I Believe it was Jimmy Buffett....

...who popularized that phrase, "another rotten day in paradise". Could mean you're in paradise but can't appreciate it because you've got a crappy attitude, or maybe it's like my day today....sure it's a rotten day, but it's paradise so... how bad could it possibly be?

Yeah, my little paradise. We are having rain which will probably be measured in feet instead of inches, and Preston and I hardly ventured outside at all. Day off. We unplugged. I literally didn't plug the phone in until late afternoon. Just spent the day hanging out, which was nice, and catching up on some paperwork, which was not nice. But it was a good day for it, at least I didn't have to sit there doing it and thinking, "I could be outside". I baked cookies. And went outside to look at the roof tonight, as I heard what could only be the prancing of reindeer hooves up there. Oh sure it COULD have been a branch, after all we ARE having a storm, but since I saw no branch (well, ok, it was dark), I'm going with reindeer. Until tomorrow, when it's light out and I can actually see because I'm pretty sure there's a bloody big branch up there.

So now I'm taking a little break from working on a Christmas order. I can't go into details, because I'm sworn to secrecy and I'm not sure if the recipient, who happens to be a friend of mine, reads this blog or not. It's a pretty involved and really cool project, not designed by me so I can say that. The design was given to me, and my mission, which I was daft enough to accept, is to bring it into reality. Along with several designs for other things, all Christmas gifts. And yes, I'm aware that Christmas is in two weeks. So what am I doing on the computer when I should be measuring and calculating and sketching? My eyes were crossing.

Ok, back to work.

What, Thanksgiving's over?.....

...I guess I didn't get that memo. Ok, once again I got sidetracked in the middle of my thought process. If I had a dime for every time….oh hey, there’s a squirrel hanging by one toe from my bird feeder! Oh, what was I talking about? Oh yea, I was giving thanks.

I’m thankful for my wonderful husband. As anybody who knows us can tell you, we’ve been pretty much joined at the hip for the last 26 years. We’ve only spent two nights apart, and that was when he went to Virginia for his grandmother’s funeral. I sometimes even after all these years can’t believe how lucky I am to have found THE ONE. How many people search their whole lives and can’t find that? He gets me, even at times when I don’t get myself.

I’m thankful for my son, who has been nothing but a joy to me since the day he was born. He’s talented, funny, intelligent, and just a good person. He’s doing what he loves in life, and he’s happy. What parent could ask for more than that for their child? Well I guess a lot of parents wish for different things, but not me. I’m very proud of him, for the performer he is and for the man he is.

I’m thankful for my family…my beautiful sister (who put up with the bratty child I was) who I miss, along with her family, every day (they live way across the country), my nutty brother who managed to get through a lot of crap in life with his sense of humor intact, and his nutty wife who got through a lot of it with him and also kept HER sense of humor. They were actually together for more years before they were married than a lot of other marriages even last.

And I’m thankful for my friends. I don’t have a lot of close friends, never have…unlike my son, who seems to have dozens. I don’t feel bad about that, it’s just the way I am. I have many people who I’m friendly WITH, but then there’s Lisa, who was my best friend in high school and who I still am in contact with on a semi-regular basis…real life intervenes, sometimes we don’t talk for up to a year. But when we do, we pick up right where we left off. We have a long, long history. And then there’s Carol. Here’s how it is with Carol; .if anyone wanted to follow a conversation between us for more than 5 minutes, they’d need a glossary. I don’t really know how to explain that, but if you have a close friend you probably know what I mean. She listens to me bitch about my problems and I listen to her whine about hers. We tell each other how great we are, and then we have more tea. It’s like therapy, only cheaper.

Oh Christmas Branch...

...oh Chrismas Branch...nothing aggravates me more than hearing Christmas music before Halloween. Unless it’s seeing all the Christmas stuff out in the store, right next to the Halloween stuff. Ugh!! And I swore, I swore, that I would not play Christmas music in my store until Halloween had passed. But I caved, cause I’m weak. I played it….and ever since have been infected with the Christmas spirit. I had to play it cool and try to hide it, because I’m aware that it gets old if you start too early, but it’s almost Thanksgiving, so I guess I can come out of the closet!

