painting furniture
brightening our color schemes
facelift for tired wood
upgrades
Goals and Aspirations for 2024
At the end of each month for the past decade plus a few years, I’ve reviewed my yearly goals and spent time reflecting on how I’m living the life I want to live ~ a way of becoming my own accountability partner and having frequent check-ins to evaluate my progress. The process I’ve been using has been helpful in guiding steps of intentionality and observable differences – – it has put teeth of quantifiable measure in the conversations I have with myself whenever I might attempt to believe that I’m making progress and provided a way to articulate exact progress so that I’m not merely shuffling things back and forth and deceiving myself. I make a table, establish goals, and keep an accountability log of accomplishments and action steps through month-end reflections. I learned this system somewhere in my early years of teaching and it was reinforced by my doctoral chair, Dr. Rachel Pienta, who assured me that it would get me to the diploma at the finish line with fewer tears and less frustration.
She was absolutely right.
This year, though, I’m tweaking my process by a few degrees to get to the things in life I need to accomplish. Everything on my list is not an ongoing action goal – – some of these are aspirations, and I need to recognize the differences and prioritize my efforts. Weight loss is an action goal that needs quantifiable progress markers with a timeline. Downsizing and retirement planning needs quantifiable progress markers with a less strict timeline. But gardening and hobbies like knitting or quilting or canning fig preserves are not as high on the list of priorities, and they’ll fit in between the more challenging goals where time permits.
So this year, I’m using a different system. I’m evaluating my progress in bold areas monthly, and all other areas quarterly.
I’m looking through a proverbial viewfinder for the big areas of life where I need the presence of some focal lenses, and I’m thinking of the smaller aspects of those larger lenses as I adjust the diopter lens and take snapshots of my journey.
2024 underway, taking us on a new scenic journey. The conductor punched our tickets at midnight – – (and where we live in rural Georgia, our front door literally shook with a sonic boom from someone’s Tannerite explosion welcoming the new year).
It’s here, folks! Welcome 2024, and cheers to you and yours!
The Viewfinder
| Optical Lenses of Focus | Diopter Lenses of Possibility | Snapshots of Success |
| Hobbies and Life Outside Work | Sewing, Knitting, Quilting Traveling and camping Gardening Birdwatching Monthly reading group with Sarah J. Donovan Writing with Ethicalela.com 5 times a month, and every day in April Writing with Two Writing Teachers at the Slice of Life Blog every Tuesday and every day in March Writing with Spiritual Journey Blogging group on Thursdays The Stafford Challenge – a poem every day starting mid-January Writing group book proposals | These columns will be shared as progress occurs each month or quarter. For starters, I am sharing my blog post on Slice of Life today. And just like that, I’ve taken a step into 2024 with a hobby that I enjoy. |
| Career and Work Life | Financial Strategies Retirement Plans Downsizing home, possessions Continuing Education Networking | |
| Spiritual Life | Church Life Prayer Life (OLW) | |
| Family Life | Weekly Dinners and game nights In Person Visits FaceTime Visits Group Texts Traveling together Celebrate Red Letter Days | |
| Mental and Physical Health | Reach top of weight range (I know this number) by June 1 and maintain it throughout 2024 Walking Hiking campsite trails |
My One Little Word for 2024 is pray. Today’s diopter word is step. As I pray for 2024 to be a productive and fulfilling year, I must step into it with purpose, and take the steps necessary – to do my part – to make it a great year.
Family Yule Log – Part 3 of 3
Part 3
From the Yule Log recipe notes: A French Christmas tradition that dates back to the 19th century, the cake represents the yule log that families would burn starting on Christmas Eve, symbolizing the new year to come and good luck ahead.
After baking the Yule Log cake and spreading and rolling it with heavy whipped cream in an inside whirl, my daughter went to work icing the cake to look like a tree log.
When her masterpiece was complete, she thanked me. ”Without you, I probably would have given up.”
Her comments stopped me in my tracks. I hadn’t offered much of anything other than simply being there. I’d been the one to make the mistake of flipping the frosting onto the floor. Fortunately, it had landed like Mount Crumpit, allowing me to scoop off the top of the mountain and then clean up what was touching the floor, saving what was usable for the bark frosting and discarding the rest – – while she stood there laughing (shhhh…..don’t tell anybody this part).
