I have been sitting snug in the recliner with cups of kaluha and whipping cream laced coffee for the past hour perusing mail, messages, facebook, and cookie recipes. I closed the door to my room lest I inadvertently wake Bell. I needed a bit more quiet time than usual this morning. Really, I just wanted my IPad a bit longer. As soon as she wakes up, she will want to go to Pottermore.com and check some potion she is brewing or see where her house is in points standing. And then ensues the long battle of making sure she doesn't spend too much time plugged in to an electronic device today. It is hard when I know she doesn't feel good enough to do much more than lie around and I am too busy cleaning house (or being sucked into a book) to find her another occupation.
I am thankful for the quiet this morning. This may jinx it, but Kate hasn't barked incessantly at anything. It isn't freezing. There are zero pressing matters to attend or places to go today. Tomorrow will be a go to church, visit my mom, and stop for groceries day, but today is just a homebody day. I can wear leggings and a flannel shirt and no one will care. That prim, proper, hardworking English teacher persona (my principal is delusional if she really buys that facade) can be discarded for the day.
This is not to say there aren't goals. Housecleaning drives Jack nuts so I do big cleaning every other weekend when he is not home and just tidy on weekends he is home. He comes home Monday, and it is important to me that when he comes home, our house is orderly and fresh. It should be a bit of a sanctuary after he has been gone all week, so it will be scrub the bathroom, dust, vacuum and mop, laundry day. I have a bit more than usual because I want to wash all these germy blankets Bella has nested in all week. I was so tired last night, I didn't even wash up the day's dishes so there is a bit of kitchen work as well.
Last weekend we had our pictures made and I really need to work on cards this weekend. I bought every single Christmas gift save one online - they have all arrived and I have not opened a single shipping box to check its contents, so that needs tending to. I bought a toy last week as well - no it isn't anything kinky. I bought a cookie press and I am dying to bake some experimental batches, try some new recipes today. My grandparents and Jack's parents don't need a thing, but both sets have serious sweet tooths. In addition to that seriously brandied up fruitcake marinating in the hall cupboard, I think they are getting an assortment of baked treats. I know Rubilee was reminiscing about her youth when her housemates made gingerbread and brandy Alexanders, so I have the ingredients for both. I thought one day over break it might be fun for Bell, Rubilee, and me to bake gingerbread together.
The only other thing in my list is to finish JoJo Moyes' One Plus One today. I know realistically that it all won't get finished today, aside from the housework. That is a must. I won't rush. No breakneck speed cleaning for me today. For now, my coffee cup is empty and it is past 8. Time to waken the child and start the day.
Saturday, December 13, 2014
Friday, December 12, 2014
Beastly Weeks
Last week had an inauspicious beginning despite it being a week that Jack would come home. Last Monday, I got up early, prepped supper, made a loaf of homemade bread, had us ready to go out the door a bit early - in short, I was playing Superwoman. And then it all fell apart. It was the bitterly cold morning when the predicted high for the day was only 30 degrees and I went out early to start the car and load up my briefcase and Bell's backpack.
Now for city people, we live in an old house built by a tightwad, a man who built this house out of leftover parts from other houses. I walk across the yard to get to the dryer though the washing machine is in the middle of my kitchen. A garage is something fancy people have. That means that warming the car is a must. Somehow, after I started the car, I bumped the door lock - I believe it had something to do with keeping one Jack's bejillion cats out of the car. Of course I didn't realize the doors locked until after the door shut. Panic did not set in - I was sure the spare key was on the rack. Except it wasn't. We don't have a house phone. My cell phone was in the car. Bell still had my iPad in the house, so I messaged Jack Dear, hoping he was still at the trailer in Alva with his iPhone on (he doesn't keep it on much and normally uses his work phone). He did and he also had my spare key. In Alva. Nearly three hours away. It is 7:30. I have a 20 minute drive and need to be at work in 30 minutes. Now panic ensues. Can I take our old decrepit jeep? The one with no heat, no antifreeze, and a nearly flat tire? Nope. I did limp the jeep to Jack's mother's and took her rather unreliable car to work. In the meantime, my car sat, running with heat on full blast and my briefcase inside for three hours, while the man of the house came home with the spare key.
