The Gift That Keeps On Giving

I have preached to my children the quote from scripture, "When I was a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man I put away those childish things."

For the most part I have put away those childish things, but when it comes to the holidays, I am able in a moments notice reach back into the abyss that is my mind, now, and pull out my child like wonder. It is the gift I give myself every Christmas.

This year because of the economy and my lack of steady employment, we will not be buying any gifts except for our youngest child. The older kids got together and came to the agreement that since she is a senior and the last one still under age that any money spent should be on her. That was the gift my older kids gave to Mike and me, was their maturity and generosity and ability to see that the bigger gift we receive is often in the giving.

Michael decorated the outside of our home with Christmas lights and meticulously made sure that the timer was set and all was bright, so that I could enjoy them. That was his gift to me. He knows how much I love Christmas and the twinkling lights the glitter like the snow I miss so much. He drives me around once a week to see different neighborhoods and allow me to sit back relax and sink deep into my contentment.

I speak to my parents often. Although this year they could not come to Texas, I am able to dial their number and within seconds hear their laugh and talk for hours if that is what we wish to do. I miss them so very much this year, but the gift of their love and understanding is something I have gotten everyday this season.

My house looks exactly like I had always dreamed it could at this time of year. For no money, I reinvented many of our decorations and am able to get up every morning and just look at them, so happy and filled to the brim with joy. Even as the time draws nearer for us to display the "For Sale" sign, I can't help being happy I got this time with our house.

I am blessed beyond words, thoughts, or feelings. Things did not turn out at all what I had originally planned for this holiday season. No parents visiting, no kids coming home, no presents under the tree, all non-existent except the feeling of how lucky I am to love people so much that when I can't see them it makes my heart ache. The tiniest things I may have over looked in recent years have bubbled to the surface in order for me to feel the kind of peace that other spend their lives looking for.

The gifts I have already gotten this holiday season reassure, my sometimes weary, soul that all is far from lost. Sometimes the greatest gifts are the ones we don't even know we want.

What's It All About Elfie?

Years ago when the kids were still small, it was Christmas time at our house and we were running a day late and dollar short, again. Their father had passed away and once again I was groveling in my prayers for more time, more money and the ability to do five things at once. I kept asking for octopus arms. Of course, now I feel God really had my back on that one, but at the time I felt unheard. I kept thinking that not only would the eight arms help me at work as well as home, but I could work the circus route on weekends for extra cash. In the end, I am glad to not have to worry about special made clothes or those weird times when your arms fall asleep. Eight times the prickly tingling would kill me, I think.

This one particular year, I was way behind decorating the house, missed St. Nicholas day completely and had to make up some crazy reason as why he had missed only our house in a thirty block radius and of course I was working doubles to try and pay for our life as we knew it. I think back now about how important sleep became, because I never got any. I averaged about four hours a night. I was dead dog tired all the time. I would have given up the appendage of any one's choice if they could have given me only an hour nap. I loved hearing about and coveted other's sleep. I was so jealous back then of anybody who got to go to bed and stay there for eight hours. I couldn't wrap my brain around that concept.

I had gotten home from work and the kids asked me if I were going to drag the Christmas stuff out and decorate the house. "At least put up the tree, Mommy," the kids pleaded.

"I will, as soon as I can tonight. I promise." I looked down at the little angelic faces who so depended on me to keep their world in the upright and locked position.

