a sigh of quietude

i hope everyone had a merry christmas and is relaxing now, digesting big dinners and too much sweets, enjoying their families and their gifts. we had a wonderful christmas...because of the snow we couldn't go north as usual on christmas eve, but were instead welcomed at bill and beth's ("step" nana and papa) for their traditional christmas eve clam chowder dinner. t'was lovely. we will be traveling north in mid-january, assuming portland ever melts! becky thoughtfully gave us a dinner-in-a-giftbag--nice hormone-free chicken and some pasta and all the fixings for a super delicious smelling and looking marinade, which i threw together last night and is bathing in it's saucy goodness to prepare for dinner tonight. yesterday--christmas day--we drove into eugene and had lunch at the chinese buffet, which was really quite a nice way to deal with not wanting to cook. i unfortunately sprang a migraine christmas eve and was fulfilling my santa duties through a cloud of nausea and discomfort. it woke me several times in the night and was not gone by morning, as i had hoped. so i asked for a mellow morning of gift opening and mostly received it...the migraine faded by noontime, but i still didn't feel like cooking anything...i had a mean craving for chinese food, though. all of the restaurants in cottage grove were closed for christmas, but rodney didn't mind driving into town.

christmas morning was awesome, i loved watching everyone open all their goodies. and we had a christmas miracle! everything that i had sewn for people, using their own clothes as templates, actually fit them! such a relief. rodney really liked his loungy flannel pants (forest green with a pumpkin orange pocket) and vesta still hasn't left her hoo-hoo owl pajama pants. whew! hazel looks adorable in her little apron. jubal loves his magna-doodle type device, drawing on it and getting others to draw things on it for him about a hundered times a day, if not more. and at the last minute i got him a little elmo doll for his stocking, which he checks on and kisses and hugs all throughout the day. vesta got TWO! beatles cds and the fab four crooned all day in our house. they also got some modeling clay and at one point in the day disappeared to their room for a while, i assumed to play their new game, but emerged a bit later to show me some crazy clay figures they had made...vesta made this amazing mermaid, that managed to look swirly and underwatery...hazel made a couple of different cats and, most notably, a veeeeery creepy looking baby with a giant fat butt and an ill-proportioned bright red penis. i am cracking up even now, thinking about it. it was as if she made a little baby boy and then put a dog penis on him! i'm sorry if i offend anybody out there, but it was sooooo funny.

i will be enjoying the next few days, thinking about the new year and what i may wish to resolve to do in it...vesta will be traveling to california to visit her good friends that moved away, hazel has a huge sleep over planned at ronan's house to stay up late and ghost hunt and about a million other things they've planned. busy, wonderful times.

i am grateful for:
love
my husband
my sweet children
that some chinese restaurants stay open on christmas
my new kleen kanteen, which rodney gave me for christmas and which i have coveted for many months now

time sure flies when you're alive

blue today, in honor of blue mountain school. we had quite an anticlimactic end to the school year, as three days of the last week were snow days. we've exhausted all of our appeals and all of our creative ideas for getting around this or that to allow us to remain open as a publicly funded school...so we will not be re-opening after the winter break. instead of using up all of the foundation's money, and all of our physical/mental/spiritual energy "fighting" for our right to exist in this district by going to court and maybe winning, maybe losing, but certainly spending every kind of energy we have...we've decided to focus on re-opening in the fall in another district. somewhere within a fifty mile radius of here. there are small districts about who desperately need the money and don't have whatever bad vibe this district has about us. i'm confident we will find one more than happy to soak up our extra funds and, for the most part, leave us alone. so now there is lots of leg work to be done finding a district, finding a building, writing proposals and contracts and whatever else. and homeschooling our kids. wheeee! it sucks and it's sad, but in the long run, will probably turn out better for us, as whatever district we can find to take us will certainly be closer to eugene and will vastly increase our pool of prospective students. so, i'm hopeful--and confident--that we will re-open in the fall bigger and better than we've been in the last couple of years, and i'm grateful for that. besides, it'll be nice to have the girls around for a few months. we can do lots of sewing and cooking and various projects, and i can help the girls hone their math and reading skills (and hazel wants to learn french!). that's all the blue mountain news for a while.

on the homefront...
i've been toiling away sewing all my gifts and thinking up new and hideously long and complicated projects to work on. i've got *almost* all my christmas gifts made and wrapped up and am looking forward to distributing them and visiting with everyone, weather permitting.
i sewed hazel an apron out of one of the sheets-turned-tablecloths from our wedding, it's orange and flowery and, if i do say so myself, adorable. i shall have to post a photo of it once she's opened it up. and sewing other things which i cannot yet mention. sadly, i did not get to make jubal's stuffie book, but will be doing it for his birthday. i've been making something else, which i also can't mention yet, but i'm really excited about them and will reveal all once the holidays are passed--i can say, however, that i think this item is a good candidate for my etsy.com shop, which i will be focusing on in the new year. rodney and i need to figure out a way to get high speed internet, as it will be quite a headache to work on the etsy shop using dial-up. just the thought of it gives me a headache. of course, if all goes well with the shop, hopefully it will easily pay for the extra expense incurred by upgrading the internet connection.
i spent some time and energy house cleaning in the kitchen today, which feels great. time devoted to all the holiday-related sewing and crafting has taken away from my already "relaxed" house-keeping and it felt good to see the kitchen looking donna reedish again, if only briefly. tomorrow it's the bathroom and a pile of laundry to fold, then i quit all but routine maintenance until after christmas! (yes, i realize that a clean bathroom and folding laundry IS routine maintenance, but just let me have that feeling of relaxed i-don't-have-to-clean-anything!-ness for a minute).
because of all the snow, we brought the outside rodents (clover and nickles--a bunny and guinea pig) into the house and the girls set them up an elaborate tarp-bottomed corral in their bedroom and i must admit, i love having them inside! they are so accessible for cuddling and since sweetie died i have really missed the "weep-weep!" of a guinea pig. i'd like to figure out a safe way to keep them inside all the time...maybe something in the laundry room? another thing to put off til after christmas.
i hope you are all enjoying the holiday season, visiting and baking and gift-wrapping. try to relax and love it, it's supposed to be a pleasure!

i am grateful for:
creativity
silver linings
fun
craft supplies
textiles

oh, and p.s. i sewed jubal's stocking and it is soooo cute! it's green flannel with bugs and bees on it, all brightly colored and cute and he really loves it. i hung all the stockings above the living room window and he keeps pointing at it and saying, with a huge smile, "what's that?!" he's so great.
AND! how could i not mention this?! he's been using the toilet!!! it's so awesome. he feels great about it and loves to be able to flush afterwards, then wash his hands and play with his toothbrush, which he likes because it has a picture of elmo on it. he loves elmo for some reason.