Sounds like the Three Stooges are in charge at my house doesn't it? It all ended up fine. Jack came home, dealt with the cars and the day resolved itself into normalcy, but when your Monday morning starts that way, you just don't do a good job teaching - too much stress, too much insanity. It somehow sets the tone for the week, which turned gray and damp with a cold that seeped into my bones.
Last Wednesday, Bell developed a sore throat. Last Thursday, the chip in the windshield that was supposed to get fixed on Friday turned into a huge crack. By Sunday, Bell had developed a nasty cough. By Monday evening, the snot monster was sleeping propped up in my bed with Breathe Easy oil in the diffuser and Thieves oil rubbed into her chest and feet, dosed with cold medicine. By Tuesdayay, the cough and congestion had reached the point that I was checking for fever and saying, "Just try to make it through the day." Mothers know that when we send our kids to school half sick, we spend the entire day waiting for the phone to ring, for the elementary to demand that we come fetch our germy child. That means we are not one hundred percent focused on our job.
Perhaps that is why it took me until the end of first hour to realize that when second hour's papers came back from the copier, they were short a few copies. Our school building is huge, with the copier far away from my room, but between classes I made it to the copier, which was out of paper. I loaded the paper, but there was a misfeed. After much fuss, I managed to get my copies and had rounded the last corner of halls to my classroom just as the bell rang. I was late for class. The principal was waiting outside my classroom.. This did not bode well. Not well at all. I went in, shut the door and prayed fervently that the boss man was there to observe someone else, though not likely since there are only two other classes past mine in the hall.
My students have a routine everyday - when the bell rings, they are to begin work on their sentence of the day while I take roll and then we start class. The ball had rung and not a single student out of 21 had ther sentence out, much less started working on it. I got them going, roll was taken , but there was much muttering, nitpicking between students and general grumbling in the room. I had to tell several students to focus, to be quiet, and the third time I spoke to one young man, I actually said "shut up." I rarely say that. I just don't, but he was keeping contention stirred up with another
student and had been warned, and I just about was at the end of my rope. I thought so at least.
The day before, we had spent no less than fifty minutes discussing the roll of women in the late 1880s and reading Kate Chopin's "Story of an Hour" and discussing how the story could fit into both realism and naturalism. We dissected that story so thoroughly that I am not sure much more could have been said, I thought they had picked up every nuance, caught how each detail was flavored by the social environment, understood each sliver of irony. Come on, it is a ten minute story and it should have been conquered in a fifty minute lesson.
Not so. I handed out work, about 12 questions, going from simple right up Bloom's levels. Immediately, the uproar started: "I don't get it," "This is too hard," "You didn't explain this part," "These questions don't make sense," ""Help me," "I still don't get this." I saw red. Few things annoy me more than students who start the "I don't get it routine" when they have only spent 30 seconds with a problem. I had dared used words like why, how, what if, consider the historical and social aspects, and worst of all, in yor opinion. As I am saying that I will not just give them the answer and their protests are getting louder, in walks the principal ready to observe me. My students apparently have no brains and are on the verge of mutiny if I ask them to work, it looks like chaos, I was late to class . . .
I did not give them the answer. I asked leading questions, we discussed some more, I redirected with leading questions, I ended up saying things like, "No. You are not thinking. I will not tell you the answer" and we started over again with different leading questions. Three times and twenty minutes later they were mad and pouty, but on the right track. While they worked, I passed out graded papers and make up work, looking over shoulders as the kids worked, stopping and redirecting them to other parts of the story for answers, asking them questions to steer the. In the right direction.
