Upon reflection

I wanted to write earlier with fluid words and glowing appreciation about our caroling venture, but it just wasn't in me yet. Perhaps it still isn't, but earlier it was definitely too soon, and I hadn't had the time whilst caroling to begin composing the descriptive pictures in my head. So I know I have already posted twice (three times?) today, but this is my space, and I am writing again.

When we caroled, it was fairly chilly. When I left my second tutoring job, it was (or felt) colder still. Just now when I walked Miley, the air was a balmy 36 degrees. It was cool enough to mist my breath, but warm enough that wearing my jacket and scarf felt almost silly. We walked down past our neighborhood creek, as we usually do in the evenings, and the days-old snow lay dingy under the full moon, trodden down by dozens of feet and hundreds of footprints. Back on the road past the creek woods, I walked on the ground as much as possible, avoiding the slick ice and hard tarmac. In many places the newly bare, newly thawed earth was so soft that I felt I was walking on quilts.


My family and friends began caroling without me, as I was a little late leaving tutoring and stopped at the library to stock up on audio books. After I ate I stepped out the front door, walked to the corner, and followed the sound of their voices until I found them. We sang two songs for each house: first, a song we chose anew each time, and usually only the first verse, and second, the first verse of "We Wish You A Merry Christmas." Exceptions to the one-verse-only rule were made so that Chloe and I could sing the descant for "Oh Come All Ye Faithful," which just isn't as magical if sung on the first verse.

We sang for Chloe's old choir buddies. We sang for Lynn-Ellen's sister, who offered us cookies and invited us in for hot spiced wine. We sang for a handful of strangers, and for Celeste's piano teacher. One woman had heard us singing down the street, and then surprised us at the door. Her husband came out after we started singing, then ran back in at the end and returned with a handful of M&Ms bags and a cry of "Thank God for leftover Halloween candy!" We sang for Bill and Lynn-Ellen's children and their visiting friends, most of whom refused to come to the door--probably out of embarrassment. We solved this problem by invading their dining room and singing "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town," with special emphasis on "he knows when you've been bad or good" and "so be good for goodness sake." This performance was followed by a walk-home conversation about the joys of embarrassing one's children.


Tonight, as I neared home and the end of my walk with Miley, our resident hoot owl began to call. It is such a homey, comforting sound.

On giving intelligently.

I stumbled across this while looking for a way to act like I'm at least trying to tithe (I always forget, and I don't keep good track of my earnings/expenses--not great), and I am quite impressed and glad to have found it. Friends, allow me to introduce the Charity Navigator.

Relatedly, and especially useful if you're into gift cards, here is the Network for Good.

Christmas excellence.

Tonight I came home from tutoring, ate some baked mac-and-cheese with my dad, and went Christmas caroling with Mom, Chloe, Hartley, Lael, Celeste (H&L's daughter), and Bill and Lynn-Ellen, who are the pastor and pastor's wife, respectively, of the church in which I grew up. We all live within a couple of blocks of one another, and when Mom and Chloe and I caroled with Hartley and Lael (and possibly Celeste?) last year, Bill and Lynn-Ellen opened their door and asked why we hadn't asked them. We love them, so they came with us this time. It was fun, and it's nice that people in real life tend to be more excited about carolers than people in movies. After about two blocks (and we were only really hitting one side of the street) everyone went home, and Chloe and I went tot Hartley and Lael's house to hang out and have hot chocolate. I ended up sitting in front of these:

which Hartley has made as Christmas presents for various family and friends. They are (with the exception of the hook, upper right) steel oyster knives. (He's a freelance carpenter and blacksmith.) You can't tell very well on the cell phone picture, but the tempering colors on the blades are beautiful. I think I'd like to commission a cutlery set someday. Hartley said, "that would be fun."


Lastly, this.

