Christmas Traditions

Kind of interesting. Traditions at Christmas are like playing telephone through the years. I look back - my parents go to church every Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. They start Christmas around the 19th of December. Epiphany is when the tree comes down. They open gifts on Christmas Eve. They talk about their parents - my father is the son of a Lutheran minister. You don't say preacher when you are Lutheran - you say minister - or pastor. Their lives were spent in the church on Christmas. My mother used to wake up on Christmas morning and her living room was transformed by Christmas decorations and a tree.....that was the Christmas surprise - the tree. I still have some of the decorations from her tree as a child. My grandmother Karol told me one time that she put out shoes for Saint Nicholas when she was little and looked forward to an orange in December.


My family celebrated Advent - we did that with our children - and now my grandchildren know Advent and its meaning better than I. This is good. I am beginning to learn the value of tradition. Also the value of creating tradition. Like taking part of the past and making a future..or the future sitting in the past's lap and enjoying the now of Christmas.

This Christmas morning, Bill and I relished in the traditions of our family....and noticed our children and their wives are making some of their own. Like playing telephone....we look forward to enjoying the outcome---- at each home --- as babies are born, toddlers are taught, children participate, teens are coaxed to remember, young adults want to go back, and married couples create their own from the pieces whispered in their hearts years ago.

My baby Ebbie

Christmas photos

Starting Over

A week has passed – Opie’s memory forever stays in a corner of my heart…but the empty hole was too big. I knew that at Christmas I would have a long two+ week break and wouldn’t have another for a year. So despite the fact that it was hard I decided to get another baby. Not a poodle…..all I would say is you are not Opie.

Probably the loss was even more poignant because this is our first Christmas without Bill’s parents. Both died this year…so even more so we need some cheer in the house.

So I got a mini-schnauzer. She’s very calm and sweet gentle feminine personality. Her first night she slept all night right next to me on her pillow. She has been a wonderful boost for Buster. I awoke in the night and saw them sleeping nose-to-nose. Her name is Ebbie.

Jon and Sarah went with me to look at her. I was sure that I would reject even the wiles of a puppy – but I was wrong! She wiggled and squiggled her way home to the Bucklew household.

Not much else I have going on – can’t wait to be home for two weeks.!

Introducing Ebbie - the heart-warmer

breath

Ancient philosophy views breath as the silver cord that holds the body and the spirit together. When the breath of a living creature exhales its last, the soul is freed from the body to find its way to the afterlife. The philosophy is not so unfounded in Scriptural truth.

Right away in Genesis 1:30 we see that God defines creatures as those that have the breath of life – these are the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground. In just a few short verses we learn what the breath of life does. Genesis 2:7 says we become living.

My little Opie gave up his breath today. He was five years old. My loyal, loving little man – all 5 and a half pounds of him – snippy bark, gray dimming little eyes and all. God has him in his hand. Job 12:10 “In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.” Later Job says it is the breath of the Almighty that actually gives life.

In this way man and animal are the same. Ecclesiastes 3:19 “Man's fate is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; man has no advantage over the animal.” We all live and die by the silver cord of the breath of God.

So here is what I surmise. Man and animal have the same breath of God in them. When God inhales his breath returns to him. Man’s soul is released to eternity, man’s breath returns to God, man’s body returns to the earth. The soul-less animal’s breath returns to God, his body to the earth. Then God – the giver of life exhales – a long deep breath…the earth brings forth life in the design of himself – the Maker of everything. The man’s soul is created; the baby is born and breathes – a testimony to the life-giving nature of the Almighty. The animal is born ready to give to man and earth a breathing living part of God as designed for its kind – a puppy, a kitty, a lion, an eagle to demonstrate to all that exists the true and multi-faceted nature of the one and only God.

So we experience little Opies in our lives. A part of God that touches us as none other can. And when breath is gone – we wait. We wait to experience His presence in our grief and loss of his breath in our lives. We wait to experience his exhaling nature again.

Thankful

I am thankful. I really am. The holiday weekend was full of family activity; too much food, 10 year old grandson jokes, Ken and Claiborne’s baskets full of pretty things and pies and waggedy tails, and my niece with her 9 week old princess. My baby boy (now 27)held her, awkwardly at best - one of the few pictures without 10 year old fingers in front of the camera.