But it sure got me thinking about the Yule Logs of our lives and the teamwork we need to conquer their challenges to reach their summits. I thought of the lessons I’d learned.
- Even if the Yule Log had been a complete disaster, the experience making it was the blessing. Togetherness in the kitchen is sacred, and things happen there that can’t happen anywhere else. There is conversation, laughter, mistake making, and forgiveness.
- The one who reads the whole recipe and sees how overwhelming it will be may be less equipped than the one who has never read it and sees the whole journey as merely a series of small steps. Some of us work on long range plans, some on short range plans.
- Sometimes supporting someone is just a matter of presence and encouragement – nothing more.
- Just because she’d never made a Yule Log didn’t mean she couldn’t turn out a masterpiece. I’m pretty sure Michelangelo had never painted a Sistine Chapel ceiling before, either. He nailed it on the first attempt, and so did she. Not only was this Yule Log gorgeous, it was also delicious.
- I need to stop counting the obstacles and focus on the possibilities. Dollar General sells $15 mixers on Christmas Eve, and they do the same work as the top of the line Kitchen Aid mixers. The gas oven is the same 350 degrees that an electric oven is. There are bowls that will appear out of nowhere when you need another one – some plastic, some metal, some glass. You get a second wind somewhere at the beginning of a long task, and it will see you through.
- Without each other, we can accomplish much more than we can accomplish alone.
- There is both starting power and staying power in support and encouragement from others to make it to the finish line.
- When I wonder why I’m standing in a kitchen on Christmas Eve never having guessed I’d be making a Yule Log, that’s the time to listen for the lessons that life is sending my way through the blessings of my children. It’s in the unfamiliar, uncertain places where we draw on faith and learn our greatest lessons.
- I need to do a better job of expressing to each of my children how very proud I am of each of them and how much I love them. They do things that terrify me and things that amaze me.
- It isn’t luck or magic that is needed for any of this. It’s prayer and divine intervention, and they are not the same things.
In the years ahead, my hope is that the moments of making this Yule Log burn warmly, living on as embers that remind us that the living of life is in the journey, and it isn’t for the faint of heart. It takes each other, and it takes willingness and courage. It takes a lot of work, and there will be mishaps. It takes forgiveness and laughter. But most importantly, it takes faith, hope, and love.
8 O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.
Psalm 34:8
Family Yule Log – Part 2 of 3
Part 2
At 8:00 p.m. on Christmas Eve, my daughter and I began our first-ever Yule Log baking adventure in our pajamas in a rural countryside VRBO kitchen that was unfamiliar to us. When our Kentucky family got together to plan the Christmas dinner, everyone decided to divide the menu and each prepare a dish. Ever so daringly and boldly, she volunteered us to bring a Yule Log. She’d found an ambitious recipe online and had shopped for all the ingredients. She measured them into bags and brought them to the rental house.
By the time we arrived back from the only open store, a Dollar General on the backside of nowhere, we were well into the Christmas Eve hours when children are tucked into bed and elves begin working their magic. And we needed more than magic. We needed divine intervention. Lots and lots of prayer – my One Little Word for 2023.
The recipe looked intimidating. We watched the video of the woman making it to try to ease my apprehension. So much had to go right, and I was fearful of a flop.
To ante up the challenge, we were using dishes that weren’t ours, cooking in a gas oven we didn’t know. The cardinal rule in baking is to “know thine oven,” and this beast was a complete and total stranger from another realm.
Somehow, though, after all the beating of the egg whites with sugar to form stiff peaks and folding in that mixture with the flour and egg yolk and cocoa, she pulled a perfectly baked chocolate sponge cake from the oven, ready to be inverted onto parchment paper and rolled in a thin white towel and placed in the coolest part of the room to set before spreading the heavy whipped cream on it and re-rolling it. My daughter was unflappable throughout the whole process, but my nerves were on edge the entire time. I was trying not to show it.
We watched the recipe video again when it came time to unroll the cake and spread the layer of whipped cream on the inside.
