Happy New Year

Oh, the end of another year... and it's been a good one. Beautiful and flawed. Satisfying and bittersweet. Successful, eye-opening. A time to consider and prioritize. Laughter and tears...

My hope for all of us in 2011 is the best of everything.

Health. Happiness. The sense of well-being which comes with peace.

Love.

Happy New Year's Eve!

I have stuff to tell here on the blog, but I don't quite know where to begin...

Christmas came and went in a flash; now here we sit on New Year's Eve, and I still haven't fully caught-up on all the news from before Santa's visit.

I'll start with the little stuff - like the tiny, little kitty Jack and I adopted a few days before Christmas. Yes, the family has grown and now includes a baby tabby cat whose picture on FaceBook made both Jack and I say, 'Awww. We want her."

She'd been dropped in a yard along Highway 56 and needed a home, as the lady who was fostering her had holiday travels upcoming. When I got in touch with her, lo-and-behold, it was an old friend of mine from nursing school that I haven't talked to in more than twenty years. How's that for coincidence.

The big cats were a little hiss and yowl when they first saw her - I don't know how those cat-words translate to English, but that was the initial response. Dudley kept track of her for the first forty-eight hours, following her EVERYWHERE, which she didn't seem to mind.

Since arriving on the scene last Wednesday evening, she's pretty much fully-adjusted, and so has everyone else. She and The Fuzz sleep and play together, and she loves piling up with the big dogs on their bed for a nap. Carlton and Venus ignore her for the most part, but even they have stopped with the ugly noises except for when she stakes them out and ambushes them from nowhere. She's fearless.

Moose also gets some fearless points this week, considering our scary experience with him on Wednesday...

Jack called me at work from the vet's office sometime mid-day to let me know that Moose had been shot. Yes. Shot.

Before anyone panics, he's fine - he's going to be as good as new once he heals and the hair grows back over the area that had to be shaved by the vet. He hasn't so much as whimpered with it, even right after it happened. He was examined, x-rayed, poked and prodded and never so much as flinched.

We have no idea who shot him or why. He's big, but he's a gentle, slow-moving beast who doesn't have a mean bone in his body. Given the small caliber of the bullet that hit him and the entry point, the vet suspects that he was likely shot by a young person that got a new gun for Christmas. Not knowing for sure, we aren't taking any chances and have taken to walking Moose on the leash and closely monitoring what he does.

At least Moose knows how to act on the leash and doesn't go completely bananas. Like some dogs we've known.

I may make it back to the blog before midnight - I may not.

Either way. Happy New Year!

Christmas Pictures

Merry Christmas 2010

Holiday greetings from Jack & Pam at the Lake --

I cannot believe that another Christmas has come and gone. How does the time pass so quickly?

Fleeting as it may have been, this holiday was beautiful (with SNOW!) and wonderful and fun - a truly happy time for those of us gathered at Mom and Dad's farm to celebrate the day. With wintry weather in the forecast and uncertain travel conditions to develop, The V3 traveled last night instead of today, as they had planned, to make sure they would make it "home" for Christmas.

Lucia didn't seem to mind that Santa came to visit at Papa and NanNan's house this time. He brought her a lovely red kitchen, and the rest of us kicked in pans and utensils and "play food" and the rest of the gear to go with it. She made quite the haul on pajamas and books, too.

The money wasn't hers, but she wanted it.

There's nothing like having a little one around for Christmas.

I just pulled my pictures off the camera and am sharing some of the good ones.

Knowing that Lucia would roll out early and be ready to check out her presents, Jack and I got up and on with our part of the preparations before the crack of dawn this morning. I woke up at 5:00 - ten minutes before our alarm sounded and twenty minutes before Jack got up. RARELY do I beat him out of the sack - I'm much more the "snooze alarm hitter" than he, but the excitement of Christmas was more than I could stand.

I got busy wrapping the few packages that still needed wrapping and finished tying ribbons on everything while Jack hit his stride in the kitchen, frying country ham, making homemade biscuits and sausage balls, and pulling together the necessary supplies for our salmon tray, the "Christmas Tradition" that is uniquely Jack's.