I still have the shingles, can’t sleep for the pain, slipped and fell flat on my tu-tu cracking my neck, and didn’t have a working oven for turkey or bread…my favorite smell’s this time of year. But I did have a tea party my Emma grandest-daughter hosted - without asking mom. It was so worth going. She asked me later at the big 84th birthday dinner for my Dad, “Tell me how my tea party made you feel. Was it refreshing?”

Sometime that day the phone rang, Tessa’s husband calling from Bagdad – he’s in the heavy artillery unit – been there five weeks. She is brave for him – she hears it in his voice though – the longing to be home that waivers across the airway – thousands of miles away yet so intimately near. It fills me with tears – tears of gratitude for others who gave over this past two centuries or so to make this nation what it is - something that makes selfless men out of selfish young boys.

Bill prayed so elegantly – we forget what America has done for the world – we wouldn’t forget if Hitler had won. I am thankful. I really am.

If it isn't the fence it's the shingles!

My skin felt so sensitive that I could not stand for my shirt or pants to touch it. My back was aching like a kidney infection or like someone was pressing their foot deep into my muscle. It came around the front like a labor pain striking a blow.

I thought for sure my skin had stretched so far with my weight gain that the very molecular structure of it was pulling apart and soon it would stretch – like a rubber band – to the breaking point and snap. It must be my weight!

But then I begin to think about rubber bands. You know people are like rubber bands. When they are at rest they are basically useless…just hanging around. When they are stretched they become useful – even indispensable. Maybe skin is like a rubber band…no maybe it is like people….or no maybe it isn’t. So enough of that thought train.

My mind found no end to its bizarre thought rides as I wondered what this painful burning on the surface of my skin was from. A niacin flush gone wild – a skin eating bacteria that shows no sign of its ravaging effects until one morning you wake up with a hole in your side.

Finally on Wednesday, a blistering stinging rash appeared and my bizarre thoughts sucked themselves in – all to a condensed focused point – I had the shingles. Oh the pain. Got some medicine from the doctor and a healthy dose of pity.

Went to work Friday. Thought I would suffer through it quietly and survive till the weekend when I could rest. I walked into the office, greeted my office supervisor and the first thing I heard myself say (before I could swoop it back in my mouth.)…”Did you know people are like rubber bands?” And that led to you know what.

I love sympathy when I deserve it.

Blocking Progress

I wish I worked in an industry where you could pick and choose what jobs you do, when you do it, and for how much you will lift your little skilled fingers. It has taken no less than two weeks and 23 phone calls to get quotes on mending my fence. I did a write up to justify everything and put every expense I could think of in there…hoping for top dollar from the insurance company of the drunk who ran into the fence. I finally sent the list of quotes off Thursday night and on Friday I got a quote in the mail from a concrete company that was oh – 7 days late - that would have netted me an additional - oh $500 - from the insurance company, My timing is off this week.

I missed breakfast with the president of our college – another timing issue I wish I could erase. She was ticked – and rightfully so.

The best part of this week has been the weather. I love November in Florida. It is like the coming out of a Wisconsin spring – only different – not as fresh, lovely, amazing. Okay never mind – it is not at all like the coming out of a Wisconsin spring. But the breeze feels great through the house and the passionate heart-swelling evening skies never miss their timing.

Thanksgiving is coming. I look so forward to a houseful of loved ones. Our pups have their fall haircut…should be long enough in December through February to keep them from shivering. I ate cinnamon crème stuffed pancakes this morning to celebrate.

A New Fence

It was 2:22 am when the call came. The caller asked if I had the house for sale off Pipkin Road. All I could think was, “This is blogworthy! A house sale call in the middle of the night.” I tried to wake up enough to sound as though a call for the house was not unusual at 2:22 am. “Yes…” He was breathing heavily and obviously outside on a cell phone. Suddenly fear gripped my hair follicles and I realized I was in a hotel in Orlando and my husband was snoring in our bed, vulnerable to this quacko.

