Year's end

God is near

"During times of trouble or despair or simply when we need to know that God is near, the Holy Ghost can lift our spirits, give us hope, and teach us 'the peaceable things of the kingdom,' helping us feel 'the peace of God, which passeth all understanding.'" (Elder Craig C. Christensen, "An Unspeakable Gift From God", November 2012 Ensign)

Angel Mother

You know I went to a funeral yesterday, sat for a couple of hours on the church bench listening to the wonder that was the life of the mother of one of my good friends. ‘All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel Mother’ (Abraham Lincoln) became the theme repeated by my friend and her sister and brother and some of their children who spoke and sang. Angel mother...

I'm struck by what appears to be this mother's full generosity. One granddaughter used the scripture about the widow's mite Mark 12:44. For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living. She examined with us the abundance that was paradoxically generated as her grandmother gave her all. Frequently and deliberately, calling upon her faith and God in His heaven to care for her and her family and help their dreams come true. Thus all she has cast in of her want all her life has in fact bountifully provided for her children and now theirs, and theirs... and become a legacy of love overflowing at her hand.
-----

The errand of angels is given to women;
And this is a gift that, as sisters, we claim:
To do whatsoever is gentle and human,
To cheer and to bless in humanity’s name.

How vast is our purpose, how broad is our mission,
If we but fulfill it in spirit and deed.
Oh, naught but the Spirit’s divinest tuition
Can give us the wisdom to truly succeed.

~"As Sisters in Zion," Emily H. Woodmansee, 1836–1906

Good cooking

Evening of the 27th... At Laura's this afternoon with Jenny visiting my sister and her girls, Shayla and Mary. Mary with new baby Henry, darling! And Sophie, Mary's three year-old, who jumped on my body and let me put her up on my feet as I lay on my back on the floor. How we romped!

I came up for air and while Jenny gabbed across the space with Shayla and Laura, Mary and I talked cookie-making. She got off the couch and brought me "The Science of Good Cooking" from her mother's kitchen. America's Test Kitchens, Cook's Illustrated, one and the same... said it's Justin's. Justin, Mary's brother-in-law, who's for a year practiced cooking and smoking meats like to perfection! I know this: I've eaten chunks of his freshly smoked brisket and salmon. It stands to reason Justin would've bought "The Science of Good Cooking" when he saw it at Costco. Yes, the exact tips and advice he wants; science! And because Mary's a great little cook for her family of six, it stands to reason he'd lend it to her for reading material while she's here.

She came right alive showing me it. We'd been chatting up the "perfect" cookie and she remembered this book. Ran for it... I guess handed the baby to Shayla, and we spent a few minutes finishing sharing and now reading the table of contents of "Good Cooking" looking for the Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie. Which includes the recipe and a practical paragraph Why This Recipe Works.

About now Justin himself walks in with a cardboard box with a (wait for it!) smoked pig's leg or hind, or quarter, or whatever. For the birthday party tonight for Mary's brother, Stan. Justin said to me are ya' comin' tonight? and I answered whatcha' got in there, a turkey? I expect he's smoked a bird; I think he did that for Thanksgiving. I know he smoked their apple pie.

A whole pig leg, Justin says, grinning. He pulls the cover off an aluminum foil pan besides, revealing drippings, the au jus. I catch a drip on one finger and taste it. Here's the heat of the dry rub in this sauce, really, really good! I bet Justin's kind of shy about what a good job he can do though he's grinning telling us all about the meat... maybe nervous 'cause this is his first pig quarter. Me, I'm loving the details, the science of this good, good cooking!
-----

I went right from Laura's to the library. Before dinner. The big book was there and now it's my reading material for a while too.

Day after, and Happy Anniversary

Bit of a relief yesterday, day after Christmas. Presents, paper, boxes out from under the tree and a generous stash of Christmas cards collected in a basket for Kent to look at - as he was gone the weeks they came in the mail. Yet and still cherry/cranberry/white chocolate chip/oatmeal cookies in a big Ziploc bag and a neat pile of plain sugar cookies in their small one on the counter... We're noshing on cookies as though it's Christmas still, actually.

And we're back to normal: vacuuming, laundry, dish-doing. And the rest. Good. Well dish-doing happened round the clock through the holidays so that's not a change. Laura and I are back at the rec center, yup, we hit it at 6:00 a.m. Ick, I was tired. Bit of a relief to have the holidays past and regular days present.

