Channelling Martha

It is that time of year when cookies are baking, lights are up, gifts are being wrapped, and we are all trying to outdo ourselves.

I am always perplexed that, during this busy time of year, we are determined to cram more and more projects into our already busy schedule. In between the Christmas programs and recitals, the shopping and wrapping and sending cards to everyone who ever crossed our paths, we are determined to make that homemade potpourri or bake that cheesecake with 16 different ingredients.

I finally understand why. We have been brainwashed by Martha Stewart.

We are surrounded by Martha Stewart products in at least three different national chain stores. She has had two Christmas specials on Fine Living Network. She must have at least six different magazines published under her name, not to mention countless books.

My Martha moment came several years ago when I saw a picture of oranges decorated with cloves placed in a bowl full of evergreen sprigs and pinecones. I was hooked.

I now have to do these every year or face Martha's wrath that I am not doing everything to provide my family with the perfect Christmas. Not that I have a prayer of Martha showing up on my doorstep. But some little voice inside me would accuse me of being such a disappointment to the proverbial goddess of all things domestic.

But I am doing my best to break free. I stopped making homemade gift tags a few years ago and now use store-bought varieties (the horror of it all). One year I did actually make embossed Christmas cards, but it took me so long I thought I would not get them mailed until Easter.

Sadly, however, I will never be totally free of her influence. I have made eight different kinds of cookies. I spent two days making marzipan. And those clove oranges do look lovely on my coffee table.

Martha would be so proud.

Thankful For My Sanity

With Thanksgiving only days away, this is the time of year to pause and take stock of all we must be grateful for in our lives.

I am thankful for my family, a roof over my head and food on the table. I am thankful that Penn State beat Michigan in football this year. And I am most thankful that I still have my sanity because my 12-year-old is driving me insane.

He has apparenly decided to go for the title of class clown in middle school and has been acting up in class. He received an after-school detention last week for misbehaving for a substitute teacher.

Apparently, he has no problem doing homework or worksheets in school, but remembering to turn them in is another issue. He has been turning them in late (for only half credit) if he hands them in at all. He scrambled at the end of the last marking period to bring several grades up to a C. But he seems to think that since he got Cs and Bs on his report card instead of Ds or Fs, that this perfectly acceptable.

If this is not bad enough, his attitude in general leaves much to be desired. We are likely to get a smart answer or an argument over the slightest little thing these days.

We as his parents and his teachers know he is capable of a much better performance, so this is not acceptable in our household. It has resulted in the loss his much-beloved video games. Although this has encouraged a slight--and I do mean slight--improvement, more drastic measures are needed.

We have decided that since he wants a cell phone badly, he will receive one only if he makes the honor roll for the rest of the school year. However, instead of accepting it and working toward the goal, Sean prefers to go for the loopholes.

"What if I get all As and Bs and one C-plus," he asked recently.

"It doesn't count if it's not As and Bs," I said.

"But it's close!"

"Not part of the deal."

"Okay, but what if I got all As and just that one C-plus. Does it count?"

This child is wasting his talents in middle school. He should be in the Middle East negotiating a peace settlement.

I am hoping that wisdom and knowledge will descend from the heavens and settle on his stubborn little head. In the meantime, I have been forced to be the video game police and the locker and backpack monitor conducting weekly inspections for missing school papers.

I have been assured by friends and family who have been through this stage with their sons that Sean will eventually outgrow this and become more serious and cooperative. This, too, shall pass.

In the meantime, I will keep praying for wisdom and strength in the hope that strange people in little white coats will not need to cart me away in a straight jacket. And eating lots of chocolate to diffuse all that stress.

Thank God for the power of prayer--and big bags of Hershey kisses.

A Lesson Learned Too Soon

When we think back on 2009, I think we will recall this as the year of losses. We have lost jobs, pets, beloved family members, and--more recently--a dear friend.

One of Shannon's best friends, Autumn Sova, died October 7th at the age of 14. She had been at the University of Michigan hospital awaiting surgery for an aortic aneurysm when she passed away.

The aneurysm was discovered about a week earlier when Autumn had pains in her ribs. An x-ray revealed what doctors thought was a cyst on her rib cage, but an MRI proved the situation to be much more critical. She was in the hospital for about a week while the doctors waited for the inflammation in her aorta to subside. On the night of October 7th, Autumn told her mother she did not feel well and immediately began having seizures. Doctors tried for an hour to revive her, but the aneurysm had burst and she was gone.