I got a good review, but patience wise, I probably deserved an F. I did not have all my ducks in a row to begin class on time. They don't pay me to fight with the copier between class. They pay me to teach from bell to bell. The galling thing is, days like that are pretty rare. I teach and work hard and most days, I do a good job. maybe I got a good review because the boss knows that I do a good job, maybe he recognized the students had some responsibility to learn and not just me teach. But what if he only gave me a good review because he knows that 35% of my reviews will be comprised of how much growth there is between the 10th and 11th grade test scores, rather than how effectively I taught. I can be the best teacher ever, but I can not force a child to do well on a test, especially when passing said test is not a graduation requirement, it is also hard to show improvement whe the 10th grade pass rate is already something like 97%.
It has just been a beastly two weeks. Wednesday, I was out of school, lugging a sick Bella to the doctor. Yesterday morning I had a migraine and then it was a bit chaotic trying to catch up from being gone. Then I got to spend a good bit of time dealing with a discipline issue. My kids were using the ipads to type last essay of the semester and one child chose to write his in rather nasty language. It wasn't turned in, but left on the Ilad where a student later in the day discovered it. I had to figure out which kid it was, spend some time with the principal deciding what punishments would ensue, just generally deal with the mess. The essay had some legitimate sentences amidst its filthy rambling, but for the most part, drawing penises all over the paper would have been as effective. Let me remind you, my salary and even my job will depends o n this kid's test score. The student won't be allowed to use the ipads anymore which means more work for me since we will be working through a test prep program on them one day a week for the rest of the year. I will have to create something on paper . . . Giving the child a zero really isn't an option - test scores, remember?
This morning, as I type this, I am shaky from lack of sleep. I usually sleep well after a migraine, but not last night. Sometimes the pills I take leave me jittery. Match that with a coughing little girl who had bad dreams and I gave up on sleep at 4:15. It is test day in my room which means no lessons to teach. I will be having lunch with fiends. It is Friday. These are things for which I am seriously thankful. I am ready for this week to be over and for Jack to come home.
Now for city people, we live in an old house built by a tightwad, a man who built this house out of leftover parts from other houses. I walk across the yard to get to the dryer though the washing machine is in the middle of my kitchen. A garage is something fancy people have. That means that warming the car is a must. Somehow, after I started the car, I bumped the door lock - I believe it had something to do with keeping one Jack's bejillion cats out of the car. Of course I didn't realize the doors locked until after the door shut. Panic did not set in - I was sure the spare key was on the rack. Except it wasn't. We don't have a house phone. My cell phone was in the car. Bell still had my iPad in the house, so I messaged Jack Dear, hoping he was still at the trailer in Alva with his iPhone on (he doesn't keep it on much and normally uses his work phone). He did and he also had my spare key. In Alva. Nearly three hours away. It is 7:30. I have a 20 minute drive and need to be at work in 30 minutes. Now panic ensues. Can I take our old decrepit jeep? The one with no heat, no antifreeze, and a nearly flat tire? Nope. I did limp the jeep to Jack's mother's and took her rather unreliable car to work. In the meantime, my car sat, running with heat on full blast and my briefcase inside for three hours, while the man of the house came home with the spare key.
Sounds like the Three Stooges are in charge at my house doesn't it? It all ended up fine. Jack came home, dealt with the cars and the day resolved itself into normalcy, but when your Monday morning starts that way, you just don't do a good job teaching - too much stress, too much insanity. It somehow sets the tone for the week, which turned gray and damp with a cold that seeped into my bones.
Last Wednesday, Bell developed a sore throat. Last Thursday, the chip in the windshield that was supposed to get fixed on Friday turned into a huge crack. By Sunday, Bell had developed a nasty cough. By Monday evening, the snot monster was sleeping propped up in my bed with Breathe Easy oil in the diffuser and Thieves oil rubbed into her chest and feet, dosed with cold medicine. By Tuesdayay, the cough and congestion had reached the point that I was checking for fever and saying, "Just try to make it through the day." Mothers know that when we send our kids to school half sick, we spend the entire day waiting for the phone to ring, for the elementary to demand that we come fetch our germy child. That means we are not one hundred percent focused on our job.
