what's the use of worrying?

Now I know there is very little, if any, use in worrying. And I have learned to do it less and less. Sometimes though, in spite of knowing that worrying does not solve anything, can't prevent anything from happening, will not do me any good, etc etc...sometimes I do lay awake at night and I can't get my thoughts to shut up.

twins!

Sometimes I worry about my kids/young adults, but not so much lately, as they appear to be developing their skills in figuring things out just fine. Sometimes other random common things (finances, healthcare, the world going to hell in a handbasket).

my awesome threesome with their knitted gifts 

The last couple of nights I have been awake for extended periods worrying about the fact that I am changing jobs in January. My excitement about my new opportunity is a little (lot) dampened by several issues I can't openly share - suffice it to say no trivial matters.

My hopes for the new year are thus that these matters will be resolved and I can start without a worry-cloud /bad feeling hanging over me.

My love and I will have to toast the new year without these lovely people though, because they are celebrating in the big city  :-). All three together, with friends.  No worries there!

the day after

Some reflections and impressions around Christmas at our house-

It happens every year: I get sucked into the buying frenzy a bit too much (in spite of my best intentions to the contrary) and I stress about whether the kids get comparable presents (worth and quantity). This continues during the unwrapping. It's crazy-making. And really takes away from the true spirit of the season.

sweet,sweet Charlie

handmade a lifetime ago

On the other hand, I couldn't care less about the mess that is a result of the festivities. I am going to tackle that today (with help) and I am glad that I can sleep soundly even if the kitchen looks like...well...chaos. Although I do not really sleep soundly lately but that is a different matter.

left overs from another round of death-by-ash borer

Other than the above mentioned somewhat irrational self-imposed stress, it was a fine relaxing hanging out and enjoying kind of day. My love and I took a walk in the fresh air (trying out my new hiking boots!!!). No white Christmas here, but a lovely wintry day it was with even a little bit of a watery sun.

The knitted woolens were well received, even if some of the projects were unfinished as of yet. Lucy enjoyed ripping the wrapping paper to shreds. We had our traditional sauerkraut (my love and I) for dinner, along with another dish as proposed by Thijs- Sheppard's pie. Which I thought was oddly fitting, because although I do participate in the uber-commercialism of present giving (to my own shame, see above), our dinner is meant as a little rebellion against elaborate over-consumption -well, at least on Christmas day.

Family traditions and memories is what it is really all about of course. Some change over the years, some remain and are anticipated. We used to have to set a starting time for gift giving as late as possible (not at 4 am), now it was more a debate about as early as possible (10 am?)...But the stockings contained marzipan, as always. Gift giving aside, it is lovely to have everyone 'home'. If I can only remember that as being 'priceless', next time this season rolls around.

this picture made by my love

on this frosty morn

My love just left with Vera for her appointment at the oral surgeon- all four wisdom teeth are coming out (at least, that is the plan). I am nervous for her and perhaps it is for the better that my love volunteered.

So here I am- with my coffee and Homer on my typing arm- contemplating the fact that my last scraps was posted around Thanksgiving - in my mind, I have written plenty of pieces, however when I sit down, none of them materialize on the page. And I am contemplating how, even after this many years (how many?) in this country, I am not good at participating in the holiday gift giving/cookie exchanges and other ingrained traditions.

One of our own, more recent traditions is hanging our first initial in the tree - family and significant others. Jake got his letter this year, because well, he is family, sort of (for those of you who are now confused: Jake has been friends with the girls for a long time, and lives with Vera and Kevin in the big city where he and Vera attend the same school).

Today I am not working although it is a Monday, instead I will make a last attempt at cleaning up for the holidays. And take care of my girl, once she returns home. The best available yogurt is, as promised, waiting in the fridge.