-----
It's my sister and her husband's

31st wedding anniversary today!

I always think of you Sarah and Glen on the 27th, married soon after Christmas! Hope the day's beautiful just for you! Should be on that island, mwahh! Love you!

One person

Epiphany

I want to say something. I had an epiphany during Sacrament meeting this past Sunday which relates to Christmas Day, it's a good time to post it. I was contemplating the Atonement when the sacrament came to me, thinking how far short of perfect I am. Ugh! I sat there wearing more than my usual regret and remorse over happenings in the past week which I've journaled about in detail so they're fresh in my mind and on my heart.

I feel pain at having gotten certain behavior wrong in the week, ways about which I'm smarter and with which I'm usually quicker to offer love instead of impulsiveness. That derives, impulsiveness, from self-self-SELF-ishness; whereas love becomes a deliberate decision to serve others. Be OTHER-minded! (When will I be fully converted? When will I learn, then steadily do?) I heard my friend Julie say the other day: When it's difficult, love. When it's more difficult, love more! and I, sitting now at the "sacrament table" begin to agree and do squirm under my own scrutiny.

"Why," I suppose to myself, my eyes resting at this quiet time, "do I bring myself to this place and only fear to look toward Jesus? Must come a beggar for forgiveness for my bad self...?"

That idea swelled, grieving me, until an equally forceful thought emerged: "But, look! I never need to!" See? As surely as I've had breakdowns during the week, poor choices... as surely as that, still, I've been great too!

And I open my eyes.

I looked steadily at the thought. Really? Yes - capital letters, YES! I've been generous and prompt and responsive this week. Held on through tense and very intense days, breathed deep; lifted and prayed and repented and forgiven and honored and slaved and written and laughed and encouraged and enjoyed and promised. I've looked about me with gratitude - thanked goodness and God for our blessings! I've sung and exercised and avoided temptation and cleaned and gathered and moved forward. All in the same week which this day I've brought wholly to the "table," mourning.

I cannot fear to look at Jesus... I will not! It's a triumph that He came into this world as He did and lived and gave Himself in Gethsemane and on Calvary. Was raised in resurrection to immortality - a triumph! - at last. That He came offering me hope in this life and perfection in a life to come. I cannot fear to look at Jesus, not now as we may on Christmas Day, the Babe, the Child, the Promise, the Hope, the Way... and not weekly as I look to Him, Redeemer and Savior, with whom I may re-covenant at the sacramental table. He indeed represents mercy, for (as I learned in R.S. meeting this same day from a great talk given by Elder Scott at October General Conference) "the joyful news for anyone who desires to be rid of the consequences of past poor choices is that the Lord sees weaknesses differently than He does rebellion. Whereas the Lord warns that unrepented rebellion will bring punishment, when the Lord speaks of weaknesses, it is always with mercy."

I will bear discomfort routinely over my weaknesses, that's inevitable. Search myself and find me far short of perfect. Poor choices for sure, bad behavior maybe... but not rebellion. Never that! I may bring bright thoughts to the Savior today in honor of His Coming. Christ came to this place, Immanuel, God With Us! He condescended to be born the Babe in Bethlehem. As did the Father condescend in sending His godly Son from heaven's throne to this world of flesh, Light into Darkness. And weekly I may bring bright thoughts (and my grasp on the Atonement) in communion and acknowledgement of Him - and me. Less regret than relief as I "look at Jesus" and there witness to Father in Heaven I am willing to take upon me His name, always remember Him, keep his commandments, and always have his Spirit to be with me.

Here are the promises of Christmas Day, its comfort and joy! Now it's Christmas! With it for me this year comes an epiphany: the Son of God, the Father's gift to the world! The bright(er) assurance as I look at Him of repentance, intercession, mercy and love unequaled, the Son's gifts to us all; the sweeter consciousness within myself of the merciful Christ! My gifts to Him come each week as I come to Him. O, Come, all ye Faithful! I am. Rather now in love and renewal and relief than in remorse.
-----

"The Christmas season is wonderful in many ways. It is a season of charitable acts of kindness and brotherly love. It is a season of being more reflective about our own lives and about the many blessings that are ours. It is a season of forgiving and being forgiven. It is a season to enjoy the music and lights, parties and presents. But the glitter of the season should never dim our sight and prevent us from truly seeing the Prince of Peace in His majesty." (President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, December, 2010 Ensign)
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Epiphany: "manifestation," "striking appearance," or "vision of God," is a Christian feast day that celebrates the revelation of God the Son as a human being in Jesus Christ.