Did he have a gun? Was he going to rob us and shoot Opie? (Opie is my 4 pound poodle love.) Okay. Okay. My second thought was ….or my hubbie? How can I warn him while I keep this quacko on the phone?

He continued, “Someone just crashed into your back fence and I think you had better get out here now.” As fast as the hair went up – it went down. I called Bill – 2:26 am. He was up and had taken one of his 11 trusty flashlights out in the back yard and discovered the shocking mess.

Both dogs having been counted as safe, he blocked their exit. Not to worry, Buster the wonder dog was hiding behind the blanket making his barking-growling-howling noises. Hubbie went out to meet the FHP and get the scoop on the now abandoned vehicle.

All in all, this registrar’s conference in Orlando must have been providence. It would have made a terrible night for the hubbie had I been home and experienced it all first-hand. He is much braver than I.

So – I guess we get a new fence. That is interesting, exciting, annoying, and inconvenient. But I think I will put lights on a new fence for Christmas. Yeah!

Monster Truck

Well, I had to make sure that everyone around me knew that I did not usually come to these kinds of events. For some reason they all found it funny. It was intermission. I was talking through my sweater that I was holding over my nose. It stunk like – why do we study cow farts and their impact on the environment? Why don’t we study monster truck fumes and THEIR impact?

My grandson Andrew was finding the evening full of exciting moments – big tires crushing cars, revving the engines, racing each other over the likes of dying vans, old dodges and fords – all spray painted baby blue with flying beer flags all over them. We were in the second row. We could feel the force of the crush as the monster tire on the monster truck made pancakes of them all. The truck shells looked so odd on top of all that metal - a combobulation of springs, exhaust pipes, and suspension stuff. As they reared in the air and roared their underbellies were impressive.

We had to stand up and throw our hands in the air and cheer for “Geter Done” and “Wild Thang” and “Monster Patrol”. I saw Andrew’s veins in the side of his neck – his face was all red and his eyes fierce – full of manliness as he cheered the tilting and bobbling trucks on. Grampy just took it all in with quiet laughter – pleased with Drew’s enthusiasm.

Motor cyclists performed daring high jumps with their bikes – one did a complete flip with motor cycle and all. I heard Andrew scream “AWESOME” – but all I could think is I hope you don’t kill yourself young man.

We got autographs. That was really cool for Drew. All in all a good fun night with the Drew. But I will never go again!

Don’t – I Mean Donut

I have been out of town for four days at a software consortium meeting. That is boring. The good part is I got to spend time with three ladies I work with. Women talk about such different things than men. Last time I was with two men from work. Men talk about the menu – “Well, look at that – they’ve got a buffalo burger here!” “Yeah, ever eaten at Wing House – gotta love that buffalo sauce!” while rubbing his belly. They spend four days together eating each evening together - and don’t even know each other’s names.

Women are different. We hardly had time to order because within five minutes of sitting down we were deep in conversation about caring for a dying mother and the pain of divorce. We know how many kids we each have, how many siblings, what we are allergic too, how we are handling menopause, out philosophy on exercise and our latest diet challenges. And…we share a triple decker chocolate chip cookie ice cream mountain.

It must have done something to my female hormones. In 24 hours I have gone from wanting to quit work, to wanting to be old and die, to wanting to get off my butt and exercise – to wanting to eat a dozen glazed raised donuts.

I guess you know what I did. But honestly there were only three – not a dozen!!! I hate female hormones when they betray me!

The Witness

I decided a few years ago that I would read through the Bible in a year. I have started many times but get lost somewhere between the Numbers. (My attempt at a pun.) So – when I took this traveling consultant job two years ago, I thought flying was the perfect captured moment to begin. With new Ipod in hand and the voice of an English theatre veteran…..“In the beginning…..” it began.


It is amazing what you actually hear when you listen for an hour or so at a time. The stories flow with meaning and sense. God is also frightening in the Old Testament. I have a new understanding of what the fear of the Lord is. Through many flights and many flight mishaps that left me overnight in who-knows-where, I made it. I finished the whole Bible in one year and one month and one week.

