Human Achievement Hour!

It's been a while since I've written a new blog.  Work has been busy. Home life has been busy.  I rarely just get to sit at the computer anymore.  And that's not all bad.  If there is a downside to the Information Superhighway, it's that it makes getting outside and enjoying nature a bit more removed from our day-to-day lives.

So, tonight is Earth Hour.  Since my family believes that the earth is precious, and that humans are created by God, as was the earth, we celebrate Human Achievement Hour (which happens to coincide with Earth Hour).  How do we celebrate this happy occasion?  We turn on every light and electrical appliance in our house for that hour.  For one hour a year, we run our heater the entire time.  And our kids absolutely love it and enjoy being the ones to creatively plan for this event and help us execute it. This year, we have a generator, so may also run it, just for that little extra edge to our celebration.  It's times like this that I wish I could, just for an hour, replace all of our CFL's with incandescent bulbs.  I get goosebumps, just thinking about it.

We encourage all those who love this earth and all of God's creations to celebrate Human Achievement Hour, too, in whatever fashion your family feels is fitting.

I thank God for the free will he bestowed upon us, and the perfect design of giving us the ability to learn and grow from our mistakes and successes.  I am grateful to all of our forefathers who, through trial and error, have helped to forge a world in which people are free to rise to the level of their competence and achievements or not.

So, if you are sitting alone in the dark, maybe with an organic, gluten-free, vegan candle, feeling good about yourself, you can feel just a little better knowing that my blender is running full-speed, and when my margarita is done, I'll raise a glass to you and yours.  Here's to mankind and all of our achievements.

It's Christmas Time

Chocolate and peppermint checkerboard holiday
cookies, complete with wobbly sides.  

It's a chilly December weekend and I'm making cookies with my kids.  We picked up a magazine a few weeks ago with lots of new recipes to try, so today we're making checkerboard cookies.  The kitchen smells like chocolate and peppermint.  And even though I can't manage to cut very straight, the cookies have turned out nice and pretty.

We still have to decorate our tree and I'm not sure we'll get to putting lights outside this year, and tomorrow we're decorating a gingerbread house.  I really love all the trappings of Christmas with kids.  It's such a blessing.

I just can't believe that the end of the year is nearly here.  This year has been a fast one for me.  And I'm reminded of that when I look to see how much my kids have grown over the last year.  It's terrifying.  Parenting is definitely not for sissies.

So as I listen to Christmas carols and feel the joy of the season swirl around and through me, and feel compelled to do silly, spontaneous stuff like this, I'm reminded how grateful I am to be a mom, and how grateful I am for the gift of baby Jesus. I'm surrounded by friends who are not believers, and that's fine. They poo-poo the whole concept and say, "If Jesus even was born, he wasn't born in December."  And that's fine, too.  It's not about the date on the calendar. It's about celebrating this incredible gift to us all, and the whole miracle of it all. The fact that God would put on flesh to walk among us and teach us, it's just over-powering.  I am so grateful.

So all my friends, believers and non-believers, I hope your hearts are all touched by the spirit of the season and that you are all truly blessed this time as well as throughout the year.

Giving Thanks

Hello Pacific Ocean.  I've missed you.

This was a different Thanksgiving for me.  I left my husband and kids for a few days and headed to California to visit my dad.  I flew to Santa Barbara, rented a car, and drove up the coast.  This was where I grew up and it was good to be home again.  And it was hard.  My stepmother tragically passed away earlier this year and it's been heartbreaking for all of us who knew her, and absolutely devastating for my dad.

It was good to talk to him.  I spent time asking him about his life growing up in Texas, about his brothers, and about how he ended up in California before I was born.  It was good information to have, and maybe on some level it helped him to talk about it.  I wish I'd had more time to spend there with him.  But my heart was also yearning to get back home to be with my husband and children.

I also got to visit a very dear friend I've known since Kindergarten and have lunch with her.  It was nice to spend time catching up and sharing the goings on of our lives with each other.

What the?????

I don't fly much.  I actually really dislike flying (okay, I'm a weenie). And I can't remember the last time I rented a car. I think it was in the early 80's.  So this was quite an adventure, especially going all by myself.