Losing someone who spent so much time at our home has been difficult on all of us. Autumn's funeral was the toughest service I have ever had to get through. No one should have to bury a 14-year-old.

No one is having a tougher time than Shannon. The loss of a friend with whom she ate lunch at school almost daily and shared dreams and confidences has been just heartbreaking for her. Although doing better in the weeks following the funeral, the slightest reminder of Autumn will still cause her to burst into tears.

We have spent a lot of time talking about how Autumn would want Shannon to remember her, and how a person so full of spunk and laughter would not want anyone to be sad when they thought of her. We talk about living her life in a way that would make her friend proud.

We also talk a lot about holding dear to the people we care about in our lives--especially friends. I have always told her to choose her friends carefully and to surround herself with people who make her feel positive and good about herself. I did not think we would have to have a discussion this early on how to go on when those people are unexpectedly taken from your life.

Even though it is early in life for Shannon to learn a lesson this harsh, I hope she will take from it the importance of not taking anyone ffor granted. It's a lesson that we all need to be reminded of occassionally. None of knows how long those dear to us will be on the earth. Make sure they know how much they bring into our lives, and don't miss an opportunity to bring something special into theirs.

We will miss you, Autumn.

A Sad Farewell

Much sadness has hung over our house in the last couple of weeks as we have lost an adopted member of our family.

Stormy, or "Mamma Kitty" as we sometimes called her, passed away on September 24th. She was the mother of our much beloved litter of kittens born last spring.

With her kittens weaned, Stormy had once again gone into heat. We were confining her to the house, but at times she was determined to escape and seek some male companionship, if you get my drift.

Not wanting the responsibility of more kittens, we made an appointment with the vet to have her spayed.

She made it though the surgery perfectly. I was able to see her in the recovery room as she was coming out of the anesthesia. I left with the assurance that I could take her home the next day.

Instead, I got a call from the vet that following morning. Sometime during the night, Stormy passed away.

This was a blow to all of us since she had made it through surgery fine and was a relatively young cat--around five or six years old by the vet's estimate. Although the cause of death cannot be found accurately without a necropsy, the vet thinks it was one of two situations. She may have had a congenital heart defect, and her damaged heart could not handle the strain of the surgery and anesthesia. His second theory was a possible aneurysm or stroke--one of her pupils was completely dialated, which is usually a sign of brain trauma.

We all took it hard, but Sean took it the hardest. He had become very attached to this gentle little cat, and insisted we go to the vet's office to retrieve her. Athough it probably would have been less traumatic to let the vet take care of her, we buried her in the backyard and said a little prayer over her grave. This probably gave both kids the sense of closure that they needed.

I, of course, felt a tremendous sense of guilt at being the one to leave her at the vet's office to die alone. But I keep telling myself it was the responsible thing to do, and that she will be forever grateful for all we did for her. I hope that soon I will believe that.

Saying goodbye to an animal that has become part of your family is never easy. But we will try to remember all that Stormy was and all she brought to our family. We will remember her for her bravery as she faced the winter with only the shelter of our front porch after she was cruelly abandoned. We will always recall her unusual meow and her beautiful grey and cream-colored fur. We admire how devoted she was in caring for her tiny kittens. And we vow that they will all have loving, safe homes.

Goodbye, Stormy.

The Keeper Of All Things

As a woman, I hold many titles: wife, mother, homemaker, chauffer, unemployment statistic. But none of these holds as much prestige as my newest title--The Keeper of All Things.

I have awarded myself this very royal designation since I am apparently expected to know where all things are located in our household at all times.

Several times a day I am asked "Have you seen my (fill in the blank)?" or "Do you know where the (fill in your own lost item) is?" Even if I cannot claim ownership of most of these objects, I am supposed to have some sort of female radar that can automatically locate other people's misplaced things.

Yesterday the hubby calls from work and says that since I am not doing anything, I need to locate the missing power cord that connects to our digital camera.

First of all, "not doing anything" consisted of tending to a sick child home from school, taking my online computer class and completing an assignment, making spaghetti sauce from the overbundance of tomatoes in the vegetable garden and cleaning out a bedroom closet. But that is a topic for another blog.