That night I gave them baths, helped them brush their teeth, said prayers with them and tucked them in, all warm and fresh and cozy. I proceeded to go to the living room and lay down on the couch to just relax for a few minutes before dragging all the Christmas boxes from the closet upstairs. I was off of work the next day and just wanted to close my eyes for a minute. The house was quiet except the low drone of the TV in the background. I let out a deep sigh and allowed my body to let go, if only for a moment. The next time I opened my eyes it was morning and I was surprised by the sounds of my gasping children. "Mommy, wake up! Did you do this, it's all so beautiful!" I rubbed my weary and swollen eyes and looked around the room. Every inch was decorated with bows, greenery, stockings and our Christmas tree filled to the brim with family ornaments. "I looked at the kids and asked,"Did you guys do this?" They looked shocked at the question. Danny was the first to speak up,"We didn't do any of this. We thought you did." "No," I answered, "I'm sorry but I fell asleep as soon as I hit the couch." The kids all looked around for signs of the Christmas intruder who had broken into our house and decorated our home top to bottom. "Mommy, who would do this?" I surveyed all the workmanship, the attention to detail and the careful way everything was placed just so. I had one and only one idea of who it could be. "I am not sure and don't want to say until you tell me who you think it was." The kids looked at each other's faces and then back at me and said almost in complete unison, "Elves!" Still shocked that all of our Christmas stuff had magically made it's way out of storage and had draped itself perfectly around the rooms, I couldn't help but nod my head in agreement.

My kids were deep in the magical spell of all that is Christmas. They had a renewed sense of wonder and excitement about them, as did I. We had witnessed a miracle and we all knew this was too big to ignore. I heard one of them say, "There is no way Mama could do all this in one night. It's too much. It had to be elves or Santa. It just had to be."

Everything about that Christmas had wonder and magic in it. The lights twinkled brighter, the fire felt warmer, the hot cocoa tasted sweeter. I love Christmas and the magic it brings. I love the feel of my days as I wallow in the sounds of Christmas carols and sip hot cocoa by the fire. I love the warm, fuzzy memories I have of Christmases long ago when I was a child, and remembering the holidays with my own children when they were so tiny.

I wish for you the opportunity to sit back relax and take in the joy of the season. As memories flood your mind and family fills your home, I wish for you the deepest most gratifying feeling of peace on the earth and truly goodwill toward everybody. May the elves find your home and leave behind them the awestruck smiles of childlike wonder.

I Still Believe!

It's Christmas time again and I am busy doing very non-Christmas-y things. It's not my usual routine, but I am doing what needs to be done. I am squeezing in my favorite movies and playing Christmas music while I work in order to keep my spirit up and in holiday fashion.

I love Christmas. I always have. It is a time of year when everyone seems nicer, more tolerant of each other, more generous and kinder all around. It's the time of year when my hopefulness reaches it's year long high, the kind of high that drug addicts search their whole life for and all I have to do is hum a Christmas carol.

I have spent my entire life watching this season and being completely and utterly awestruck by the miracles that happen everyday, often times without a single other soul noticing. In a time when there are so many people searching for fame and fortune often times at their own peril, I see so many folks do the most miraculous things without so much as a thank you all season long.

I still believe in Christmas miracles. I still believe in the spirit of Santa and giving of our hearts and minds and strength to those who have so much less, even when we ourselves don't seem to have a whole lot. I have watched my family witness miracles of faith, miracles of money and miracles of kindness.

Every year I pray for a Christmas miracle. Every year I am fortunate to witness one, even if it is not anything I requested or sought for myself or my family. In that solitary moment, I realize how very lucky I am to have seen something so amazing, so wonderful come true.

I am once again asking for my Christmas miracle. I do ask for gifts for my family and for myself. I do ask for "things". I think it's always OK to ask. I do not aways get what I ask for. Sometimes I get nothing at all, and that is OK, too. I consider it, asked and answered. If I see that my Christmas miracle isn't about me, then I really begin watching all around me to see what it is that I am being shown. The truly glorious part of the season for me is the not knowing where and how the miracle will come. I get as anxious as a child on Christmas Eve. I feel those giddy, warm, bright feelings of hopefulness that anything can happen if I just believe. I feel exactly like I did when I was five years old and believed mind, body and soul that Santa was riding to my house in his sleigh bringing me presents wrapped in beautiful, shiny paper with a perfectly appointed bow. He would fill the bottom of our tree with presents for everybody and give them just what they asked for. Santa would magically do in a single moment what we as a family wanted the most, being all together.