The entire process involved phases of blending, folding, baking, setting, cooling, spreading, rolling, unrolling, and waiting. It also involved a lot of laughing to keep the nerves under control. It felt a lot like walking across a landmine with someone who didn’t know we were on a battlefield with so many potential pitfalls.
As every step turned out, my daughter smiled through the entire process. She was baking a miracle as I stood amazed. Turns out, she hadn’t read the entire recipe before she started. Each small step was not overwhelming to her. I, on the other hand, saw every mile of the long journey and knew how risky it could be.
It came time for the rolled log to be iced, and her artistic flair came out in full force.
She evened out the chocolate buttercream frosting into consistent thickness and began her artistic presentation using a fork to make bark lines, even making an elliptical shape to make it look more knotty and authentic, like an owl might pop its head out at any moment and ask us whoooo we were. She softened a Hershey bar and began the tedious process of shaving thin chocolate curls with a sharpened knife. And she placed peppermints in a Ziploc bag and crushed them to look like shimmering snow to top the Yule Log.
And when her masterpiece was finished, she stood back and admired it with pride.
“Look what we did, Ma! Thanks for making it with me. Without you, I probably would have given up.”
I hugged her close, thinking, No, dear daughter. This is all your creation, not mine. I never would have even attempted it. You are far more courageous than I will ever be.
She inverted a mixing bowl to cover it like a cake lid and placed it in the refrigerator to chill overnight. I admired her accomplishment and thought of that Yule Log as a metaphor for all the ways we need each other.
And we hugged goodnight, looking forward to sharing it with family on Christmas Day.
Family Yule Log – Part 1 of 3
One of my daughters volunteered us to make a Yule log for Christmas dinner. We were in Kentucky, checking in to a VRBO after our 6-hour drive and a Christmas Eve Service of Lights when I found out. Without a mixer anywhere in the cabinets, the bold yellow glow of a Dollar General open until 10 p.m. on Christmas Eve on the backside of nowhere offered a glimmer of hope for the first miracle we’d need to create this masterpiece of skilled baking and artistry I seriously doubted either one of us had – – except for her creativity. That was the only strong possibility we had going between the two of us.
The recipe said it would take 3 hours. It was 7:30. The second miracle we’d need would be wakefulness. A working oven (in this one, we’d be cooking with gas) and all the right pans and an assortment of mixing bowls would need a divine nod, too.
The irony is that just a day before, I’d seen a perfect Yule Log as I’d scrolled on Facebook. I admired the swirl, the spongy-looking cake, and the icing that looked like tree bark. Oh, to be able to make a thing like that, I thought to myself.
“Someday, when I’m retired and have more time and patience, I’d like to try making a Yule Log,” I shared with my husband, showing him the picture. He studied it for a moment, noticing its intricate design, and then studied me, handing the phone back. I think he halfway expected me to laugh, as if this were a joke. I didn’t.
“But what about all these different ingredients?” I asked my baking partner daughter. ”We may have a Dollar General, but we’ll never find a grocery store open after 6 on Christmas Eve.”
“No worries,” she assured me, holding up a bag filled with an assortment of Ziploc bags. ”I already have all that, already measured out. It’s in this bag, and everything is labeled, right down to the eggs.”
Sure enough, she came ready with the ingredient part. We added a jelly roll sheet pan and a roll of parchment paper to our buggy, along with the mixer. Then we thought of a can of Pam, a Hershey Bar to make chocolate curls, and some peppermints to smash for a top-garnish. We were ready to check out and go get busy on our baking adventure of a lifetime. On Christmas Eve.
At 8:00 p.m., we began the 3-hour baking quest.
“I’ll bet you didn’t think you’d find yourself making a Yule Log on Christmas Eve, did you?” she asked.
“This is not the first time I’ve found myself doing something I didn’t expect to be doing,” I reassured her with a smile of readiness for anything.
I heard my husband chuckling from the den, where he sat reading. ”Nope, it sure isn’t, and I’m sure it won’t be the last, either,” he added.
