Jesus, I’m not sure what to think of Your latest weather surprise, You sure took care of the leaves-on-the-lawn problem. Also, I no longer have to harvest tomatoes from the garden. Regardless of winter coats not yet drycleaned and where-on-earth-is-that-left-hand-glove angst, Your snow is lovely. OMG, it reminds me of Your love and forgiveness that can cover everything ugly and make it beautiful.
This post first appeared on February 10, 2021.
I shoveled out my office last November.
A delayed optometric appointment had prevented me from seeing its squalor. After all, having bumped a fellow “pedestrian,” I realized I’d apologized to a mailbox.
I also stumbled through my chaotic office to reach the printer.
What finally inspired a cleaning turnabout? I share the printer with my husband.
Rummaging through rubble, I saw carpet. It’s blue — who would have known? I even (drumroll) cleared my desk.
Hubby thought he’d entered the wrong house. Then he swore I was the wrong woman. After checking birthmarks and dental records, though, he acknowledged I was his wife, not a lookalike alien. Even if I’d cleaned my office.
“Clean,” though, is a relative term. Some neatniks scrub their garage floors. Their streets.
I speak a different language. “Clean” means piles have been boxed and lined up along walls. It also implies bookshelves no longer threaten to collapse, as (sniff!) I gave books to Goodwill. Three of them.
I follow a never-fail formula for dealing with UFOs — Unidentified Funky Objects. If it doesn’t erupt, tick or grow tentacles, I toss it into a closet or drawer.
Mission accomplished last November.
Then came Christmas.
Bushels of Christmas junk migrated to my office. With the advent of energetic grandsons, our antique clock fled there for protection. So did the crystal clock my husband gave me. Custom-thrown pottery also took refuge.
Piles of trash, attracted as if magnetized, have made themselves at home.
Now, trying to force the office door open, I confront the unthinkable: I should clean again.
Twice within four months?
Let’s just buy another printer. And put it in Hubby’s office.
Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What’s your definition of “clean”?
Have you already decorated your Christmas tree(s)?
Not me. Pumpkins, fall leaves and acorns still adorn my fireplace mantels and front door.
This decorating delay doesn’t indicate inefficiency on my part — perish the thought! It does reflect autumn’s short season. Thanksgiving items are placed on clearance before kids trick-or-treat.
Given that many hate winter, why do we forget fall so fast? Why not linger in Thanksgiving Land?
It was wild and wonderful, wasn’t it?
Even if I had to shovel out spare rooms and wash sheets.
Even if wrestling the defiant turkey into the oven resembled a Friday Night SmackDown sans tights and sparkles.
Even if appliances didn’t feel blessed. Our disposal rebelled Thanksgiving morning. Worse, our oven adopted a relativistic philosophy, insisting if its controls read “350,” the actual 500-degree temperature was irrelevant.
Even if, having stocked up on dark meat because we ran out last year, I was asked if our turkey was a mutant. Ditto for yeast rolls that resembled trolls.
Even if drains and conversations occasionally clogged.
And I can’t pretend I have six months to Christmas shop. …
Still, with four generations feasting and sharing gratitude to God, our Thanksgiving was a blessed celebration.
Admittedly, the grandchildren’s sugar energy levels could have endangered not only our house, but the entire city block. Thankfully, we all defused at a large community room I’d rented.
No one sent the Monopoly game airborne when he landed on Boardwalk with hotels.
Everyone ate mutant turkey and rolls.
Not only was there enough pie for all 17 diners, plenty remained for Grandma and Grandpa’s post-host-survival celebration.
Despite that, I still can zip my jeans! — and ignore nasty online pop-ups advertising tent-sized attire for New Year’s Eve.
Bottom line: Our family arrived safely, rejoiced, loved, and gave thanks together, then returned home, grateful to again sleep in their own beds.
Can such a rich celebration be considered a mere practice run?
We can correct whatever went wrong at Thanksgiving to improve Christmas gatherings. Hosts can repair the carbonizing oven and replace air mattresses that flattened overnight. Hubby watched a YouTube video that helped him fix the disposal. I might even practice making rolls that look like … rolls.
Soon autumn decorations in our home will give way to poinsettias, evergreens and jingle bells. A Christmas tree will grace our living room window.
But thanksgiving won’t be packed away until next November.
I pray it saturates my Christmas season … and New Year’s … and Easter 2024 … and …
Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What are your reasons for thanksgiving, even after Thanksgiving?
This post first appeared on October 3, 2018.
If nobody has wished you a Happy October, consider yourself greeted. Also, Happy Sun-Dried Tomatoes Month!
October’s traditional holidays — Columbus Day and Halloween — have come under fire. The Internet graciously supplies us with alternatives so we now can venerate dehydrated fruits? — vegetables? — this month.
Though shouldn’t we celebrate in July, when tomatoes become one in spirit with plump, red humans who also roast and wrinkle in blazing sunshine?
Just sayin’.
October is also Class Reunion Month. Has anybody ever held a class reunion in October?
In a related issue, October offers Be Bald and Free Day.
But wait just one politically correct moment. Does this imply people who are not bald can’t be free? Sorry, but I doubt this will fly as a holiday. Not even with Hallmark.
Neither do I celebrate Reptile Awareness Day (October 21). Are we supposed to kiss a crocodile? Snuggle with snakes? Once, a new home’s owner discovered the former one had bequeathed him a pet python who popped out of heating ducts to say hello.
I lived a half mile away. That’s as close to reptile awareness as I want to get.
I also suggest we remove the bad-mood stigma from my favorite month.
True, our stressed society could benefit from International Moment of Frustration Scream Day, releasing pent-up feelings toward TV political coverage and souped-up leaf blowers. Following up with National Kick Butt Day might, paradoxically, prove a bottomless delight.
