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Happy New (York) Year
It’s 10:42 pm.
We just said goodbye to our dearest friends who came over to ring in the New Year with us. We counted down and watched the ball drop, toasted 2009 with sparkling cider and lit off some fireworks.
At 9:00 pm.
My family lives in Oregon, but we celebrated a New York New Year’s three hours before midnight on the west coast. For dinner, we had New York pizza and then the kids settled down with Home Alone 2: Lost in New York while the grown-ups played cards. A few minutes before midnight (nine) we pulled up a live feed of times square and partied. All of the fun, none of the I’m-so-excited-but-I’m-tired-and-cranky-and-I’ve had-too-much-sugar-so-I-think-I’ll-just-lay-here-and-scream episodes that I children might be prone to have.
So, for all intents and purposes 2008 is over. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the last year.
Happy New Year!
Very Merry
I hope your Christmas was as good as ours. We had family, friends, fun and a
My favorite gift, a Girl Wonder original:
Her favorite gift(s):
and these:
which elicited such varied response as this
and this
Are you sensing a theme here?
She wore her Gryffindore robes through opening the rest of her gifts, breakfast, watching the Walt Disney World parade on tv, visiting with Grandma and Grandpa for dinner and the traditional Christmas evening at the movies.
And, if I’m not mistaken, she is wearing them now as she sleeps. The wand is under her pillow – in case she needs it.
It feels good to hit a home run.
What was your favorite part of the day?
And to all a good night
Finished, just in time:
A sweet little chef’s hat and apron for my sweet little girl.
Now that I have left the sewing machine, I wanted to pop in and wish you all a very merry Christmas.
Oh, and to show you who turned up in the manger scene.
Uh-huh.
What To Do When the Power Goes Out
1. Build a roaring good fire. Use it to toast cold toes and roast potatoes for dinner.
2. Read out loud to your family for nearly six hours. Find yourself wishing that your tea kettle would fit in the fireplace.
3. Play shadow charades or….
…put on shadow performances of “Once There Was a Snowman”.
Tell me, does this shadow make me look fat? [insert placating lie here] Whew, thanks.
4. Snuggle.
5. And when the novelty wears off, just go to bed. Oh my! Is it eight-thirty already? YAWN.
Our power came back on sometime in the night. We were lucky, there are many that are now going on two or even three days without.
More images from Oregon’s Arctic Blast 2008:
They are calling for more snow tomorrow.
With the exception of three years in Maryland, I have lived here my whole life. I’ve never seen anything like this. Incredible.
It looks like it will be a white Christmas this year.
My gift to you? I promise not to blog about the weather anymore.
Unless I really feel like it.
You’re welcome.
Snowed In
Cozy.
Right now, I am curled up on the couch with a blanket and my warmest wool socks. The tv is off. The Christmas lights are on. A fire is crackling merrily in the wood stove. And outside my window the world has turned to ice.
As I write, I am trying not to listen to the conspiratorial whispers coming from Santa’s Workshop (aka: the studio with a blanket pinned over the doorway) where Mr. Frantic and Girl Wonder are busy crafting a little something for me to open Christmas morning.
Earlier today it was our turn. GW and I are sewing Daddy a new tie. We giggled over our choice of fabric, red with Bah Humbug! written on it. We just finished reading A Christmas Carol and my girl found the pre-changed Ebenezer to be oh-so-funny – I daresay, even more so than Spongebob. I am constantly amazed at who she is becoming. And I must admit, I frequently underestimate her. She can’t wait for me to read more Dickens to her.
But I was talking about the snow, or as the news refers to it: The Arctic Blast.
It had snowed every day for a week; then yesterday the freezing rain began. In our normally moderate climate that spells disaster. In fact, just now as I typed a major limb from the tree across the street, overburdened with ice, crashed to the ground. There will likely be many more to come. The roads are impossibly impassible. Even church was canceled today.
But we are home, warm and dry. Our freezer is stocked with plenty of food. The Christmas shopping is as done as it needs to be. What we don’t have, we can make. What we can’t make, we can do without.
We have all that we need, and all that we need is enough.
Rerun
With all the winter weather going on around here, I thought this might be a good time to repost my very first ever Frantically Simple post, from way back in January.
Enjoy!
Better is Not Always Better
One evening last week, my husband and I picked up our seven year old daughter from a friend’s house. She had spent the afternoon playing and then stayed for dinner. (Why is it that someone else’s fish sticks always taste better than mine?)
Anyway, she came home later than usual. We pulled up to the driveway after eight o’clock.
Eight o’clock is a special time of night. Eight o’clock is bedtime for my girl and me time.
For me.
Mine.
Get it?
(Well, sometimes I do share it with my husband. I’m not entirely selfish you know.)
I was all ready to rush the little one up the stairs to bed so I could settle my self on the couch with Jane Austen, but then something happened. I looked out the car window.
The recent snow lay on our little hill glittering in the moonlight. I turned my head to the porch and there was the abandoned sled.
Just that morning we had spent twenty minutes stuffing ourselves into our snow gear. Her pinky had refused to go into its own slot in her gloves. It preferred to double up with her ring finger and I had to remove her glove and try again several times before it would be coaxed into being alone. Then her hat made her head itch. Her boots were hard to put on and her sock had a wrinkle. All the while a new snow was outside beckoning, and we were inside getting increasingly frustrated with the scarf stuck in the jacket zipper.
