This morning, our girls devoted themselves to their money and their Moonjars. 

Moonjars aren’t actually jars, but rather funky little geometric cardboard banks designed to help kids divvy up their money into categories of spend, save and share. 

We gave them each one for Christmas with promises to finally get our acts together, allowance-wise. 
Because, I’ll admit it right here, we’ve started an allowance routine twice and both times we just kind of… well… we forgot to pony up the dough. The tooth fairy at our house has forgotten to visit on more than one occasion, too. 
This is a weakness, I know.

So. It’s a new year. And the Moonjars are going to snap us all into shape.

It was a really great morning — both girls emptying their old porcelain pigs and then figuring out, with our help and a handy-dandy calculator — how much should go into each segment of the Moonjar. Percentages that they’ll apply to any future deposits, too. (If we were this organized about our money we’d probably be featured in E.F. Hutton ads or something.)

And then, to complete the circle, we had these really vivid discussions about what they’d use their money for, what they were saving for, and to whom they planned to give. Small one is determined to find an organization devoted to the protection of otters (let me know if you’ve got an inside line on this), tall one is going to divide her donation between the food bank and Heifer International. And the money that’s theirs to spend or save? There are elaborate calculations being made, for everything from bubble gum, to a rabbit and a rabbit hutch, to a trip to Brazil. Or Peru. Or Tawain. We like to think big over here.

In the end, it jump-started our own discussion of the great remodel of 2008 (we’re all sharing one teeny-tiny bathroom at our house, folks) and it even kicked off a little friendly fitness competition between my hubby and me. (Wish me luck…)

Sheesh. 

It’s a good thing that New Year’s Day is only 24 hours long and we’re sleeping for a bunch of those, because I can only manage so much forward thinking and fine intentions before I pop. 

(Feeling grateful for tomorrow when I’m not going to look ahead AT ALL.
Just hoping to finish the laundry and write. Write, write, write…)

One of my Christmas gifts this year was a raku pottery sculpture called The Optimist. 

It was done by my cousin Flossie (who doesn’t have a web presence but I’ll let you know when she does — you will want what she makes) and it is, as we speak, moving around the living room trying to settle into the appropriate resting spot from which to bless our new year. 

Lots of folk are busy today, making new year’s plans and resolutions, cleaning the house, cooking black-eyed peas. 

We are busy, too, unpacking duffle upon duffle of snow gear and dirty socks. Adding new wheels to old scooters. Opening bills and Christmas cards that arrived while we were gone. For some reason, in the midst of this, the organic pest control company showed up for their biannual visit and the girls decided they needed to paint lots of things with acrylic paints.

It is warm, under a bright blue sky, and we are happy to be home, but we’re in a muddle of overwhelm. 

Which, by the way, is not exactly what I want to carry into the new year. 

Overwhelm? No thank you. 
Optimism? OK. Yes. That I can do.

It used to be that I let January 1st come and go with a simple glass of champagne and a kiss or two. September 1st always felt like my new year — I love the academic calendar and there’s something about new pads of paper and pencils that kickstart my sense of resolve. But lately, I’ve grown fond of this new year, too. Maybe it’s that I need more fresh starts than I used to. As a mom, a writer, a partner, a friend — in a body older than it used to be and with fewer decades sitting open ahead of me.

But regardless of age or logic, here we are. On the doorstep of another year. I do not have big plans (yet) nor have I made big promises (to myself or other people) — although I admire those of you who do and have. 

For now, today, I’m sticking with The Optimist. I’m looking forward into this next year and actually expecting delight. Glasses more than half full, pages more than half full, arms more than half full, a home more than half full, a world more than half full — of love, peace, surprise, wisdom, ideas and delight.

Happy New Year. I see great things in your future, too!

In the past six days, I have not blogged. 

Instead, I’ve gone sledding 5 times, taken 4 hot tubs, shovelled 9 steps twice, built two snowmen, carved one block of ice into a baseball mitt, and eaten more than my fair share of Christmas cookies. 

Also, I’ve seen 11 wild turkey, a dozen deer, 2 pheasant, zillions of cardinals and chickadees, countless greedy squirrels and a huge hawk. 

Everybody’s hungry in Wisconsin in the wintertime.

I do love the beach and the heat and the tropical drinks with umbrellas in them, but I have to say that nothing beats a good snowstorm to conjure up the Christmas spirit.

So today, what I’ve got time for are a few seasonal haiku. And then I’m headed back outside….

I hope this finds all of you still enjoying a little vacation, family togetherness and peace & quiet. Amidst the weather you love most. And that you are looking forward to a new year full of productive goodness and sweet surprises. My best holiday wishes and blessings to you all. Thanks for stopping by so often to visit with me. I’m grateful…

Today’s the shortest day of the year, but in central Texas that isn’t a wildly dramatic occurence.

