Accepto Patronum

One of the great things about being human is the ability to plan and carry it out. Christmas is the best opportunity for that kind of thing, the only drawback being my tendency to over-plan. Lists have lists until only Santa's naughty and nice list is longer. Our everyday projects crash into Christmas requiring contingency plans. I get overwhelmed, but I'm slow to ask for help. This year I got told.
"Accept help or quit" wasn't the exact message, but it felt that way.
At first I was upset and quitting looked like the better option. As time went by I began to see how good and necessary the help really was. Long term I am certain that my kids will get good at doing their chores, but Christmas won't wait for that to happen. Christmas requires order, so when the elves showed up with buckets and pails and made the impossible possible we rejoiced. When the last few sparkly bits needed to be finished while a bunch of other things required attention it was such a relief to call my sister and ask for help. She has a gift for sparkly bits.
The lesson seems to be that expecto patronum isn't rude, and that accepto patronum is imperative. It has been a very happy holiday.

Christmastide

The older the kids get the more pressure there is before Christmas. They have to be at so many different celebrations and activities and they have more sophisticated taste in presents. Gone are the days when Grandma's house was the big party and Little People sent them into ecstasy. It feels like every single moment is all ready taken up and there is no room for any spiritual spontaneity. If God has something to say, he'll have to wait for Christmas. Then Christmas comes and just like that it's all over. The presence of the tree enters the decaying orbit where it moves from beacon to clutter. There is nothing to do but take it down--unless your Catholic. I'm beginning to get the hang of the differences with the way I was raised to do things and the way I've adopted of doing things and at St. Mary's Christmas doesn't stop until Epiphany. I have all that time after Christmas to reflect on Christmas without any checklist or deadline, a fridge full of leftovers and a clean house. What a blessing!

A Tale of Four Journals

It started with Larry Crab's PAPA prayer. For me it's a good discipline for both seeing and expressing myself as I am. I filled up four or five journals before I realized that they were all puny and over-priced. On top of that, there was no continuity. Every journal was an interesting and useful design, but I disliked the way the changes intruded on my purpose. I wanted to get in a groove and stay with it. Enter the Levenger Infinity Journal. The paper is nicely ruled. It's quite fat, and there is no bleed through. The best part though is the refills. When I come to the end I remove the current journal and put a new one in the leather cover. It's seamless which is what you want when you are focusing on an important task.

One Journal leads to another. I'm reading through the Great Books and other stimulating intellectual volumes, and I wanted a place to record all the new insights and such I was gleaning. My first thought was to get another Infinity Journal in a different color, but they've stopped selling it. Casting about for alternatives, I used a gift card to Barnes and Noble to select a gorgeous red leather journal with an amazing owl on the cover. Since I'm playfully enrolled in the Owl Correspondence School, it was a perfect fit.

Harriet is set in the sixties. Anytime I see a display of materials devoted to the period I take a look to see what might work for the plot. A table at B&N was set up like a shrine to Woodstock. I'd begun to scribble down ideas on whatever was in my purse and it was a mess. The peace sign journal was too perfect. All my scraps found a home and these days I pull it out for anything that inspires me no matter which project it belongs to. I've even gone so far as to get multi-colored pens so that the inside matches the outside--lots of fun.

The last journal isn't as much fun, but it's important. I'm going on a diet. The journal lets you record tons of data so that you can focus on other aspects of your attempt to get healthy when this or that strategy has gone stale. I like that.

Write it down. As a writer I should have known what magic that strategy can hold, but I didn't.

It's On!

Today we had the first successful meeting of the Great Books Group, 3:00 o'clock at Barnes and Noble. It was decided that we'll use the guide to the Great Books written by Anthony O'Hear because it is a reasonably sized selection from the books that is also heavy on narrative--a good place for beginners to start. No one needs to buy the book. It is not too late to join. We are reading The Iliad first and would love to have you at our next meeting, the first Sunday in January at 3:00.

Thanks, Einstein!

The other day a glass landed on our tile floors and exploded, like always. For me this is generally a time of mourning and wishing I was more coordinated or something. I feel bad no matter how small the loss. Part of it is growing up with a feeling of scarcity and part of it is reading how Gandhi made his grandson crawl over the ground to find the stub of a pencil so as to honor the work of the man who made the pencil.
The particular glasses we are breaking at the moment are thick and when they break there is a sparkly pile of generally non-threatening shards, and as I started to sweep them up, I heard a voice inside saying "e=mc2." I immediately relaxed. I know it's not an exact application, but in general principle it's true. Somehow the entropy that my clumsy choice unleashed is not final. In a mysterious, grand theme of the universe kind of way, my glass isn't lost--it's just transformed. I'd never thought of it that way, and it backed up and illumined the ways I'd considered loss before.
The last year has been a shower of death and loss and it looks like there are at least two more coming. All of them were/are men that I expected to live much longer. I lost Uncle Ed who always provided a sort of quiet bass to my father's tenor. He was the sort of person who was comfortable with a kid watching him fix a stone wall for hours. I lost Uncle Tom who introduced me to the joys of rare meat. My favorite memory of him is the pride he took in getting a grant for RIF. I lost my biological Uncle Bob. He was funny and he took my side against Mother. He helped me to have faith that brainy genes really were in there somewhere. On our wedding day, he prayed over Kurt and I just as he had prayed over Mother and Dad.
"All things work together for good..." is sometimes as hard to see as the usefulness of a pile of broken glass, but that doesn't make it any less true.

S.H.E again!

Mother had this book lying around the house. I have always been a reading omnivore, so if it was there... I liked the logic of delineating each task on a card and setting them aside was almost as good as ticking things off a list without the trouble of drawing up a list every day. I didn't put it to work though until we were expecting our third and all warnings were that this was when it got tough, so I wanted to be ready. I bought my own and a bunch of 3x5 cards and Attila the Hun was born. (I name nearly everything I use frequently including my 3x5 card file.) After a while my natural need to complete all remaining tasks took over and Attila was overkill. I respectfully put her away and then the slow slide into slovenly got worse with each new baby. After a move and three more children I'm not sure I really know how to make it work anymore, so I remembered Attila and all those 3x5 cards. The number of tasks is simply overwhelming, but I've been meeting with the kids and parceling out responsibilities. Everyone but Kurt will have their own card box. I'm hoping it's a success not just for me, but for all of us.
If you are looking for a good system to help you master whatever is going on in your house, I recommend Sidetracked Home Executives. Even if you're not a slob it helps you picture what needs done and how to accomplish it.

Mariah Came Home

I just found out. Best wishes and happy thoughts.