A Different Christmas Eve

Tonight Aaron and I spent the evening doing what many people do on a Christmas Eve evening: feasting on good food, wine, and conversation, but it was also a little different--just a little--but special in its just-a-little way.

We had Stan and Lynn over for dinner tonight. I had never met them before this evening, but Aaron met them at the community club house during its Tuesday night Celtic music jam session a few weeks ago. Aaron's been keen to play his mandolin with other musicians, so this was the perfect opportunity. Lynn and Stan head up the group of players and have been doing it for the past decade here in Pine Mountain Club. Anyway, Aaron invited them over for dinner and a mini recording session so he could learn the pieces and play with them on Tuesdays. I took a couple pictures of the session, because when are you ever gonna get a hammer-dulcimer/mandolin Irish concert in your own home on a Christmas Eve (much less any other day of the year)? And, yes, she did let me play the dulcimer; and, yes, I did play Frère Jacques. Badly.

No, I'm not done blogging yet. After all, what would a Christmas Eve post be without a heart-strung anecdote?

Lynn, I'm discovering, is probably an amazing woman. We were on the subject of family, and we got to talking about kids (she raised 6) and her mother, whom she took care of in her home for the last five years of her life. She had no medical knowledge, she said, just common sense. But she told me that she got more out of that experience than she put into it, let alone all other life experiences. She learned how to age gracefully like her mother did, and to cherish each moment, because it goes so fast. I think she gets it more than a lot of people, having looked into the eyes of her mother every day, and seeing herself reflected in those dying, knowing, graceful eyes. May we all have the opportunity to be served by our servanthood.

"...whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

Matthew 20:26-28

Merry Christmas

SNOW!

Let me repeat the title: SNOW!

Okay, so five inches is not a lot by national averages, but for two people who've lived in desert regions of southern California all their lives, who consider a whole minute of hail to be severe weather; they can safely consider the amount to be quite a lot. Especially when they have to shovel the driveway. But not after letting it melt and refreeze into icy blastedness. Silly southern Californians.

All shoveling woes aside, I managed to go on a little photo spree around the neighborhood. I was like a kid in a candy store soaking up the winter wonderland. And it's been about 15 years since I've seen it actually snowing, so it was really very magical :)

Gwen really did enjoy the snow, she was probably just afraid her jacket was going to swallow her alive.

My favorite trees around these parts: Aspens.

This brick wall reminded me of Christmas :)

Fashionable hot-cocoa-in-the-snow shot.

 

Not even the deer were quick enough to escape the blizzard.

 

 

Our beautiful home (for now).

 

Bunny tracks in the snow. How novel can you get?

 

 

 

Pippin discovered he could eat snow.

Living in the snow is pretty different than visiting the snow--even visiting for a whole week in Illinois-- because you know it will always come back (at least for the duration of winter), and there's no plane ticket out of it, because that's where home is. And as they say, "Home is where the diaper pail is." Or something like it.

The magic of that frozen precipitation may have tarnished a little, but it will always hold a special place in my heart. Until it melts.

A New(er) Start

So we're moved. FINALLY! And only shin-deep in boxes, as opposed to the waist-deep we were in last week. And thank God for our masochistic church family members who volunteered to help us move; because, really, you know you're asking for pain when you move, so I'm all the more grateful. And I gotta give hearty thanks to our neighborhood Mormon do-gooders. Their theology may be wacky, but you can always count on them to lend a hand. While wearing a sharp tie.

Life in the mountains has been good so far, despite a car that won't start, a computer that won't turn on (I'm on my hubby's computer), and half of my clothes somewhere in boxes in the garage. I have yet to venture into "town", aka a conglomeration of po-dunk shops and real estate businesses clustered into half a square block. But I must let the nesting run its course, much like the flu, complete with delusional light-headedness (which is probably in part due to the high altitude--at least that's what I'll blame it on). Maybe it's because I'm a mom, but it's probably just because I'm a me, that I can't contemplate doing anything other than getting my house to have "home" status, asap.