But October has gone overboard with Cranky Coworkers Day (the 27th). It has even been chosen as National Sarcastic Awareness Month. Gre-e-eat. We’re supposed to cheer every 16-year-old who rolls her eyes? Maybe crown Miss Supreme Sarcasm?
We also are expected to choose a Menopause Queen to celebrate World Menopause Day today, October 18. Riding a parade float, she and her royal court might throw plates at cowering crowds while a band plays “We’re Having a Heat Wave” and drill teams fan each other with flags.
October used to be a nice, simple month.
I’d hoped November would improve the holiday outlook. But, no. November begins with Plan Your Epitaph Day (November 2). I see that on the 19th, we are to celebrate Have a Bad Day Day.
How about we skip ’em all?
Instead, let’s celebrate Thanksgiving every day!
Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What’s your favorite way to celebrate October?
Recently, my pastor, instead of dismissing the congregation after the benediction, seated us.
How could he? Everyone had closed their Bibles and grabbed their purses.
“We have a problem,” Pastor said.
A million-dollar error in our building project? Heresy in the articles of faith? The closing of Cracker Barrel?
He said, “We don’t know when summer’s over.”
For weeks, the church staff has trumpeted program changes in bulletin, website and email. Though Pastor performed the parental equivalent of holding our faces in his hands and articulating new schedules s-l-o-w-l-y, we’ve asked spouses. “Um, what time does church start?
Past decades, summer exited after Labor Day. As for equinoxes — spring never arrived in March, so why bow to September’s equinox for summer’s departure?
Opening school early has shaken our culture. Back-to-school sales start before the previous school year ends. Indiana’s General Assembly passed school-excuse legislation so county fair winners could participate in the state fair.
Once upon a time, children sent to bed during broad daylight assumed they’d committed major sin, or their parents suffered from psychosis. Now, kids consider such craziness normal. Soon, they’ll consider cleaning their rooms as natural as microwaving pizza bites. No wonder everyone worries about this generation.
This summer’s weather has reinforced bewilderment. Droughts during June fried Midwestern fields and gardens. Unheard-of July rains rescued us and produced bizarre green August lawns.
Early last week, night temperatures fell into the 40s. Before Labor Day, they soared into the 90s.
Should we rev up the air conditioner or the furnace this morning? How about this afternoon? This minute?
Covering all seasonal bases, we snuggle under blankets every night. Turn on air conditioning, start ceiling fans and open windows. No wonder we’re befuddled. We alternate hot chocolate and snow cones.
Besides all this, baseball, basketball, tennis, golf and football blare from screens. Aaaaugh!
Let’s switch from Daylight Savings Time now, instead of November — absorb maximum confusion like a sucker punch and be done with it!
Or next year, we could once again mark Labor Day as summer’s end. But 100-degree heat waves might bake us for two more months.
We’d be more confused than ever.
Your Extraordinary Ordinary: How do you handle summer’s supposed end?
Embrace November, with its nasty weather and nastier heating bills?
Warm hats have gone AWOL, except the pom-pom wonder Aunt Mabel knitted last Christmas. Buttonless and zipper-challenged coats should have been dry-cleaned in August. Umbrellas are too obsessed with their broken ribs to provide protection.
Fortunately, fireplaces ignite so we can toast our toes. Along with the season’s first steaming cup of hot chocolate, we’ll savor equally delicious books.
Although, authors sometimes diss November. Poet Robert Burns speaks of “chill November’s surly blast,” and in Little Women, Louisa May Alcott’s alter ego, Jo March, considers November the worst month of the year: “That’s the reason I was born in it.”
But readers rejoice that both Jo and Louisa made their first appearance in November, along with C.S. Lewis, Robert Louis Stevenson, Madeleine L’Engle, Stephen Crane, William Blake and Mark Twain.
My dad also was born this month. Pastor, missionary, tie-hater, woodchopper, even at age 91 — without him, I remind my husband, I wouldn’t be here. Another reason to appreciate November, right?
Hubby pleads the Fifth.
Continuing on.
Cozied up on November evenings, we forget about washing windows or putting away garden hoses and patio furniture. If coulda-shouldas yammer, congratulate yourself that you are not wearing a back brace like the people who did.
November also grants a few weeks to meet pre-holiday weight loss goals. But why let downer diet thoughts bother you? The red top and black pants you’ve worn the past 19 Christmases will suffice.
Speaking of weight, ice cream lovers don’t stand in long lines in November. So what if it’s cold? Be brave. Add hot fudge or caramel to counteract frostbite. An even more appropriate choice: warm peanut butter, as November is National Peanut Butter Lovers’ Month.
It’s also International Drum Month in which we celebrate school bands whose stirring rhythms warm frozen football crowds. Mothers whose toddlers bang toy drums may not cheer much, nor parents whose garages house teen bands. But November 19, Have a Bad Day Day, serves these moms and dads well.
All that daylight we saved since March is nowhere to be found. But November, National Sleep Comfort Month, confirms that snuggling in bed an extra hour only makes sense.
Jogging in the dark doesn’t.
Nor does yard work — especially with the blessing of an early snow. If we’re lucky, frozen ground won’t permit our planting 900 bulbs bought while under the influence of Lowe’s commercials.
Then we can watch football, “Face the Nation” or “Punkin Chunkin,” depending on whether we want to cheer the demise of quarterbacks, politicians, or vegetables. We’ll welcome Thanksgiving with true gratitude that we remain safe in our recliners.
Yay, November!
Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What’s your favorite/least favorite thing about November?
O my God, You are the Giver of all good things, especially Jesus! This year, You’ve also given us an extra week of November to give thanks. To enjoy autumn and all things orange. OMG, You know I love Christmas. But can’t glitzy green and red wait until December?