Her son

PRAYER FOR A NEW MOTHER

The things she knew, let her forget again -
The voices in the sky, the fear, the cold,
The gaping shepherds, and the queer old men
Piling their clumsy gifts of foreign gold.

Let her have laughter with her little one;
Teach her the endless, tuneless songs to sing,
Grant her her right to whisper to her son
The foolish names one dare not call a king.

Keep from her dreams the rumble of a crowd,
The smell of rough-cut wood, the trail of red,
The thick and chilly whiteness of the shroud
That wraps the strange new body of the dead.

Ah, let her go, kind Lord, where mothers go
And boast his pretty words and ways, and plan
The proud and happy years that they shall know
Together, when her son is grown a man.

~Dorothy Parker

Christmas conspiracy

From Dena Hobbs' blog "Centering Down" (link): It was the year 1989 and I was a junior in high school. We were days away from Christmas and my brother and his family had come to visit, leaving me to bed down on the sofa. My brother and sister-in-law had been out late catching up with old friends while my parents and I babysat their infant son. I was watching late night TV on my sofa-turned-bed when they came in and asked me where we got the new nativity.

”What nativity?” I wondered out loud.

They gave me a confused look and ushered me to the front porch. “This one.”

Sure enough as they opened the door to our porch, there sat Mary, Joseph, and sweet Baby Jesus in all their plastic glory. It was if they had appeared there by magic or some Christmas miracle and were glowing softly in the porch light to cheer us through the dark night. It was a lovely moment in a strange sort of way. The Christ child had been brought to my door in a delightfully unexpected way.

I later found out that baby Jesus appeared on my doorstep that night not by magic but instead by the hands of some teenage boys that had conspired to “borrow” the holy family from a neighbor’s lawn and deposit it at our house for my enjoyment.

As I think back on that Christmas caper of long ago, I can’t help but wonder what kind of conspiracy I might could cook up to bring the joy and wonder of Christ to someone else’s door. Maybe someone feeling a little displaced and lonely as I was on the sofa that night. Someone who needs a little light and wonder to come into their dark night. I may, or not, plot and plan in dark clothes in a back room in the middle of the night. (Hopefully no one will feel the need to call the cops.) But who knows just what might happen.

Part of the beauty of Christ’s coming is that if often happens in unusual and unexpected ways. Ways that include those that were previously left out. Ways that bring smiles of surprise to sad hearts.

So maybe we’ll finally grab our music sheets and carol at a nursing home. Or widen the circle of those we invite to our celebrations. Or maybe we’ll even sneak tacky, cheerful decorations onto some unsuspecting friend’s home.

Nativity

3 Days Till Christmas
J. Kirk Richards (1975 – ), 2002, oil on panel.


One year ago today the blog BY COMMON CONSENT (link) posted this:

Religious Art: Nativity by J. Kirk Richards

In ‘Nativity,’ Jesus seems, as perhaps he should, otherworldly; closely identified with the star rather than any of the people.  

And yet he is inseparable from this nucleus of a family who now surround him. 

Although the premortal life is not a uniquely Mormon idea, this tension certainly touches on Latter-day Saint ideas around our dual parentage. Children are born to families but they are never wholly ours. This, of course, does not diminish the quiet intimacy of this relation between the child and His parents.

Why depict this moment of full openness and vulnerability?  What Richards wants to show us, I think, is that ‘peace on earth’ and ‘good will toward men’ is found and cultivated through moments of quiet intimacy.  

As we regard the Christ-child surrounded by our loved ones, we are blessed with that promised peace.

Feel festive

Always a few days before Christmas I post this Christmas scrap page - things that do make me feel festive. The little things rock you know, like

• finding a last minute Christmas gift at last! in the last place you shop for it
• getting a pineapple with red ribbon 'round its neck from your neighbor 
• original Christmas movies on the Hallmark Channel
• low-cal hot chocolate in a large mug
• front row parking at Costco, yes!
• making cookies with my boys
• "wrap & yap" with Laura
• the Hallelujah Chorus
• snowfall
• peace
• !

Good hands

We've had in-home care aides coming to the house on a new schedule now for six days. And here's the seventh morning I've greeted a stranger at my front door... But you have to know that all the days I've enjoyed meeting women arriving to help mom and dad all three shifts, 7-3-11, 'round the clock.