Once we finally (angrily) got outside there were only a few minutes left to play before having to go back in, un-gear and head off to the day’s must-dos. The sled was left on the porch. Mom and daughter were thoroughly unsatisfied.
When I was a little girl growing up in Oregon, snow was a magical rarity, maybe two or three times a winter. I did not own a stitch of snow clothes. In order to keep our feet dry in our hand-me-down tennis shoes, my mom gave my brothers and I saved bread bags to put on over our socks. When our jeans got too wet and we were freezing we came into the house for some mothering.
Our home had no fireplace so we dragged the kitchen chairs to the oven. My mom would crank it up to about 300 degrees and put folded towels on the open door. There we would prop our frozen toes to thaw while we sipped hot cocoa. Once we were warm and dry, we’d slip those bread bags back on and head out for more cold, wet fun.
We made snow angels without snow pants. We made snowmen and had icicle sword fights without gloves. Sure it was cold. I remember my hands stinging when I came in the house. But I did not die; I didn’t even catch a cold. And I still had fun. My daughter has every cold weather comfort item out there, but somehow they seem to detract from rather than add to the experience.
And so this brings us back to the car and me looking out the window at that moonlight hill. The little girl in me woke up and said “C’mon woman, Jane Austen has been around for 200 hundred years, but this moment will be over in a second. Let’s play!”
I got my confused child out of the car in her capris and mary-janes and we grabbed the sled. It was amazing. The darkness seemed to add to the thrill of the ride. Sledding our tiny front yard hill was no longer ordinary; it was a mysterious, exotic adventure. We came in the house half an hour later, wet, cold, and laughing.
As she got ready for bed, my daughter kept asking me, “Mom, why did you let me do that?”
I guess I just remembered for a minute what it feels like to be a kid. And in this overstressed and over scheduled world, I want to make sure she knows too.
P.S. I’m happy to report that since the original publication both my writing and GW’s clothing issues have improved. She is now quite content to gear up for cold weather fun. And I am just as content to let her get cold on those occasions that she just doesn’t want to.
Fast Times on Ridgemont Hill
Lucky you! Two posts for the price of one. I originally had planned this as part of the prior post, but honestly, I thought of this title and had to give it its own space. The following hill is not actually named Ridgemont, but let’s just pretend it is.
The snow returned with a vengeance Saturday night, completely crippling my city. Where I live, roads are not plowed. Salt is not applied. The main roads are lucky to receive gravel; the rest must wait for the sun or warmer temperatures to melt away the ice. Those roads, unfit for cars, become playgrounds.
Hey kid, why don’t you go play in the road?
Monday morning, GW and I walked to some friends’ house.
(Please note that not only are the roads unplowed, the sidewalks and most of the driveways are unshoveled. No sense making things easier for people to get around.)
To get to our friends’ house, we had to climb this icy hill. It was treacherous work.
Never fear, dear reader, coming down was much easier than going up.
GW called this move the “Angry Penguin”:
I have no idea what she means. But I do know that that hill was fast.
C’mon baby, just another quarter mile to the top. Or something like that.
With freezing temperatures, more snow and freezing rain in the forecast for the next several days, the public school kids will likely be out all this week.
Lucky for us, we homeschool. At our house, it’s business as usual.
Fleeting
Saturday morning found me in a rare mood: wistful, wishing for something.
Or rather, someone.
Someone small. Someone hearty.
Someone just as thrilled as my girl with the layer of white on the ground.
Someone that would be happily pulling her boots on over her pajamas, not caring that the clock read way-before-breakfast AM.
Someone that would enthusiastically agree to a snowball fight, no matter how cold it was outside. Someone for GW to play with…
…other than me.
These are the times when being the mother of an only child is harder than it looks.
By noon, this first batch of snow was gone and with it my melancholy. So I don’t get to sit at the table with a cup of herbal tea, listening to the sound of my children’s laughter (which probably would never happen anyway).
Instead I get to be out there, laughing with her.
Which is a pretty great place to be, after all.
Cookies, Camels and Newborn Kings
There seems to be a disturbing pattern emerging here at Frantically Simple.
post…post…post…long absence…excuses…post…post… You get the idea.
Well, I’m putting an end to it. You don’t need to hear any more excuses. I’m busy, you’re busy – it’s December, for crying out loud.
In other news, GW and I have been making a mess of my kitchen Christmas cookies to deliver to friends and neighbors.
I collect nativity scenes, so I couldn’t pass up this set of cookie cutters. However, I do feel a bit conflicted about eating the baby Jesus. Mmm… sweet salvation.
Yes, my gingerbread boy is a bit pale. It’s because he’s going into shock from his badly broken arm. Perhaps the newborn king can help. GW made that one, and it’s not who you might think it is.
This newborn king is baby Elvis in a manger.
The King? Get it?
Is something wrong with me if I find that uproariously funny? Because I do.
Here he is again, visiting all the other broken cookies. In the fog. Where’s Rudolf when you need him?
Oh well. Perhaps a concert will cheer up those poor broken souls…
I’ll have a bluuuuue Christmas without you,
I’ll be so bluuuuue just thinkin’ about you…
Speaking of blue, have a gander at this little fella:
Nothing says Christmas like a blue camel.
I’ll have a bluuuuue camel…
Here’s hoping your Christmas season is full of baby Elvis’ (Elvi?), blue camels and time with those you love.
But most especially, I hope your heart is filled with the spirit of Christ, whose birth we celebrate this time of year.
Because mine sure is.
With love,
Once upon a time there was a Heidi…
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