O! Christmas Tree

I am a little too taken with our Christmas Tree.  Every year when we lug it out of the garage, we tell ourselves when we next put it in the box, we will have some "taking out order" to the task.

Every ornament, at this stage in life, has a story.  I gave most of mine to a granddaughter a few years ago.  But what I kept, I treasure and cherish.

The star on top was one my father cut out of a chrome car part in 1933 or '34 for my parent's Christmas long ago.

The little knitted dolls were given to me by a lovely elderly lady, Lempi, in Finland, who shared her small apartment with my mother and me in 1980.  She was a cousin of some of the Cave Hills Finns.

The small white feather snowball was one of a dozen I made from some Canada Snow Goose feathers that a neighbor fellow gave me after he hunted one Nebraska Winter.

He Whom I Love to Obey and I were alone, but not lonely, this Holiday. We laced the table, lighted candles, and opened large boxes full of many wondrous gifts, sent by sons and their families.

We drank champaign and dined on 'sweets and nuts' on Christmas Eve and shared our love and appreciation for one another.
Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve and Day Snowstorm

Churches cancelled Christmas Eve and Christmas Day Services.

We were cozy inside while people tried to keep their driveways cleared of snow. The little Wrangler with snow blade has done a good job with a man at the wheel who knows how to engineer snow around.  No doubt it has prevented a heart attack or two over the years.

Lessons and Carols

The Services last night at church were the Lessons and Carols.  Small children and adult choirs sang, the bells rang, solos were sung, and we joined in with verses and chorus's.  All in all it was beautiful to look at and listen to.  The fourth and final Advent candle was lit...Christmas will soon be here.

We are simply tripping over packages and decorations.  My little endeavor this afternoon was trying to find the photo we took one Christmas Eve downtown just before church services. Digital cameras are truly easy and convenient; but it is far too easy to take too many photos and trying to find a particular one in the hundreds on too many CD's and DVD's could try ones patience.  But find it I did and it replaces my snowy church scene.

I Love You Too

The love of friends is a great gift. Yesterday was one of preparation for dinner guests.  It included some tree trimming, some candle lighting in which we discovered that the fuel in our lighter was all used up. HWMO used his blow torch to light the grill. It sounded like overkill, but worked. We are a good team in the house and in the kitchen.  Of course we cooked.

Last night we had two couples over; the guys all worked together in the architectural/engineering firm for over 20 years.  They enjoy each others company.  They all worked in" sludge," they sometimes jokingly say, environmental engineers...in other words they kept the drinking water clean and set up large and small waste-water treatment plants for towns and cities in the Midwest including our own Omaha.

We visited about the wonderful Jewish wedding ten years ago.  The discussions we wives have are  from the viewpoints of three decades.  What wisdom we draw from that.  We talk about everything, our aging husbands, our own expectations, and determine that there is more stereotyping and little that is normal. I treasure our diversity.  Each of us live lives of quiet desperation over our particular situations.

It is heartwarming to be with friends, especially friends of such faith and love.  We are three Catholics, two Lutherans and one who is celebrating Hanukkah this week.  Our table graces include a blessing in Hebrew with the salted bread, the lovely Catholic blessing said by the three in unison, and instead of my prayer, I read from Jeremiah, " I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you."  ..."This is a very fundamental truth of your identity.  This is who you are whether you feel it or not.  You belong to God from eternity to eternity.  Life is just a little opportunity for us during a few years to say, "I love you, too." Henri Nouwen

It is a wondrous time of the year.

Kindle for PC

I have longed for a Kindle; even when I didn't really know if I would like it.  When Amazon offered the Kindle for PC without charge I was pleased and delighted.  Now I have one "free" book which I just downloaded. 

Today is Horace's birthday 65 B.C.E.).   "His father was a former slave, but by the time Horace came along, he was well-off and had a lot of money to spend on his talented son. He sent him to Rome as a boy, and then to Athens to learn philosophy and literature. What is not to like about Horace?  Or Free!

“Jäälyhty” or Finnish “Ice Lantern”

A double cousin...a nice chap related to me through both my paternal and maternal grandmothers sides of the family, sent me the Finnish translation for these amazing ice candles. Our connection goes back before our people immigrated to the USA.  Little did we know about this before he so skillfully researched my family.

We have been making these ice lanterns a couple of  years now and enjoy them especially during these deep, dark, cold winter nights. We set one out in front, under the basket ball hoop beside the driveway, for our neighbors to enjoy.  Instead of a candle we put a solar light in that one. Apparently it was too cloudy for the little solar plant to work today.

Photographing them is a little tricky and as you see I took the picture in the early evening and the snow is still much too white.

Iowa PBS

Some days start out with a bump or two; and then the road is total washboard.  Driving on a washboard road is dangerous and rattles one teeth.  Living a washboard day is close to the same.

But then...amazing things can happen in the blink of an eye, or just staying with a thing till something good happens.  HWMBO came home from the Asian taylor's with a 40 foot coaxial cable to hook me directly to the internet.  My wireless system dug its feet in and would not, could not be coaxed into use.

It all started with a phone call to Cox, our service provider to get our main house computer online and when the phone was handed over to me I changed the topic, as a person sometimes does, and spoke about our cable television.  That led to a call to Manilla, Phillipines, with a young man who led me patiently through the television settings to find that I have 21 cable channels that are decoded by the Sony television set.

The lovely young Cox representative called back and was just as excited as I was;  she gave me all the channel numbers that I can get...just because.  Just because that is the way the world works.  But it took the visit to Manilla, and two phone calls to Cox.  And there it is all before me...hanging on the wall.  All I wanted was Iowa PBS.

I got so much more.  He is getting his pants hemmed by his favorite ladies. No they do not sell cables!