Quiet at last, darn it

My son and daughter-in-law and my grandson left this morning. It was a wonderful visit. My grandson has lived in his big town since he was adopted. This is his first visit to a small town. Wow! Movie Theatre a block away! Next to the library! The grocery store a half block--Dollar General a few dozen feet! Grade school two blocks, town park and pool a few more blocks. It was all so wonderful! I swear, he smiled every moment he was here. It was good for the girls who have already forgotten how easy life is when you don't have to be driven somewhere to get anywhere because you are there.

I feel greatly ashamed of myself about the Christmas Cards. We ended up with 40 of them from freinds and family. And I was so hurt and so worried. And then the phone calls, e-mail and people stopping us in the store to tell us how beautiful and how thoughtful my handmade cards were. I felt so awful for being so small minded and petty.

It has been a beautiful Christmas, white and frosted, warm and cozy. Everything a Christmas should be. I am blessed.

So why am I so sad?

Martha Stewart and me- II- this close!

I got up early today to feed the cats and every window in the house has lacy ice-work in the corners. It looks like Martha Stewart came by in the night and decorated for me. No--not Jack Frost--he is imaginary--everybody knows that--nope--it was Martha --I can tell--it's prettier than natural.

I live in a perfect little 80 year old house that I swear to you looks just like Gladys Tabers Stillmeadow illustrations. It is a one story from the front but the attic is finished. It is white with green shutters and roof. From the front it is perfectly symetrical--a door in the middle and windows on both sides. It has plaster walls that are arched to the ceiling--so no corner. It has hard wood floors and a giant kitchen sans dishwasher and garbage disposal. I have dishwashers, my girls--but so far no garbage disposer. Although the windows have storm windows--the frost still decorates and the wind still howls and makes you think of any movie trying to scare you.
The sunrise this morning was all pale rose quartz and opal blue. Sometimes this place is so beautiful I ache with it. And then some human will screw it up.

I'm going to read OUR MISS BOO by Margaret Rundbeck. It's all about a charming and fanciful child of four or five and at the end, after all these touching little scenes only a mother would notice in such detail you find out that Boo isn't the woman's natural child--
I'm raising my Granddaughters. I don't get to be a Grandmother--almost never. Mostly I have to be a MOTHER and a REFEREE and DISCIPLIN--IST and the one who yells CLEAN THE DAMN CAT BOX!

Yep--Martha and me--we're this ll close.

Christmas Cards

It is Christmas Card time! I got a big handful today. I have finally learned the lesson--if you want to get Christmas Cards--you have to send them. I usually spend so much time making and selling them that I never get them sent out but last year and this year I made hundreds of cards for my husband's business and mine and for friends. Over 200 sent out to friends. I have received 13. But who's keeping count. All are from church members who send me somber and religious cards--the kind you buy from Christian magazines. I appreciate that they sent them. Really. But --I spent a great amount of time hand making cards for you--HAND MAKING----stop. I am being very unkind.Very un Christian. Very very un Christian. And 200 hundred cards sent out for two years and I get 13 cards!!! ------------------okay. I'm greatful to get 13 cards. After years of getting a card from our bank and our insurance salesman and the dentist--and that was it--13 cards is nice. FAMILY MEMBERS HAVEN'T EVEN SENT CARDS!!!

Calm down. Calmer.....calmer..........2 cards came today from business associates of my husband--they were very funny and very non Christian. I hung them up right next to the card (printed on newsprint--yes--newsprint) of the nativity. I got two of those. CALM.........

HAPPY! CALM!

It is painfully cold and snow is still on the ground and the steps are icy. I fell down the steps at Church on Sunday. I swear--whomever is sticking those little pins in that bloody doll should really find a new hobby/religion.

It could be that my pain is making me so ungrateful for the Christmas Cards I've received. It could be the cabin fever of not being able to get out much. It could be the frustration of everything in my life for the last 26 years or so--who knows! But I'm ungrateful, and in pain and suffering cabin fever and BEYOND frustrated and no matter how often I read Gladys Taber and her sweet sweet life---and watch Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House or Mickey Mouse cartoons---sigh---

Boy those ladies in the Christian Women's Club are in for a big surprise.

We've had several inches of snow and it is still snowing. The trains are silent again. This is a good thing? I appreciate it anyway. I've spent zero time outside. Too cold and I'll start an asthma attack and end up taking too much stuff to stop it and then end up sicker than ever. I'd rather be out in it actually--but I can't. They are counting the birds tomorrow. Christmas bird count. I'd love to be out there. I'd love to see what hardy beauties stay the winter. I'll print the list when it's published.