Pumpkin Bread and Pinecone Feeders
Two important traditions rooted in books still prevail during Christmas holidays, continuing from the days when my children were small. They still ask for the pumpkin bread from the Frederica Fare cookbook, so I baked two fresh loaves Sunday morning and we devoured one, slathering each slice with our favorite Irish butter. Christmas isn’t Christmas without it.
We make pinecone birdfeeders each year after we read the book Night Tree by Eve Bunting, taking the treats to a tree in our yard and hanging them for the songbirds and other critters to have their Christmas feast. The kids enjoyed the sensory experience of gathering pinecones, coating them with Crisco, and rolling them in birdseed. This year, it was a special moment seeing my son and his family all engaged in this time-honored tradition that is a testament to the power of a book to create family pastimes.
The book was a Christmas gift that my daughter’s kindergarten teacher purchased with book club points for each child in the class back in 1992. Once we read the book together that year, we decided to make our own tree. We’ve been doing it ever since. In fact, the morning my son called at the end of 2012 from Tennessee to say he was planning to propose that evening, I was outside with the oldest grandchild making our Night Tree. A decade and five children later, here they are – – carrying on the tradition that started in the pages of a childhood book.
I also shared this book with one of our school district’s partner preschool centers this year in a professional development session at the beginning of December. Teachers read the book to each class, and they made their own class critter trees. The teachers sent me the photos of smiling, proud little ones who now watch from the windows to see the birds come, just as we do.
Never underestimate the power of a book to make a difference and shape thinking. Cookbooks and children’s picture books are filled with all sorts of magic. Sharing sacred traditions with the next generation is a rich gift of grandparenthood.
Little Debbie Christmas Tree Cake Dip Office Party Day
Today is our office Christmas Party, and I signed up to bring Little Debbie Christmas Tree Cake dip. I have no idea why I did this.
I have never made or tasted Little Debbie Christmas Tree Cake dip, but the man making it in the video on Facebook swears by it.
So when the shared document came around in email to sign up saying what we would bring, I wrote, “Either Little Debbie Christmas Tree Cake Dip or those chocolate-dipped Vienna sausages with the colorful sprinkles that are all the rage on Tik Tok.” I don’t know why I wrote that, either. Apparently a Tik Tokker figured out a way to stop being asked to bring a finger food to parties and was kind enough to share his secret with the rest of us who don’t do much kitchening.
The good news is that I decided not to make the chocolate covered Vienna sausages but instead to go with the classier dish.
I watched a video on Facebook showing how to make the cake dip. You take a box of the larger size Little Debbie Christmas Tree cakes and reserve one cake, then blend the remaining five together with a block of cream cheese, a teaspoon or two of vanilla, and 1/3 cup of milk. Then, you fold in a regular sized container of Cool Whip, add sprinkles on top, place the reserved tree cake on top, cover, and refrigerate. You serve it with vanilla wafers, pretzels, or whatever you’d like. I have both of those and gingersnaps, but we’re having to settle for all-occasion sprinkles because I forgot the Christmas kind.
We’ll see how the party goes. I’ve heard through the grapevine that there’s fixin’ to be a fight over one particular item when the gift swap game is played – – a coffee mug with Christmas music lyrics personalized with our county’s name.
If we get to see a couple of co-workers wrestling over a coffee mug and all start circling around and chanting fight! fight! fight!, then I’m for sure gonna whip up the chocolate-dipped Vienna sausages next year and maybe bust open a can of whop biscuits, too.
A Slice of Night: From 1:21 to 3:38 to 4:32 a.m
It’s 3:38 a.m. and since 1:21,
a crooner has been singing
on repeat in my ear right through the pillow
It’s the Holiday Season
So hoop-de-do
And hickory dock
and just exactly at 12 o’clock
He’ll be coming down the chimney
coming down the chimney
Coming down the chimney down
And I need this to stop!!!
