Ten to Eleven

I'm sitting here, on this last day of 2010, last day of a decade, and thinking about the new year.

I am in the midwest, so it is not even 7pm yet, still plenty of time to contemplate.

I thought about what I want for the new year and what I experienced over the last year, last ten years.

Ten years ago, waiting to bring in the new year, I was full of excitement, that was the year I graduated from the University of Iowa with my MBA and got married.  And he got his PhD that year.

The chronicle of the ten years include things like graduating, moving, buying a house, starting a corporate job, losing a corporate job, having not one but two unexpected blessings in my girly girls, watching my three sons grow with two of them graduating and leaving home, losing someone immensely close to me, reconnecting with someone immeasurably close to me, making unexpected friends, being a part of history and watching that history being made, taking up the pen to find a national voice, nurturing life where it was threatening to end, and infusing an ancestral base to teach in different venues.

I also realized the years have felt like a roller coaster and I am still waiting to catch my breath.

There was rhetoric and the rise of everything from the social media reporting and news to iPods to eReaders to Facebook.  We saw way too much reality television, a country brought to its knees with a crippling recession that threatens to still do more damage than 9/11 ever did, and too many loudmouths spouting too much racist, sexist, classist, and homophobic garbage on the radio, cable, television, and blogs.

The decade has been the one a lot of people would like to lock away and not look at again, there was just too much of too much everything.  Again, the roller coaster.  Citizens lost rights, cultures lost history, and class wars dominate.

I am hopeful, like many of us as we look ahead from the dark night of one year into the morning bright of another year, that we will collectively realize the precious gift of life, that it is to be cherished like a rare and unusual jewel, not squandered or wasted like a commodity that can be easily replaced at the corner grocery store.

One thing I have determined to do in the next year, next ten years, is not starve anymore.  I'm not talking in the literal sense of food-to-mouth, in that I am blessed to be in this land of plenty (and sometimes, land of way too much), but in the spiritual, soulful, intimate, sense.  There have been places in my life where I have been hungry to the point of pain waiting on someone else to fulfill a role or promise to feed me, I decided tonight that I am not waiting anymore, this life we have is to be lived and to the fullest extent possible.  I'm still young and vibrant and hungry!

As we move from ten to eleven and ponder the year past and the one to come, some or all of us will have a moment of reflection, some people mend wrongs and heal hurts, others write down copious lists to be completed (and resolve to actually do it this time) and still others gather together to praise and honor the keeper of the day and night, and some, sadly, will barely make it into the new before their careless actions or careless actions of others snuff out their light before we see the new light, let us pause for a moment, while still in this ten, and feel where we have journeyed.

Ten to Eleven promises a new page, much like that shiny new planner or journal waiting to be filled with the record of days.  In the promise is also an opportunity, a freshness, and a purpose.

Come, take the journey, and live fully the gift on this side of heaven!

Surviving (and Cherishing) Winter Break

Winter Break, Holiday Break, Christmas Break....whatever it is called these days...is definitely NOT made-for-parents!

The first day was hectic, we are a performing arts family with the period between Thanksgiving to New Years full of artistic endeavors that keep the oil companies in business with our contributions, so getting to the last day of school was a chance to exhale and relax...

If you count relaxing trying to decide if your kid really needed that red sweater at the mall or could you come up with something else (I found one at a stand-alone Old Navy, so success) or if you really needed a tree, after all, it was Christmas Eve Eve and there wasn't anything in the townhouse to resemble the holiday except for a stray candy cane.

The hustle and bustle of the two days before Christmas included lots of cash flying, lots of tape, wrapping paper, and presents hidden under beds.  The tree is my husband's annual tradition to get and since he is so busy and usually waits until the almost last minute, he gets a good deal and I get a rug full of Scotch pine.

But traditions are part of the season, right? and the stuff that makes memories during the winter break.

My kids love unwrapping the ornaments and thinking about the story behind each one.  They laugh when they see the ones they made when they were younger or smile when I tell the story about the ornament commemorating their birth.

These are the days I love about the break...and it usually lasts until the day after Christmas.

Then reality sets in that these people...including my educator husband...will be in my house, underfoot, for the NEXT.TEN.DAYS!