Our cars at home are all fairly old.  The newest one is from the late 1990's.  So when I rented this new-fangled car, there was a bit of a learning curve.  First off, it was an automatic.  I'm just not used to driving one for the most part.  But this one had the shifter deal in the floor, between the front seats. The one I do drive on occasion at home has this deal on the steering wheel.  So instead of putting this little rental car into drive, I kept washing the windshield.  At least my windshield was clean.  Also, I noticed something peculiar when I got into the car.  There was a little yellow indicator all lit up that looked, to me, like an exclamation point between two parentheses.  I figured since it had an exclamation point, it might be important.  So I called my husband who is a car genius and asked him if he had any ideas.  He didn't.  So I dug around and found an owner's manual in the glove box and looked it up.  Aha!  The manual said this was a low tire pressure warning light.  So I called Mr. Mechanic back and told him that.  His advice was to get out and look at all the tires and see if they looked inflated. And they did. So off I went.  And the trip went well.  Dinged danged indicator lights.  I prefer cars that don't tell you stuff like this. I'd rather find out on my own, thank you very much.

I also had to re-tune the radio in this car.  What came blasting out of the speakers when I started the car was rap. Very loud rap.  Yikes.  So I quickly found one of my old standby's when I lived in California and rocked out as I drove along Highway 101, confident in my mastery of the workings of this little car, clean windshield and all.

When I flew out of Santa Barbara this morning to return home, they announced that they were going to have to de-ice the aircraft.  Everyone laughed.  But it was legitimate.  It was actually below freezing and they had frost on the plane.  I'm sure the ground crew at the airport there isn't used to doing this very often, but they did a stellar job, for which I am most grateful.

Every time I go back to California, I realize how much I miss it there.  It's lovely to me, especially the Central Coast.  And a part of my heart will always be there.  But it is good to be back home with my husband and children, too.  I'm grateful for an easy trip with no real snafu's (we won't count my little adventure trying to figure out how to fill the rental car with gas last night) and a lot of heart-touching moments.  I am so very thankful for my family, my dear and wonderful friends, all the many blessings in my life, and I realize I need to express my thanks more often.  There's a saying I think we've all heard before, but it's so true. What matters is not how many breaths you take, but the moments that take your breath away.  Flying over the Pacific ocean and the Sierras and the Rockies all in just a couple of hours was breath-taking. (I may be a weenie, but occasionally I sneak a glance out the window from my aisle seat and really do appreciate the view).  Heart-felt hugs from family members and friends that bring tears to the eye are priceless.  And just time spent together, giving thanks, and nourishing my soul on these memories is precious to me.

The Cusp of Winter

We had our first real snow of the season here the other day.  The kids were quickly out in it, rolling a snowball so big that their dad had to help finish it.  The snowman is still on our front lawn, attesting to how chilly it's been.

As the daylight hours wane and the weather turns cold, thoughts turn to the holidays and family and baking, and just fun, quiet times indoors.  We have baked the pumpkins we carved for Halloween and have saved the mush to make cookies and bread and pie.

Since times are tight financially, we'll probably be making baked goods for Christmas presents this year.  In my opinion, this is much more fun, anyway, and may mean more to the recipients.  I feel fortunate that my family loves these simple pleasures and we don't need a lot to be happy.  Great memories are made of such things as these.

During the last few weeks, my daughter, inspired by a class she's taking, has captured a lot of end-of-fall preparedness in nature.  Amid the dying perennials in a flower bed in our yard, there were still a few California poppies blooming.  She took the time to find that there were bees taking advantage of the warm afternoon to collect pollen in these flowers.  The poppies are usually among the last flowers to disappear completely for winter, and come back each spring when they reseed themselves.  After more than a decade after I first planted the seeds here, they've naturalized.  It's a lovely surprise to see them coming up in the spring.

The heavy clouds coming in from the west this time of year are always spectacular, too.  We see them coming over the Rockies and sometimes they disappear entirely before coming right over our house.  Sometimes they look perfectly patterned and it's not hard to image that God is painting them there purposefully.

Soon, we'll be celebrating Thanksgiving.  I hope this is a time to reflect on what is truly important to us all, and to give thanks for all the many blessings that have been bestowed on us.  I know I'm deeply grateful for all the beauty around us this time of year as well as the rest of the year. I'm grateful for my family and my kids' health and well-being.  I'm thankful to everyone who has fought for this country and the freedom and liberty we have here.  I'm thankful for this life and all the experiences I've been able to come through and learn from.  And I hope my children learn to appreciate the many blessings we have as well.

Quilt Show Time!

Horse Feathers

Once a year, my local quilt guild hosts a quilt show.  Last year, I had a quilt hanging in the show, and this year I was supposed to have three.  But between working full-time and having a full life at home as well, I ran out of time to complete the third quilt.  But two quilts are better than none!

Pueblo Pots

I entered my mystery quilt, which I named Horse Feathers. It features a lovely deep blue Laurel Burch fabric plastered with colorful little horses, as well as lots and lots and lots of feathers quilted on it - including 18 feathered wreaths.  Whew!  The border has a running feather/cable quilting motif as well.