Because I need to worry
About the ceiling
And the little piece of plaster that fell
That Briar tried to replace with
Glue and tape and a broomstick
On top of a tall ladder but it
Plunged to the floor and broke
Now we need a spackling job
But there might be moisture
And we might need a repair
Or black mold might start growing
And take over the whole house
And we would get sick and die
And I need to worry about what might have happened
if he’d fallen off that ladder at his age
And all the whatifs that go with a thing like that
Like if we want to change where we will be buried because I do NOT want to be buried on the current plan anymore and I asked for my own cemetery way back a year ago in July and it still hasn’t happened and so maybe I’ll get a Christmas cemetery,
I sure hope so,
down by the road under the only hardwoods on this farm, with little iron fence that stays empty until we are all too old to move or talk or breathe anymore, but a cemetery that’s ready at any moment just for the peace of mind
I might be the only woman on the face of this planet who would cry tears of unwept joy opening the gift of a personal cemetery, but I’m dead serious
I heard a thud and am relieved
It’s a pillow I kicked off the bed and not a dog
Especially the one who already
Broke a leg before we rescued him
Now he just snuggled closer to me
Those little feet
Always find the boobs always
Always always and ouch
Ouch
He burrows to my feet finally
Thank Goodness
I have the presents but I still need to
Wrap some and remember to get part 2 of the work gift exchange
And make Little Debbie Christmas tree cake dip – and replace the regular sprinkles with Christmas sprinkles
And after 2 pairs of Levi’s and a pair of Timberland Boots that I have gotten him again just like for the past at least 8 Christmases
He says on December 11 before bed
He wants a sound machine because these new fans are too quiet
They don’t make them like they used to
And I need to gather pine cones for the night tree.
Crisco and birdseeds I already have, and that twine is somewhere maybe even in the toolbox
and I need another newspaper since I used extra newsprint on gift wrapping but now we will for sure need it for the mess after reading the book and honoring the critter tree tradition
And these grandkids will do this. It’s what their father and aunts and I have done since he was little in preK and got the book as a gift from his teacher and it is what I was doing by the driveway when he called to tell me he was planning on popping the question to their mother
this tree we have always done together
But no gingerbread houses, no!! Lord, no! There aren’t enough sprinkles and nerves in this world for that, that’s why I bought them the Lego set last year. They can put that together as their gingerbread house.
We will make cookies. Break and bake sugar cookies with a can of store-bought icing with a tablespoon of Crisco and some cornstarch mixed in with the beaters so the icing will harden and maybe we use the regular sprinkles for that since my granddaughter likes pink, the one who can say she likes pink
I think we can do that and sweep up all the sprinkles
And I have to be up in an hour getting ready now that it is 4:00 because the conference is an hour away and registration starts at 7:00 so I need to leave here by 6;00 meaning feet on the floor at 5:00
and help!!! What to wear???
I haven’t even worried about that yet so maybe the gray pants and a black shirt and sweater but my feet will freeze if I can’t wear my regular black boots and they don’t go with those pants and I just don’t want to wear a dress since I have to wear my magnetic work name tag and it looks like it’s lost on a dress so maybe
….could I get away with jeans? Wouldn’t that just be great to show up in the ripped knee pair? Surely they would take that one picture if I did, the one defining conference picture to go on social media to show all of us working, thinking critically, collaborating, communicating, creating
All the professionals in their pressed slacks and boutique blouses and nametags and me in my ripped jeans and boots and camo shirt and it’s too bad it’s so cold or I could pull out my camo Birkenstocks for that picture and if I were really bold just wear them in the winter with socks to hear Joan Sedita talk about The Writing Rope
the one supposed to be a random candid where I’m the only one looking straight at the camera like I’m all defiant in my fashion all because I couldn’t sleep and it’s the holiday season
And hoop-de-do
And hickory dock
And just exactly at 12 o’clock
He’ll be coming down the chimney
Coming down the chimney
Coming down the chimney down
Happy holidays
Happy holidays
While the merry bells keep ringing
Happy holidays
to you
It’s the holiday season
And Santa Claus is coming round
The winter snow is white on the ground
And when old Santa gets into town
He’ll be coming down the chimney down
He’ll be coming down the chimney down
It’s the holiday season
And Santa Claus has got a toy
For every good girl and good little boy
He’s got a great big bundle o’ joy
He’ll be coming down the chimney down
He’ll be coming down the chimney down
He’s got a big fat pack upon his back
And lots of goodies for you and for me
So leave a peppermint stick for old St. Nick
Hanging on the Christmas tree
It’s the holiday season
So hoop-de-do and hickory dock
And don’t forget to hang up your sock
‘Cause just exactly at 12 o’clock
He’ll be coming down the chimney
Coming down the chimney
Coming down the chimney down
Happy holidays
Happy holidays
While the merry bells keep ringing
Happy holidays to you
- …..and now it’s 4:32
More Recovering Rituals
Yesterday, I shared about the time spent with my daughter during her recovery from surgery the last week of November. We’ve been knitting hats, having great conversations, and keeping her occupied so that she can focus on doing things with her hands – which is said to take the mind off of pain.