Early in the week three persons scheduled for the 11:00 shift three of the six nights came to introduce themselves a day before or the day of, orientation. So them I haven't stayed up to let in at 11:00 p.m., no need. Three others have been strangers to me. I've greeted them at the door at that late hour and showed them that mom and dad live down and we live up; how the front door lock works, the lights left on in the night in the front room; where to go to so quietly relieve the other aide now sitting in the dark room with mom, who's sleeping. These two'll exchange notes or "chart," and I'm already upstairs almost to bed. The 3-to-11 aide steals through the lighted front room and out, locking the door.

Six days we've had in-home care aides round the clock. "Machinery" even better than before! Mom and dad are in amazing hands. My job is not to run interference, not to get in the way of that. I may facilitate and DO - it's my home - but these ladies know their work with my parents. Keep them safe and happy! For the most part they're nurses still working in clinics, offices, hospitals and specialty "theaters." A few we've met are retired. All MUST be CNA's at least to work here and so we're over the moon at how capable, amiable and loving they are.

My next door neighbor just came over to snow blow and shovel since Kent is not here to do it. A gentleman fifteen or so years older than me who, like Kent, cared for his first wife who passed away from cancer years ago. He's remarried to Carol, my wonderful friend and visiting teaching companion; I know her heart. She's ahead of me too in every way, so wise! How she loves this second husband, and he adores her and takes good care of her! She had knee replacement surgery (it's been awful, she's had to have the same knee done twice in two years...) and he waits on her hand and foot. He's over just now working hard to help me out and will only stay at it a half an hour more as he needs to dress to go work at the temple a full shift this afternoon. Care giver par excellence! Of his family and, today with the heavy snow, me, his neighbor.

I saw him through the kitchen window as we finished lunch and ran downstairs to talk with him. Standing in the cold with my apron on and my arms folded across my chest to keep warm, him in heavy outerwear and hat and boots resting his chin on his shovel handle, I listened to my wise friend say, Carol is brokenhearted she can't serve in the temple with me. We can't predict what'll happen in our lives, can we. How glad we are that we said we'd come to earth and deal with what comes! (Makes me think of Elder Wirthlin's "Come what may and love it!") We'll make it! We're here to deal with the guff!

I laughed right out loud at that, his wit and wisdom. My eyes filled with tears that I brushed away before he could see and we traded thoughts on love and care giving and commitment and just plain neighborliness. Then I was freezing and had to come in and he went to work.

We're all in such good hands really. Premortally, God our Father heard us declare all that we would do and become, and allowed the Plan that took us from His presence into Earth to attempt this phase of it. His Son in the flesh, his Only Begotten in the flesh, Jesus Christ, Himself a God equal in stature to the Father, stands with arms and hands extended to lift us as we will look to Him. What a wonder! Our Friend, our in-home Caregiver of the highest order, par excellence! In whose good hands we are kept safe and happy, comforted and steadied, and always - and ever - enduring.

Love leads to light

Lovelight

Once down some steep old Syrian stair,
A dim, sweet vision in the night,
Stepped Mary with her Blossom fair,
While God's soft stars gave candle-light.

And oh, how steep life's stairs might be,
And oh, how dark may be the night;
Yet since Love came for you and me
E'en thorns have blossomed wondrously,
And through all dark with certainty
Love leads to Light.
~Father Andrew (Henry Ernest Hardy, 1869-1946)

(Nat:) I loved, loved, reading this below from the writer of the poetry, Father Andrew, a Catholic Christian... Forward to The Christmas Poems of Father Andrew ("Carols And Christmas Rhymes"London: A. R. Mowbray & Co., Ltd., 1935):

"There are certain notes which have always sounded in the mind of the writer of these poems, and he would wish to emphasize them as the main message that he would hope his readers might gather from his songs. The Mystery of the Incarnate Love has brought to us, first of all, a revelation of simplicity. Theology teaches us that the life of God is a simple act, and, since God is Love, that act must surely be, however expressed, an act of love; and here in the little Babe laid in the midst of the straw of our human poverty is the simple appeal and revelation of the love of God. The second note is sympathy, and that in the direct meaning of the word – 'suffering with.' We cannot understand the mystery of suffering, and really there is no particular reason why we should, since God has suffered with us, and one of the sufferings of God was this very mystery of suffering, for did not He take upon His lips the great classic words of the twenty-second Psalm and cry in His own darkness, 'My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?'

