p.s.

Here is a photo of the tree in our front yard, as promised….

I can’t believe I did not tell about the little visit last Tuesday and Wednesday by Emily, Noah, and Lucy.  I guess because I didn’t take any photos is why I didn’t remember.  Lucy LOVED the Peanuts characters nativity that we keep on the cedar chest in our bedroom.  She carted the Snoopy-sheep all around the house.  She also loved the big container of beanie babies.  Two days after they left I was still finding stuffed critters around the house.  Noah is getting so grown up.  He loved helping me with my chocolate advent calendar that I bought from the German club students at Rock Bridge and he and I explored the on-line advent calendar we both got from Joe and Vickie Southerland this year.  I still had teaching obligations both days so I did not get to spend as much time as I would have liked with everyone.  But, we will see them again on the 22^nd and again on Christmas day. 

Finally, some movie and book reports.  My most recent book-on-CD was Red Badge of Courage.  I am not sure why the long, flowery descriptive phrases caused so many eye-rolls as I listened and The Scarlet Letter , which had similar language, did not.  I just found the whole book tedious and the main character was bothersome.  Good thing it was short.  I FINALLY watched my Netflix (after three weeks wait).  It was the original Last Holiday made in 1950 with Alec Guinness in the lead role.  I love the re-make with Queen Latifah so I thought I would enjoy the earlier one.  Well, it was quite similar but I think Queen Latifah acted the roll waaaay better than Alec Guinness.  Who would guess THAT???  And, (spoiler alert) his character, on his way from learning that he really is NOT going to die, ends up dying anyway in a car accident!!!!  How is that for a depressing ending?  I would not recommend the movie. 

Until the next post…….

December update

 Wow! What a month it has been already and it is not even half over!  After coming back from New York, I feel like I have hardly been able to sit down and take a breath.  I will try to catch you up on what has been happening the last three weeks ….( not necessarily in chronological order)

Coco the rabbit has died.  Kirsti got him when he was a tiny bunny back in 2000.  Yep – he lived twelve years.    I attribute his long life to the carrot peels he got every day on top of his regular rabbit food.  How ironic then that for the last few years, he has been blind in both eyes from cataracts, even with all the good-for-your-sight carrots.   I noticed Monday night that his back legs could not support him.  Tuesday morning he was the same – laying on his side breathing shallowly.  I knew it was time.  First thing I did was call Kirsti to tell her the news and I had a hard time keeping it together.  I took him to All Creatures Animal Hospital because that is where Sarah works and I wanted someone from the family to be with him as he was put to sleep.  After dropping him off, I went to the car and just bawled and bawled.   He was just a rabbit that, aside from feeding every day, I hardly had any interaction with him.  Maybe the stress of my life right now caused me to be overly emotional?  I don’t know.  When Kirsti and Ryan are here, we will have a little burial for him.  Farewell, Coco.

 

Speaking of pets, we could have had a Sadie crisis earlier in the month.  I noticed she was chewing something while teaching a cello lesson (she has a little bed right by my chair and keeps me company during lessons) and my student thought it might be a leaf that was attached to her little doggie beard.  Well, a few minutes later, she was still working on something so I had to pry her jaws apart (good thing she is used to me messing with her mouth because I brush her teeth several times a week.  Yes, I brush my dogs teeth.  Isn’t that ridiculous?) and guess what I found????? An open safety pin!!!!!!!!!!!  If she had swallowed it, imagine the damage it would have done.  Perforations all throughout her little body.   

 

Oh, Sadie, your metal-licking fetish is going to do you in someday.  She is so obsessive about metal that when she goes up the stairs, she has to lick the metal strip that covers where the carpet meets the tile on the landing and again to the next level where it meets the wood floor. 

Christmas music, of course, has filled my month.  I saw a small poster outside the office of the choir director at Central Methodist that read “Yay, it’s December!  No, wait, I’m a musician”.  Well said.  However, Christmas music is one of my favorite parts about the season.  If only the performances could be more evenly spaced (which never happens).  My CIS Orchestra concert was in the first week of the month.  I had four ensembles (beginning, intermediate, advanced, and quartet) perform along with the 4^th and 5^th grade honor choir.  It was just the right amount of music and it only lasted an hour.  We held it in a lovely Catholic church and it lent the perfect ambiance.  My six CMU students who took private lessons this semester had their juries this past week.  They each played a short Bach piece with me as accompanist.  Now I am done in Fayette until mid-January.  My Rock Bridge orchestra has their concert this coming Tuesday but, since we had to play our pieces for video-recording  on the 7^th, this upcoming performance is slightly anti-climactic.  I would truly prefer a live performance to being video recorded.  Eeee.  I opted not to play the holiday concert with the civic orchestra and, boy, am I glad about that decision.   I have played my cello in a couple of groups – for church and for Candlelight Lodge – but rehearsal time was negligible for these.  Oh, Steve and I were invited to be part of a Christmas program in the Linn Branch on the 7^th.  I played “O Holy Night” on cello and he spoke for a few minutes.  We got lost trying to find the house of my accompanist and it caused us to arrive with literally one minute to spare.  High blood pressure moment. 

We made goodies last Saturday.  Here is Melanie and Sarah decorating sugar cookies.   

 

Steve, as usual, has been a baking maniac….cookies of all kinds for the people at work, cinnamon rolls for his home teaching families,  fudge. 

House decorating for the holidays gets more exhausting each year.  Or, maybe I am just getting older and tireder.  We didn’t put up as much this time.  Might even downsize even more next year.  We have started decorating our blue spruce tree in front with the large, shatterless ornaments and it looks really nice.  I will take a photo and post it tomorrow.  Steve got a new multi-position ladder recently and last Saturday, it was very helpful in hanging these ornaments – until he tried to close it on his hand.  You should see his finger.  Well, maybe you shouldn’t. I can barely stand to look at it.  In hindsight, he probably should have gotten some stitches. And, he is most certainly going to lose the fingernail.  Yuck.  

OK, I think that is it.  In spite of all the craziness of the season, I DO love the reason for Christmas.  I love our Savior and all he did for us.  I love celebrating His birth.