Perhaps that is why it took me until the end of first hour to realize that when second hour's papers came back from the copier, they were short a few copies. Our school building is huge, with the copier far away from my room, but between classes I made it to the copier, which was out of paper. I loaded the paper, but there was a misfeed. After much fuss, I managed to get my copies and had rounded the last corner of halls to my classroom just as the bell rang. I was late for class. The principal was waiting outside my classroom.. This did not bode well. Not well at all. I went in, shut the door and prayed fervently that the boss man was there to observe someone else, though not likely since there are only two other classes past mine in the hall.
My students have a routine everyday - when the bell rings, they are to begin work on their sentence of the day while I take roll and then we start class. The ball had rung and not a single student out of 21 had ther sentence out, much less started working on it. I got them going, roll was taken , but there was much muttering, nitpicking between students and general grumbling in the room. I had to tell several students to focus, to be quiet, and the third time I spoke to one young man, I actually said "shut up." I rarely say that. I just don't, but he was keeping contention stirred up with another
student and had been warned, and I just about was at the end of my rope. I thought so at least.
The day before, we had spent no less than fifty minutes discussing the roll of women in the late 1880s and reading Kate Chopin's "Story of an Hour" and discussing how the story could fit into both realism and naturalism. We dissected that story so thoroughly that I am not sure much more could have been said, I thought they had picked up every nuance, caught how each detail was flavored by the social environment, understood each sliver of irony. Come on, it is a ten minute story and it should have been conquered in a fifty minute lesson.
Not so. I handed out work, about 12 questions, going from simple right up Bloom's levels. Immediately, the uproar started: "I don't get it," "This is too hard," "You didn't explain this part," "These questions don't make sense," ""Help me," "I still don't get this." I saw red. Few things annoy me more than students who start the "I don't get it routine" when they have only spent 30 seconds with a problem. I had dared used words like why, how, what if, consider the historical and social aspects, and worst of all, in yor opinion. As I am saying that I will not just give them the answer and their protests are getting louder, in walks the principal ready to observe me. My students apparently have no brains and are on the verge of mutiny if I ask them to work, it looks like chaos, I was late to class . . .
I did not give them the answer. I asked leading questions, we discussed some more, I redirected with leading questions, I ended up saying things like, "No. You are not thinking. I will not tell you the answer" and we started over again with different leading questions. Three times and twenty minutes later they were mad and pouty, but on the right track. While they worked, I passed out graded papers and make up work, looking over shoulders as the kids worked, stopping and redirecting them to other parts of the story for answers, asking them questions to steer the. In the right direction.
I got a good review, but patience wise, I probably deserved an F. I did not have all my ducks in a row to begin class on time. They don't pay me to fight with the copier between class. They pay me to teach from bell to bell. The galling thing is, days like that are pretty rare. I teach and work hard and most days, I do a good job. maybe I got a good review because the boss knows that I do a good job, maybe he recognized the students had some responsibility to learn and not just me teach. But what if he only gave me a good review because he knows that 35% of my reviews will be comprised of how much growth there is between the 10th and 11th grade test scores, rather than how effectively I taught. I can be the best teacher ever, but I can not force a child to do well on a test, especially when passing said test is not a graduation requirement, it is also hard to show improvement whe the 10th grade pass rate is already something like 97%.
