2012 Week One

Happy New Year!

We started off the New Year with a long, lazy day at home watching movies and eating Hoppin’ John and coleslaw. Did you have your good luck black-eyed peas and cabbage this year?

Jack’s mother was finally able to move back into her own home after three months of post-funeral and post-surgery healing, followed by a massive flood cause by a burst pipe. Since all her things had to be shuffled to avoid water damage, she’s embarked on a major cleaning project that has so far involved everyone who’s not tied down by work or school. Those dorms and desks are looking better every day aren’t they guys?

We’re experiencing plumbing problems of our own. The bottom line is that thanks to the giant elm in the backyard we need a new sewer line between the house and the alley. The problem is that it’s too cold and frosty to dig that line until Spring so it looks like we’re in for regular roto-rootering until then. Is it too late to start praying for a substantial tax return?

The kids headed back to school with mixed feelings I think. I know everyone was excited to see their friends and teachers again, but not everyone was as excited about a new semester of learning. I’d say ‘resigned’ would be a better descriptor than ‘excited.’ Emma is starting the semester with a new teacher since her former teacher decided not to return to class after having a baby. Emma’s pleased; she says her new teacher is “real sweet,” so they ought to get on famously.

Excited or not they are there and after Friday’s parent/teacher conferences I can say they’re doing well there. Actually ‘average’ was the one I heard most often. After mid-year testing Emma and Liz are sitting right smack dab in the center of the average box on the graph. Thomas is right there with them; however, in Thomas’ case this is big news. This past school year we have really seen him fly, both academically and socially. Friday he took a science benchmark and made the highest grade in the class! He even bested K, one of the girls in his little klatch of friends and “you know her, she’s the smartest one …”.

Jack and I spent part of Saturday working on the nephews’ foot lockers. Sister wanted these pretty little benches w/storage in the seats, but we pledged to build more substantial and roomier boxes for each of the boys. We didn’t get them finished before Christmas, but we’re planning to deliver when I meet her in Wichita Falls later this month. I’m hoping this little project will put us in the mood to continue work on our house. Between projects for Ella’s house of course!

Rain

Last night we got rain for the first time in over four months. It was loud and blustery and mix with hail and dirt and I enjoyed every minute of it! You see, while other parts of the nation are floating away, we’re shriveling up. It seems the weather, much like the economy, isn’t fair and partial.

However, God is in control and I’m working on being grateful in the shriveling times as well as in the plumping up times. So, the next few days will find me gleefully praising God as I mow. And clean the pool. And kill ants. And water trees and flower beds and garden containers, because as glorious as the rain was, it’s not enough to keep my babies healthy.

I Have Bought More and Killed Less Than At Any Point In My Past

To advance our efforts to Live Like Skinny People (whom, I have observed putter and fiddle until dark instead of watching tv and eating) and to Live Like Ong Street (you remember Ong Street don’t you?), but in direct opposition to our efforts to Live Within Our Budget (I quit keeping totals sometime around Mother’s Day), we have been working in the flower beds and yard.

You may remember my labor of November 2009. I turned this

Into this

And then, because I’m lazy, I let this beautifully clean flower bed grow into this mass of grass

It was depressing.

But now, after massive outlays of time, energy and MONEY, we have this

And this

PHOTO COMING SOON

And it’s getting prettier every day!

A Storybook Easter

We Smallwoods had a storybook Easter this year complete with Easter pageants and egg hunts and new dresses and ham and deviled eggs. There were even patches of green grass! What follows is our Easter Week itinerary with commentary. It’s not the royal wedding but there are more pictures of Liz.

 