The sun rose all pink and orange relatively early and my kids will spend a good portion of their first vacation day jump-roping and swinging in the backyard. It is chilly and crisp and bright.

To really get into the existential mood that is winter solstice, one needs to read poetry.
Preferably dark, lonely, sorrowful poetry.

Like, for example, this:

The Snow Man
By Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

(read the rest here…)

Stevens really knew how to strike the minor chord, didn’t he?
Sheesh. 
I mean, even with the bright crispness of Texas I’m thinking I might have to get in the bath and have a good cry.

Ahhh, but never fear.
I wouldn’t leave you like that.
Especially those of you who really are tucked up in the hinterlands, peeking out of piles of dark and snow.
Here’s a little glimmer, a little gleam:

The Darkling Thrush
By Thomas Hardy

I leant upon a coppice gate
     When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
     The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
     Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
     Had sought their household fires. 

The land's sharp features seemed to be
     The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
     The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
     Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
     Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
     The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
     Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
     In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
     Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
     Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
     Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
     His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
     And I was unaware.
  
Okay, so you had to read all the way to the end to find it. 
And the thrush was aged. 
But still. Hope.
And tomorrow is a longer, brighter day.

Today I was hanging out with my youngest.
Who was home from school with strep throat.
Because it’s critical that someone get sick right before a holiday, immediately before an airplane flight, and on the last possible shopping-without-children morning of the holiday season.
Y’know. It’s a law.

And she tells me this story that she made up.
There’s a contest.
“Who can sit on a piece of fruit for 8 days but not rotten it?”
That is the question. 

The winner comes up with some incredibly clever papier mache ugly fruit idea. Hard to rotten.

I swear, by the end of it I was ready to throw in the towel.

This was better than half of the books on the shelves. 

OK, maybe not half. But a good 37 percent.  And definately better than most of my ideas. 

I hardly ever feature ugly fruit…

(Grateful for daughters and days off…)
 

Good idea: Ice-skating in Texas at Christmastime — it makes you feel appropriately seasonal.

Not a good idea: Ice-skating the day your daughter gets her stitches out. Even when the doc says “no restrictions”. Turns out he didn’t mean ice-skating and there’ll be blood to prove the errors of your ways.

Good idea: Raising indoor/outdoor animals — it helps them feel both loved and free.

Not a good idea: Accidentally shutting one of your cats in the minivan overnight in the winter — it makes him mad and the car smells.

Good idea: Building graham-cracker cookie houses with all the neighborhood kids — again with the appropriately seasonal.

Not a good idea: Eating gumdrops the whole time. Or leaving the finished products within reach of the dog. Yes, even if she’s an old dog.

Good idea: Hanging Christmas lights across the front porch and around the front door — it’s festive and nobody’ll call you tacky unless you wait ’til March to take them down.

Not a good idea: Hanging Christmas lights across the front porch and around the front door without checking to see if they work first.

Good idea: Getting together with old friends for a dram or two of holiday cheer — warming the cockles of your heart.

Not a good idea: Getting together with old friends for more than a dram or two of holiday cheer. Oi.

Good idea: Signing up for a half marathon — good fun and good for you.

Not a good idea: Signing up for a half marathon that requires most of its training over the holidays. On the mornings after you’ve had more than a dram or two of holiday cheer. Oi again.

Good idea: Going on vacation.

Not a good idea: Not going on vacation.

When does it start again????

(Grateful for vacations)

Here are some of the books I’m giving as gifts this year. And I say some because I think there are others I’ve already wrapped and forgotten. But I assure you, they’re winners. And I also say some because you never know when, at the very last minute, I may need one… last… book…

(Which takes me back to yesterday’s post. Please tell me that books don’t count as stuff. Please. ‘Cause if they do, I’m sunk.)

Anyway, here’s the partial list:

The next installment of Sisters Grimm

The Daring Book for Girls

The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2007

So Many Fish, So Little Time

Because of Winn-Dixie

Santa Claus The World’s Number One Toy Expert

 Teach Like Your Hair’s on Fire

People with Dirty Hands

The Year of the Dog

A Crooked Kind of Perfect

A Sock is a Pocket for Your Toes

I’m almost scared to ask in case you give me some really good ideas, but what books are you putting under the tree?

(… eternally grateful for books…)

 If you haven’t yet watched the no-bull, low-tech, consciousness-raising video that is The Story of Stuff, you oughta.