I am exhausted,

but I am waiting up for the eclipse to hit its stride. It's looking like a crescent moon at the moment. This is one of those things that I always feel like I should get really excited for, but don't actually get all that excited for. I mean, I'd kind of like to see it, but the super slow motion and the dull red light generally end up feeling pretty anticlimactic to me. That, and the fact that I still don't have a camera that can get decent shots of it. One of these days I'm going to have to give in and get a DSR.


I have really been doing a lot of snow boot shopping lately, and I am really getting sick of it. The Sorel Tivoli boots came in the mail today, and they are narrow. And I have wide feet. The situation has been improved by the wearing of stockings and the replacement of the (quite thick) Sorel inserts with thinner ones, but I'm still not 100% decided about keeping them. So I've been looking for emergency backups. Here's a possibility, though I'm not sure about wedge heels in snow boots, or in general. Who the crap makes snow boots with heels?



I spent some time this morning/afternoon working with one of my aunts. She shared with me two excerpts from books that she has read. The first is by Melody Beattie, and I didn't catch the originator of the second, though it is often mistakenly attributed to Nelson Mandela. Bold font obviously mine.

"Say thank you until you mean it.
Thank God, life, and the universe for everyone and everything sent your way.
Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. It turns problems into gifts, failures into successes, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. It can turn an existence into a real life, and disconnected situations into important and beneficial lessons. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.
Gratitude makes things right.
Gratitude turns negative energy into positive energy. There is no situation or circumstance so small or large that it is not susceptible to gratitude's power. We can start with who we are and what we have today, apply gratitude, then let it work its magic.
Say thank you until you mean it. If you say it long enough, you will believe it."

(Disclaimer: I can't say that I completely agree that one should be thankful for everything, but I do think that in every situation, there is something to be thankful for. And while I don't necessarily think that gratitude will instantly fix every problem, I do believe that it saved my life.)

[Going to check on the eclipse*.]

[It now looks like a very fuzzy crescent with a very faint, greyish-red tinge. This might be due to some thin clouds in the way, but it's hard to tell for sure. It isn't a very clear night out here though.]

Second, not-Nelson-Mandela quote:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us--it is in everyone. And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."



Another note: Chloe parked the car in a somewhat unwise spot this evening, and got sideswiped. The car? My car. This is the second time in just over a week that someone has hit my car while it wasn't moving. PSA, everybody: don't buy a gd navy blue car. Surprisingly enough, it tends to blend in with the navy blue nighttime. Crazy, right?


Lastly, I really want these boots. I want them so bad. They come in navy blue! How often does that happen? I think possibly I should be banned from looking up boots online for a while.






















*I am ashamed and a little bit horrified to admit that when I say the word "eclipse**," I think of the Twilight series.

**Oh God, I capitalized it.

Notes from the last two days.

There is nothing like the blue stillness of moonlight falling on snow. And the treeshadows are never softer than tonight, in the blue still small hours of the morning.

I am so tired. I need to read Chloe's paper.

Do you remember this? Though my picture wasn't exactly the same, I do. Oh, I do.


My day Wednesday was supposed to go like this: wake up, drive to Northside, meet uncle to figure out car issues, go prime and paint all day, make a bunch of money.

My day Wednesday actually went like this: wake up to a surprise phone call from an aunt: "can you help me pick up and install insulation?"; say "I guess"; call uncle to adjust plans; drive toward aunt's house; redirect to Lowe's; wait 1hr in parking lot; shop for renovation supplies; transport insulation to aunt's house; realize that these clothes, while perfect for priming and painting, are not perfect for insulation installment; argue, get stressed out, measure/cut/install a bunch of unfaced insulation; get fiberglass in eyes despite work goggles; stack firewood; meet with uncle for 10 min and establish that the car won't disintegrate on the highway; arrive home to find dinner guests sitting down to eat; shower; eat and socialize; meet Kelly and Jr and Maggie at a Mexican place to talk and laugh for ages while they have dinner; come home.

