Monthly Archives: December 2008

The wheel in the sky keeps on turnin’
I don’t know where I’ll be tomorrow,
Oh, the wheel in the sky keeps on turning. . .
. . . for tomorrow. . .

Journey “Wheel In The Sky”

I have always found New Year’s Eve to be a strangely melancholy time.  I can’t help but remember so many of the New Year’s Eves gone past, and there is a part of me that eternally hopes that the next year will be better, somehow. And interestingly, the New Year’s Eves that I remember most were spent at New Year’s Eve Round Robins in Midland or Odessa, Texas, with my friends in PDAP.  Yeah, that was a really long time ago, but it was without question, a sweet time.  Not all of us are still around to tell the tale, but for those of us who are, wouldn’t it be fun to do it all again, just one more time?

There are always blessings to be found in abundance in any given year of my life, and I am deeply grateful to God for them. This year was no exception.  I have been blessed with good health, a wonderful loving family and amazing friends.  I have an incredible homeschool support group and a great church family.  I have a new kitten, who snuggles his little wet nose in my ear every night before he curls up between my feet.  Life is good!

But as I look into the dark glass of 2009, I feel so much more apprehensive than I have in many years.  I know so much of it has to do with the fact that we are moving back to Texas.  We have to sell our house in the worst economic conditions in 80 years.  Then we have to figure out how to move 6 cats and 4 dogs 1,171 miles across the country. We have to make new friends, (although I already have several really close friends in San Antonio and Austin), find a new church, a new homeschool group, a new life.  We have to leave Western North Carolina.  That thought alone is one I can only entertain for fleeting moments at a time.  I never wanted to leave these mountains. The economy is casting a long shadow over the hopes and dreams of most Americans.  And, as I suppose there must be at the beginning of any new administration, there are a lot of us who are  hoping for the best, but surely expecting the worst.  To me, this is a somber new year.

So, I am welcoming 2009 on a ‘one-day-at-a-time’ basis.  I guess that’s how all years should be handled, anyway.  It is my prayer that, in spite of appearances, it will be an amazing year full of joy and grace.  I pray that it will be a time of healing and personal growth for not just my immediate family, but for all of our extended family and friends.

And as a final nod to 2008, I am including a link to my favorite humorist’s “Year In Review”.  Dave Barry sums it up so much better than I ever could!   Click here: Dave Barry’s Year-In-Review

Happy New Year!

I don’t  have anything in particular to say, really, just a lot of random thoughts I would like to share.  Starting with clothing.  Mom and I went Christmas shopping yesterday at the mall down in Greenville.  Our annual tradition is to find a really beautiful dress for Faith to wear for Christmas.  So, the hunt was on.  And on.  And on.  I am not a prude by any stretch of the imagination, and am very laid back about weird fashions, in general.  But I have reached the end of my tolerance on this.  “Skanky” is NOT a fashion.  It’s tacky, sleazy and I will not pay for it.  More importantly, my daughter doesn’t want to wear that sort of clothing, and even if she did, it ain’t happening!  Have you SEEN what they are selling to 11 year old girls????  Who decided that young girls were supposed to look like, ah, how shall I say this delicately. . . prostitutes???

We checked all the usual suspects: Dillards, Belk, etc.  We skipped Macy’s because they officially told their employees they were not allowed to wish anyone a Merry Christmas.  No more of my money for them.  I was getting really, really discouraged, when we finally ran across a store that still sells elegant, tasteful clothing.  Expensive, but worth it.  Thank God for Coldwater Creek!  We found some really lovely things there, and Faith is going to be so thrilled.  But not nearly as thrilled as Mom and I were to find decent clothing.

We found slinky shirts and scanty lingerie being passed off as formal gowns.  We found lots of clothing for the gang banger in your life.  We found some obscenely expensive t-shirts and ratty jeans.  I have to wonder what our world would be like if clothing companies, department stores, designers, etc. decided that they weren’t going to sell that sort of garbage anymore.  What if they decided to sell flattering, tasteful, simple clothing that made everyone look NICE?  Oops. . .sorry, I’ve slipped into my little fantasy again.  The same fantasy in which everyone spends an entire week saying only kind things to everyone they meet and the media only reports good, happy news.  Imagine with me what that would be like!!  Wow. . .

Okay, back on planet earth, I have some happy thoughts, too.  We helped out with a local organization’s Christmas gift distribution today.  The Storehouse here does an amazing job of taking care of folks in our community who are in need of food, clothing, whatever.  Lynn, the self-described “demented elf” is the lady who runs it, and she is nothing short of amazing.  Our 4-H club volunteered to help, along with lots of other homeschoolers and various others in our community.  There were literally thousands of gifts there!  It was heartwarming to me to see all the warmth and love there.  The kids were blown away by how many families were there because they couldn’t afford to buy presents for their children.  A real eye-opener, to be sure.

An added bonus was getting to see our old pastor and catch up with him for a bit.  He is a wonderful man, with a heart of gold and a warm loving spirit.  I got to see lots of other folks that I hadn’t seen in quite a while, and that was really nice.  With our upcoming move looming large, it’s a sweet blessing for me to get to visit with old friends before we leave.

And, no, we don’t know when we are planning to move.  Our house must sell first.  However, we have found a realtor that we really like: Janis Moore with Keller Williams.  She is sending a professional photographer to come take pictures of our home next week!  I am very hopeful.  Even in this economy, God can sell our house!

Tomorrow will find us back down in Greenville to do Christmas with my lifelong friend, Emily, and her family.  We pick a day every year to get together and exchange gifts and of course, eat!  We are all looking forward to that.  Then, on Sunday after Mass, our 4-H Club is going caroling.  Afterward, they are all coming over here for hot cocoa.

I have had a warm fuzzy feeling all day, and it was topped off tonight in the coolest way.  Faith and Alex each have a friend spending the night, and we hadn’t seen or heard any of them for quite a while.  I went up to check, assuming that the boys were probably playing video games, and that the girls were probably watching Christmas movies.  Nope.  All of them were playing a board game together, having a wonderful time!  And people ask me why we homeschool. . .

So, that’s it for my randomness tonight.  Now that my Adobe InDesign class is over I will have a bit more time for this blog.  I love it, but it has been really busy lately.  Peace, out.

For all you Global Warming folks:  It is snowing in South Texas tonight.  No, really.  It has been snowing in South Texas off and on most of the evening.  Yep. . .  in no time at all, even the most hardcore Global Warming followers will have to admit that Al Gore is truly the moron I always took him for.  “An Inconvenient Truth”?  No doubt, when you consider the millions of dollars that we have been forced to waste preventing something that does not exist and we couldn’t control, anyway.

Somebody down there stick a 10 gallon cowboy hat on a snowman for me!!