Gwen has been a little trooper, putting up with 250 miles of moving business, an all-day cleaning rampage at our old house before I gave up the key, and now the unpacking of the things that make life a little easier. Although this morning as I was staring at all the boxes yet to be unloaded (more like they were staring at me), I wondered just how much of this stuff I needed, and what I could get by without. I mean, what combination of three people (one of which is noticeably small) accumulate so much STUFF? And how much of it do we really use? Do I really need that Tria Pantone marker set? I mean, who knows when I'd have to render a shiny car out of the blue... right? Do I really need that funny whisk-looking thing that's supposed to aerate mixed drinks-- that I've never drunk before? And what about all those keepsakes-- if keepsakes they could be called? I don't exactly have the fondest memories of my ghetto high school, and yet there sits my graduation coffee mug, somewhere in the garage, totally not having coffee in it.

I think back every now and then to Susie Veon, the then-camp director at Campus by the Sea on Catalina Island, which I used to volunteer my serious dish washing skills at, the first weekend of the past several Octobers. She lived in what was probably a 150 square-foot house perched up on a hill on the campground. Sure, she probably didn't have her own kitchen and just used the industrial camp kitchen, but the fact that all of her earthly possessions fit in that small of a space-- including a bed-- is pretty amazing, especially in what's technically our very materialistic southern California. She would actually give seminars around the country in the off-season about "living simply", whatever that means. I'm sure it's inspiring, though, and I would be half-tempted to torch 75% of all that I own, just to see if I could survive. I bet it would be a lot like camping, which is probably why I like camping so much-- all you got is all you need, including the stars over your head. And there's stars here at PMC, to be sure. It's probably why this place reminds me of camping. Maybe the stars will inspire me to live simply. Or maybe those unopened boxes will inspire me not to open them. Either way...

3 Sentences

Jump. N'. Go.

My Daddy's Heartbeat

I hear daddy's heartbeat;
it beats so steadily.
And it tells me of all the things
he promises to be:
Strong arms to hold me close
and calm my every fear,
To lift me up so I can see
the world from his point of view.
Hands to guide me along the way,
to keep me from falls and stumbles;
I know that his firm grip won't fail me
as he directs me, gentle and humble.
Feet upon which to alight my own
to teach me how to dance
through life's hard times and challenges
with grace that's unsurpassed.
Ears that listen so intently
to all that's on my mind;
whether big or insignificant,
I'll have his undivided time.
Broad shoulders upon which to perch me
when the waters get too deep;
though current swift, I'll rest assured
dry land will meet my feet.
A chest which keeps that beating heart
so close for me to hear
those promises to remind me that
my Heavenly Father is near.

The Baby Mullet

I took Gwen to my work place when she was a couple months old, basically just to show her off. One of my friends, Kathryn, noticed that she hadn't yet developed that neat bald patch on the back of the head that infants the world over have come to sport, also known as the "baby mullet."

"Yet?" I said. "But she has so much hair," I reasoned with her. "Surely she would bypass that embarrassing phase."

"No," Kathryn returned, "All babies get it. It's like a rite of passage."

Certainly, I thought to myself, that my baby was special; that she would dodge that bullet.

But alas...

Business in the front...

Party in the back!

(And it turns out that baby mullets only add to that whole "special" factor. Go figure.)

Baby Firsts: The Beach

As you may have guessed, this blog entry is about Gwenivere's first time at the beach. But it's not just any old beach. It's Refugio Beach.

It's THE beach.

The beach I was practically born at. My parents discovered the little bit of heaven a few decades ago and we've been vacationing at it every year since.

My love for Refugio runs deep-- countless memories of small, unimportant things, like eating red rope licorice on the 1 hour 45 minute drive up the 101 freeway; that first glimpse of the ocean on our route up the coast; pulling into camp and rolling down the windows just to smell the clean sea breeze; sitting around the campfire and having marshmallow roasting contests; going on nature walks; hiking up to the point at the far end of the beach; walking sandy-footed into the camp store to buy Abba Zabbas; being chased by the waves; making sand sculptures; getting sun-burnt; cleaning the tar off our feet with lighter fluid; hearing the freight trains screech along the rails above the campground-- not to mention their squashing the pennies we put up on the track; discovering the tailless feral cats in the reeds by the estuary; laying on the beach at night to watch the stars... The list goes on, but needless to say I was very excited about bringing Gwen to my "home away from home".

My Refuge.

Scoping out the view.

With Grandpa.

And Grandma.

And Aunt Carolyn.