It has just been a beastly two weeks. Wednesday, I was out of school, lugging a sick Bella to the doctor. Yesterday morning I had a migraine and then it was a bit chaotic trying to catch up from being gone. Then I got to spend a good bit of time dealing with a discipline issue. My kids were using the ipads to type last essay of the semester and one child chose to write his in rather nasty language. It wasn't turned in, but left on the Ilad where a student later in the day discovered it. I had to figure out which kid it was, spend some time with the principal deciding what punishments would ensue, just generally deal with the mess. The essay had some legitimate sentences amidst its filthy rambling, but for the most part, drawing penises all over the paper would have been as effective. Let me remind you, my salary and even my job will depends o n this kid's test score. The student won't be allowed to use the ipads anymore which means more work for me since we will be working through a test prep program on them one day a week for the rest of the year. I will have to create something on paper . . . Giving the child a zero really isn't an option - test scores, remember?
This morning, as I type this, I am shaky from lack of sleep. I usually sleep well after a migraine, but not last night. Sometimes the pills I take leave me jittery. Match that with a coughing little girl who had bad dreams and I gave up on sleep at 4:15. It is test day in my room which means no lessons to teach. I will be having lunch with fiends. It is Friday. These are things for which I am seriously thankful. I am ready for this week to be over and for Jack to come home.
Saturday, December 6, 2014
The Great Tree Heist
Wrapped in a dense, softest gray blanket of fog, hidden from lake and woods and road, our house is quiet. I should be sleeping late on this morning meant for snuggling deep in my clean sheeted bed. Really, I did sleep late. 6:30 is extraordinarily late when my internal clock usually wakes me a bit after 5. I am typically the first up and thus the first to move our elf on the shelf and turn the tree lights on, but Bell and Jack camped out in the living room last night according to their usual Friday night custom. I hesitate to wake either up, though barking Kate outside is sure to do it for me. The dears need their sleep. Today is to be our first real family photo ever taken by someone other than Jack. We have an appointment and everything, just like normal people. This is a hardship to the man used to being in charge of the camera and a gross inconvenience to the kid who just wants to stay home and watch YouTube videos about minecraft. I need them to sleep in and be in their best moods possible.
As I sip my Saturday coffee ( good coffee is saved for weekends when it can be savored and we slurp ordinary coffee on weekdays) and nibble one of Bell's sugar cookies, I am pondering our Christmas traditions. Since I first put up my own tree and we blew all those eggs as friends, Jack and I had only one year when we didn't share Christmas in some way. Some years were lean years for us and some were richer; we typically made some craft or crazy food together whether it be the eggs or the fruitcake; there was always a tree. And unlike this year that is going ever so normal and tame, there is usual an element of slap stick craziness. I am not sure what it is, but when Rucker and Wilson combine in efforts, things just go a bit nutty. Poor Bell hasn't a chance at being ordinary.
One of my favorite years was the winter of 2000. I was living outside Apache in a little farmhouse, perched atop a lonely hill, a mile from the nearest neighbor. Jack was here on the farm with his folks that winter, between leaving his building in Chickasha and moving to Guthrie. As usual, Jack was the designated tree procurer. It never occurred to me to buy a tree, artificial or real. Both our families had always cut down cedar trees from pastures and so that is what we did. On a dirt road with no houses, Jack had spotted a pasture full of good looking cedar trees several miles from my house. I do not know who owned that pasture and those cedars. Had I, we could have saved ourselves much trouble. No decent farmer wants a pasture of western red cedar. They are a menace, eating up good land and providing nothing put a fire hazard. In case of grass fires, those cedars do not just smolder, but literally explode, sending sparks and embers even further afield. But Jack and I didn't think quite like that. We knew those cedars were of no value, but we didn't know whose land it was so we would have to use stealth to capture a tree. A plan was hatched.
We would wait until dark and then Jack would pick me up at my house. We would drive to the field. Jack would get out, hop the fence, snag said tree, and come back. I was the getaway driver in his Rodeo. If a car came along before he got back, I was to circle the section and come back. Jack had a flashlight and would flash it on when I came by so I could find him. Sounds good, right?