I’m thankful for Christmas, for some intangible reason I can’t explain. I’m sure a lot of people feel that way. I’m not religious, and I don’t have a lot of money to blow on the presents I’d love to buy for everyone. But Christmas makes me happy anyway. Here are some of the things I love about the Christmas season;

The music. I love all of it, religious and secular alike. I especially love “O Holy Night”, and Handel’s “Halleluiah Chorus”. And of course all the traditional ones we all grew up with…back before it was not politically correct to observe Christmas in school.

The decorations, in all their tacky, cheesy, glitzy splendor. huHt!

The Nutcracker. To me it wouldn’t be Christmas without the Nutcracker. I had the LP of the London Symphony version when I was a kid and I would play it all year. I still have it, but it’s in pretty sad shape! I know all the music by heart, never get tired of it, and I have to watch it when it comes on TV. In fact I was in Wal-Mart with Preston a few weeks ago when what should I see on the huge wall-o-TVs but highlights of a new Nutcracker performance coming on PBS next month. I stopped everything and stood hypnotized as Preston waited for an answer to whatever question he had asked me, which I didn’t hear, until the commercial was over. I’ll have to check out PBS.com to see what THAT’s all about! Which brings me to:

PBS. Besides the Nutcracker, there are loads of other great things that air during the Christmas season! Also:

The Food Network. OMG, I don’t even cook a lot and I am fascinated by Emeril, Paula, Rachel, Martha, Giatta, and especially Alton Brown. I don’t really watch the Food Network during the year, but when Christmas rolls around I always check out whatever holiday shows are on.

Wrapping presents. I love to wrap. The main reason I wish I could afford to buy more presents is so I could wrap them.

The annual V&M Construction Christmas party. Our band has been invited to play at this party for the last 6 years, and were able to make 5 of them….number 7 is coming up next week. What a great bunch of people, and so much fun! They feed us, they dance for us, and then they pay us. Ya want better than that???

My Christmas tree. Last year we didn’t have much of a tree, we were not in a happy place. The year before we had spent Christmas eve and day trying to comfort our poor dog who we had to have put down the day after Christmas. It was horrible, and anyone who thinks that losing a pet is not a big deal is heartless. Anyway, last year we were not in a Christmas-y frame of mind, but this year I want to have a tree again. I miss the piney smell, the lights, and the tacky gold garland.

I’m thankful for Christmas.

I know it's 2am....

...but I haven't been to sleep yet so it's still Tuesday to me. So today I want to write about how thankful I am for my parents. I inherited so many things from Sparky and Papa that make me what I am...creativity, resourcefulness, sense of humor, an abiding respect for people who work for a living, and lots more I can't think of at 2am. Sometimes it's impossible to tell from which side I get any particular trait. Also I got a streak of sheer bull-headed swamp yankee stubbornness that has served me well at times and at others has been a trial. Thanks a lot for giving me that, you know who you are.

I guess from Papa I get the conviction that there has to be a way to solve any problem, if you just poke at it long enough. He also gave me the pack rat gene, which it has been my lifelong struggle to exorcise. No luck there, yet, but the fact that I am trying ought to count for something.

And of course Sparky endowed me with her sewing ability, for which I am eternally thankful. What in the world would I be doing now if I didn't know how to sew? I really have no idea. What Sparky did NOT pass along to me was her patience. Sparky is probably the most even-tempered, patient person there is. She also has what amounts, in my eyes, to a superpower; the superhuman ability to keep her mouth shut. I can't seem to do that. I have a birth defect; I was born without a filter. Whatever's in my head at any given moment usually comes blurting out of my mouth before I can stop it. I suspect that maybe my siblings got the patience, especially my sister, and there was none left for me. But I'm thankful that Sparky at least always gives me something to aspire to there.

Oh yeah, and my sweet tooth. You're both guilty of passing that little gem on to me, thanks a bunch.

Thanksgiving is almost here...

….and so this week I am going to try to write about the things for which I’m thankful IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER. I say “try”, because I keep procrastinating and forgetting to come back here and write. Very busy, no available brain cells. Anyway, so what am I thankful for? There are a lot of things for me, I really am very blessed in life. I’m going to start with my band, since we had practice last night and it’s fresh in my mind.

My band, which is now called Stillpoint. It’s changed many times over the years, but I’m really excited about this current incarnation—more so than I have been at any time since we first formed and were 5^th Element. I have to say we were really, really good. But all things must change, for the better or for worse, and although we’ve been pretty good and not-so-good at different times over the years, we have never been quite as good as what we were when we first started. Until now.