The third note is joy. These poems and carols all have in them a note of joy and a note of pain. Laughter and tears are mingled in these Christmas songs. The fourth is the sacredness of human nature. God joined together flesh and spirit. Sin put these asunder, and by the fall of man the flesh, which was only lower than spirit in condition and degree, became lower also in quality, and by the taint and twist of original sin this human nature of ours was made to seem a bad thing, as though the flesh were, in God's intention, the enemy of spirit. In the coming of the Holy Child, when the angels sang their Gloria, once more flesh and spirit were united in perfect oblation. The fifth note, which contains in it all else, is love. Over the cross, over the manger, over the altar, one can write the golden words, 'God is Love.'"

Chill

What part of this are you focusing on: KEEP CALM? Or 7 DAYS...?

Laura and I the other morning did what she calls a "wrap and yap," gabbing as we wrapped Christmas gifts about things that happened this past March and April, and June and July. How can the time be this far gone!!? It's unreasonable - we were just enjoying those moments and events and already they're memories. Shana (her daughter) barely it seems told us she was pregnant and now has an almost five week-old baby boy. I remember like it was yesterday the street where she and I were walking under newly-budding trees when she told me, and it's been the year now. She wondered then how she'd do with a new baby and as a mother of two. As we worked, Laura and I noted how calm baby Brooks is. "And Shana is calm," I commented. Laura agrees.

I kind of got charged up day before yesterday for finishing Christmas shopping. Have I bought everything for everybody on my list? Maybe there're deals out there I'm missing, I'm not really paying attention... help! I texted two people for a little bit of that and some advice on gifting and drove to Costco.

Bother! I mutter, negotiating traffic this week before Christmas. Everybody's out! Here we are, parking lots jammed. Store entrance and checkouts too. I wheel my empty cart around the corner at the "Despicable Me 2" display almost into another. The woman pushing hers stops and stares - she certainly has right of way in that crowded main aisle up from the Vitamix demonstration and alongside a book author signing book covers. I smile though she doesn't; she says go ahead, you're in a hurry; meaning, I guess, cut me off already. I stay and, calm as a summer's breeze, say, actually I'm not. Actually I am... she grimaces and moves ahead and I motorvate around that corner headed for the entrance. As quickly as I can return the cart I make for the car. Nothing here can induce me to stay.

But, agghhh, my list! Another day. The deals!! Oh well.

And only a week til Christmas.

Wait... what? That's not what the sign ↑ says.

There are - still - 7 days til Christmas.

Right? Same thing but sounds way better! Keep calm.

(So chill.) I will.

Come together

So with just these eight days til Christmas, what are you spending most? $$$ or time?

How 'bout time with family... please say you're having pizza night with a board game or driving around looking at the lights. Oh we did it every Christmas years and years and years ago... I remember when Brad was way little and we would sing Christmas songs and idle the car past beautiful lights and he would call out in his breathy little voice, glory God, glory God!

How about taking a family picture or looking through family albums? Or going bowling, or doing dishes together, or reading? Reading! The other morning I read to mom "Davey and the First Christmas," using the old, old booklet published like the year I was born from which (when I was four) mom taught me to recite. That whole story in fact by heart! I'm not too old now to forget these familiar words... Let's pretend there was a boy, and Davey was his name, Whose family lived in Bethlehem when Christmas time first came.

The Christmas tree with all its pretties signals us to gather 'round. For this we hoist it each December and string lights and decorate, and for a time it is the heart of our home. Shall we not (please oh please) be off on a mad dash!?

Shalln't we, rather, come together?

All I want for Christmas

What are you getting done this week? Me... I'm exchanging a couple'a things I bought last week and buying a few I've now put on my Christmas list... visiting teaching and being visited... baking... wrapping... laundry. My To Do list has getting to Target for a wedding card and gift card; remembering to tell mom dad mom's visiting teachers are coming Tuesday; clipping mom's fingernails and toenails; retrieving my book "Jesus the Christ" from the neighbor; crocheting the striped giraffe (ah, jotted down when I thought I could or would); going to Michael's for piping bags (decorating cookies, right!); walking with my friend Kristin on a warm day.

(Like that's going to happen.)

(The warm day, I mean.)

