The Post-it Note Gene...

My father is certain that all of my blog posts go out to Facebook, but here's how my blog works: only seven of you actually read the blog: John, Jack, Ivie, Max, Dad, Joan, Steph, Barbara. Everyone else has to actually click to read, so that means no one else really reads it. It's set to private and it forwards to email and then anyone who's subscribed can read and I update it every day so that the grandparents and the family can read it. I really write it for John and Jack. I keep meaning to have it published, but I haven't done it yet. Originally, I set it up so that it would go to my grandparents in Canada so that they'd get it every day and then they'd know what was going on, and then Jack had such a good time that I started to write it every day just to entertain Jack. Back to the Post-it Notes.

I'd be surprised if you didn't know most of my best posts start in the shower... but they do. While I was in the shower today, I was thinking about what I store on Post-it notes, and other random pieces of paper. When I was growing up, my father was absolutely at odds and ends if he didn't have a pad and a piece of paper (and they always had a drug name from a drug company on them. He had entire cupboards of  pads and pens dedicated to supplies of pens and pads). At my house, they are Post-it name brands, and they are cute. And I write down snip-its of what I want to remember, and then I store it "somewhere." Anything important, I have written somewhere. If it happened, I have it written it down. Then, I have copied it, and stored it. Then I have saved it again on a computer, and on a hard-drive, and then usually on an iPod because I will have killed that computer.

In fact, I've been thinking about the way I keep memories, and the way I keep bits and bobs of things. I never finish off anything completely. I almost never finish anything completely. I leave the last chocolate for later, so I can really enjoy that... and then it goes stale. Last piece of gum, stale. Last bit of perfume? Last bit of lip gloss? Seeing a pattern? A lot of the last something goes bad so that I can get around to it later, and then I never get back to it. I look around me, especially the really wonderful things, and have often thought "I wish I had known that was the Last Time I  Was Going to Do That. I'd Have Really Enjoyed That." and I have decided to try to enjoy things more like the are the Last Time. In fact, that's my New Year's Resolution. I hope that's why you'll be enjoying more pictures on the blog this year.

As I was standing in the shower, I went through the steel trap I keep in my head. Lately, I've been noticing that the steel trap that's the filing cabinet in my head is Really, Really Rusty. It's got some   annoying missing teeth, and some gaps, too. I'm getting more used to that, but I have the assurance that when I want to find a file in the cabinet, like what it was like to vacuum first carpet I ever bought in the first carpet I ever bought in the first house I ever bought for the first time, the memory is there with the smell and the sound of the hum of the vacuum and it's there on top of the  feeling of standing in the enormous house on the enormous mountain and it's compounded with the years and years it takes to get here. The best part about the filing cabinet I keep in the post-it note in my head is that the post-it notes are really big, and they can be endlessly rearranged.

Anyway, that's my New Year's Resolution, to be less of a wet blanket (because I'm really good at setting up activities, and really bad at enjoying them) and trying harder to "Seize the Day" and enjoy them. I'm much better at throttling the days... Working on it.

I Cry the Day I Take the Tree Down... No I Don't!

Hmmm. I don't usually have a hard time writing. I've tried writing this same blog post all night long, and it's New Year's Eve,  so it really IS a long night, one of the longest of the year.

I must say, I am the most nostalgic of my siblings, but we all have butter-soft hearts. We are big 'ole softies when it comes to Christmas, and we love reminiscing about the past. We have soft spots about Christmas, and we love all things Christmas. I think we all listen to the same Christmas music. We have all the same Christmas CD's. We have similar taste in Christmas lights (I think we all use white Christmas lights--not sure about Sarah since it's been a while since I've dropped by to see her tree, in ROCHESTER!) However, I have it on good authority that I'm currently the only one using  "vintage" Christmas ornaments. Schenny-Penny has some that she collected from our childhood on her "Barbie Tree" but they are not currently on display (not since the great "Barbie Tree Massacre").

Growing up, we had real trees, and we set them up the day after Thanksgiving which meant that they were fire-hazards and often came down on Boxing Day except for the famous Christmas day, except for the famous fire of Christmas Day. My John has had the firm rule that the tree stayed up until Epiphany, and we have never decorated the tree before Advent Sunday in our married life... but in our new house the "rules" have changed a bit... and traditions change a bit as children change and needs change. Our lives have changed as my health has made what I do changes, too. This year, I did Christmas in our new house almost exactly as I did nineteen years ago when my parents moved into their house across town... and the nostalgia was thick, especially as my brother Mark moved the grandfather clock into our new house. It was my mothers Christmas gift that year. I hear the bells on Christmas Day, every day. Wild and sweet, their words repeat, and it's rarely, rarely peaceful. Trust me.