Over the weekend, the guys attempted some projects- the repair pictured above was not successful, but we do have a very fine log holder in the garage now, build with their own hands (Thijs and Kevin, with a little help from my love). The girls engaged in their own activities involving bleaching Vera's hair to about the same degree of blond as Emma's- will show pictures later, as it is funny how much difference a hair color makes in recognizing who is who...which reminded me of long ago after I had given both girls a buzz  cut (one of them had worn it longer for a while) and Thijs asked : "Vera, are you Emma?"

I agree with Vera, the world appears to have gone completely crazy - still, we are trying to celebrate our family gathering with joy and peace and wishing that upon everyone.

Mr. Maslow and Thanksgiving

What I thought about when listening to everyone gathered around the Thanksgiving dinner table expressing their thoughts about what they are thankful for- that Mr. Maslow was on to something with his hierarchy of needs.

Lauren is missing from this picture- unfortunately she just left when we finally thought to get out the camera...

The young adults gave thanks for having their basic needs met, and then moved on up the pyramid to mention personal growth through education and self-expression. Making my heart full and proud (that they realize the privilege) and happy.

Of course, if you look closely, you notice one of the physiological needs is sleep...and I suspect that they are all sleep-deprived on a regular basis, but that's not my point. Nor do they have security of employment yet and there is work to do on the esteem part for all of us...

So I talked about being thankful that we had the opportunity for life-long personal growth. At least, for now. Because things can change. Fluctuate. Loved-ones can die. We talked about that too. My girls recently lost a dear friend in a car accident, and last year the same happened with the husband and father of a family dear to us.

Mostly, there was shared joy and games and laughter and discussions and of course food. Now the refrigerator is less full and the house is slowly emptying as well. Yesterday Stephen had to catch a very early flight. Later in the day we brought Emma to Cincinnati so she could board a bus to take her back to NYC. Vera and Jake are driving back soonish and then Thijs will leave tonight.

 
I can clean the house and get back to making my Christmas presents. My love and I hung the lights yesterday too- we are almost like an all-american family. ;-)

Tomorrow is back to work where I meet a lot of people who are struggling on a daily basis with getting their family's very basic needs met. And as a society, we have a LOT of work to do to get to 'morality, lack of prejudice'.

Sonntagsfreude

An idea by Kreativberg. (meaning: Sunday's Joys) Just enjoying the weekend. Or whatever time. A mixture of chores and relaxing  and enjoying.

I mean, what's a cat to do? Or a human, for that matter. Winter did come. A little early. But here it is. So we are just enjoying. Our warm home, time to hang with each other, the cats. And as a bonus, our beautiful first born girl, Vera. With friend. But only for one short day.

Got up close and personal with the tattoo. Discussed matters over dinner. Looking forward to having everyone of them here in about two weeks, so we can discuss some more. And of course, other matters. That's just what we like to do, talk and discuss- also Sonntagsfreude.

Work again tomorrow. Another blessing (in disguise). Life is good - to us. For now.

The first 'real' snow.  Cats wanting to cuddle. Good food, good company. Weekend.

One of those days...

that nothing, or at least very little, goes as planned. It started off that way- I did get up as planned and went through the usual routine, then right before we were about to get in the car, I decided for some reason to check my printed work schedule of my supplemental job. And it said that I wasn't working.

Of course if I had checked this schedule last Friday, I would not have decided to leave  my stuff strewn all over the desk of the person I was supplementing for, and I certainly would not have been all dressed up and ready to go at the point of departure this morning.

I sat back down and had my coffee at my leisure. Gus came and cuddled with me, but we were interrupted because of my love's flat tire. We knew about it, and so he took my car, but now I was supposed to drive to the shop to have the nail taken out and the tire fixed. My family knows I really dislike driving this particular car for my own reasons, so this was a high anxiety trip.

That went well enough, and afterwards I puttered around the house for a bit, pre-cleaning the kids' rooms for the holiday at the end of the month. I tried working on the quilt, since my deadline for it was actually last year's thanksgiving, but just as Homer was settling in the middle of it, my love called to see if I could help Emma with yet another requirement from the motherland concerning official business. Which of course, I was happy to chat with my girl for a while.

