Time Warp

Just over a week ago, I finished a big project for work. This presented me with lots of "leisure time" for Christmas week. We'd be home for Christmas so this was indeed a wonderful opportunity.

I'm generally a multi-tasker. I play on-line Scrabble (actually, it's called Literati) several times a day with my good friend, Judi. But I'm rarely just playing Literati; I'm usually also eating dinner, or watching TV, or cooking at the stove.

But when I want to, I can focus on just one thing. Intently. And that's just what I did.

With a full week of time for me to use just as I want to, I decided to invest some time in the completion of the transcription of my mother-in-law's father's World War I journal. It's a project I started for her some time ago, but until last Sunday, I'd only squeezed in a little bit of time here and there, and hadn't made much progress with the 270 page hand-written journal.

So, during this Christmas week, I came to know Elmer Underwood. And his buddies, Monty, Dunlevy, Grover, Jake, and many others. And I learned much about France. Elmer had many opportunities to travel while serving in the US Army in rural France. He visited museums, old chateaux, historic sites, and took hundreds of walks into nearby villages. By the river. Usually to the YMCA for ice cream and lemonade. And he made lots of friends at all kinds of shops -- patisserie, cafes, restaurants.

And he was an incessant reader. And, of course, loved to write. Letters to his sweet Marie. And daily entries in his journal. And more than anything else, he loved to get mail. Soldiers in Europe during WWI didn't have our current-day luxuries of e-mail, instant messaging, and web-cams. All they had was mail. And sometimes it took weeks for letters to arrive from the United States to our soldiers.

However, our current electronic access provided great fact-checking while I transcribed. Elmer's handwriting was often very difficult to read. Google maps is a great tool -- when in doubt of the name of a remote village, I could type several variations, one at a time, into Google maps and sure enough, a map would pop up.

I became an historical detective during this past week. Did you know that you can go to the Louvre's website and type in the name of a sculpture in its collection, and hear an entire lecture, complete with linked photographs? Fantastic! Here's one that I learned a lot about -- the Winged Victory of Samothrace. Fascinating!

The transcription is done. In fact, it's printing right now, and I'll punch holes and put it into a notebook. What a privilege to get to know Elmer so well.

Christmas Joys

Psst! I found it! Anne, look! I found it! It's right here, in the third cubbyhole from the left!

I reach into the open secretary desk and silently slide out a small, smudged index card. Yup, this is it. Each of our names is strung out on the card, one under the other, oldest to youngest. There's my name. Near the bottom.

It's Mom's Christmas list.

I found it.

But at the same time, my tummy knots. Do I really want to know what I'm getting for Christmas? Yes. No. Yes. No. Yes!

Maybe if I look really, really quickly and only scan down the list as far as my brother's name, and then squint past my name . . . I wouldn't spoil my surprise.

Oops. I saw it. Right there next to my name. C.C. Hmmm...C.C? What could it be? C.C.? Captain Crunch? Candy Canes? I can't imagine.

I hear muffled footsteps. It might be Mom! I quickly push the index card back into its slot and studiously start flipping through the magazine on the desk . . . and smile innocently as Mom enters the room.

Fast forward 49 years . . .

We gather at church -- old friends and new, young and old. Some have volunteered, and some have been recruited. We prepare for the cold by getting our fill of homemade soups, delicious BBQ, and yummy cookies. I peer into the sanctuary.

The costumes are paired, and laying across the backs of the pews. I look for mine.


We get dressed. Layer after layer. We line up according to our role.

I overhear one costumed man quietly speak as he steps into line, "I'm here every year; I wouldn't miss it. This is what really starts Christmas for me." As we process outside, I carefully step up onto the box behind Mary and Joseph.

Cars slowly glide by for the next hour and twenty minutes. Some stop. Some get out to look more closely. Some drive down a side street and sweep back around for another look.

I watch Mary intently. She warms her hands. The wind is cold.

An unexpected warmth as we pause to reflect.

A new tradition begins for us.

Oops! I Lost a Whole Week!

Some of our friends in New Hampshire are still out of power from last week's horrendous ice storm. In fact, there are even parts of the state that have cancelled school altogether until January 5th because of impassable and downright dangerous passages.

So when my friend Judi learned yesterday that the district where she teaches is one of those see-you-in-the-New-Year places, I thought, "Wow! A whole month off from school!" How will they ever recover, I wondered. Two full weeks off before Christmas.

Stop the presses. Where's that calendar? What's that you say? Christmas is NEXT week? Whoa!

Not sure how I lost a whole week, but apparently, I did. A week from right now, we'll be at our Christmas Eve service at our new church. Can't wait.

But then again. . . I think I'll savor every moment between now and then. Just breathe.

O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum

We put up our Christmas tree yesterday. And it's lovely. All white lights, the tiny kind. Almost lacy. And bedazzled with many, many homemade ornaments -- some from Mike and Beth's earliest years in school. Lots of glitter, macaroni, cotton balls, and curly red pipe cleaners.

When our kids were young, I'd lead the family on an annual excursion to find a suitable tree. We'd spend a long, long time picking out the perfect Christmas tree. Some years we visited the Rotary Club's Christmas tree stand at the Shaw's parking lot. And other years, we'd traipse through the snow at a local tree farm. Before long, Mike and Beth were well trained to carefully examine any tree under consideration --



Back then, I preferred a gumdrop tree -- dense, not at all see-thru-able, broad across the bottom, and not too pointy on top. It had to have plenty of room for many lights and ornaments. And it had to look good all the way around. The kids knew that if they could see through it, they knew to move on to another. And they knew that Mom always had the final say. Yup. Me.