The two constants over the last 13 years have been, of course, me and Preston. I am thankful that I was fortunate enough to find a great drummer and as good drummers are hard to find, I married him so that he couldn’t get away. No, seriously, I’m so lucky that we can do this together, not only because he’s good but because I’ve seen the hassle that people tend to have when their non-musician significant other is at home going, “you have to go to practice AGAIN? How long are you going to be? How come you don’t want to stay home with me? Do you HAVE to do this?” It can’t be easy to have to make that choice. I’m thankful I’ve never had to make it.

Which leads us to Kevin, who doesn’t seem to have that problem since his wife works nights and isn’t home anyway. I’m thankful for Kevin…a nice, normal, funny, seriously talented guy with no overinflated ego or drama, plucked from the sea of bozos, posers, and pretentious assholes haunting the local musicians’ classifieds. How lucky was that? He said, “I’m just a rhythm guitarist” but really, he can play leads with the best of ‘em.

And then there’s Joe. I’ve known him as long as I’ve known Preston, and we’ve been playing music with Joe for so long, it’s like we’re related. How hard it is to find someone who can play, has that big voice, and is easy to get along with, you have no idea. Believe me, I’ve tried, because every few years he gets tired of the whole band thing and decides to retire, but then he misses it. Luckily, this time he was missing it just when I needed to fill that position in the band (again). For that, I am also thankful.

So my band the first thing I’m thankful for. There are just so many good things about this band that make me so happy to be playing….Preston’s drums in “Good Times, Bad Times” make me wish the song was longer….when Kevin comes in with the signature riff at the beginning of “Crazy on You” it’s just too cool…Kevin and Joe trading leads at the beginning of “I Just Want to make Love to You”…Joe and I harmonizing on “Moondance”…Preston getting us all going in between songs with Led Zeppelin tunes we don’t play (yet!)…Joe’s solo in “Man in the Box”…Kevin’s solo in “Flirting with Disaster”…the stupid, lame 12-year-old bathroom humor that never fails to crack me up even when I'm going "eeeeewww!"...I could go on and on but you get the idea. Tune in tomorrow, when I’ll be going on and on about something else!

I Guess It Depends....

...on your definition of "failure". These hideously deformed things, although sad-looking, will still burn, therefore I did manage to make candles. So that part was a success. However, they don't bear much resemblance to the ones in Martha Stewart Living. They were, however, the cause of much mirth. Sparky said those were faces even a mother couldn't love. She also said, when she could stop laughing, "well, at least it's Thursday"...which went right over my head until she reminded me that Thursday is the day we put our trash out. When I showed them to Preston, though, he said he thought they weren't that bad. And I didn't chuck them right away, which was a bad thing because now, much like a mother with revoltingly ugly children, I can't bear to part with them. They have a certain....I don't know what you'd call it. And they smell pretty good. However, I don't know that I'll devote the time it would take to perfect my sand-candle-casting technique. Was the sand not wet enough? Not packed densely enough? Wax not hot enough? Poured too fast? These are questions poking at the side of my brain, begging to be answered. The mad scientist in me just may take another stab at it.

But not this week. This week, by which I mean today and tomorrow, I have three major projects to complete; a baby quilt, an anime costume, and the setting up of my back room at the store to magically transform it into a gift shop. Busy busy busy.

Building Candles In The Sand....

...today, because Martha Stewart assured me that it would be "a good thing" and because I sort of missed the 60's so had never made them before. As you can see, my aim's not great. But I managed to pour them without injuring myself which is always a good thing. And no, I wasn't drunk. Thanks for asking. Smartass.So I don't know how they turned out, haven't dug them up yet. I don't think Sparky had ever heard of sand candles, she did not share my vision. She wondered what makes them pretty, and I admit I was at a loss for an answer because I can picture in my head how I want them to look, and it involves a little more than just digging them up and calling them done. So yeah, I can see where one might question the wisdom of making dusty crusty old candles. We'll see. I really wanted to make green ones, but I had SO much red wax, and it was a trial run anyway. Next time they'll be green.

As it turns out, we won't be having the annual craft show this year. It just wasn't going to shape up, through nobody's fault but my own, so I called it off...much to the chagrin of my fellow crafters, who as it turns out were actually planning to make stuff to sell. So instead we are renting the spare room behind my store, and setting up there in November and December. I don't really know what to expect but I think this, too, will be a good thing. Again I say, we'll see.