Sarah Lynn's Nature's Splendor: Remembering Christ's Birth

For over a month, I’ve been itching to talk about the gifts I got for members of the family, but couldn’t, because many of them read my journal. Well, now I can talk about it to my heart’s content, because I’ve given the gifts to all but my sister and her husband, and she doesn’t read my journal online. At least I don’t think she does. Or if she does, she will pretend she didn’t, in order to act surprised when she opens the gifts. We had the same mother, you know! – and our mother taught us that if you should happen to overhear someone talking about a surprise for you, you must go away quickly, and pretend you never, ever heard anything, and then of course you must act surprised when the surprise arrives.

So here were the gifts Larry and I gave our offspring and, uh, is the opposite of ‘offspring’ ‘onspring’? Offspring and onspring. Kids and parents, brother and sister: Smuckers Cider Apple Butter, a Chicago French Bread Pan, and Red Mill Whole Wheat bread mix.

They also got warm socks... the menfolk got pocket knives... and Old Goat Pain Relief Spray and Spring Chicken Muscle Rub, too – partly because it’s funny, and mostly because it’s really good stuff for aches and pains. I got it from Vermont Country Store.

Last Monday, I worked on photos for my DVD all day long. I planned to type my weekly Tuesday while the movie was publishing (that is, saving, in movie form).

I left my computer running, with the movie publishing, at 4:30 a.m., thinking that when I got back up in five or six hours, I could start a DVD burning – and hopefully the new DVD duplicator would arrive Tuesday morning, as promised by Amazon. But I forgot Murphy’s Law #63.9: “When one is running late, there will always be glitches. Maybe multiple glitches.”

When I checked my computer later Tuesday morning, the movie had been saved, and was ‘Ready for Playback’, so the little popup box read. I skipped through it quickly, preparing to pop a disc in and click ‘burn’ – but I found a two-minute stretch where there was no music. Okay, who squirreled away with a song or two when I wasn’t looking?! Maybe the slightly-loose USB cord got wiggled and lost connection momentarily? I’d been drawing the music from an external hard drive.

I checked the original – all the music was there. I began republishing it, which would again take half a century, optimistically speaking.

Meanwhile, Windows Live DVD Maker seemed to have evaporated. Where was it, where was it?? I looked up the matter on Google – and discovered that the Windows 10 update had taken away DVD Maker. How do ya like that?! Microsoft stole DVD Maker! How dare they?!! The conniving thieves made off with DVD Maker under the guise of New and Improved! Aarrggghhhh!!!

So, while the movie went on saving, I hunted up a new DVD maker, and was soon downloading Wondershare DVD Creator. ‘Close all other applications before continuing!’ it suddenly announced. Bah, humbug. My other applications were busy, BUSY, I tell you!

Do you ever leave all other applications UP, maybe open a few extraneous ones, just to prove you don’t hafta do what ‘they’ say, and ‘they’ can’t dictate to you, so there!! ?

It downloaded without a hitch, and was ready and waiting for action – but the movie was only up to 18% complete. It was 1:10 p.m. Maybe I should eat breakfast?

The five-target duplicator that was supposed to arrive that morning ... didn’t. I got a cheery note announcing that it would be here, no later than 8 p.m. – Wednesday. Wednesday! Aarrgghh... the Christmas program was set to begin at 7 p.m., Wednesday. And I’d intended to take have the DVDs in everyone’s Christmas cards, ready to be passed out, when we got to church that evening.

Well, the laptop toiled all day, republishing the movie. When it was done, I again scanned through it – and found a big ol’ gap in the ol’ dentures. That is, a two-minute spot devoid of music. Did I discombobulate it, removing a few songs from its midriff during composition of the movie, I wonder? Or was the cause that loose USB connection to the external hard drive from which I was drawing the music?

“Aaauuuggghhh!” I cried to Larry, “Can I borrow your sledge hammer??”

I took out all the music and proceeded to add it in again. But this time, I got smart and first moved the music to a folder on the laptop itself, so it wouldn’t be dependent on the external hard drive during the publishing of the movie.

This was not only successful, finally, but also sped up the process.

I know this. Why did I not do it this way in the first place?

Answer: How should I know?! Maybe I do dumb things now and then in order to make the other things I do look smart by comparison!

In the meantime, I finished putting signatures into Christmas cards (all 110 of them), names on envelopes, and labels on pictures. By now, I had given up on the DVDs.

“Even if the duplicator arrives, I don’t have time to get that many done now,” I resignedly told Larry. Then I added in a bit of a snit, “Maybe I should just give them to people who have actually thanked me for them in years gone by. Boy, oh boy, wouldn’t THAT whittle the list down to size!”

I posted my letter, only one day late, rather than two, as it had been the week before; so that was one small triumph. I sorted presents. The movie went on publishing, on this the third go-around. Hour after hour after hour... it republished.

And then it was done, some time very early Wednesday morning. Whatever glitch it had been encountering was evidently eliminated; the music was uninterrupted, all the way through. I put a DVD into the drive, took a quick look at the new software, and decided to purchase a registered version, since the free version would put a watermark on my video. I have no idea what the watermark would’ve looked like, but I envisioned a large, partially opaque emblem plastered smack-dab over everyone’s faces, throughout the entire video.