It's nine cold days til Christmas and I haven't listened to any Christmas music yet. I think I'll do that today while I make lunch, while the towels wash after breakfast after my visiting teachers have left. And while I wrap a few presents at the kitchen counter, before I've set the table and after I've talked to Kent a long while. Maybe after lunch too when I'm loading the dishwasher before grabbing up my green jacket and purse and keys to drive to town. While I drive, on the FM, though I listen to talk radio usually. I'll do it! It's time for Christmas music. Past!

I'm kind'a lovin' these guys right now...



The Piano Guys. They have a Christmas album. You can see it if you Google it. Or on the video I posted a few posts back. I wanna buy it.

After I've listened to some Christmas tunes today (and not crocheted the giraffe) and driven to town...

I think I will.

Christmas list: The Piano Guys, A Family Christmas. 

Counting our blessings

Busy, busy, busy all week. And now so glad it's a day of rest. Kent's taking care of his parents as his dad broke his hip and had surgery and is in rehab. I'm taking care of things here like usual and we've just, just moved into a new schedule (yesterday!) with in-home care: 24-7 now for mom and dad. All is well.

We're blessed, surrounded by angel family and friends who love us and are, so to speak, up under one armpit each supporting us. Ten days til Christmas and counting - our blessings! We're glad to rest this day.

'Tis good to think so keenly just now of Jesus Christ, to sing the wonderful carols of his birth; consider His holy love and ponder His condescension as our Savior and Friend.

It's coming!

I wanna' bake!

Pardon me, I SO love me a Christmas cookie! Every December I'm loving thinking (more than I usually do) about cookies... mm, Christmas-y ones! I wanna bake!

I love that Smitten Kitchen, one of my favorite recipe blogs, is having Christmas Cookie Week. Usually Deb only posts a new recipe every week or so, and how I look forward to that. I use Flipboard on my iPad to view her site easily from my comfy chair on an evening. This week (from my comfy bed at night, it's so hectic now!) it's every day a new cookie delicacy (link). Heaven!

Were someone around to gobble 'em up after I baked 'em, or... fer shure if they weren't fattening, right?... I'd be making sugar cookies!



I love me some cut-outs and sprinkles or frosting!



Or plain cutouts, just so festive!



Well, no, they gotta' have sugar on 'em.



Chocolaty Melting Snowmen, mmm! Yes please!



Really truly like the best Christmas cookies ever. Snowballs!



Adorable, huh! ↓



And remember I DID bake these guys last year! Peanut Butter Reindeer (linky). Ack, ours didn't turn out nearly as cute, but so wow good! The boys and I had a sweet time.


-----

Christmas Cookies by Norma Rose

Sift the flour, mix the butter,
Roll the dough for the cookie cutter.
A white sugar star, a red Christmas bell,
A brown teddy bear with a gingery smell.

Christmas cookies taste so sweet.
They're fun to bake and good to eat!

The Piano Guys

Have you guys discovered this?

(Where have I been?)

Watch!

No hurries

I'm SO - oh so - behind on my blog. The hurrier I go the behinder I get! Fer shure.

(Is it like this for you now?)

But right now, no hurries. Peace. On Earth. Good will... tonight I crave it. I admire simple things, Inga Paltser's artwork for one. (Every Day is a Gift, post from December 2nd last year... click the linky) Adorable! Makes me smile.

Love this! Oh I want skinny legs like these two!

The importance of being earnest

From the novel "Trains and Lovers" by one of my favorites Alexander McCall Smith:


Ever the philosopher through his characters in the myriad books he's written, McCall Smith has responded here ↑... to this idea: ↓

"If you have to try to be happy, the seed of happiness simply isn't there. It's like trying to be brave, maybe. You can't be brave if you have to try. Brave people just are."

"Hold on, hold on," considers the character, David.  "You can try to be brave just as you can try to be anything else you decide to be." Etc., and etc., per the paragraph above which all takes shape in the man's mind and continues along." Does it really matter if people think you are something you're not? No, he decided, it did not."

I stopped reading at we don't owe others a duty of sincerity. I read that a couple of times, then over again. Now I'm posting it. Hmm...

Think it's made me stop and think?

On guard

I've had the "hazy eye" for two weeks. Here's a post (linky) I wrote about it in 2010 when my iritis flared last, gee over three years ago. I almost don't remember how to have this inflammation... reminds me again of how very aggravating (so literally) iritis is or, well, only if you wanna see. Properly. Without like looking through a Vaseline sheen.

Hey, that rhymes.