It all started well. Jack found the field and relinquished the driver's seat to me. I familiarized my self with the Rodeo's lights and all that while he climbed the fence with a small saw. Before he was gone more than a few minutes into the black night, a car did come up behind me so I moved along, driving an unfamiliar road in an unfamiliar car. I made to circle the section, but the car stayed on my tail. I began to feel a bit threatened, a bit scared to be a lone girl on an unfamiliar dirt road at night with a car tailing me, right on my bumper. I turned towards the nearest town, zigzagging down these country lanes for what seemed like miles, a quarter mile east, a quarter mile south. When we were nearly to town, the car finally took a different turn. I would have driven all the way to Fletcher if need be because by that time I was truly scared, close to panic, wondering why I was driving around in the dark without a gun. I was safely on my own again, but I wasn't entirely sure I could find that field where 30 minutes before I had left Jack in the dark with a bunch of worthless cedar trees. Of course I could. I had to. I couldn't very well leave him in below freezing temperatures miles from anywhere in the dark.
I have no idea which of us was more relieved to see the other when I got to the right section and he popped up next to the fence, tree in tow. He didn't yell at me or even gripe at me for having left him in the dark, bitterly cold night. He must have been frozen and he certainly looked glad to see me. I told him the story, and teeth chattering, we got the tree atop the Rodeo. Here we hit snag number two. No rope. So, we popped the sun roof and took turns sticking our hands awkwardly through the tilted glass to hold onto the tree on the roof as he drove that winding road back to my house. I remember my hands aching, going numb from the effort to hold on to scratchy tree trunk with only thin gloves in twenty degree air. By the time we got to my house, only an hour had gone by since our departure. He had moved past any annoyance, and I had moved past fear and it became a ludicrous story.
Jack, always the good sport, wrestled that tree into a stand for me before calling it quits. I remember decorating my tree the next day. I remember it being a bitter cold Christmas with inches and inches of snow. I am not sure why I even needed a tree because I went to my Grandparents for a few days at Christmas. I certainly do not remember if it was a good tree or if that tree picked in the dark was hideous. I just remember how Jack made sure I had a tree because I wanted one.
The next time Jack and I mucked about with Christmas trees, we had figured out who we each were and had made the leap from friends to being a family. Twelve trees later, our traditions have shifted to going out to the well house and getting the artificial tree we got when I was pregnant with Bell and couldn't take anything for allergies (so no cedars). Our trees are now decorated with the help of little hands, and there are no dangerous excursions in the night. My pushing forty bones much prefer these domesticated holidays, but every year we take out that memory of tree thievery and laugh at our silliness.
As I sip my Saturday coffee ( good coffee is saved for weekends when it can be savored and we slurp ordinary coffee on weekdays) and nibble one of Bell's sugar cookies, I am pondering our Christmas traditions. Since I first put up my own tree and we blew all those eggs as friends, Jack and I had only one year when we didn't share Christmas in some way. Some years were lean years for us and some were richer; we typically made some craft or crazy food together whether it be the eggs or the fruitcake; there was always a tree. And unlike this year that is going ever so normal and tame, there is usual an element of slap stick craziness. I am not sure what it is, but when Rucker and Wilson combine in efforts, things just go a bit nutty. Poor Bell hasn't a chance at being ordinary.
One of my favorite years was the winter of 2000. I was living outside Apache in a little farmhouse, perched atop a lonely hill, a mile from the nearest neighbor. Jack was here on the farm with his folks that winter, between leaving his building in Chickasha and moving to Guthrie. As usual, Jack was the designated tree procurer. It never occurred to me to buy a tree, artificial or real. Both our families had always cut down cedar trees from pastures and so that is what we did. On a dirt road with no houses, Jack had spotted a pasture full of good looking cedar trees several miles from my house. I do not know who owned that pasture and those cedars. Had I, we could have saved ourselves much trouble. No decent farmer wants a pasture of western red cedar. They are a menace, eating up good land and providing nothing put a fire hazard. In case of grass fires, those cedars do not just smolder, but literally explode, sending sparks and embers even further afield. But Jack and I didn't think quite like that. We knew those cedars were of no value, but we didn't know whose land it was so we would have to use stealth to capture a tree. A plan was hatched.