All in all, not so bad. Today I had really hoped would be a make-up day for all the work I failed to do yesterday, but then it snowed. I don't like driving in the snow, and I don't like driving in the Fan, so I decided not to try the two together. (Also, my car's front left shocks have been acting insane when they're cold and bouncing me around like mad, which doesn't sound like a great idea in the snow.) It doesn't look good for this project getting done before the tenant returns on Sunday, a probability which I find a little frustrating and a little shaming, though I'm not sure there's a lot I could have done differently.  Today I wrapped presents though, and  made French bread all by myself (unless you count motherly advice), and it turned out very well. I also had the extreme pleasure of consuming for breakfast a fried egg and grits doused in the juice left over from last night's duck. We've never had duck at home. It was fabulous. This was better.

Parallelism

Lately I have been noticing parallel structures in the seasons the way I notice it in sentences and paragraphs. The way the wind puffs its cheeks and blows the wintry snow from the trees is the same as the way it blows the autumn leaves, letting them fall in a dancing, glorious rain across the street. The way the snowflakes swirl in the wake of the cars is the same as the way flower petals swirl across the road in a colorful, joyful carpet of spring. And our little creek runs through it all, cold through the snow, carrying petals in the spring and water skaters in the summer and then leaves in the fall. The swim hole fills with leaves in the fall that must be dug out in the spring to make room for more fish and for all our warm bodies in the summer.

Two more things:

First, Emma has written a beautiful, haunting post about a fire in her apartment building. I can't put my finger on what gets me about it, but there's definitely something.

Secondly, an acquaintance of mine posted this horrible thing on his facebook. If you have any attachment to Star Wars, Harry Potter, or Lord of the Rings, then prepare to be offended.

Notes

I went to a beautiful international lessons and carols concert tonight with Anna, and... well, as I said, it was beautiful. The chorus was amazing. I liked almost all of the arrangements, and most of the carols were new to me. The orchestra was excellent. Each reading was in a different language, with the English translation projected on the wall. During each song, works of art related to the nativity (and often to the culture of the song and/or previous reading) were projected on the wall. I teared up a few times.

(Faith, our cat, is sleeping curled up on top of a sheet-covered milk crate. Her head just tipped off the edge and woke her up. Adorable.)

As we were leaving the concert, I was giving Anna a ride to her car, and someone backed straight into me. I have the worst reactions in these sorts of situations. I just sort of watch, dumbfounded, and maybe say something like "stop!" Eventually Anna said "your horn! Honk!" And then I had to find my horn, which broke a while back and has been relocated. Anyway, there's a small dent in my door, and I have the woman's name/number/insurance information. I haven't told my parents yet--I forgot at first.

I remembered when Anna called me around 10:30 to tell me that as she was leaving the birthday party she attended after the concert,

wait for it,

someone backed straight into her car, and hit her in the exact same spot as the woman at the show hit me.

What are the odds?



Speaking of odds, I spent the bulk of my evening after I came home shopping for snow boots. Originally I was shopping for thin wool socks for Scotland, and I was looking on planetshoes.com because they'd sent me a coupon. I searched "wool" on their site, and ran straight into these:

I want them. I want them so bad. But I have been able to semi-successfully convince myself that they wouldn't look good with jeans. Do not dissuade me. I can't even afford them at all. The best price I found was $122, and that took a lot of doing, and was a temporary sale. No one else had them on sale (reg price $160); hardly anyone had them in my size. It was slightly hellish.

I ended up with these, from footwise.com, with which I am pretty well pleased:

As a ridiculously fabulous added bonus, they were on sale because footwise only had them left in one size--my size. NO ONE else had these in my size except maybe Nordstrom's. Nordstrom's was charging $100. The footwise sale was $49. God loves me, I think. Now let's just keep our fingers crossed and hope they fit and all that.











On an unrelated note, I walked Miley tonight. She insists upon strangling herself. I constantly find myself thinking, "Buy a semi-choke collar! Strangulation theoretically optional."