I’d worked too long and hard on this thing to spoil it now.

Sooo... with a mental apology to Larry for working an hour and a half for the stupid DVD Maker, I gritted my teeth and purchased it. (I hate buying things that should’ve been free – especially when I already had one, once, and it was sneakily purloined from me, right under my cute li’l nosey!)

And then I had to wait a good 45 minutes for them to email me the Registry code. I had an email putting forth my woes halfway composed when I spotted the small box reading, “There may be a wait of up to an hour between purchase time and sending of Registry code, while we verify credit card information.”

Do they do this by carrier pigeon, then?

I went off and washed my hair.

I checked my email.

Nothing.

Just about the time I had concluded that Wondershare was in cahoots with Microsoft, and had now stolen not only my original DVD Maker, but also the money for a registered version of Wondershare DVD Maker (and probably my credit card information, to boot), the code arrived.

I copied it, pasted it, clicked ‘Register’ – and was in business. I clicked ‘Burn’. A progress bar window popped up. It read 0% long enough for my finger to get itchy on the ‘Cancel’ button – and then a tiny green bar showed up, stage left, and the number changed to 1%.

Ah. It was working.

I decided to blowdry and curl my hair, since, just like watched pots which never boil, watched progress bars never progress.

In the middle of that, the five-target duplicator arrived! It was in a big box, and was somewhat heavy. Fortunately, Victoria was home, and she carried it downstairs for me. I opened the box, feeling like a little kid with a much-anticipated toy at Christmas time, and with difficulty got that big duplicator out. I set it up on a dresser in my sewing room, plugged it in, turned it on, and watched in fascination as all six drawers slid open.

It took about an hour and a half for my laptop to burn the DVD. The progress bar hovered at 99% for a couple of looong minutes, and then it went to 100%, and moments later the drive popped open. I snatched out the DVD, raced upstairs, poked it into our DVD player, turned on the big screen, and stood back to see what would happen.

Small problem: not being accustomed to the new DVD Maker, I’d hit ‘Burn’ before checking out the options – so I’d burnt a disc with a black title page announcing ‘My DVD’, sporting a shimmery ‘light’ overhead, with a black couch and black lamp stage right, looking like an old-time theater preview room. AND!!! – it played Up On the Housetop as a prelude! Old-fashioned hymns throughout the DVD – but Up On the Housetop as a prelude. HAHAHA

Well, some people were going to get it ‘As Is’, that was all there was to it.

I scurried back downstairs, put the DVD into the top drawer of the duplicator, filled the other five slots with blank discs, pushed them in, and pressed ‘Copy’. All the little green lights flashed, and fans whirred. It, too, was working.

Meanwhile, I belatedly checked out the options in my new software. Soon a new DVD was burning, this one with a pretty (and more appropriate) prelude song, a title reading ‘Photos 2015’, and with a background photo on the title page consisting of the snowy Alps with a beautiful old church and a bridge over a river in the foreground. But if I wanted to get those discs done before evening, I couldn’t wait for the new DVD to burn – so a good lot of people would get Up On the Housetop. Well, not that they would get up on the housetop, but they would be getting Up On the Housetop. (Caps and italics – or the lack thereof – make all the difference.)

By 2:30 p.m., ‘Photos 2015’ version 2.0 was in the duplicator, and copies were being made. That Samsung duplicator is fast! With it putting out five discs at a time, and the one-target LG duplicator running, too, the discs were stacking up like hotcakes. I started entertaining fond hopes of getting the DVDs done after all.

While little green lights blinked away happily, I read the news. Reporters were bloviating about Donald Trump’s latest bloviations.

Trump is a bad egg, never mind the fact that there are a few of his opinions I agree with, much as I hate to admit it. Are any of those wannabes good eggs?! Ugh, ugh, ugh.

Couldn’t we just extract the few good ideas each of them have, and combine them into one candidate? No, wait... all those good ideas would only make up ¼ of a person. So that’s out. Can’t just vote for a leg.

Along about 4:00 in the afternoon, another problem became evident: I was going to run out of sleeves for the DVDs. Well, it was too late to go to town for more. Those few that had no sleeves would get sleeved and doled out at the Christmas dinner on Friday.

With this new duplicator, I don’t even have to push any buttons to make it copy when I plug in a new DVD or CD, because I have it set to copy automatically. I scanned through the manual, looking at its multiple functions; but I don’t really need it for anything other than duplicating. Yet.

Victoria and I got ready for the Christmas service. Larry still wasn’t home.

I gathered up all the Christmas cards that now contained DVDs, got our Bibles, pulled my coat out of the closet. Larry had not gotten home yet. I tried to call him. His phone had either gone dead, or he was in an area with no reception.

I made a fresh pot of coffee, filled the Thermos, and put on my shoes.

Larry wasn’t home.

Kurt came and picked up Victoria.

I looked at the clock. It was time to go. And Larry wasn’t home. I looked at my coat and pondered.

My phone rang.