We would wait until dark and then Jack would pick me up at my house. We would drive to the field. Jack would get out, hop the fence, snag said tree, and come back. I was the getaway driver in his Rodeo. If a car came along before he got back, I was to circle the section and come back. Jack had a flashlight and would flash it on when I came by so I could find him. Sounds good, right?
It all started well. Jack found the field and relinquished the driver's seat to me. I familiarized my self with the Rodeo's lights and all that while he climbed the fence with a small saw. Before he was gone more than a few minutes into the black night, a car did come up behind me so I moved along, driving an unfamiliar road in an unfamiliar car. I made to circle the section, but the car stayed on my tail. I began to feel a bit threatened, a bit scared to be a lone girl on an unfamiliar dirt road at night with a car tailing me, right on my bumper. I turned towards the nearest town, zigzagging down these country lanes for what seemed like miles, a quarter mile east, a quarter mile south. When we were nearly to town, the car finally took a different turn. I would have driven all the way to Fletcher if need be because by that time I was truly scared, close to panic, wondering why I was driving around in the dark without a gun. I was safely on my own again, but I wasn't entirely sure I could find that field where 30 minutes before I had left Jack in the dark with a bunch of worthless cedar trees. Of course I could. I had to. I couldn't very well leave him in below freezing temperatures miles from anywhere in the dark.
I have no idea which of us was more relieved to see the other when I got to the right section and he popped up next to the fence, tree in tow. He didn't yell at me or even gripe at me for having left him in the dark, bitterly cold night. He must have been frozen and he certainly looked glad to see me. I told him the story, and teeth chattering, we got the tree atop the Rodeo. Here we hit snag number two. No rope. So, we popped the sun roof and took turns sticking our hands awkwardly through the tilted glass to hold onto the tree on the roof as he drove that winding road back to my house. I remember my hands aching, going numb from the effort to hold on to scratchy tree trunk with only thin gloves in twenty degree air. By the time we got to my house, only an hour had gone by since our departure. He had moved past any annoyance, and I had moved past fear and it became a ludicrous story.
Jack, always the good sport, wrestled that tree into a stand for me before calling it quits. I remember decorating my tree the next day. I remember it being a bitter cold Christmas with inches and inches of snow. I am not sure why I even needed a tree because I went to my Grandparents for a few days at Christmas. I certainly do not remember if it was a good tree or if that tree picked in the dark was hideous. I just remember how Jack made sure I had a tree because I wanted one.
The next time Jack and I mucked about with Christmas trees, we had figured out who we each were and had made the leap from friends to being a family. Twelve trees later, our traditions have shifted to going out to the well house and getting the artificial tree we got when I was pregnant with Bell and couldn't take anything for allergies (so no cedars). Our trees are now decorated with the help of little hands, and there are no dangerous excursions in the night. My pushing forty bones much prefer these domesticated holidays, but every year we take out that memory of tree thievery and laugh at our silliness.
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
I Love Blue Lipped Egg Blowers
The Rucker family typically puts up the Christmas tree the weekend after Thanksgiving, but Jack Dear was away at Alva. He came home Monday, and last night, we put up the tree. Jack is always in charge of tree set up leaving us girls to do the decorating. It is such a pleasure to put the world people up, followed by all the ornaments we have collected the past twelve years, some starting to lose their shine or with paint scratched, but all with a story. My favorites are from the early trees, like the horde of gingerbread men we we made our first Christmas as the Rucker family.
Lungpower is a must and before long, we were ridiculously dizzy, but we also had a bowl of yolks and whites for cooking, and soon, a bowlful of eggs to decorate, some with glitter, some with intricate designs in craft paintt, all with hot glued ribbon loops for hangers. They were a far cry from Faberge, but several were indeed pretty. Once the paints and glitters dried, we shellacked them, hoping to make them a little stronger.