We set up several trees all those years ago... we had a tree with crocheted angels, and we had a tree with silk wrapped balls (and years later, we had only 2 or 3 left after a puppy got into them. I think that puppy was partially feline for all the delight shredding Christmas decorations brought. I rescued one  as a souvenir... I also kept the only one I could fine that  mom and I had made from scraps of fabric that we'd pushed into styrofoam balls. It was a craft project that I remember making with my mom. We used pieces of flannel for the first sets. When I took this ball, I couldn't find any of the original flannel balls. I only found this ball (top ball, green dots, snowflakes, snowmen). The original flannel balls we made in the early 1980's when I was 8 or 9 are gone... These were made when I was about 16. The silk balls were on the tree in our living room next to the grand piano. My mom's tree in that room had red and white lights and she had covers that snapped on over the lights.

We always had two Christmas trees. The tree upstairs had multi-color lights on it. It was completely different... The upstairs tree had the kid-decorations and the tree downstairs had red and white decorations. Always. The multicolored tree had the Hallmark decorations, and the decorations with our names, and it was the tree where mom turned off the lights and rocked and rocked and rocked and listened to "Happy Christmas Eve." It was Christmas. We used to lay underneath the tree as kids and look up at the lights under the tree before there were too many presents to lay under the tree anymore... and there were always loads of presents. Mother was terribly creative with presents, too. Sometimes we got reindeer names.

And, I suddenly realize that the reason that this is such a hard blog post to write is because it's not about Christmas decorations at all. It's about hellos and goodbyes. It's about beginnings and endings. It's about stops and starts and the way we ring out the old and start the new. As Sarah McLauchlan sings in her bittersweet "Wintersong" I have read the self-same sad farewells on Facebook to lost loved ones, as well. It's the same, day in, days gone.

It's the Auld Lang Syne:
Sense of joy fills the air
And I daydream and I stare
Up at the tree and I see
Your star up there

And this is how I see you
In the snow on Christmas morning
Love and happiness surround you
As you throw your arms up to the sky
I keep this moment by and by



And as the sun rises tomorrow morning, on the new year, I hope love and happiness surround you and yours, and that you'll throw your arms up to the sky and I'll keep this moment by and by.

Don't Visit Without 4-Wheel Drive

Photo before it started to snow.

The lady in the small car tried four times to get up this road. She followed a snow plow up the road, twice.... and then she slid down. The snow plow was blowing sand, and she still slid back down.

Thanks for the indefinite loan of your beater 1996 Suburban, Dad. I'm really, really, really glad we didn't Cash-for-clunkers it; I'm even more glad we repaired it when it died half way to Canada, because if we didn't have it... we couldn't get up the hill to our driveway (She slid down just slightly mid-center our property). The other cars that can't get up the hill? Yep: they are the mini-vans.

The hill is magnificent for sledding. Two bums on sleds for that.

The Hills are Alive...

Okay, the hills aren't really alive... but they are moving. The neighbors hired a rock moving company because "some day" they want to put a pool in. Before the pool, they definitely want a fence (which is a higher priority for them because they have a walk-out basement, and pretty high for us because we can see directly in to their walk-out basement). For their fence to be straight, they need to move our top tier of rocks. One other impediment to their fence is the property line. No property line in our development follows the rocks. The developer placed the rocks willy-nilly, and they are pretty much... wherever he liked.

So, there's a rock mover in our back yard:

They have started to move the rocks here.
Last week they blue staked the front yard (in the snow, which is kinda funny).

Here's the rock mover.
Here's the big deal about the whole thing: the rock is EIGHT FEET too far into our yard. It's supposed to be 8 feet farther north into the neighbor's yard. They will move it back, and we will get 8 feet more into our yard for the price of moving the rock. Now, that is a tremendous bargain, and because the man who is moving the rock wishes to work, he has lowered the price of moving the rock from what he wanted to charge us in the fall. So, all in all, it's a great deal for the neighbors, and for us. Yay! Everyone is happy. We're happy, too, that he'll let us pay him a bit now, and a bit more in 30 days.

In the end, the wall will be eight feet farther back, the wall will be shorter (and smoother), and it will be in the right place. A much better outcome than what is currently there. It has to be engineered, but we don't have to pay for it. The neighbors do. We surrendered the top rock to them to offset some of their cost, and... we got 8 feet out of it in the deal.

How often can you buy 8 feet in your own back yard?

Bire-Truck

Imagine that the kid in this fire truck is Max... because that's who this gift was for. Grandma Max gave this to Max for Christmas, but Asa has had just as much fun ringing the bell and pushing it around with his feet. Neither one of them pedals the thing (although it DOES have pedals).

It's from R.C. Willey, and it has ladders and a bell, but what it's REALLY good for is running into doors. :o) Sometimes, the boys will drag it backwards by the fire hose. (I'm a bit nervous they'll pull the fire hose off). It had to move to the main floor because I was more nervous they'd drive it off the top floor and it would become airborne down the stairs (that seemed like a bit too much fun and real fire engines might have to be called).