• Saturday, April 16: spent the day buying groceries and being frustrated by the lack of suitable ‘church’ dresses for young girls. FINALLY found acceptable clothing and shoes only to be stranded by a dead pickup battery. Enter a kind stranger and AutoZone and we were good to go.
• Sunday, April 17: attended church with Jack’s family at which the children of several of our good friends performed an Easter pageant and two of the kid’s friends were baptized. Lunched with family and then scrambled to our church’s annual Easter egg hunt. Three Easter baskets and two WalMart sacks FULL of candy later, we relaxed for the day.                             
• Wednesday, April 20: attended RAs and God’s Girls where the God’s Girls teacher (aka me) used the girls blatant lack of respect as a teaching tool about how sin separates us from God. And in this case our friends. And also in this case candy prizes. It wasn’t as educational as it was angry. But it did get them to sit and listen for 10 minutes. Which is all I was asking for.
• Thursday, April 21: hid eggs for and attended Liz’s Kindergarten Easter egg hunt. I’ll let you draw your own picture by sharing that there were six labeled eggs per child, a piñata and one mother who did not attend, much to the … disappointment of her lovely child.
• Friday –Good Friday, April 22: we mowed and otherwise cleaned up the yard in preparation for yet another Easter egg hunt and then the kids colored eggs and spent the night at SIL’s while Jack and I laid ground cloth in flower beds in preparation for mulch. (Mulch that has still not been spread.)
• Saturday, April 23: bought yet more groceries and clothes. Did not clean house. Did not finish flowerbeds. Did not get Thomas a haircut. However: Did get everyone clean and Did get the ham in the oven on time.
• Sunday, April 24: Easter. Found and donned new Easter finery. Attended church (with Jack’s family as our guests) where Emma and Pyper sang a special. Returned home for lunch of ham, baked potato salad, mashed potatoes, pea salad, green salad, hot rolls and ice cream (it’s a Smallwood thing). Watch twenty-somethings hide eggs. Watched twenty-somethings follow children as they hunted eggs. Ate candy. Watched family leave as Jack feel asleep in his chair. Napped. Put all Easter decoration and candy away. Watched ‘Lemonade Mouth’ with Emma. Made A LOT of deviled eggs. Ate a lot of deviled eggs. Crashed.

Magic

Last night I witnessed magic. Several weeks ago Jack and I revamped and reinstalled the often-tried-but-rarely-succeeding chore chart. The kids have been working and earning for about a month now and, knock on wood, so far so good. Of course there are days that things don’t get done and because the kids are learning, things aren’t always done exactly as we might do them ourselves, but OH, THE, MAGIC!

Here, recorded for posterity are

Thomas mopping,

Emma cleaning Mema’s mirror and

Liz sweeping.

Magic!!

Springtime on the Llano

In the past 24 hours we have experienced a high temperature of 87, a low temperature of 36, wind speeds of 18mph with gusts of up to 47mph, severely diminished visibility due to blowing dust, smoke from the Ruidoso wildfires (which were about 200 miles away) and snow. Yes, I said snow. It’s springtime on the Llano!

Random Christmas-ish Thoughts

• Our Christmas tree is up. We’ve juggled furniture, jailed dogs and considered becoming Jewish (a menorah seems so much more compact) but it’s up. And we’re totally ignoring the 3×3 patch of darkness about waist level on the front side. This is not easy since all the ornaments are clustered thereabouts.
• Jack says I’m being a grinch because I only put out five of my many nativity scenes this year. But the dusting and the clearing of flat surfaces … it’s beyond me this time. UPDATE: one of the five is already broken.
• I’ve finished my Christmas shopping, yet there’s nothing under the tree except two bags of tortilla chips. Wrapping?- it’s not one of my favorite things.
• Oh, Emma’s class sang ‘My Favorite Things’ at the school Christmas program yesterday. A few weeks ago a friend heard her humming the tune and asked her if she loved the movie. ‘What movie,’ Emma asked. Appalled, my friend turned to me and said surely she’s seen the movie … Uh, no, she probably hasn’t. Goonies yes. The Princess Bride, definitely. The Sound of Music, probably not.
• I have not cooked or baked one Christmas-related item this season. Yesterday I skipped a cookie-exchange at work. Sunday I took cream puffs bought at WalMart to the church Christmas program. The week before I took cans of nuts to party. At tonight’s RA/God’s Girls Christmas party we’re having pizza rolls and popcorn. How do I feel about this? Pass the cream puffs.
• My favorite radio.com station for Christmas cheer? Boston’s 80s Channel, now playing ‘I Can’t Wait’ by Nu Shooz. Makes me cheerful every time.
• Created, bought and picked up Christmas cards all within 24 hours. You can now pick up orders from Snapfish.com at Walgreens. Yeah, team!
• We saw the new Narnia movie, Voyage of the Dawn Treader, when it opened last week. It’s great, y’all should go. Next on our list is Tangled. Maybe at Granny’s next week?
• We’re exchanging white elephant gifts at the in-laws this year. Do you think they really mean it? Or do you think we should hit the dollar store? MIL says spend no money. SIL says bring no junk. Such a wavery line to negotiate.
• Just realized nothing on this list has anything to do with the true meaning of Christmas. I’ll shut up now.

In Which I Take Ages and Days To Tell You About My Plumbing Woes (and Joys!)

Several weeks ago my house started to stink. Now this was not your average, every day laundry piled high, fish tank needs cleaning, new puppy in the house stink. This was a oh-my-God!-what-died-under-the-house stink. It lasted 24 hours or so and then it went away.

Until it came back a week or so later. The stench continued to fade and come back with no regularity, only sure waft up just about the time company stopped by. Jack deduced it must be a leak in the water line from the washing machine and we congratulated ourselves on his brilliant plan to not use the washing machine after our visit to east Texas, giving the earth below our pier and beam construction plenty of time to dry out so a plumber could confirm and repair the problem. Yeah, us!

