thompson, because I think she's pretty darned cool. And I am going to work on my own art...including a new sock!

Isn't she pretty? The picture isn't as good as the sock in real life (the MacBook camera is only so good). I'm using Numma Numma "Toasty" in a colorway called Blackberry Jam. This is the first time I've knit with this yarn, and it is sooooo soft and beautiful, and the colors are so incredibly yummy (here is a better picture of the true colors...the yarn I'm using is like the bottom two images). 

I didn't want to do a heavily patterned sock because I wanted to just enjoy the colors of the yarn, but this seems to be a slightly finer gauge yarn than many sock yarns I use, so I opted for a rib rather than a stockinette sock since the only sock needles I brought with me are size 2s, and past experience tells me it would not make a very tight stockinette sock on that size needle, and I do like to knit my socks tight. I did deviate from my usual 2x2 rib, though, and am doing a 3x1 instead. Ooooo. I so live on the edge sometimes. Witness the passion, baby. Yeow. ;)

The First Garden...

...as in White House, not Garden of Eden.

The Garden of Eatin': A Short History of America's Garden from roger doiron on Vimeo.

Found this little video through my Local Harvest newsletter...thought it was pretty cool. There are a couple of other fun, insightful videos at this site, too, including this one that is an encouragement for our next president to re-institute a garden at the White House. 

I found it interesting that the decline of White House vegetable gardening (and probably gardens of the general populous) corresponded with the passing of the National Highway Act back in the '50s. Suddenly, our food could travel, so why grow it? Sad.

I have fond memories of our garden when I was growing up. My dad, born in 1918, lived through The Depression era of the 1930s, and even before that, families pretty much just had gardens, at least if they lived in the country, which my dad did. I don't remember my dad ever having a bad gardening year. Ever. I'm sure maybe he did, but all I remember was there were always tomatoes to be canned and cucumbers and fresh lettuce and onions and radishes and eggplant. He was good at the garden, and I love that memory of him.

My husband comes from a family of garden-planters, too. Thus we've always had a garden here at our house. It's usually been his thing, as I do not naturally seem to possess the green-thumb my dad had. I tried this year, though...I had my little salad garden, which was more or less successful in that we did indeed eat salad from it, at least for a while, until the chard when haywire and took over and the weeds then sprung up over night and I was overwhelmed by the whole darned thing. I meant to rip it out mid-season and try again...I got as far as ripping, but I never replanted. But at least I tried!

Our large garden that my husband does wasn't so successful this year, either. Weather issues aside, him breaking his ankle this summer was not helpful. He couldn't keep up with the weeds and he never got the electric fence up. And since we no longer have a dog outside to scare them off, the deer pretty much had a field day romping through the garden and eating off the tops of the pepper plants. And the ground hogs dined well on the tomatoes. 

We did get a good crop of garlic, though, and a few peppers, and there are still potatoes to be dug. Once the tomatoes finally began to ripen, I managed to can a couple batches, but there was a high rate of rot on them this year, so for every one I picked, I probably pitched one or two over the hill. There plants are dying off now, so I need to go down and pick through one last time to glean whatever non-fetid, ripe tomatoes are still on the vines. It's sad to see tomato season end so quickly! 

This year, in addition to our own gardening efforts, we bought a half share of my friend Myrna's CSA. I'm so glad we did this, not only to support her farming efforts, but it was so much fun to have a variety of vegetables to cook with and eat throughout the summer. I'm not sure if we'll do the CSA again next year, not because it wasn't worthwhile, but because I'm hoping Kevin and I can work together to plan a better garden for ourselves. We've got the space to do it, so it seems silly not to.

I'm not a person who closely follows current events, but even someone as news deprived as myself hasn't missed the rumblings about the current economic crisis. I have no idea what the answer to that is...I honestly don't believe that either political party has a foolproof answer to it. Like most major issues, it's not something that happened over night, and there is no quick fix to it. But it is kind of mind-boggling to me that here we are, almost 100 years after The Great Depression, and we seem to be right back in that kind of predicament. That truly sucks.

However, I am one who always tries to look for the positives. Where there is a cloud, there is a silver lining, right? If the current economic situation prompts more people to take a  closer look at their food shopping habits and gets them to consider buying their foods more seasonally and locally or, better yet, growing their own, that would a very good thing for everyone.

So, if you're looking for something to do this winter, why not spend some time planning a garden for your family next spring? You don't need a lot of space. Container gardening is a great option for people without a big yard. And if you have no yard, check into community gardening with others in your area. Or support a local farm by purchasing a share in a CSA (you can find one through the Local Harvest web site). 