I would not know what this cord looked like if it jumped out of a dark corner and bit me in the leg. So I asked for a description. I got "a cord with a little slot thingy at the end."

That helps tremendously.

I then asked where he last saw it so I could narrow down the search area. The last time Cliff remembers having it was during my sister's wedding. In June. In Pennsylvania.

Do I use my psychic powers or the time machine to locate this one?

I took the time to search the house and gather any unidentified cords. Some of these are probably from electronics that we got rid of 10 years ago. Unfortunately, none was the appropriate cord with the slot thingy at the end. He was a bit annoyed that I did not find it, but let's not mention the fact that he was the one that either lost it or did not properly put it away.

I suppose I brought this on myself because I have always been the one to pick things up and deposit them in their proper places. I have tried to teach my children to be responsible for their own things. Generally it has worked--they are very good at keeping track of their possessions. Shared items like scissors or tape, however, often need to be tracked down.

Unfortunately, the strategy of "everything in its place" is sometimes lost on my husband. I am probably the only person I know who has to check the garage for dirty clothes and dishes. I once found the cordless telephone in the refrigerator. He accidently walked out of the house with a television remote control. That was in 1991. We are still looking for it.

Rather than be annoyed, I am going to relish my new title and position. After all, it means my family considers me to organized and capable. I will continue to pursue the noble art of locating lost objects with grace and decorum.

I'm going to fashion myself a crown out of those orphaned power cords. And that lost remote can be my scepter. If I ever find it.

Fall Is In The Air!

The leaves on the walnut tree are turning yellow and falling on the lawn. The pool has been closed up for another season. And the pitter-patter of medium-sized feet is silenced because the kids have returned to school.

Fall is definitely in the air!

Even the dog can sense it. The house is so quiet he has slept for three hours straight. He hasn't had that much peace since May.

It always takes me awhile to get used to the silence after having the kids home all summer. It is strange to be able to leave my office door open again since I don't have to compete with the sounds of video games, phone conversations or the occasional disagreement between siblings.

Most people look at January as a new beginning. September is like that for me. Now is the time to tackle new projects before the holidays or do that task I have been putting off with the children under foot.

This year also marks a new beginning in the sense that I need to decide what the next step will be for me. Because the job market leaves much to be desired, I need to make a decision whether or not to keep looking or return to school for that master's degree I have always wanted to earn.

But like summer, fall's beauty is fleeting. I need to make sure I take the time to enjoy the beautiful leaves, the warm autumn days and the cool nights. Of course, this must be done in between running kids to ballet, scouts and music lessons since all of these activities have also begun.

Maybe I will find a pile of leaves and jump in them, or locate a pumpkin patch to sit in. Of course, a forty-something woman doing these things will certainly garner some looks and possible questions of her sanity.

Guess I'll just take some walks with the dog and enjoy the weather. At least then no farmers will call the police about some weird woman sitting in the middle of their pumpkin field.

The End Of An Era

It seems not even churches are safe in this economy, and my childhood parish has unfortunately been one of the casualties.

The church in which I made my first communion, confirmation, got married and had my daughter baptized closed its doors last month, along with several others in my hometown. St. Casimir's Roman Catholic Church is no more.

Johnstown, Pennsylvania has been a depressed area for over 30 years since the decline of the U.S. steel industry. The area has never recovered, and young people who cannot find work in Johsntown simply do not stay. With no influx of young blood, membership in these churches has declined for years. West End Catholic, my elementary school which was a conglomerate of many of these churches, closed several years ago. Now most of the churches have also been forced out of existence.

These churches were built in the early part of the 20th century and were not the stark, modern houses of woship you see today. Elaborate marble columns, intricate statues and altars, and elegant stained glass windows defined their architecture.

The most amazing aspect is that they were built free of debt, mainly by the hands of the parishioners themselves. How these simple immigrants from Poland, Ireland, or Slovakia (as each ethnic group then had their own church) were able to construct something so magnificent when many of them could barely support their families is astounding.

What will happen to these beautiful structures remains a mystery. The memories held within their walls--thousands of celebrations of birth and marriage, and commemorations of a life well-lived after death--make them more than just stone structures.

They are the entire history of families. They deserve to be more than a pile of bricks.