Christmas

Snowed in

…still. We’re on Day Four now.

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snwdin2

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If I had a real car that weighed more than 75lbs I would be able to move about freely by now, but my little toy Saturn is rendered helpless by the few inches of snow that remain. A fellow from next door helped me drive/push/coax it as far as my back gate where Steve’s truck tracks end, so I think I should be able to make it to church tomorrow. Funny how much I’ve come to look forward to that every Sunday.

Yesterday my nice neighbor, who has actual grownup vehicles, was able to get out and into town, and she brought me some milk because we were running low. I have been constantly surprised and warmed by the kindness of people. In retrospect I cannot believe how socially isolated I let myself become during my marriage.

Snow damage toll: several trees lost branches, but there’s nothing too catastrophic. My stand of redshank took the heaviest damage and the big pine in my front yard comes a close second, but least nothing landed on the roof.

My house is very clean right now. I’ve had nothing else to do.

This seems like a good time to pull out all the bits and pieces that I’ve thought would be cool to blog about but weren’t worth having posts of their own. Like how Elizabeth was Student Of The Month in November, and how I’ve had to lock all the chickens back up because one bold coyote got hungry enough to come right onto the property and start stealing chickens out from under my dogs’ noses. He got two pullets before I realized what was going on and locked up the henhouse.

* * * * *

Things the Internet magically knows about me:


In a Past Life…


You Were: A Happy Go Lucky Monk.

Where You Lived: Alaska.

How You Died: Decapitation.

I can totally believe that I was a monk in my past life. I can see myself now, quietly tending my garden in some sunwashed courtyard, the gentle warbling of birdsong providing a peaceful soundtrack to my simple contemplations.

But ALASKA? I. think. not.

Decapitation? Absolutely, if I lived in Alaska. The other monks got fed up listening to me whine about all the damn snow. It’s just a question of which one of them snapped first, and what sharp utensil he was holding.

* * * * *

Other things the Internet magically knows about me: I am Probably A Woman.

We guess https://dsilkotch.wordpress.com/ is written by a woman (52%), however it’s quite gender neutral.

Gender Analyzer

* * * * *

Anagrams for “Debora Silkotch:”

Horseback Dolt I. Hmph.

Cobra Hiked Lost. Okay.

Bad Shock Toiler. Heh.

Rabid Sock Hotel. Whoa there, all our socks are freshly laundered, thankyouverymuch.

Broad Chokes Lit. Everyone’s a critic.

Ethics Look Drab. Some days…they really do.

* * * * *

Here are some Google search terms that brought folks to my blog recently:

how to sleep with mice in house

Try my method: get cats

5 fosmo rules

There are rules?? Crap, I’ve probably been doing it all wrong!

“christmas” “words” “list of”

“I’ve” “included” “this one” “only” to “mock” their “unnecessary use” of “quotes.”

expecting hard what will happen to my watermelon

I feel you, my friend.

what the hell moments

This person definitely came to the right blog.

mummified baby in glasses

Um. I got nothing here.

coloring for canaries

Dude, just give him some old newspapers to read like everyone else does.

upbeat christmas snogs

I could use a few upbeat Christmas snogs myself. Where’s my mistletoe?

men in ballet flats

I…have nothing to add to that image.

* * * * *

If there were any chance of anyone seeing me naked in the foreseeable future, I would totally want to do this:

suntat

* * * * *

And I think that’s all I have today. Must go huddle in front of my woodstove now and thaw out my fingers.

Categories: Christmas, Family, Friends, Humor, kids, Life, trees, Uncategorized, Weather, Wildlife, Winter | 2 Comments

Wordless Wednesday: Christmas Past

lukecard06

Categories: Animals, Artwork, Christmas, Family, kids, Wordless Wednesday | 4 Comments

Wordless Wednesday: Window Lights

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Categories: Christmas, Family, Life, Wordless Wednesday | 3 Comments

Love Is Kind

As I may have mentioned a time or two before, we dearly love Christmas around here. In this house we start listening to Christmas music during that first temperature drop of Autumn, usually sometime in October, and we begin decking the halls the day after Thanksgiving.

This year Luke and Elizabeth were too impatient to wait till morning, so we dragged the tubfuls of Christmas decorations out of the shed and into the house as soon as we all got home Thanksgiving night. The kids set right to work unpacking stuff and strewing it all over the floor and furniture. Actually arranging things in a decorative manner is my job; they just want to play with all the shinies.