Just to get you started, a couple of my favorite gardening books are:

The Garden Primer, by Barbara Damrosch

Four-Season Harvest, by Eliot Coleman and Barbara Damrosch

I'm in love Matthew the Comcast guy and want to have his babies...

That might seem a little extreme, but here's the story...

In my post from yesterday, I mentioned how my desktop had quit talking to the Internet. Our other two computers connected just fine, so it really wasn't a Comcast problem, but after neither the hub or myself could figure out what was causing the problem, I opted to call Comcast to see if they could give me any ideas.

I called, around 8:30 on a Sunday night. And here's where it gets so magical: 

1. I got a person on the phone for whom English was his first language and I could fully understand what he was saying to me.

2. Despite the fact that he quickly deduced it was not a Comcast service issue, he walked me through several other things to check to try and deduce what the problem was, even though this was above and beyond what he really needed to do.

3. He had a great personality, a good sense of humor and seemed to actually know what the hell he was talking about.

4. Even though he could not, in the end, diagnose my problem 100%, he did point me in the direction of what he was 99% sure it probably was -- my Norton antivirus program.

5. After getting off the phone and uninstalling Norton, I could get to the Internet, no problem-o, therefore Matthew's hunch was RIGHT!

So, let me recap: I called a customer service number, got a person who SPOKE ENGLISH and KNEW WHAT HE WAS TALKING ABOUT, he was PLEASANT, and he was WILLING TO TAKE THE TIME TO DO SOMETHING HE WASN'T REQUIRED TO DO to help me. AND HE WAS RIGHT.

I don't know about you, but I've had some really suck-ass interactions with customer service people in recent years, half of them reading from a script in semi-broken English, and if that doesn't work for you, sorry, we can't help you. (In defense of outsourced customer service people, I did have a most delightful conversation a couple years ago with a person working for HP who was based in Bangladesh...he too solved my problem, but that cost me $20 an hour.) Considering that, perhaps you can see why I am so freakin' enamored with Matthew the Comcast guy...enough that I'd undergo tubal ligation reversal surgery in order to bear his offspring just to show him my undying gratitude.

Autism Awareness Month...

April is Autism Awareness Month.

Likely you've heard the term "autism" at some point, and you may have a mental picture of what you think that looks like. The truth is, it can look quite different from person to person, depending on where they are on the autism spectrum.

In its overview of "What is Autism?", the Autism Speaks web site begins to define it as follows:

Autism is a complex neurobiological disorder that typically lasts throughout a person's lifetime. It is part of a group of disorders known as autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Today, 1 in 150 individuals is diagnosed with autism, making it more common than pediatric cancer, diabetes, and AIDS combined. It occurs in all racial, ethnic, and social groups and is four times more likely to strike boys than girls. Autism impairs a person's ability to communicate and relate to others. It is also associated with rigid routines and repetitive behaviors, such as obsessively arranging objects or following very specific routines. Symptoms can range from very mild to quite severe. (Click here for the rest of their "What is Autism?" text.)

Another disorder that you may have heard of is Asperger's Syndrome, which also falls on the autism spectrum and shares several characteristics with classic autism. Some children will meet some diagnostic criteria for Asperger's but not others, thus they may be given a diagnosis of PDD-NOS, which stands for pervasive developmental disorder - not otherwise specified. Rett Syndrome is yet another autism spectrum disorder.

A hallmark of autism spectrum disorders is an impaired ability to interact socially and appropriately. As you can imagine, this can be detrimental when it comes to making and keeping friends. Certain characteristics of the disorder make learning difficult, which can lead to difficulties in school work.

Oftentimes, parents seek to keep their child's diagnosis a secret, lest their child be subject to bias or judgment. Yet, when other people in the child's life -- coaches, Sunday School teachers, even family members -- don't know why the child is acting in a peculiar way, they often simply write the child off as being weird or bad and the parents as having no control over their child or not disciplining him enough. While it can be hard to tell people about an autism spectrum diagnosis in a way that will help them truly understand it, it can be more detrimental to the child not to. It's a tough choice each parent must make on a case-by-case basis.

The cause of these disorders is not known, nor is there any known cure. With early diagnosis and treatment, however, the outlook for children on the autism spectrum gets brighter all the time. Many who are on the spectrum can grow up to become fully functioning adults, successful in their chosen areas of education and career, marriage and family, despite the difficulties these life-long disorders present.