We didn't make it to the farm by our goal time of 7:30, but arriving at 8:00 was a new record to the early side of the dial for us. Luckily the dogs cooperated with their business trips this morning, and nobody gave us a bad time when it was time to come inside. There's no accounting the number of family functions, appointments, dinners with friends and routine departures for the grocery store that have been delayed over the years because of "trouble-making dogs", who sensed that we were about to be "gone" and punished us in advance, but the current crop seems understanding of our plight in the past.

Lucia kept us all entertained with her nearly limitless supply of energy and language skills. She's cute, smart and funny, but knowing her parents, is it any wonder?

She thought Papa's new winter hat was a hoot and tried it on, much to her own amusement. Ours, too.

Santa left her a sweet, stuffed black lab puppy in her stocking. When I talked to Mom later this afternoon, she reported that Lucia had named him, "Buddy".

After hours of running on all 12 cylinders, Lucia finally ran out of steam and desperately needed a nap, but as long as stuff was "still happening", she would hear nothing about laying down for some sleep. She couldn't even manage to doze-off in Papa's lap with her blanket and kitty, so Jack and I removed ourselves from the excitement and headed toward home in the early afternoon with tentative plans for naps of our own which never materialized.

Ah well. Best laid plans and all of that...

In closing for the day, "Happy Christmas", everyone.

"A VERY Good Time"

Christmas is Coming

The week started out quite snowy, and thanks to the road conditions, I was able to productively work from home on both Monday and Tuesday. My commute sucks on a regular basis and I hate it vividly sometimes, but when the weather is freaky and the roads are icy, I have cool people in charge, who don't hold my love of the rural life against me and grant me the flexibility to work from home.

That Christmas is a week away is more than I can wrap my head around at the moment. I've done no shopping, though I have a general idea of what everyone is getting. Except Jack. But I'll figure it out.

Mom keeps asking me what I want Santa to bring me, and there are things on my list, but seriously. How do I explain the expense of a Breville single-cup coffee maker for my office to Santa? Is Santa familiar with the K-cup?

How do I make sense of my shoe size, which varies widely by brand?

Can Diva spend a week with Santa? Can she sleep on Santa's couch?

A microwave would be nice, but do we have the counter space? And given the choice between a microwave and a toaster oven, which better fits our needs?

Christmas is fraught with questions, you know? And I over-think everything.

The best gift of all is a nice, relaxing Christmas with family and a couple of extra days off from work. Time to chill out and relax with plenty of delicious, seasonal food and perhaps a new toy or two can't be beat. A glass of wine with lunch. A nap. Some "Matlock" reruns streaming on NetFlix and making a dent in the new couch.

These are a few of my favorite things.

Last week during Lucia's birthday, Jack took a few clips of video that we edited together into a wonderful little goodie earlier this evening. I'm posting it shortly, and I hope you enjoy it as much as we have...

Lucia's Birthday Pictures

Saturday Night at Camp PAJAMA

Happy Saturday night, people.

Considering the weather, I sincerely hope you all have warm, dry places to be. The word "frightful" comes to mind in describing what's going on outside Camp PAJAMA (Pam And Jack And Multiple Animals).

Wow, I just created a new mnemonic. I should probably register "Camp PAJAMA" as a new blog address for the eventuality of running out of room on this one.

As I blogged several weeks ago, Jack and I have recently purchased a new wood stove and had hoped to have it installed and ready to burn by the time the cold, wet, nasty weather of December came crashing down on us. Dad and Jack drove to Cookeville yesterday to pick it up, and excitement was abundant. Jack and I had every intention of getting the installation done today, and our plan was to be snuggled up in front of "the Tula", watching the wood burn by this point in our evening.

'Tis not to be.

To make a long story short, things didn't mate-up the way they should. The pipe going out and the pipe going in aren't configured to play nice with one another.

When this house was built in 1975 or so, fire prevention standards were much, much different, and the apparatus that carries our flue through the roof is a jimmy-rigged outfit constructed of mobile home duct-work.