Sustainability activist Annie Leonard put together this little primer on the materials economy, and in case you didn’t already think you had too much crap in the garage, she helps you see the light. There are a lot of powerful moments and pretty grim facts about everything from natural resource depletion to how quickly products become obsolete. There’s also a nasty treadmill-type scene that has the average Joe going from working to watching TV to shopping, to working to watching TV to shopping. Ad infinitum.

The Story of Stuff is a kid-friendly little flick, and a great way to start all kinds of discussions about advertising, pollution and workers’ rights, but you need to watch it with them. My girls got sad — Smaller actually cried a little — and it’s helpful to push the old pause button and infuse a little hope every so often. We did that by talking about what we’re already doing right, and what else we can do. We had a lot of good ideas, and I’m not sure why the current administration hasn’t brought us on as consultants, but in the meantime, we’re gonna try to ratchet the goodness up a notch — using both sides of every sheet of paper and turning down the heat a bit. That sort of thing, times a hundred. 

It’s both hard and easy this time of year to think about stuff. Hard because we’re all doing our civic and cultural duty by making our lists and checking them twice and we don’t want to be guilted into doing otherwise. Easy because everything we do is fodder for change. Our girls both asked for new scooters for Christmas. They’ve literally ridden theirs into the ground and we’ve squeezed every penny’s worth out of ’em. BUT. Instead of new scooters, they’re each getting a new set of wheels and new handle grips — because the rest of the contraption is just fine!!!

That Santa. Always got an eye on the planet.

So check it out. In the 20 minutes it’ll take to watch, you would have only moved up a place or two in line at the post office anyway…

(Grateful for good conversation starters…)

Wednesday night marked my last class of the semester and to celebrate, we turned our classroom into a coffeehouse for a final reading.

Each student brought his or her portfolio to the podium and read aloud to the rest of us while we noshed on cookies and cider. I even lit candles, which I think were made somewhat irrelevant by the flourescent lights, but it’s the thought that counts.

The students loved hearing their classmates’ final versions, having given input to earlier drafts, and I loved the concrete acknowledgement that this is what they accomplished these sixteen weeks — these lovely, evocative, well-crafted poems.

A number of these poets seemed to dread the act of reading aloud before reading, but there was a palpable pleasure in the air once things got rolling — emanating from the readers and the audience. Poetry aloud is just beyond compare.

So, in that vein, I want to share with you this site for the PBS series The United States of Poetry. 
You’ll find some mighty good listening there.

For example, check out this one — in spoken word and sign language. 

I am grateful there are so many ways to speak. And to listen…

 Years ago, just post-college, I was taking a road trip with a girlfriend (well, okay, we were going to see The Grateful Dead in Las Vegas, of all places) and we hit a deer in the Arizona mountains. 

We pulled over and realized, right away, that the deer was dead. 

The trucker who stopped to help us thought we were crying about our car, which was a bit battered, but we were really crying about the deer. And about the fact that as human beings moving across the earth in big, fast, steel contraptions, we are inherently destructive. It was a humbling thing to, well, run into.

These days my most humbling encounters are as a parent. There are just endless realizations and learning experiences and epiphanies and honestly, some days, I want to say, “OK. I’ve learned my lessons for the month. Let’s just coast through on autopilot ’til the 1st, shall we?” And then it’s the very next day that one of them has a falling out with a friend, or forgets her homework, or needs stitches in her knee. And I’m back on the “learn something new everyday” train, whether I want to be or not.

The lessons are plentiful and varied and specific and contradictory:

Six-year-olds and nine-year-olds need my help.
Don’t do for my six- and nine-year-old what they can do for themselves. 
Best friends are true blue.
We all should have more than one best friend.
Kids need their sleep.
Set the alarm a little earlier so the kids have time in the morning to get up, get dressed and get organized.
Bodies are so strong and resilient.
Bodies are fragile and precious and tender.

Oi. What’s a driver, I mean a mom, to do?
But really, the bottom-line lesson is always the same and it is this: Once our babies are outside of us, moving around in the world, there is only so much we can do to keep them safe — emotionally or physically. Stuff happens. Our children get overwhelmed or left out or chastised or hurt, and there is often nothing we can do about it. Except offer love and support and comfort — after the fact.

Within the last week my daughter got stitched…
A girlfriend’s son got scarlet fever…
My sister’s son took a nasty tumble off the roof of a car….
And all of your kids out there? 
Someone bombed a math test, someone got lice, someone got his heart broken for the first time. 
Right?

We are driving through life and we’re all gonna hit stuff. There’s just no way around it. Cliff on one side, rock wall on the other. We’re driving fast. At night. And one of our headlights is out. We’re gonna hit stuff.
And sometimes all we can do is get out of the car and cry a litle and hope a trucker pulls over to help.