Our family has had first hand experience with Asperger's Syndrome/PDD-NOS. Personally, I can say how frustrating, confusing and heart-breaking it can be to deal with some days. Some days, you want to shout at your child and say, "Just act normal!" while you know that it is not really a choice for him. Yes, behavior can be modified and deficiencies can be mitigated, but it takes time and patience and a lot of love. You know there are just going to be some of those days. But then there are the days when you see how far things have come and it is such a blessing.

Sometimes you'll see puzzle piece logos representing autism organizations. That is so appropriate for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is because dealing with autism can seem like a huge puzzle.

Over the past couple of years, I've learned a lot about autism from Ali Edwards' blog. Ali, who happens to be a celebrity in the scrapbooking world, has a son with autism. She's shared from her heart a lot of what their family's journey in the world of autism has been like. She also has a great page of links about autism. I won't repeat them here...just check out her site and browse.

Perfect day...

...or nearly perfect, but I'll take it.

We were heathens today and skipped church. Kevin headed out to do his thang after breakfast, leaving the kids and I to enjoy our leisurely Sunday however we pleased. Waking up to bright sunlight at this time of year is always a bonus, because there are some years where the sun barely shines between November and March in the 'burgh.

Today was unseasonably warm -- if we can't have real winter with actual snow, I'll gladly take 40 degree temps and sunshine. I lingered in bed, bathed in sunlight, first reading, then spending some time journaling, which I haven't done since last fall, hard as that is to believe. I also spent some time re-reading my journal from early 2007...I love going back and reading what was going on in my life a year earlier. It's amazing how much surprises me and how much I forget about until I reread it.

Being the gorgeous day that it was, the kids and I took a walk, our first of 2008. Technically, I walked and they rode their bikes.


The sky was an absolutely beautiful blue...

As I was walking, I noticed how much litter was strewn along the road. This drives me crazy. Sometimes I have the foresight to bring a bag with me and pick it up as I go. I hadn't thought ahead today, but as we were on our way back up the road, there on the ground, under some remaining snow and ice, was a plastic bag! I figured that was the universe's way of telling me to go back and pick up the trash, so I did.


Most of it was the usual -- beer cans, plastic bottles and paper cups. We had a pretty significant wind storm last week, which blew a lot of garbage cans and recycling bins over and spread the contents far and wide. I figure that was how the liquid soap bottle and some other things ended up along the road (not many people go on hand-washing binges in the car and then toss the empties out the window, you know?).

Along with two empty Marlboro Light packs, I also found...

...an empty nicotine gum packet. Wonder if they came from the same person?

Sometimes, when I pick up my bagfuls of litter, I'm tempted to be cynical and wonder just how much difference does this really make to the planet? Sure, it makes things look nicer, but does it really have an impact on the earth's health? I know the answer is "yes," and that, say, over the course of a year, all those bags add up. But I can understand why some people don't bother to make the effort...it's hard to see the benefit in what seems like such a small bit of a huge problem...like spitting into the ocean.

On the way back home, I ran into a neighbor coming the other way. I love when the weather gets warm, even just for a day, and people get out and you get to talk to them after having stayed inside all winter. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy and connected.

I took advantage of the day and filled the bird feeders again, too. It didn't take long before some of the birds came to check them out...tons of black-capped chickadees...


...and one tufted titmouse that flitted around insanely fast, making it very hard to get a good picture of her. Or him. Not sure on the gender.



And as if a lovely afternoon was not enough, I stepped outside tonight, after my family was in bed, to find the most perfect sky for stargazing. It was dark and clear, and the stars were shining brightly. I took my star charts out and gazed. For an hour. It was freakin' cold, but I didn't care. I was able to clearly identify about six new constellations that I'd not located before, and learned the names of several key stars, and I figured out where Saturn is, too! How cool is that?! (I get so excited about these things.) I just stood out there, turning in a circle, my eyes glued to the sky, reciting to myself the names I was trying to learn...Wezen, Adhara, Aludra...Procyon, Castor, Pollux...Lepus and Arneb...Perseus and Mirphak...Auriga and Capella and Alnath. I love these names...they're like another language and I love speaking them...I love how they feel as my mouth forms the words and annunciates their names.

So, that was my day...my perfect, heathen Sunday. And yet, in so many ways, I worshiped God more meaningfully today than I do most Sundays that I do go to church.