The contractor we had come this afternoon for an assessment of the situation didn't say "tinder-box". And he said that if our house burned down, the insurance would probably pay.

Uncomforted, Jack and I were not convinced that additional work-arounds - things involving banging and bending to "make it work" - were not in our best interest. I called Dad for validation that waiting to do the right thing was the right thing to do.

Next week Jack and I will be getting a new double-walled flue and making sure that our new stove has the right kinds of connections for years of warmth without setting our house afire.

In the meantime, we'll stay comfy with our electric baseboard heaters and the safe little space heater I used in my office a couple of offices ago.

Lu Turns Two

Happy Birthday, Lucia --

It's hard to believe that two years ago, we were just getting to know you. We'd just met you. You were an hours-old newborn. Breathing a sigh of relief that all the dicey delivery-stuff was over for Sis, we were adjusting to the idea of having a baby in our family. A really cute baby. That we loved from the very first second.

Fast forward a few months, and she's not a baby anymore.

Last night we celebrated Lucia's second birthday - and oh, what a blast.

Lucia had a new book - "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". She thought it was the "Cat in the Hat" and read it, quite convincingly, that way.

Sis got take-out from the always tasty Bar-B-Cutie and a cute chocolate cake with a kitty on the top. And ice cream.

Lucia got a nice assortment of birthday gifts, but she was partial to the doctor/nurse kit Jack and I gave her. I can't take credit for picking it out, though - Sis suggested it after Lucia's last trip to Dr. Yoniyama. I don't know if that's the correct spelling. Last night Lucia called him Dr. Seuss. Fancy that.

Mom and Dad got Lucia a classic "Little Red Wagon" - just like I got on my second birthday. It will be more fun when weather gets warmer and can be played with outside.

Enjoy the pictures.

She's a cutie!

It's Beginning to Feel a Little Like Christmas

Jack and I have had another wonderful weekend, and despite the increasingly cold weather, we managed to have a great time.

Yesterday afternoon we went to the Smithville Christmas Parade. This is the first "local" parade I've been to in probably twenty years, and Jack had never been to this one before. For so many years we went to the McMinnville Christmas Parade, because the Anderson home was on the parade route, and it was convenient for us to hang there and watch from the convenience of the front yard, mere steps away from the comfort of "inside".

Jack almost immediately decided that the Smithville parade is much better. Though it's smaller and doesn't draw the large crowds, it's comfortable and friendly and unpretentious. People are able to park conveniently, and there's no pressure to dress in whatever "period costume" has been designated as the theme of the parade. Those in attendance and those participating seem to genuinely be having fun.

This little boy in the Santa suit made my day. His name is Jacob, and he'd brought his letter to Santa with him to the parade. He was angling to get some lap-time with St. Nick after the parade to talk about his wish-list. His mother was really nice and glad to let Jack and I take his picture, and last night she became my friend on facebook.

Kudos to Sis for finishing the St. Jude Half Marathon in less than three hours and exceeding her fundraising goal. Here's a picture from the post-race family area. I think she's still wearing the big smile.

Run, Sis. Run Like the Wind!!

This morning Sis ran in the St. Jude Half-Marathon. We haven't gotten the report on her run time yet, but however long it takes, we're awfully proud of her for making the commitment to train and run for a very worthy cause.

The link to donate money, should you choose to do that, is still "live" - She has surpassed her goal amount, but every dollar raised directly benefits St. Jude Children's Hospital in Memphis, and even the smallest donation will be greatly appreciated.

https://waystohelp.stjude.org/sjVPortal/public/displayUserPage.do?userId=494770&programId=401&eventId=108867

Sis is psyched and totally ready despite having a sore leg that had to be rested for the past week or so.

Thursday night I babysat Lucia to give Sis and Chris a chance to go to the new Harry Potter movie, and Lu told me all about how she is going to see the ducks at the Peabody and their planned trip to the zoo.

Who besides me can't believe she turns two on the 10th?

Here are some pictures from the evening. The cute little chair is an early birthday-Christmas present, handmade by Uncle Chuck Vernon.

And Lu put herself in the dog crate. She thought it was hysterically funny.