With age comes maturity, right?




This year's tree is simply splendid. Al and I chose it in about 45 seconds at the Boy Scout's tree sale in Bar Harbor. The tree has a couple of thinner parts--I can even see straight through to the wall in a few spots. But I love it because it's in our Maine house. It's our tree. And I can look at its ornaments and remember Christmases when Beth and Mike were young and still at home.

I think I'm a grown-up. Maybe.

Merry Christmas!

Lesson Learned

I use AOL's Instant Messenger daily. It's an easy way to keep in touch with friends and family. And I often post a "status" message when I'm working from home, when we've gone off to church, or when we've gone up to bed.

Yet on very busy days, I may not even get to my computer until very late in the day. This was a problem yesterday. I gave my sister a horrible scare and I feel terrible about it.

This was the Acadia Chorale Society's Christmas concert weekend. We had two performances; one was Saturday night, and the other was Sunday afternoon. Sunday was such a busy day for us, we left for church early (8 AM) and didn't return until after church, errands, concert, and after-concert party (7 PM).

All the while my status message on Instant Messenger said I'd gone to bed. We were in such a hurry to leave yesterday morning, that I hadn't used my computer before leaving for church. In fact, we'd never turned on our cell phones because of church and concert etiquette.
My dear sister, Anne, couldn't reach me by computer OR cellphone. Since I'd recently blogged about how we're now using wood and propane to heat the house, she feared the worst.

We were unaware of her concern (and the concern of many others) until we pulled into our driveway last night and a Hancock County sheriff's car pulled in right behind us. He'd been trying to reach us for several hours, had contacted our neighbors, and told us to call my sister as soon as we got into the house.

As the sheriff pulled out of the driveway, he rolled down his window and called into us, "You DO have carbon monoxide detectors, don't you, now that you're heating with propane and wood?"

"Yes," we called back. Hmmm...did we? While I was reassuring my sister on the telephone, Al checked our smoke detectors.

I'll be stopping at Home Depot this morning. Those carbon monoxide detectors will be in place this afternoon.

Thanks, Anne, for taking such good care of us. I love you!

A Flurry of New Friends

It's snowing here today. And it's breathtakingly beautiful. I love snow.

When I woke up this morning, I looked out the window and detected a few random snowflakes. VERY few. Came downstairs, made my coffee, and while standing at the kitchen window, noticed that the snowflakes were coming a bit heavier. Right now, mug o' joe in hand, in my favorite recliner, I can look out seven different windows, and I'm in a snowglobe! The flakes are playfully spinning first slowly, then frantically racing, and finally, coming down in earnest, covering the ground with icy lace. It's going to be a beautiful weekend. Three to six inches of the white stuff predicted for tomorrow. Ahhh. . . I really love it.

And we're enjoying a flurry of new friends here, too. We live in an area with quite a few retired/semi-retired folks. People are certainly busy but there is a noticeably slower pace of life here and it's charming. People are willing to take the time to get to know each other. Just my cup of tea since I love to meet new people. And, interestingly, we aren't identified by our professions; we aren't caught up in the trappings of the work that we do or did. And people aren't usually frenzied to get from one appointment to another.

Yesterday, we went to our doctor's office for our flu shots (better late than never!), and ended up visiting for quite a while with the nurse who gave us the injections. While the conversation went from needle size to platelet donations (I'm a regular), he shared with us the story of his wife whose life was extended by two years because of regular platelet infusions and a bone marrow transplant she had while valiantly fighting leukemia. We weren't in a big hurry so we stayed and visited with him for about twenty minutes. It was a breath of fresh air to meet and visit with James.

Ginny, Ben, Mary, Debbie ---some of our new friends from church choir. Bernie, Kay, Marty, Dave, Joan, Jim -- some of our new friends from our neighborhood. It's great fun to get to know new people, to spend time together, and to laugh together.

Taking time to really get to know someone is a luxury that we can enjoy during this time of our lives. It takes my breath away. Just like the first snow of the season.

Time to Get Cookin'

Attention, people! We're in a recession.

Sure glad we had the financial pundits let us in on THAT headline.

So, how can we respond? We've given all of this a great deal of thought lately.

Well, we're down to using one car. And it sits in the driveway much of the time.

We've been combining errands for fewer trips into town for months now. It's habit now.

We're wearing sweaters and warm socks more, and heating the house almost exclusively with wood and propane now.

This is a great time of year to cut back on 'eating out' to just once a month (unless we're traveling, of course). There aren't too, too many restaurants open on the island during the winter anyway (there are plenty, but not nearly as many as at the height of the summer tourism time.)

And we've decided to be much more frugal with our dinner meals when we eat at home (not that we've been big spenders in groceries, but every little bit helps). We're going to try the following on each week's menu:




One night a week, an egg-based meal, e.g., omelets, scrambled eggs, souffle, strata, waffles;









One night a week, a SOUP and bread meal (we LOVE home-made soups, often make popovers from scratch, and just pulled out our old bread machine);











One night a week, a stir-fry meal (we unearthed our wok, too!);









One night a week, a main-course salad with grilled chicken or shrimp;







One night a week, a pasta or grain based meal (whole wheat pasta, quinoa, etc.);








One night a week of chicken or fish; and











One night a week of beans and rice (Please! Send your favorite recipe).


We can certainly live simply, more frugally, and still eat well. VERY well. I'm poring over the vegetarian and soup cookbooks we have -- I'm a sucker for those color pictures and want to try everything!

When do we eat?