In closing, let me just add this public service message while I'm thinking about it:

Dear Drivers Who Feel the Need to Drink:

Not to pick nits, but if you're going to drink and drive and then rid yourself of the evidence by tossing your empties out the car window, would you please at least be considerate enough and either a) drink canned beer or b) toss your glass bottles into grassy areas, not on the rocks? Those of us who care really do not like picking up broken bits of glass, risking cuts and god-knows-what kinds of germs infiltrating our flesh.

Also, drinking and driving? So not a good idea. Just ask my son. And if you're underage? All risks of injury to yourself or others aside, the legal ramifications of getting caught? So, so not worth the ensuing hassles and costs. Really. Just ask my son. Be responsible, find a friend's house to hole up in, drink your six pack and then order pizza, make prank calls, watch porn, whatever...just don't drive, ok?

Thanks,

Ms. Inspired

P.S. No...I didn't watch the Super Bowl tonight, but thanks to the alert from my friend Amy, I did tune in to the half-time show. Tom Petty, baby! Dude's gettin' old, but he still rocks. Not hitting as many high notes as he one did, but he pulled them off in Free Falling. Kewl. :)

The Story of Stuff

If, like me, you have felt compelled in recent years to rethink your "stuff" issues, check out this video. It's about 20 minutes long, but it is well worth watching. It offers a lot of food for thought. (On second thought, even if you haven't been rethinking your "stuff," watch the video anyway...maybe it will get you thinking! :) )

The Story of Stuff

(P.S. I came across this video in my Local Harvest newsletter. Their site and newsletter are both great resources if you're wanting to learn about eating healthily and more sustainably. On the web site, you can also look for Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs in your area.)

Our appliances are possessed...

And yes, he just loved having me taking pictures at this point in time...

Our furnace began making a high-pitched whining sound last Saturday evening just as the Steelers-Jags game got started. (Considering the outcome of the game, I suppose it was an omen.) Husband diagnosed it as a bad capacitor, which he could replace. Considering that this is the 30+ year old furnace that was originally put in the house and that we've had blessed few problems with in the 14 years we've lived here, that seemed pretty lucky. We've got a wood stove that keeps the house pretty warm most nights anyway, so a day without a furnace during unseasonably warm weather was not a big deal.

Fast forward to today. I called Husband at work today to ask if I should be alarmed that our dryer was ticking. It was not running, but it was ticking. Like a clock. Or a bomb. He was too busy to diagnose it, so I just unplugged it and left it for him to check out when he got home. By the time he got home, I was at work and he did not hear any ticking sounds when he plugged it back in, so apparently all is well.

Or is it?

I got home from work to an empty house, Husband and the kids off to visit his grandfather. It had gotten colder all day today, thus the furnace was running. Upon coming downstairs to check e-mail and Scrabulous games, I noted a weird sound coming from the vicinity of the furnace...kind of the sound UFOs made in 60s TV shows? You know the sound. So, when Husband came home, I told him there was a UFO in the furnace. (He loves it when I tell him things like this. Really. You have no idea.) No sooner did I say this than the furnace started making the same high-pitched whine as it had made last Saturday.

Going downstairs, he shuts off the breaker to the furnace, opens it up and begins grilling me on the noise I'd heard earlier.

Him: So, what kind of noise was it making before?

Me: I told you already. I even mimicked it for you.

Him: :::heavy sigh::: Well, can you mimic it for me again?

Me: OoooooEEEEEEEeOOooooooooo

:::crickets:::

Him: So, was it like the sound of a bad bearing?

Me: :::heavy sigh::: I don't know. I'm not all that up on my bearing sounds.

Him: But you're up on your UFO sounds?

Me: Yes!

Him: :::heavy sigh::: This will be so helpful at the hardware store tomorrow.

So...he's now removed the motor from the furnace and started a fire in the wood stove. It is going to be cold out tonight, thanks to a clear sky (which, I must say, is making for an absolutely stunning view of the constellations!). And did I mention the age of our furnace? Yeah. I'm thinking we're going to be biting the big one and buying a new frickin' furnace soon. Though I did point out to the husband that we should probably weigh the cost of any new home improvements against the possibility of needing to move out of the country should Hillary Clinton actually get elected president. But that's a whole other issue. And really, it's best not to discuss politics and major appliance replacement in the same conversation. Seriously.

(Oh! I almost forgot! I was drying my hair today, and my hairdryer shorted out on me! Started to make a bad, burned electrical smell and then shut off! Granted, of the three appliances, this is the least problematic to replace, but still...what the heck is going on today?)

The first week of December brings...