Two weeks ago I had to find an eye doctor to help me. I haven't seen an eye specialist since I've been here and now I need one like yesterday. Help! HELP! I get up on a Monday morning after a perfect Sunday and now my right eye isn't focusing. And it hurts. And stings. It's red. Blast, I think, blast.

In that post back then (↑ go there...) there's a paragraph I wrote where my eye doc asks me if I've been under any stress lately. I gush... heck yeah! Here and now it's prolly the same though I'm pretty calmly calling it Life. Eh, no biggie. Additionally I've been working out hard for four or five months and eating way differently, though not weirdly. I have been pressing forward under a head of steam that I really just call "machinery." And machinery in any factory that runs 24-7 does operate under (or because of) (or in spite of) major pressure and stress. Farm machinery, office machines - even my Kitchen Aid stand mixer - does the same. Yah.

It's a good thing. Especially as once in a while I do blow off steam. Really I'm well-maintained around here, no gear-grinding, yeah some friction but hardly a breakdown. I wake, I eat, I love, I work, I sleep. ALL GOOD.

Then why is my right eye revving for a fight? My new doctor questions me, queries, the same way. Have you had a work up done to see what's bugging your system? Any stress in your life lately? I sigh. My eye's gotten the message it's under attack, something in my body's sending alerts. My white blood cells of the immune system for defending against disease are inflamed and on guard front and center now at my iris, threatening, actually, my pupil. It's where the danger is. My pupil's held hostage! These cells link to form a web that constricts it and now has to be broken up with steroids and dilating drops.

Or would if I had waited any longer than I did to get into a doctor. Did you know that where I called on the first try the very doctor I was hoping for was the only guy in the office that day! Cha-ching! I slipped into a 4:30 appointment - 'twas almost dark for the days are short now. He dilated my eyes and an hour later...

I was wearing my sunglasses and the shades they give you at the office in the night driving home against the starbursts that were the headlights of every other traveler. I prayed, prayed I wouldn't run over someone.

Thank goodness my BFF the eye doctor and I are reacting virtually from day one: my eye won't get more feisty. He says his uveitis patients know when it's flaring. (That's me.) They just know, and they come. (Me.) For a diagnosis, steroid drops, reassurance. (Yup.) Not the dilation, blick. Those who don't wait a few days and then come with their head in their hand, their eye so poor, so sore, so red... well, I did that November 9, 2005. Been there done that. Sick and sad. I'm good with the signs of recurrence even if three and a half years have passed. Day one here was pretty hurty and my eye mighty red and awfully sore, and when I shut the other eye (but why would I?) I'm looking through... well, I already said.

No need to rant.

Together

Fun at our house yesterday putting up the Christmas tree! Amy's straightening branches... thank you thank you thank you Amy for doing the hard part...



... and Dan too. Love these guys!



All red shiny balls down low where Ellie and Dan worked. Ellie's out of the picture now, prolly around the corner heading downstairs. But no, here she is right behind me.



All red shiny balls down low and a few other ornaments on the tree now... but now the boys are getting to their favorite thing: the flingers. Fling-ers; we've talked about these (link 1) before (link 2). Fer sure. Andrew runs for me with a flat ornament to sail onto the Christmas tree!



Ready, set, throw. You sail 'em! To the right here's Joseph doing a victory arm pump (you can't exactly see that but there he is!). Now see the tree, dead center? The flat fabric ornaments kind'a hanging on? The kids've flung 'em. It's great when they stick. That's what you want.



All these pics are posterized. 'Cause the fun flinging was happening fast and I took, well it turns out, blurry pictures. PSE makes okay images out of blurs which I do like. I don't ditch bad pics. Aw, look at the fun my boys are having!



The flingers come off - even if they stick in the tree you snatch them off and go again, maybe give one to your dad or uncle to sail from the couch. (Right.)

I think it was here ↓ that Uncle Scott flung it under the elevator door across the room! Andrew's going for it, though it finally takes Grandpa Kent to open up the door from up here with the elevator key...



and Uncle Scott to climb down the shaft on top of the elevator for the ornament. Yah, the elevator is downstairs. I grab a picture before Scott climbs in. What? says he, sitting on the kitchen floor, legs dangling above the elevator box as I'm crowding in for this picture. Just let her do it, Kent says as I do it. She likes it.. and now Scott's over the edge.

Our boys love it!



All red shiny balls down low and a few other ornaments on the tree... mm, haven't made progress but that's okay. We're having



a way good



time together.


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