I mentally mapped out my strategy to survive the noise of a sixteen year old son, a nine year old daughter, a seven year old daughter, and a won't mention age husband!

Step one was to make sure I literally stuffed the refrigerator to the point of surrender.
Step two was to do the same to the pantry, the snack bins, and the spice cabinet.
Step three was to purchase paper plates and utensils and napkins.
Step four was to make them a chocolate cake and mix together the dough for sugar cookies.
Step five was to make sure I had plenty of coffee beans and the fixings for a great latte.

Once I made sure all the necessities were in place, I knew I could survive winter break, and a snow-in if we ended up like our friends in New York (we got about 4 inches from Christmas Eve to Christmas Day but nothing like that Northeast-shut-down-the-city-stuff)

My kids were settling in for their version of a "long winter nap" complete with new pajamas and the ONE BIG THING they all asked for (iHome, eReader, and Guitar) so I was guaranteed smiling faces and compliant kids.

We did pajama days and cookies and sleeping late and homemade caramel popcorn and frothy lattes and hot chocolates and movies and games and sleeping late and a LONG WINTER NAP.

Now we are nearing the days before New Year's Eve and today was the one I wished my kids were back in school.  I thought about the lectures I have to prepare for my January classes and the syllabi still in draft stages on my computer.

Then I paused for a moment, when my nine-year-old daughter came in my room and asked if she could read me her article for her newspaper (she is editor-in-chief) and if she could "just cuddle with mommy."  And I cherished hug.

And I smiled, Christmas break may not have been made for mommies, but this mommy is getting a little benefit from the impromptu gift of being able to be here for these moments that will be fleeting, when the time will be too short, when they will all be gone or off to some adventure to amazing for their old parents to take part in, and I will crave again the days of the toys all over the TV room floor, the stray pieces of wrapping paper and the hot chocolate mugs left in the sitting room.

Life...Health...Happiness...Holdiays

Life has a funny way of interrupting your plans...

My husband was admitted to the hospital with blood sugar levels at the stroke, coma, death range - well over 1000.  He was truly covered by angels and in-tuned to his body enough to call his doctor that he felt funny.  We are blessed to have insurance where he could rush right to the ER.  Life can interrupt even the holiday season.

I sat in the waiting room and thought a lot about the things that we truly need to sustain life...and how blessed we are to not live in food deserts (like some of the nation's urban areas and like many, many, many of our third world nations) and have free access to clean, and clear water (even without the bottles or the filters).  We can be sheltered (even those homeless can still get a meal and a cot if they were at a shelter, many, many, many nations do not have that).  It all made me think more.

I was cruising Huffington Post in the last few days and came across everything from articles on the nation's food deserts to the celebrities who lost weight this year (Jennifer Hudson walking away as the darling of Weight Watchers and self-discipline) to recipes for holiday desserts to the First Lady's push for childhood healthy food and crusade against childhood obesity.

Food seems to dominate a lot of our lives in this country and not always good.

In my family, food can sometimes be too much to think about.

I manage my daughter's illnesses with food (and without others) and after six years of battling her rare illness, finally have her to a place that means she can sleep without waking up to throw up or spend days in the hospital fighting against her own body.  I've taught my children that food is only to keep us alive, not to dominate and control our lives.  I've taught them about portion control and healthy choices and try hard to not make food be a substitute for boredom.

The holidays bring us together around the table with some once-a-year treats like pound cake and peach cobbler.  It is also brings people who we may only see once-a-year from near and far.

And this year it will bring a diabetic to my home.  A vegetarian.  A food allergic child.  And reminders that the reason for the season is not the spread before us but the joy around us.

This time of year brings many joyous occasions.  In our family, those included my daughter's birthday (the 1st), my son's opening night of his first community theatre performance (the 2nd), my daughter's first ever hotel suite all girlie, all pink party (the 10th), my first daughter's first ever concert choir performance (the 12th), my husband's symphony performance - missed because of his hospitalization and we went in his honor (the 16th) and my son's dance with his first ever really serious long term relationship and recent six month celebration (today).  Whew, all of this and Christmas isn't even here yet!

May the new year bring health, joy, wonder, adventure...and life...even with the interruptions...it is still life!