Until the plumber opened the access to 5-6 inches of water in the low spot under the house. Apparently the problem was a busted waste water pipe coming from the kitchen sink. And disposal. I’ll allow you time and space to gag.

The plumber very politely offered to come back when he wouldn’t have to swim and Jack and I began to devise a drying out plan. It was again brilliant! All we had to do was run some fans on one of the more warm days we were predicted to have and presto! chango! all the water would evaporate and the earth would firm. We gave it a week, threatened the children with their lives if they used the kitchen sink and bought some paper goods.

But it didn’t get warm. And the fans didn’t work. And by Saturday, five days after the initial discovery, we still had at least three inches of water and heaven only knows how much muck. My (for reals) brilliant SIL suggested we suck it up (both literally and figuratively) with a wet/dry vac and so we did (both literally and figuratively). We emptied the 8 gallon tank of nasty water, mud and oh, so disgusting muck five times. Oh My Stinkin Heck.

So it finally dried and we called the plumber. Then waited.

And waited. Tuesday. Wednesday, Thursday at 9:00. Thursday at 10:30. Finally at noon he arrived! My angel. 45 minutes later we were good (and poor) and life resumed.

Birds sang.

Flowers bloomed.

Woodland creatures romped.

And then my Cultural Diversity professor tried to shame me by talking about families living in hogans without running water or electricity. As anyone who has spent any time with me this past two weeks can attest, I’m not cut out for that kind of life. I NEED MY PLUMBING.

But at least now I can kinda empathize. How’s that for cultural awareness?

Monday Minutiae

• Thomas has the vomitus virus that Jack had last week. Some days it’s good to be employed outside the home.
• I paid bills today. How can something so routine be so terrifying and so satisfying?
• We spent the day (after church of course) with Jack’s parents. MIL fed me so well I left the table before dessert to take a two-hour nap in the guest room. I might could’ve stayed awake another 10 minutes or so if that coconut pie had been lemon, but I guess we’ll never know.
• We spent Saturday working in the front and back yards. I’m trying to liberate the edges of the sidewalks and curbs from the overgrown lawn and Jack cleaned out and reorganized the garden shed. Someday soon from the street it might look as if someone other than poor white trash lives at our address.
• As a reward for all their hard work Saturday, we took to kids to see ‘Mega Mind’ after Jack and I fell out from exhaustion we finished for the day. It was a fun movie. I’ll save my rant about the 3-D movie industry for later.
• The kids had their first PIP performance this past Friday night. Emma told me she wasn’t nervous, that she just pretended that the people weren’t there and concentrated on smiling for the camera. … What am I supposed to do with that?
• BFFW and I had lunch together Thursday and then embarked upon a shopping spree that wowed the world BECAUSE WE DIDN’T BUY ONE THING!!! I know! It might have been depressing if we weren’t still enjoying the wary looks Jack and Dean have been giving us since we got home.

The Rhythm of Our Lives

Here on the High Plains our lives flow to a certain rhythm. That rhythm is the measured ticking of wheels on tracks, the occasional creaks and shrieks of metal against metal and the timely punctuation of the warning horn. Yep, you guess it … trains. Freight trains to be exact.

Trains have been a part of communities on the High Plains … well, forever. In fact most of the communities out here were established over 100 years ago to service the new railroad. Back then railroads were used mostly for shipping people and cattle. For example, in the early 1900s my daddy’s grandparents shipped all their worldly goods –furniture, clothing, animals, farm equipment, etc.- and children 80 miles in a train car, the UHaul of its day.

Today railroad tracks cover over 233,000 miles of the US hauling hundreds of millions of dollars worth of agricultural, consumer and industrial products and coal. Burlington-Northern Santa Fe is the predominate line in our area operating 3,100 trains and employing 38,000 people in 28 states. BNSF is a big employer in our region. If you don’t farm or run cattle around here, you work for the railroad.

We get an average of 50-60 trains through our little town each day (I’m guessing here- I have not, nor will I, do an official scientific experiment and count them all- although I’m sure someone has). Trains are a part of our lives. Railroad tracks traverse three of the four highways out of our little burg. We plan trips –whether to the big city or to the Sonic- automatically factoring in the nearly inevitable wait on a train. We blame the trains habitually for everything from lateness to bad sleep.

Curiously enough, most of us don’t actually hear the trains anymore. I mean yes, we hear the trains, but most of us aren’t bothered by them like visitors to our area are. We talk through them, sleep through them, wait on them and cuss them, but we’re used to them.

They’re part of our lives.

They provide a rhythm we might not otherwise have.