I did manage to finish my own Christmas present, a pair of woolen socks! Believe me, I will wrap them and forget all about them until I unwrap them on Christmas morning. It happens every year that I surprise myself thus.

I thought I might take a good walk, enjoy the weather before the polar vortex descends, however the cats were ahead of me and wanted to get some fresh air themselves- and will follow me if I attempt to execute that particular plan. No matter, I have plenty to do inside still. I wish I had known I had the day off beforehand so  could have planned it better (ahem), but this is a nice surprise nonetheless.

modern family

We like to think that we are 'with the times', open minded, that sort of thing. Every and any topic is up for discussion at our home- as many a (former) teen may remember from joining us at the dinner table.

The straight-gay continuum is nothing foreign to us. We've encouraged our threesome to follow their dreams/passion, regardless of prospects and societary expectations. My love and I have tried to model free thinking and expressing-

There were limits to our tolerance though. Our kids were not allowed any type of piercing or tattoo beyond the -within acceptable societary norms- ear piercings until they were 18 years old and therefore deemed adults and responsible for their own decisions. Just because, we do not like those things. Yep, no other reason.

Although it came as no surprise (after all, she asked for a navel piercing when she was 4 or 5 yrs old), Vera finally got an official piercing last year- not the navel, not the lip or the eyebrow (all previous wishes) but her septum. Even though she was aware that  my love and I were not fans of that sort of thing, she asked what we thought. And what to say? At least it was not anything permanently damaging our beautiful girl.

Picture by Carol Persons

Accompanying her recently to a tattoo shop in town to pick out new septum jewelry was a novel experience - I felt honored though, that she valued my opinion and that we looked at the options together.

While there, she also showed me the work of a tattoo artist she liked, for another one of her long time wishes...this one definitely the permanent mark that we had hoped to avoid. These are the moments  I struggle with. I dislike tattoos, simply because I don't like the look, I don't understand why someone would like having an image inked in their skin. That is the only reason, it is not against my values really...but this is my little girl. Sigh.

So she got what she wished for, and as far as 'tats' go, this one is very well done. Again, Vera asked for our opinion. So I told her- honesty being one of our values also. In the end, my love knew the best response of all, and the truest one: I love you, no matter what.

work from home

I'm very excited that it is finally cooling down enough to start knitting projects again. So excited in fact, that I have four different things going now.

Thijs was home for his one-day fall break and he needed some velcro so I offered immediately to get it at a certain store which happens to be full of yarn and fabric also...so that's how that happened.

And today (Monday) I am further working from home. Someone will be coming to have a look at the crawl space to see if we can insulate it (I just don't want to think about this too much, have you ever crawled into a crawl space? What a job!).

                                                 

I met with the no-cost-to-me provided dietitian at my doc's office the other day. She must have thought it went well and I did thank her for her services, but I am not happy with the plan. First sign that it can't be good is that diet soda is recommended. Hummus is not recommended. It clearly is not my kind of plan. She did say that it is really hard for vegetarians, since it is all about the protein. But I can't eat beans either, or nuts, according to the plan. So naturally, I had a bean burger with fries the next day, because I am a tad childish that way.

Today is not 'paid time off' and I am grateful that I can afford to have this day (and escort the crawl space people to their job). A bit more time to sit and think, to clean house, to do some computer stuff, is good for me on occasion.

Made granola, even though the dietitian seems to think it is really bad for me

My love renamed Mila to MIA, we saw her once in the past three weeks. She seems fine. But not happy to be here when she is. Home appears to be somewhere else for her now, and that breaks our hearts a little bit. I still call for her every morning, every night, but I don't expect her to show up anymore. Her food bowl sits empty, I don't fill it in anticipation anymore. Maybe it is time to take the 'if you love someone, set them free' advice. Sad.

Funny, this is not the blog I wanted to write at all. I wanted to rant and rave about something completely different. Maybe next time. ;-)  I'm going to try and stay a bit more on track with the home-work.