Other than the world people that came from grandmother's tree, thevery oldest ornaments are from my first year as a teacher. Jack who then lived a few blocks away kindly brought me a tree scrounged from his mother's pasture. It was a cedar tree, not a lovely spruce or pine, but it was free. It was one of those years when I had money for presents or decor but not both. I opted for presents. How could I not? So I bought a few strings of lights and one box of ornaments. I strung pop corn and made some other crafty ornaments, but the Christmas eggs are what I best remember. I am not sure whose idea it was to blow and decorate eggs, but when we started, I pictured something delicately ornate, Faberge like.
Eggs are thankfully pretty cheap, and I also had a bunch of colors of Rit fabric dye. We debated whether we should dye first or blow first. For some insane reason, we decided to dye eggs first so that the hollow eggs wouldn't get full of dye. It seems we thought it would be ages before all the dye dripped back out or dried. And so, we mixed up red, yellow, blue, and green dye and most carefully dipped the raw eggs. After they dried forever, Jack showed me how to heat a needle and delicately make a hole in each end of the egg. A bit of whites will leak out of a pierced egg, but to truly clean out the eggs, one must blow them out, so we we put the eggs to our lips and blew and blew and blew. I am not sure at what point we looked up and noticed each other's new lips, but we looked like we had been kissing rainbow lollipops. It turns out that it was impossible to blow out eggs without getting some moisture from our lips onto the eggs. Once the eggs were damp, the color rubbed right off and behold! We were dyed as much as the eggs. Not just our lips, but an inch all the way around our mouths were blue and green and red and this gross black where the colors ran together. For those of you who have played in dye, you know it lasts a few days. Once we realized the damage, it was too late and we were half done, so we just finished the job.
Eggs are thankfully pretty cheap, and I also had a bunch of colors of Rit fabric dye. We debated whether we should dye first or blow first. For some insane reason, we decided to dye eggs first so that the hollow eggs wouldn't get full of dye. It seems we thought it would be ages before all the dye dripped back out or dried. And so, we mixed up red, yellow, blue, and green dye and most carefully dipped the raw eggs. After they dried forever, Jack showed me how to heat a needle and delicately make a hole in each end of the egg. A bit of whites will leak out of a pierced egg, but to truly clean out the eggs, one must blow them out, so we we put the eggs to our lips and blew and blew and blew. I am not sure at what point we looked up and noticed each other's new lips, but we looked like we had been kissing rainbow lollipops. It turns out that it was impossible to blow out eggs without getting some moisture from our lips onto the eggs. Once the eggs were damp, the color rubbed right off and behold! We were dyed as much as the eggs. Not just our lips, but an inch all the way around our mouths were blue and green and red and this gross black where the colors ran together. For those of you who have played in dye, you know it lasts a few days. Once we realized the damage, it was too late and we were half done, so we just finished the job.
Lungpower is a must and before long, we were ridiculously dizzy, but we also had a bowl of yolks and whites for cooking, and soon, a bowlful of eggs to decorate, some with glitter, some with intricate designs in craft paintt, all with hot glued ribbon loops for hangers. They were a far cry from Faberge, but several were indeed pretty. Once the paints and glitters dried, we shellacked them, hoping to make them a little stronger.
That would have been 16 years ago. The eggs have had a hard life. Cats who climb Chirstmas trees and bat ornaments don't help. Trees on wood floors and clumsy decorators don't help either, but many years and five moves later, a few have survived. Bella felt left out that she didn't share this story, so a few winters ago, we made a new dozen with her - I am older and wiser now and know to blow first and dye second. Her eggs are sweet, but I love those eggs from that first tree, when Jack and I still danced around and between the ideas of love and friendship and relationships, marriage a taboo topic, but when he already cared enough about me to go around with rainbow lips just so I could have ornaments to decorate a tree.
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