It's much, much cuter in real life than even in pictures. They sit in it almost all of the time. It gets garaged in the pantry (which is pretty cute). When not garaged there, it can be garaged in the mud room. It's a great car for a 2 year old boy. We'll see how much fun it is outside in the spring. I hope they don't actually ride it down our hill... It may have to be carefully taken down to the park and ridden in circles around the water tank so they don't coast it down into traffic (considering there's our hill and then the big, big hill). They will have so much fun with this truck. It's "rated" up to 7 years old. Lots of fun to be had for 2 little boys, and several little boys yet to come in the Phippen & Preston family.

What He Never Complains About...

I adore almost everything about my new house... except the counter space in my kitchen. Our kitchen is huge... but the counter where they put the sink is teeny-tiny. If we have dinner, and the dishes are not immediately done (and I mean between cooking dinner and eating dinner), there isn't enough space to clean up.

If we have breakfast, there isn't enough room to do the dishes. It's kinda strange for a house this large. There isn't enough room for a gourmand such as John to really spread out and cook. There's an enormous counter under the cabinets, but who cooks there? It's a true conundrum.

John never complains that this is the picture that most often meets him as he's finishing up an amazing meal (and they are ALL amazing):

And there's the space dedicated to cooking. Odd little space, isn't it? Lots of oven space. Lots of stove space... where's the stirring space? Where's the counter space? Where's the space for two cooks? Hmmm. Good thing only John knows how to cook, eh? Yeah, this is after breakfast.

You know what the real problem is? It's not the space that's the problem. It's that the lady that's supposed to do the dishes... is me. Hahahaha. I'm off blogging instead of doing the dishes. I'll get right on that. Just as soon as I finish writing.

Those Winter Sundays

I teach a poem called "Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden about fatherhood that ends "What did I know, what did I know of love's austere and lonely offices?"
I always teach it at the end of the year, during baseball season, and we watch Field of Dreams and read "Once More to the Lake" by E.B. White, and when we get to the scene Ray's father asks him "Is this heaven?" and he replies, "No, it's Iowa..." and his father replies, "I could have sworn it was heaven" and he says, "Is there a heaven?" and John replies, "Oh, yeah." I weep like a baby (because it's a cornfield because I think of my dad, and of my farmer grandfather, etc).

What do I know about love, and love's lonely offices? I learned an awfully lot this year, this Christmas. You see, I can't buy my dad a Christmas present. I can buy him "stuff." I try every year to get him "stuff." And some years, I try to "do stuff" for him that he wouldn't do for himself. In fact, my family is big into doing stuff for other people. We do crazy stuff for each other, like finishing basements over and over again. We hang out at each other's houses; we move and and help move and move some more (like pioneer children some years).

Still, my father can surprise me. Case in point. One night, before Christmas, he called me up. He said he needed to get something at Costco that was too big for him to pick up. I was certain we were going to pick up a gift for my mother. No. Instead, he was there to make sure my cute children were being fed. He knew my husband has been paid sporadically, and he wanted to make sure we had the basics, and he filled up a cart and sent me on my way, because he's like that. Just a quiet, breathless whirlwind tour through Costco.

I was so caught off guard I didn't even hug him before I drove away. The poem says:
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices? 

On Christmas morning, as he and my mother drove away from my house, I understood a little bit more about Christmas. There's definitely much, much more joy in the giving, and it takes a lot of time to gain parenthood perspective. The older I get, the more I realize that the picture is more incomplete. The more I know I see through the glass darkly. My father quoted "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" and there are miles to go. I can't wait to travel them to see what else there is to see along the journey.

My Grown-Up Christmas Wish

I'm behind in blogging again. Today you'll get several entries to catch up. Before I was a grown-up, I had NO idea why my mom always wanted something we couldn't buy her. I always wanted something quick and painless I could buy her easily at a store, I didn't want something I had to spend endless hours creating or doing that was, honestly, hours upon hours of work.

Now that I'm a mom, I understand why my mom wants a gift like that. It's because I can buy myself my own gift like that. I understand that what  my mom wanted was "one day where none of you fight" or "one day of peace and quiet" or "one day where no one messes anything up" (although, I also understand that those days come when we all move out of the house and live away from home, sometimes very, very far away from home, or as she said when David died, all she wished was one day where there was something more to wash or one more shoe to pick up.) As Trace Adkins said, "You're gonna miss this."

Being married to a Phippen means that I get to ask for the same thing multiple years in a row and I get to be delighted when I receive it many times. Here's the best Phippen gift ever. If you have never been a Phippen, you won't understand. It's OK. It's MY Christmas, and you can not understand from afar.

This is an empty garage with my car inside of it. It's at my house. It's a pretty fine Christmas gift. This same garage holds two cars.

John and Jack emptied the garage for me, and Jack was even more pleased that I had "Facebooked" his Christmas present service project. He told his dad that it must be pretty special if I had told people on Facebook that he had helped. I guess it's really only a gift if you get credit on Facebook. Take note: service in secret must not count.