...thoughts of getting organized for Christmas. Granted, the decorating is mostly done. (My Dickens-ish village houses aren't up yet, and the outdoor lights aren't up but the weather isn't cooperating for those anyway.) And I have my Christmas knitting schedule in place (and have already deviated mightily from it). Now to plan for the rest of it.

Cookies to bake. Cards to send out. Picture to send out with cards. Presents to wrap. Places to go. People to see. Etc.

My all-time favorite parody version of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" is "The Twelve Pains of Christmas" by Bob Rivers. It's hilarious, even moreso because I think everyone can relate to something in it, even if not to the degree represented in the song. And as the song goes on, the whole thing becomes more frenetic and insane...so much like the holidays can be. Art capturing life! LOL If you're so inclined, you can listen to the song here...it's #10. And if you have a warped sense of humor like my family and I have, you might also enjoy song #2, "Chipmunks Roasting on an Open Fire." Mmm...tasty! ;) (Note that there are some song titles on this site probably deserve at least a PG-13 rating.)

That said, in recent years, I've been pretty good about slowing down the pace of Christmas a bit. There are some things I just choose not to bother with. One year I hardly baked and instead bought my cookies from my mom's Cookie Lady. Several years ago, I decided I would only decorate with the things I absolutely loved instead of every piece of Christmas stuff I'd collected over the years. One year I didn't send out cards -- at all! Last year, I gave up the notion of the "perfect" family Christmas picture and instead made use of Photoshop and put together a collage "picture" using shots of each of us individually throughout the year. (So much better and less stressful for us all!) Some years I put Christmas letters in my cards, sometimes I don't.

This year, for the first time in nearly a decade, I bought my Christmas cards instead of making them. I'm doing another collage picture, but no letter. If the outside lights don't get hung, I don't care. Cookies will get baked, but maybe not 12 different types. And knitting...knitting will get done...or not. It's all good.

Destruction

"Woe, woe, woe!" called the voice. Woe for my brothers and sisters! Woe for the holy trees! The woods are laid waste. The axe is loosed against us. We are being felled. Great trees are falling, falling, falling."
Voice of the Dryad, Chapter 2, The Last Battle, by C. S. Lewis

Last fall, our neighbor two doors down came over asking about property lines. He was having his land surveyed and they were looking for a point of reference and wanted to know if we knew of any survey pins from when our survey was last done. Apparently there may have been some dispute of the line between his property and the neighbor in between us. My husband talked with him and showed him where the pins were, and I didn't give it much more thought.

Until a couple weeks ago.

We live in a fairly rural, wooded area, and so it is not uncommon to hear the sounds of outdoor machinery from time to time...tractors doing this or that. I noticed, however, that I'd heard the sound of a chain saw a few days in a row and I started to wonder about it. Then one day, as I glanced down the road, I saw a team of horses in the yard of our neighbor two doors down. I knew these to be the horses of an Amish team of men who clear land and buy the wood for whatever their purposes are. I'm not sure how a chain saw fits in to the Amish way of life, but they use the horses to skid the logs to where they need them to be.

Anyway, I assumed our neighbor must be thinning out his property, as some people do from time to time. My husband does the same here and at his parents' house, taking out the dead and diseased trees to open up space for the younger, healthier trees to grow. But two doors down, the chain saw kept going and going until I glanced out my kitchen window earlier this week and, looking across the property of the neighbor between us, I could see a vast open area where there had not been one before. Dozens and dozens of trees had been felled, their limbless trunks lying all over the upper yard of the man's property.

It was devastating to see. He'd cleared virtually the entire lot. I wanted to cry. The wife from the couple who lives between my house and the tree killer property clearer was outside yesterday and we talked briefly. I felt most the need to offer condolences. "I'm so sorry," I said. "I can't believe what they've done next door!" She shrugged helplessly, clearly feeling the loss of what had been a beautiful area destroyed in the name of subdivision and profit. She and her husband work hard to keep their property beautiful and healthy and alive. I've often been jealous of the gorgeous sanctuary they've created that has most of the birds in the area vying for a spot at their feeders. And while there is still a narrow strip of tall, old trees between their property and the next land over, it will do little -- even after the leaves are full and green -- to buffer them from whatever else the man next door plans to do. I feel terrible for them, like they've been violated. I feel like we've been violated, even two doors away from the destruction. I feel the same way for the land. Whatever the reasons, the fact is that it's been ravaged and it will take generations to begin to mitigate the loss that has been incurred.

Some things, I just do not understand.