Christmas Card Confessions

Last year, I worked delightedly for several hours (for several days) making my yearly Christmas cards.  They were beautiful and lovely and homemade with love. Then, I got discouraged over the time it would take to write personal messages in each card, and before I knew it -- Christmas was over.  I never actually sent aforementioned homemade cards.  Sigh. 

I will not go into the multifarious ways that Christmas Card Fiasco 2009 is a possible symbol for my life, haha, but let me just say -- with my fist raised high in the air --

This Year Will Be Different!  I Will Send My Homemade Cards!  I Will Post This Declaration On My Blog So That I CanNOT Fail Myself Again!

Haha.  Sigh.  Okay.  I feel better now.  Back to The Grading of The Papers. 

Home

The light is what guides you home, the warmth is what keeps you there. 

~Ellie Rodriguez

Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration. 

~Charles Dickens

It's only a week and a half until I leave the cozybutsometimeslonely lodging of my little apartment and head towards the hustle and bustle of another M Family Thanksgiving at Mom and Dad's.  It makes me smile just thinking about it -- the laughter, the drama, the cooking, the smooshing into a very small house and fighting over the remote control... ahhh.  Family.  Good times, good times.

My family is big.  And loud.  And passionate about almost everything.  Addendum.  Some of us are passionate about SOME topics, and some of us are bored to tears by said topics.  Which is part of the magic of my family -- there's always something to talk about and almost always someone who will listen to you talk about it.  Or argue with you about why you should be talking about something else :P

Home is a lovely blue house with a beautifully landscaped yard and an American flag always waving from the front porch.  

Home is a blue/white/yellow kitchen, a dining room with a picture window, and a bird identification book always close at hand.


Home is feeling the heat from a freshly poured cup of steaming coffee and seeing the sleepy faces of my family wandering out to the back porch, which has somehow become the unofficial gathering place for starting or ending each day when the whole family's in town.

Home is where the most beautiful, gracious woman in the world answers to the name of "Mom" and leaves little chocolate bars on the pillow when she knows you're coming home...

Home is where a smart, laughing salt-and-pepper headed man steals kisses from her when he thinks we're not looking and always makes sure there's enough coffee in the pot for "one more cup."

Home is where sisters live :)

Happy homecoming to all the weary travelers tonight.  May you know the truth and peace of being HOME -- wherever and with whomever that home exists.

Unzip Your Pants!

I'm sitting outside of Starbucks, sipping some deeeelicious coffee and grading some faaaabulous papers (love my students!) and I'm thinking about making wise decisions. 

I would like to be wise.  I love owls.  I love glasses.  I love men who wear sweater vests.  A love of wisdom seems implied.  Haha

In all seriousness, though, a wise Word once said that faith without works -- or for the purposes of my thoughts today -- "knowledge" without action ... is dead. 

So today I celebrate the extremely small step of  realizing what needs to be done ... and then doing it. Since my mom and dad practically drove that expression into the proverbial ground of my childhood, I know they'd be proud to know I'm living it today.  Well, technically, yesterday and today.  Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Oh, and the title?  Well, it's a sister-thing, but suffice it to say -- if your pants are too tight and they're giving you a tummy ache, you gotta unzip.  There's just No Other Option.  In life, sometimes you've gotta suck it up, let go of whatever's holding you too tightly, and do the right thing.  The cool thing is, whether in a real-life-pants-situation or a metaphysical decision-making situation, "unzipping" offers nearly-instant relief.

(for sisters A and G)

"Like a Wink and a Smile"

When I was eighteen, my very littlest sister and I were best friends. We'd take long walks around the neighborhood together, and I'd ask her not to forget me when I went away to college. She was eight and would promise me with total sincerity that she'd never, ever forget me. And she didn't. All through my first year of college, my little sister would draw me pictures and send me letters covered with stickers and drawings of girls in pretty dresses. When I came home for Christmas, I slept on the floor of her room and we'd whisper secrets to each other.


"Our" song was Harry Connick Jr's "Wink and A Smile" -- we'd sing it to each other and try to figure out which one of us was the Wink and which one was the Smile... Every time I hear this song, I think of that sweet, smiling, little-girl-faced sister who captured my heart so many years ago; baby B was my little soulmate.


This past Saturday, a tall, strong Pennsylvanian boy asked my baby sister B to be HIS soulmate.


She said yes.

Congratulations to my beloved sister and her new reason to smile :)

... and the world must know how wonderful, how wonderful you are!

My sisters and I sing snippets of our childhood to each other.  Yes, we sing.  Randomly, and without regard for where we are, if we see something that reminds us of our childhood -- BAM.  The singing dorkiness erupts and the laughter follows. 

This morning, while wishing my sister A a fabulous happy birthday, I was reminded of this song.  (Probably because I was singing it to her.)  

Happy Birthday, A.  Share your glory.