I also decided to show my Pueblo Pots quilt.  This was completed for a national contest a few years ago, and won third place. I still feel thrilled about that.  I'm not sure I'll ever achieve something like that again in the quilting world, but it was nice to have been able to do it when I did.

It's a tote! It's a cupcake!  It's both!

This year, for the second time, my daughter also made something for the show.  Last year, she made her first quilt. This year, she made a small, quilted tote bag, resembling a cupcake, that was adorable.

The show is a fun way to help me get stuff done - in other words, a deadline!

I'm already plotting next year's entries...

Remembering 9/11

I will never forget that day, and I take time to grieve about it every year on its anniversary.  I was at work early that Tuesday morning when I heard on the radio that a small plane had hit the World Trade Center in New York. At the time, I was working across the street from the World Trade Center in downtown Denver.  I thought that the pilot must have problems and it was an accident.  About ten minutes later, I got chills up my spine when they said a second plane had hit the other tower. I knew then, as did everyone else who heard, that this was no accident, and of course later learned the details that it was no "small" plane that hit the first time.  I immediately tried to locate co-workers who were flying that morning, or on job sites along the Eastern part of the country.  It wasn't until hours later that I learned my co-workers were all safe, if stranded.  My building was evacuated and I reluctantly left my office to go home.  Denver, like any big city, is usually bustling and noisy.  But that morning, as we all made our way to bus stations and car lots to get home, it was so quiet.  You could see the grief on everyone's face and  no one could bear to say a word.  I think we all, in our quiet way, felt close as Americans and knew that something had struck us to the core.  I remember one fellow was standing on an overpass, waving an American flag.  People politely slowed down, waved, or honked their horn in support of this man's gesture.

And even amid the horrible tragedy, there were stories of hope and survival.  People trapped in a stairwell on the lower level of one tower miraculously survived.  A man, hearing a plea for help high up in one of the towers, rescued another man who was still trapped in debris in the same office where one of the wings of the second plane had come to stop.  Both men made it out and found sanctuary in a close-by church before the towers collapsed.  

And I remember us, Americans, as we were on 9/12, how we stood as one to do whatever we could to help, resolved to be strong in the face of horror, and how united we felt.  

So every year, I grieve for what was lost that day, and I thank God for being alive and for being an American, and I hope we can reconnect with who we were on 9/12.  Amid the mayhem of just getting through the day, I hope we can all pause to reflect on the significance of this day, remember all who lost their lives and the loved ones they left behind, raise them in prayer, and remember how much unites us.

Escalator to Heck

I don't know if this is a photo of the same escalator, but
I get dizzy looking at it, so it is close enough!

While we were in DC, we rode the Metro to someplace (I can't recall where, exactly) to have dinner with other folks who were in DC from Colorado.  When we left the Metro underground station, we took THE longest escalator I've ever seen, probably some 5-stories high, all one, single escalator.  It was a long ride up, several minutes at least.  What I failed to understand until later was that we would eventually end up back at this station from the top, and I'd have to ride the other escalator DOWN.

So, several hours and one dinner later, we got to the station.  I admit, I get vertigo pretty easily. I'm terrified of heights.  And basically a weenie about such things.  So I finally psyched myself into getting on this thing, and then dared to look down to the bottom. The only problem was that you really couldn't see the bottom. And that's when the panic set in. However, I was already on the thing, it was moving, and I was committed.  I must have looked ridiculous, clutching the black rubber moving hand rail thingie with both hands on one side (I could NOT face forward, it was impossible).  And I swear the ride down was several hours long.  It wasn't until we were nearly to the bottom that I could release my death grip on the rail and actually contemplate stepping off.  Phew.

They say what doesn't kill you can only make you stronger.  That may be true. And in light of life's other challenges, this really wasn't that big of a deal.  But the adrenaline rush of making it to the bottom, alive, was incredible.  But I probably won't want to use this particular Metro station again.  I can't imagine how people do this every day. In my opinion, an escalator like this warrants flashing red lights, and a replica of Robbie the Robot waving his arms frantically while saying, "Danger, Will Robinson!"

To my credit, I did cling to the RIGHT side of the escalator.  So those crazy people who walk down escalators like this, without a thought of how close they are to loss of life or limb, weren't getting too annoyed at me since I wasn't blocking their path.  I learned pretty quick that if you don't stay to the right as a slow-pokie like me, people get pretty impatient with you and feel inclined to let you know what they think of you blocking their egress.