AGGGHHH! A TRAIN JUST WENT BY! DAMN--er --good.
The house is decorated for Christmas. Actually the girls and my husband decided to do it all the day after Thanksgiving. We missed the Holiday Lights parade and party downtown--a whole two blocks long and only a half a block from our house--but it's always been fun. Don't know how we managed to forget it but they wanted to get in the mood for Christmas inside the house. Last night the girls mentioned how much they missed not going. I just sat there and became a nodding doll. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Best thing to do with teenage girls around Christmas. I told them to clean the cat box. They left the room. The cat box didn't get cleaned.

Last year the girls got so many cash and gift card gifts that my husband and I decided to take the girls to the day after Christmas sales in the near by larger town stores. At 6 A.M.. Five stores in under two hours.They got wonderful prices and loved what they chose--we went out after that to a breakfast place and stuffed ourselves as if we'd done a hard days work by 8 A.M. We all went home and and went back to bed--my husband and I vowing this would never happen again. This year--we did not give handfuls of cash (I can't stop distant family from doing what they wish). I chose lovely things I like. Heaven help them.

I have to make lunches for the girls confirmation class today--and I have to spot clean the public rooms because they are bringing home a friend from the confirmation class to spend the night and then Saturday go back to church to practice the Christmas program--which means the friends mother goes to our church and will cross excamine her on how clean (dirty) our house is. I've mnanaged to let only the pastor in our house in two years. Nothing shocks her. I'm sure it will be shocking enough to this young ones mind--the number of books in every room (EVERY ROOM)and artwork and other things. The 1950's toys on the bookshelf. The bird houses made from covers of my books .I can't wait. The church ladies made me President of the women's group starting in January. I guess they need to find out what they got themselves in to.

This font is the color Nebraska was in the fall. We moved here at the end of August a few years ago when the farmers from the Colorado state line to the tiny town we now call home in the Western Nebraska panhandle were still growing field after field of golden massive headed sunflowers, field after field of wheat and acres of beans. It was a stunning patchwork quilt in golds, tans, greens and dark fertile earth brown.

Everything this last year was corn green and corn dried up tan. I'm sure the farmers were happy selling all that corn to the green fuel processors. A new plant is being built nearby. I'm sure everyone was happy the earth will be safer by people using eco-friendly, re-suppliable, sustainable fuels. And I'm happy about that, too.

But ---my drive to the lake or over to a friends farm house for the Christian Women's meeting every month, or the just for the fun of it trip around the country to the three state lines this end of the country touches--well, they just aren't beautiful or stunning or amazing or heartbreakingly beautiful as they were when farmers sold sunflower seeds and sunflower oil and wheat and oats.

I live in an area both coasts call "fly over" with a dismissive tone. We don't seem to matter in BIG things in the world. We don't even matter in BIG things in our State which is governed from the Eastern side and often the talk in the local restaurant, the hamburger place, and church lunches is about our "importance" neglected all around.

And yet--along with the corn for green fuel mania--I live where 24 hours a day coal trains go by on two tracks practically surrounding this town--there really is no "wrong side of the tracks" here--they are right around and through town--there is a "as far away from the tracks as you can get" though. Up near the golf course or over by the University Farm. Nothing else goes on these train tracks. Not cars or food or any form of goods for sale. Just 15 tons of coal per car. There are 3 miles of train filled with coal in one direction and 3 miles of train empty of coal going in another direction 24 hours a day. Over and Over and Over. The volume of coal going through this one little town is astounding. This country runs on coal. The coal runs through this town. Any little glitch in the system of getting the coal from Wyoming and Montana to where ever and the system comes to a silent and yet thundering halt. There have been several rail break downs--so --many people were talking (and small towns as well as big towns have "people talking") about the possibilities. The coal companies and train companies quickly put out statements that these were simple maintanence. Still--

It is very silent today. We had ice and snow and temperatures of -8. The double engines with their miles long tails are not running. Something has put a glitch in the delivery of the fuel I am using to heat my house (thank God) and turn on my lights and use the computer. Somehow-I think we "fly over" states matter awfully.

I'm going to join the local Democratic Party. They march with a huge red white and blue banner saying NEBRASKA DEMOCRATS in the County Fair parade each year. They go right in front of my house. In a year or so no one carrying on the proud tradition of parading may be alive to hold up the banner so I thought they might need me. Right now there are 3 women all wonderfully active white haired leftists carrying the banner for Democrats in Republican strongholds, hiding their love of Hillary and Obama --except during the County Fair Parade. I dye my hair but I'll fit right in.