I have friends and family that have stopped believing. I see the vacancy in their eyes and the cynicism that has made it's mark in wrinkles on their brow. I pray for them the hardest. I pray to forgo my own Christmas wishes if need be, so that they can see for a brief moment that hope and miracles are still very much alive and with us.

This season as I make my wish list and begin my vigil of looking for this year's miracle, I wish you all a happy holiday season, filled with wonderful unexpected surprises, the deep love of your family, warm hugs from dear friends, delicious food that sweeps you back to the days of being as innocent as a child, and most of all to witness your own Christmas miracle. They are all out there, if you only just believe!

The Land of Enchantment

I was minding my own business in my own home when a lumbering, giant cockroach was trying to make his/her way across my living room floor. Grossed and completely freaked out I grabbed my near by tennis shoe and squashed it in it's tracks. I lifted my shoe to find it laughing at me on it's back. Again I struck as hard as I could attempting to muffle the silent giggles of my very disgusting house guest. Once the laughter was silenced, I grabbed an entire roll of paper towels to pick up the unwanted intruder and throw his now flattened behind out into the trash can outdoors. I never throw them away in the house for fear that they merely playing dead and will rise up and hide in my bed.

I am not afraid of many things. I am afraid of bugs, mostly really big hairy, scary bugs, snakes and rats. I am afraid of heights, but because I am so cheap will climb whatever ladder necessary in order to spare myself the expense of hired help.

I live in a place whose only similarities to the north are maybe New York city, with the rats and cockroaches, minus the noise and benefit of public transportation. There is a bayou out back behind our house. It's not the kind of bayous, like we see on TV that exist in other places in the south, but rather a giant drainage ditch, where rats, snakes and other sundry creatures call home. The benefit to living on a bayou is when it rains here, a collective sigh of relief can be heard by all who live near the largest drainage receptacle. Flooding here is a real problem and any help offered to diffuse the problem is gladly accepted.

For the most part, I like living in Texas. The bug/rat conundrum is something I have had to get used to in time. Everything really is bigger in Texas, including our pests. I was thinking about the Dali Lama and how he never kills a bug. It's so impressive to me how he respects every living thing. I, however, am not that evolved. I will squash a bug in a heart beat. My fear of their dirty little legs is bigger than my respect for their right to be here. They can be here, as long as here doesn't include my living room.

Tom and I were sitting outside enjoying the cooler, drier air, when we suddenly saw a little rat climb one of our trees and begin munching on the fall berries. He was quite sweet looking, with an air of innocence about him. Schnitzel, our wiener, had been chasing after him for days. Up until that point, we hadn't actually seen what creature Schnitzel had been torturing. Tom and I sat quietly while the little guy picked and munched his way through all the fruit. I was telling Mike, sometime later, about the rat and how cute he looked. Mike looked at me as though I had three heads and said, "Kel, rats aren't cute. They breed disease and flees. They multiply faster than you think, and if we don't get a handle on this it could turn into a real problem for us."

Sure enough, as if scripted, the flees did show up and I began to see how this one rat could start an avalanche of problems for us. Mike said he would look into a trap that wouldn't effect the dogs. I reluctantly agreed, however innocent he looked, he was a threat to every body's well being. The next day Schnitzel was outside in our garden, deep in the hunt of the rat who had been hiding in there. Mike was standing next to the garden on the pool deck when the rat quickly jumped out of the garden across Mike's foot and Mike kicked the little bugger into the pool. The rat was swimming across the pool when Mike, with the most impressive reflexes I have ever seen, grabbed the pool skimmer, scooped him up and hurled him over the fence as hard as he could. The rat became air born and flew like a Hail Mary pass in an NFL game. We have not seen him since.

Betty and I love the Disney movie Enchanted. My favorite part is when the rats, cockroaches and pigeons come into the apartment to "clean-up". In my life, there is no magic big enough to make these critters adorable. Even Mickey Mouse would be grossed out by the giant spiders that hang around in invisible webs, crisscrossing the yard. Mike has swung a shovel as an ax to chop through snakes, as cleanly as an iron chef. I have vacuumed up as many bugs as I care to think about, and the kids have all had their own harrowing stories of things that make one go, "Ewwww!"

