Christmas, Post-Christmas, Bibliobabes and K.C.'s Wedding

Another holiday season has drawn to a close, but I feel like this year the festive feeling will continue as we are looking forward to K.C. marriage and celebration and there are still many pleasurable activities that are in the works. We had a nice, relaxed Christmas. Philip and Camille celebrated in Kiev and K.C. celebrated in Oklahoma City, but Peter and Kortney and Erika and Jono were around for some of our activities and we enjoyed celebrating with them. We have some traditional activities—when the weather permits (and this year it did) Paul brings Rory to our house and we have surrey rides. This year he had promised one of our neighbors rides for his grandchildren on Christmas Eve—so he brought the horse home at about 3:00 p.m. and my parents arrived at about 3:30 p.m. We gave the Heath grandchildren rides and then took my parents and me on a ride as well. When that was over, he took Rory back to the pasture and I finished getting dinner ready. (This year it was just the four of us—Erika and Jono do Christmas Eve with his family and Peter and Kortney wanted to start their own Christmas Traditions at home so they did not join us either.) So it was really relaxed and quiet. We have a neighbor who does a very extensive light display which is synchronized with music and while Paul was taking the horse back I took my parents in the car to see this. The neighbor, Paul Pohlman, broadcasts a set of five songs on a very short band radio signal. You tune your car radio to the coordinates which he indicates on a sign in his front yard and a very elaborate light show blinks and moves in beat and time with the music. It is really fun to watch. He has four colors of lights, which run around the roofline of his house, around his windows, on his trees, in freestanding arches in his yard, mounted on his roof, very impressive. The turn on and off in color runs and color combinations—lots of variety really complex and intricate. A must see at Christmas time—I had already experienced it several times—I took Eleanor to see it one evening when she was staying with us—but it was new to my parents and we enjoyed it together. We had dinner with my parents when Paul got back from returning Rory and feeding the horses, and then enjoyed a quiet evening visiting. It had been perfect weather, but during the night a big storm blew in and we had about six inches of snow on Christmas morning. It was very magical because it was our first real snowstorm of the season. Paul went out very early to feed the horses because he was worried about getting around in the snow, but all went well. And it snowed steady most of the day and into the next day. Christmas morning Erika and Jono arrived as well as Peter and Kortney and we had a big Christmas breakfast and a present opening session. It was a really pleasant. With fewer people there were fewer gifts and so it didn't seem like a big gift orgy and there were many thoughtful and generous gifts. The big surprise for me this year was a multi-layered gift that was initiated by a purchase made by Erika. Sometime before Christmas Erika found a used sewing machine table for a very reasonable price and purchased it. She got Paul to pick it up in the truck and the hid it away in the carriage house. Erika envisioned setting up a sewing room for me with this new sewing table. She got Paul to take me out to dinner and to a movie and she marshalled the troops for a big furniture moving extravaganza. While Paul and I were dining and enjoying the newest film version of the musical, Annie, (which we both enjoyed a lot—it was soooo cute), Peter, Jono and Erika were moving the things out of the basement room which had been a sewing/storage/junk room. There were two free standing closets that I used for tablecloths and toys respectively and two bookcases with open shelves on the top and a closed cabinet on the bottom, which were partially sewing stuff and books and scrapbooks and other junk. The sewing room also held a large power machine that Paul bought for himself when he was working on some leather stuff for the horses. He refinished it very nicely, but it filled a lot of space. Jono and Peter carried the closets up to K.C. room on the second floor and moved the power machine into Philip’s room. They set up the sewing table and moved the bookcases into new positions. They set up my old machine on Philip’s old desk which needed a place when they moved the power machine into his room. And Paul bought me a new sewing machine to go on the “new” sewing table. They all ushered me downstairs on Christmas morning to see my new dedicated sewing room. It was quite the amazing experience to walk in and see all the changes and this new wonderful space. I was entirely speechless and found the whole experience awesome and unbelievable. That was a very special gift from all of the players. Since Christmas we have slowly been making some other changes. Modifying the spaces that had been altered. We decided not to keep the two free standing closets; they have been dispatched to the Deseret Industries—we loaded them into the back of the truck and Paul dropped them off on Tuesday. We created a new and improved tablecloth closet out of the armoire in our bedroom and I sorted through all my tablecloths and washed and examined them and decided which ones I wasn't going to be using anymore and gave some tablecloths and some napkins to the Deseret Industries as well. I am in the process of converting K.C.’s bedroom to the grandchildren’s room. It already has twin beds in it and I got two smallish bookcases one is for games from (the now given away) toy closet and one for children’s books. The large toys like Fisher-Price sets and things like that will go into one of the two regular closets in K.C.’s room. I’m in the process of organizing and sorting through that stuff now. We gave about fifty books to the Deseret Industries in the same donation drop off—we are working at purging things slowly, but surely. It gives me a great lightness of being to clear out stuff we no longer use that it taking up space in our house. I still have a few things that need to be sorted through in the basement, but it is looking really nice. My sewing room has become what Paul calls The Kathie Cave. I have two sets of shelves and cupboards for my sewing stuff, a new sewing table and machine an ironing board and a cutting table all in the same place. It is so nice to have this great place to work. I am looking forward to working on my many projects. I wanted to have the house cleaned and Christmas decorations removed before I went back to work on Monday, January 5th and I was hosting my book club last night on January 6th and wanted it all put away by them. I started decommissioning the decorations on the 29th and spent two whole days undecorating and cleaning. When everything is in total disarray as it is when undecorating, I pull out all the furniture and vacuum underneath and wipe down the window ledges and baseboards and generally clean up everything so that it seems quite wonderful when everything is back in place and clean and lovely. I finished on the night of the 30th. I also took the opportunity this year to sort though and purge more of my Christmas decorations. I gave some to Erika, and gave a box of stuff to the Deseret Industries and threw away some old worn out things. It has been a good year for getting rid of stuff and donating to the D.I. I love having the house decorated for Christmas, but I love that feeling when everything is put away and it cleaned up and back to regular life too. It is a happy moment either way. As previously mentioned last night was the January meeting for one of my book clubs. I like hosting the Christmas party but it is very good motivation for putting up my decorations and getting my house ready for Christmas. Hosting at the beginning of January is also good motivation for getting Christmas removed and the place ready for January entertaining. We had twelve women at our meeting—which is a lot even in a large space. The host is responsible for selecting and then leading the book discussion and providing refreshments, which over the years has taken on more of a light dinner. I made a fabulous quiche—Leek Lorraine using the last of the ham that I got from Corner Canyon as my Christmas bonus. (Paul and I have been eating it since Christmas Eve. It was very good.) The book that I chose this month was Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I chose it because Garcia-Marquez is a Nobel Prize winning author whose books appear on all lists of must read books and I had never read anything he had written. Paul read his book One Hundred Years of Solitude years ago but I was negligent in reading his works. Frankly, I didn't much care for the book itself, the story line, but there was some interesting and imaginative writing and it did lend itself to a lively discussion. More than just the book, though, this is a very wonderful group of women, quite diverse in almost any category you can name, large spread of ages, marital status, education, work, experience, interests and ….it makes for some very dynamic interpretation of almost everything. We laugh a lot and enjoy one another. I’m glad that I am a part of this group. We are looking forward the most at this time to K.C.’s wedding. I am working out the details on a block of rooms in the Courtyard Marriott in Oakland. I have spoken with a sales representative and she is supposed to be sending me a contract. We are getting a better (though not particularly great price on the rooms.) This will be such a fun weekend. I’m looking forward to this with lots of anticipation.