Anticipating the time we would be spending together, I also decided to bring some sketch books, puzzle books, and Christmas coloring books for adults. And I brought the smooth colored pencils that I scooped up back in the good old days when Hobby Lobby still had the daily item for half price with the online coupon. My guess is that they couldn’t keep Scholar Prismacolor oil-based pencils in stock, so they had to stop that kind of giveaway.
At home, I never take the time I should take to knit a hat or to color a picture or work a puzzle while having a great conversation, and it’s probably something I need to do more often – even sharing a cup of tea and talking more often on FaceTime – to feel a greater sense of presence and togetherness.
Starting right now.
We all need healing rituals.
Recovering Rituals
I’ve had a few surgeries in my lifetime, starting with a tonsillectomy when I was in kindergarten. We lived in our house on Timmons Street on St. Simons Island, Georgia during this time, and I remember it as clearly as if it were yesterday. The house was white with a royal blue exterior wall in the carport and a 1970s modern-at-the-time artistic architectural barrier wall of cut-out circles that gave a false notion of privacy between the car and the road.
Since we had just moved to the island back in those days, Dad serving as a new pastor with long hair and sideburns looking a little bit like every picture of Jesus I’d ever seen, the members of the church showered us with things for me to do as I recovered. They stopped by and held my baby brother, and they brought ice cream, popsicles, soups, coloring books and new crayons, and books to read. I got spoiled early on to the ideas of what recovery from surgery meant: all the ice cream I wanted, and fun new stuff.
That’s why I began thinking about the silver linings of surgery before I came to be with my adult daughter as she recovers from a tonsillectomy. This isn’t easy surgery – – the older you get, the rougher the recovery. I was even more certain of this when the surgeon appeared from behind the curtain as we awaited the magical hour.
“Are you ready for this?” he asked her.
She had a far more enthusiastic response than either of us was expecting.
“Well, it’s going to suck,” he warned her. “There. I’ve said it. I had this same surgery at your age, and it’s not easy. But it’s worth it. There are healthier days ahead.”
I am a fan of new, young doctors with all the new technologies like the one I had when I broke my foot in 2022, but I took great comfort that this ENT looked older than I am, and I began saying silent prayers of thanks for his level of experience. The good Lord sent comfort on many levels for this mother’s heart as I watched my child being wheeled out to the operating room.
The silver linings and up-sides of surgery include time together, even though we aren’t running around having all kinds of adventures and fun. We’re sharing the sweetness of flattened Coca-Cola so the carbonation doesn’t sting, and we’re having conversations about hopes and dreams.
We’re also knitting hats. I was thinking back on the days when I was young and someone gave me a weaving loom. I must have made a hundred potholders and loved every single project I finished, carefully sorting the colors into piles and counting the numbers I’d need to be coordinated and not all willy-nilly random about weaving just any old colored loop in there.
Years ago, we made a bunch of hats using round looms. I’d passed the looms on to someone else to enjoy once we’d squeezed all our own joy from them, so I stopped in and got some new ones, along with some yarn for the journey. Together, we watched a refresher YouTube video to re-learn how to cast on and cast off, and we started our handiwork.
Oh, the fun of simple time, talking through the hours, sipping apple juice, and creating something that will bring warmth and all the pride of wearing a handmade item. I knitted a baby cap for a new grandchild, and she worked on a hat for herself for the coming colder days.
Somehow, working with her hands has taken her mind off of her throat and given her a different focus. And watching her work has given me a deep peace that everything will, indeed, be better.
Healing is a process that takes time, but togetherness and family time makes it all more bearable.
Common Threads 