As I stated earlier, I really like living in Texas. But I totally understand why they are considered to be a hardier people. Our sunshine comes at a cost I had to get used to paying. Down here, you have to pay to play in the land of enchantment.

What I am Most Grateful for this Thanksgiving is Marvin Allen

I found out this morning that my cousin/uncle Marvin passed away. it is a devastating loss. I wrote cousin/uncle because he is actually my dad's cousin but we treated him like an uncle. My father, an only child, had no brothers and sisters of his own for us to claim. We instead glommed onto Marv and his wife Sue and took them as our own, my sister and me. Their kids were around our age and all of our cousins in the long family chain, linked us all together. I couldn't tell you the exact relationship of any of my family. Who are second cousins, who is once or twice removed. Nobody has ever felt removed in our family so we just call everybody cousin or aunt or uncle. We are a mixed up group, who has never cared about formal titles. My family has always been more concerned with the relationships rather than the exact relations.

No one personified how accepting our family is, more than our cousin Marvin. His laughter and love of a good joke has been infamous in our family. His love and acceptance and good will came to every person. He never saw me without extending his arms for me to fall into a full a bear hug. His hug was gentle and strong enough where I always knew if I got too scared or weak, I had somewhere to go.

This is the week of Thanksgiving Day. Thanksgiving is when my family, all the family, had gotten together for most of my life. It was the day when I would see Marv and we would catch up with the rest of the year. Marv would seek me out the years I went in hiding because I was going through a divorce or I was exhausted as a single mother or I was just plain overwhelmed. He would find me and sit with me and just chat about whatever. He helped me feel normal when I felt broken. He made me laugh when I thought I might never do that again. He was my Thanksgiving calm in a life that had become pretty stormy at times. Marv always reminded me that were always things to be grateful for. His were another set of invisible fingerprints, who helped mold into the kind of person who would at least try and look for the good in things in life.

My first instinct was to be upset at the timing of the loss of Marv. But in truth, it probably is his way of reminding us once again that there are things to be grateful for, even in the darkest times.

So for Marv, a few days early, let me say I am so very grateful for my family and all the memories I have shared with them. I am forever grateful that my extended family is my immediate family. I am grateful for all the older generations who watched so carefully over us "kids" and took the time to spend teaching, guiding and of course, laughing. I am grateful for a very special day in the summer at the most beautiful place, where I got to see Marv, Sue, Andi, Scott and Denny and their families. I knew then it was an incredible day. I knew then I was blessed beyond words to have such a loving, warm family to spend time with. I knew then that there would always be things to be grateful for.

The "Freedom" of the Written Word

Here I am all happy about finally publishing my book after so many years of writing. Yay!

I started the very long road of promoting my book and trying to find an agent. Boo!

People have been kind to me and some independent book stores carry my book. Yay!

The larger book store chains refuse to even look at the book because of who produces it. Boo!

The ups and downs of this whole process has been an incredible journey for me. Even when things don't go my way, I continue to learn from each and every experience. Big Yay!

I have been repeatedly asked how I feel about sharing books. Today, after many hours of thinking about what I want to say, I will answer that question as thoughtfully as I can.

I, myself have shared books over the years out of my sheer joy for the written words they contained. I didn't think about how the author was effected. Truthfully, I don't believe most people think about that. Now, as an author, I am torn about how I think. On one hand, I am directly effected when people share books on both sides of the coin. I make no money when folks pass my book to each other. That does make things hard for writers. No one likes to work for free. Having said that, I do realize when someone shares a book, it's because they like it so much and that means they are giving it to someone out of love. I don't want to downplay how wonderful that feels for a writer. The other issue is, my book, for example is supposed to help people feel hopeful. It is perfect for the person who is the least likely to be able to afford even a small purchase, such as my book. Hmmmmmm, I'd rather be naively hopeful and have someone give them my book.