Well, for me, it is not enough to have accomplished it or even be in the process of accomplishing it. I have to do something with it to make it meaningful. (I hate that about myself.) Also, perhaps that little girl in me wants to say, “See everybody, see what I am doing. See what I did!” so they can all say, “Congratulations, little Kathy! You did a great job!” (I can just hear my Grandma Karol saying that….even about the worst craft in the 5th grade vacation bible school!)

So – I decided I would use it as a witnessing tool. Sitting next to some businessman clunking at his computer with two rapid fingers as he verbosely keys emails that are going nowhere until we land, I say,” I am trying to listen to the Bible in a year! Kind of interesting when you hear a long stretch of it.” “Humph!” He stops long enough to size me up. I put on my earphones, and feeling a lot like Ellen DeGenres, I try another tactic. I put my hand to my ear and say loudly, “Oh my gosh! I never heard that before!” He taps my shoulder. I act as though I do not mind being interrupted from my engrossment, “Yes?” I say as innocently as I can. Then I realize the battery signal on his computer is flashing which means he has nothing to do now so he is ready to talk. “I don’t believe in God – really. I find the Bible full of contradictions.”

“Wow. You don’t believe in God. That fascinates me. What do you do with yourself when you feel alone, afraid, vulnerable, like a failure? I cannot imagine facing those moments without God.”

“I take myself by my bootstraps and give myself a swift kick in the pants and say get up buddy and take life by the horns. Then I indulge myself with something fun.”

“Does that work for you?”

“Sometimes.”

“Wow, I tell myself that no matter where I go, God is always with me and I look for something good to do for someone else – that does it for me every time.”

“I do a lot of good in this world. I usually live right. If there is a god that should cover me.”

“Sounds like a kid on an ocean liner who says, “I am usually a good swimmer. I have been in my pool a lot this year. I should be able to jump overboard and be alright.”

“I don’t get that analogy at all. It makes no sense to me.”

“I am not good with analogies. All I know is that with everything in me I know the God of the Bible is real and I will be with Him in eternity.”

“Well goodie for you.”

SILENCE……

“Are we done with the God conversation? I mean, I usually don’t do well telling people how I feel about God. I am kind of – well – I prefer to live a Godly life and let folks ask me what’s my secret.”

“So you are embarrassed to be a Christian? I would be.”

This is not going well. “No – I just hate saying all the same things that all Christians say to people they are trying to “evangelize” (I do the hand quotation thingy in the air) – because it sounds fake – but I know that it is not fake. How do you tell someone about something that is real when he has heard it a thousand times before and not believed it? That is my problem. I am just not creative or persuasive.”

“Now you have my attention.”

With amazing words and just the right scripture from any book of the Bible you can think of I bring this man to his knees before God. Well – if we didn’t have on seat belts he would have been on his knees.

The next thing I know, we have to put the seat backs up and the steward is saying “Miss-Miss! Wake up!” Darn – none if it was real and I missed the entire book of Lamentations. The man next to me was snoring. Oh well. I cannot even do something with my accomplishment in my dreams.

So I started again this year. New job, new opportunities – less chance of falling asleep at the wheel driving back and forth to Winter Haven. I am “reading” the Bible in a year. I am at Deuteronomy.

Okay! Okay!

Okay okay already. I give in to the pressure to express myself. Whatever the heck that means! So I will start by experimenting on blog design, discreet photo reveals, fonts and formatting. I also won’t tell a soul I started writing a blog. You see my daughter puts me to shame. She not only writes bounteously – she writes well. Even my granddaughter at almost 7 wrote a lovely poem about fall…deeper thoughts than I had at her age. Her poem is – well – here read it FALL . Mine was simply

I see a star in the sky
In the sky so high
so high.
It's shining so bright,
It's the prettiest in sight.
Oh star of heaven - star of might
You are the prettiest star I see tonight!

Well, hmmm...now that I SEE it - I don't think it is all that bad. I was actually in the 2nd grade so I was one year older than Emma. It was my first poem - and it must have meant something to me because I still remember it and the 7 or was it 8 year old passion I felt as I said it over and over to my parakeet.

Oh goodness. I am done - good-night!