On Sunday I got tired of tripping over the half-emptied tubs, so I sorted through them to see what-all could go back into the sheds until later (the tree doesn’t come in until a week before Christmas, for various reasons) and what still needed to be unpacked for immediate hall-decking.

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is buying one special ornament each year to commemorate some recent event or current interest. This began twelve years ago, the first time Steve and I celebrated Christmas as husband and wife. I selected a little “wedding bells” ornament that year:

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It was nothing fancy, because we couldn’t afford anything fancy, but much like my $7 sterling-silver engagement ring I loved it for what it symbolized. Or, you know, what I thought it symbolized. Whatever.

So Sunday I was going through the tubs, and I came across a box that holds some of these commemorative ornaments. I looked inside and saw that the kids had already emptied it of its treasures.

Except for the wedding-bells ornament. They had left that tucked away inside the box, presumably so that I wouldn’t see it and be saddened by those memories.

It was a little thing, a small thoughtful gesture, nothing huge. But it touched me. It was a simple little reminder that we’re in this together and we want each other to feel loved and cared for. The whole spirit of Christmas in a minor act of kindness.

Happy Love Thursday, everyone, and happy holidays!

Categories: Christmas, Family, kids, Life, Love, Love Thursday | 2 Comments

It’s A PLAYSET.

Friday I picked up the kids from school and we headed down to Temec to see Madagascar 2. We had some time to kill after we’d gotten some lunch (primary rule of family outings: eat first, hungry children are the devil’s playthings) and before our showing started, so we decided to kill some time in the mall.

One of the shops we popped into was an American Greetings outlet. We spent about twenty minutes in there because Luke could not be pulled away from the big rack of 2008 collectible Christmas ornaments. Specifically, the Model T ornament, the “antique console-style television that shows the Andy Griffith Show on the screen and whistles the theme song when you press the button” ornament, the Union Pacific vintage aerotrain ornament, the John Deere tractor ornament…you get the idea. This isn’t the first time I’ve suspected that my son was born in the wrong era: he has an ardent passion for gadgets and vehicles built during the first half of the 20th century.

Sadly I could not afford to buy any of them for him — the matinee movie and lunch at Souplantation were our big splurge for the week, because we’re high rollers that way — and eventually we got him out of there.

After the movie (which was hilarious) we did some grocery shopping. Our last stop of the night was at Henry’s, one of those save-the-planet whole foods stores. We were in the dairy aisle when suddenly Luke’s eyes lit up and he pointed to something up high on the wall. “I want one of those!” he announced in tones of suppressed excitement.

I looked where he was pointing, and saw this:

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“You want…a dollhouse?” I asked uncertainly.

“It’s not a dollhouse,” he said, sounding mightily affronted. “It’s a playset. And also I want a Model T that’s the right size for the garage, and a little TV. And a fireplace.”

“I…um…” Possibly I could afford to get him these things for Christmas, in addition to the Satisfactorily Manly microscope and pocketwatch he’d already requested. But…well, I’m not proud of this, but…my brain was seizing up at the thought of what would happen if word got out that I had bought my eight-year-old son a dollhouse for Christmas.

It must have shown on my face, because Luke’s own expression lost some of its self-assurance. “It’s a playset,” he repeated, but he didn’t sound as sure of it this time. “Except…I guess that one does look a little bit like a dollhouse. I want a playset that doesn’t look like a dollhouse. With a TV and a fireplace and a Model T.”

Well then.

Yesterday while the kids were visiting their dad I was surfing the net, searching for the manliest dollhouse — er, playset — I could find.

Turns out there really are some fine manly dollhouses out there. This one’s nice:

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It’s also $250. Apparently you pay extra for the manliness, because pretty much every “playset” that isn’t made of pink plastic costs upwards of $80. Which didn’t seem like a lot last Christmas when the bucketfuls of money were still coming to this address, but now it sounds like a big damn chunk of cash. And naturally they don’t come STANDARD with Model T’s and fireplaces and televisions, so THAT’S going to be another limb. Why can’t he just be into Pokemon like all the other eight-year-olds?

Elizabeth has asked me for exactly one thing for Christmas: a metal detector. She is SO OVER the whole budgeting thing, and wants to use her metal detector to find loose change wherever she goes so that she can return to the good old days when she actually got to buy stuff from time to time.

Ah, the heartwarming spirit of Christmas.

Can you feel it?

Categories: Christmas, Family, kids, Life, NaBloPoMo | 5 Comments

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