All artists are effected directly by the "sharing" of materials. It is the way of it. We make our living by selling our "product" to whom ever is willing to buy it, with the hope that they will recommend it to others, so they will buy it too. If the same book gets read by 3 or 4 different people, then yes, I only make the small percentage from the original sale. But, the good news is, it also means someone likes my reading enough to want to share it with someone they love.

So, where do I stand on this topic? Me, who has opinions about every topic under the sun? This time, I really don't have any clue.

Here is what I know for sure...if you know someone who could get something out of the book, but is unable to get it for themselves, then please by all means, pass it along. I wrote the book for people to know they are not alone and there is always hope. I want to sell the book, so I can continue to write and will continue to promote it. Christmas is coming and I personally, think it would make a great gift. Remember, I am totally biased. It's a compliment when folks want to share what I have written. I have never lost sight of that. I continue to be grateful every day for what I have and not what I may or may not lose.

Wistfully, I was talking to my eldest child about wanting the book to sell more, whining about my poor sales ranking on Amazon.com, when she pointed out that I am now in the Library of Congress. I hadn't realized that before. I sat stunned by my own accomplishment. Poor sales ranking or not, I accomplished more than I had ever thought possible.

Motherhood Makes Invention a Necessity

I have never been one to just buy things. Truth be told, I have never been able to just buy things. I have always been on a budget that would strangle most folks. If there was work to be done, I was the one who had to do it. I have never been able to just hire work out. I suppose part of it was the way I was raised. Being from the Midwest, we were all raised to do the work yourself, unless you absolutely couldn't, which for me has almost never happened.

The bad side to this is Michael and I are always working on some project, be it big or small, around our house. The good side is we always know the workmanship that went in, so we can enjoy the fruits of our labor. Lots of labor equals lots of fruit.

I have had the unfortunate task of re-organizing and cleaning out our house. It is amazing to me how stuff we have acquired over the last several years. Some of the stuff is 20 years old by now and we are just now deciding what to do with it. When we combined our households, we ended up with an odd eclectic group of stuff. Nothing matched, nothing went together and the doubles we did have were usually things we had both held onto since we first moved out of parent's houses. For example, we each had some pots and pans. Collectively we had a full set of miss matched cookware that we inherited from our mothers. I just donated it to one of the kids and charity. We have been married 8 years and neither of us thought to buy a new complete set of our own. That is us in a nut shell. We are not spenders. I hate to refer to us as cheap, because we have both had to live under the constraints of a budget, but our kids will gladly call us cheap in a heart beat.

We are re-doing our formal living room. We have in the past, made lamps from large tree branches (I saw something in a catalog that cost $200 each, we spent bupkis). They look lovely. Michael built frames for my large paintings out of fallen fence pickets thanks to Hurricane Ike. And my personal favorite is, we built a large storage ottoman out of some left over shelves and an old massage table. It looks incredible and would retail for about $500.00. We spent less than $40.00. If we have the bits and pieces, we will definitely find something to make out it. It's what we do.

Currently, we are building "built-in bookshelves out of old bookshelves, that in their current state have no value. We are turning an old entertainment center into a faux fireplace and will be re-upholstering our antiques. After that we will build a banquette for our kitchen and tile our kitchen counter with granite tiles.

It is the way of it for Michael and I. We are lifetime DIYer's. Every time I approach Michael with another brilliant, inspired idea, I see the "Holy Crap!" look on his face. In the end, he is always very proud and happy that we saved the money and how great the results look. It's slightly comical to me that since the economy headed down the toilet, people all over the country are starting to do what we have always done, waste nothing, use everything, spend very little. I think in some ways it's good to get people thinking about not being the throw away society and re-purposing what they have. My motto has always been - "shop your own house first". If I were to wish for a purchase of my very own? A nail gun of course. I believe a nail gun is a girl's best friend!