Larry had just gotten to the shop; he’d been in Norfolk (which explained why he hadn’t answered earlier—there are dead spots where there is no cell phone reception between Columbus and Norfolk). “Go ahead and go,” he told me, “I’ll be a little late.”

So I put on my coat, gathered up purse and Bible, two heavy boxes of cards (including Loren’s), and the Thermos, and off I went to church. If you’d like to listen to our Christmas service, it’s been posted on the church website: http://www.bbccolumbus.com/thirtyone.htm

Larry arrived at the end of the song service, so he missed the songs by the horns and the strings. But at least he got to hear the sermon and the songs by the children.

Some years ago, a woman who was a notorious procrastinator attended our church. Well, a young mother took a toddler downstairs to the restroom during a Christmas program – and found Ms. Dawdle down there – wrapping gifts!

After the program, we went to Wal-Mart for paper sleeves for the DVDs, and wouldn’t you know it, the shelf where the DVD packs belong had been restocked. I bought a pack of 100. I’ll need more than that for next year, but at least I have a good start. I don’t want to have to get them from Radio Shack again; they’re $5 more per 100.

We got gifts for Victoria’s friend Robin and Kurt’s brother Jared, and bought a whole lot of fresh vegetables, along with two kinds of dip, for a large tray I would take to Hannah’s house Friday.

Home again, I stuck six more discs into my machines. The duplicators went to steaming away, and in about 7 minutes, I was done. All done. What a difference it makes, copying six discs at once, as opposed to only one!

Then I began plowing my way through all the cards and pictures we’d gotten at church. That’s one of my favorite things at Christmas time – all the photos.

Kurt gave Victoria a pearl ring for Christmas. It’s beautiful, with tiny diamonds glittering on the band beside the pearl.

When we were 17, Larry gave me a lindy star ring for Christmas—wrapped in a sewing machine cabinet box. Inside it was a smaller wrapped box... another smaller wrapped box... and on and on... until finally there was a box about the size of a boot box, and it was full of all sizes and shapes of small boxes.

Everyone was laughing...

Most of the little boxes were empty. Some had candy in them.

And one had a beautiful ring. I still wear it.

We woke up to a good two inches of snow Thursday morning. Lazy snowflakes were still drifting down at noon.

Early that afternoon, the Schwan truck came trundling down the lane. It was the new lady they’ve recently hired. She brought my order in, and departed.

That is, she tried to depart.

First, she tried heading over the cattle guard and on up the hill toward the new neighbor’s house, as there’s a big enough area to turn around by the barns without having to back up.

But the hill was too slick; she couldn’t make it up.

She tried backing – but she’s none too good at it, and she had a terrible time keeping the truck straight enough to get it back over the cattle guard. I feared for my Jeep in the drive, while she slithered and zigzagged about on the lane.

She finally got it back over the cattle guard, but the lane was covered with ice, and that lady didn’t know what to do with it. Neither the truck nor the snow, did she know what to do with. Neighbor man Steve finally came to her rescue, backing the truck to the Old Highway for her while she took to her shank hosses and plodded along after him to the road.

Good grief.

I put away the frozen foods, then headed downstairs to finish wrapping gifts. The bags for the adults were done; I only needed to finish the grandchildren’s gifts.

Victoria went with Kurt to his family get-together that evening.

Shortly after midnight, the presents were finished, all wrapped and labeled. It wouldn’t have taken so long, had I not decided to use up smallish leftover pieces of wrapping paper on the big boxes, making a patchwork hodgepodge of it. But I can’t help it! I haven’t had a chance to quilt for almost a month!

Friday, we had Christmas dinner with our church members at noon; there were about 380 people there. In one big area of the building, they had set up a volleyball net. On the far wall was a basketball hoop.

Somebody had brought in a large amount of wooden blocks, and a number of children immediately set about construction of a tall, tall tower, which periodically fell over with a terrific clatter, making parents wonder if they should’ve equipped their children with hard hats.

After leaving the dinner, we dropped off gifts for Lawrence and Norma – and she gave us a quilt that Larry’s late Grandma Ruby made in about 1974, the year the Jackson family moved to town. The fabric of the small pieces in the curves consists of scraps left over from clothes Grandma Ruby had made many years earlier for Norma and her three sisters. There are a few raveled pieces, but most of it is in good shape.

I’ve uploaded photos here:

Grandma’s Double Wedding-Ring Quilt

I will treasure it. What a special gift. It’s machine-pieced and hand-quilted. I have a pretty wooden quilt rack that I got at a Goodwill in Omaha, I think, and I’ve never had a quilt to hang on it. This quilt will work perfectly.

Grandma Ruby was very dear to us. She often cared for Larry and his siblings while they were growing up in Trinidad, Colorado. When Larry and I got engaged, she gave us her wedding rings so we could have the diamonds reset in my rings. She and Larry’s grandpa were poor, but he managed to get her a rather large-carat diamond for the times, most likely because the jeweler had one with a flaw. The flaw can’t be seen without a loupe; the cutter knew what he was doing, and camouflaged it quite well. But the jeweler couldn’t sell it at anywhere near the normal price. This, at least, is what our local jeweler suggested was the likely scenario.

And now I have a quilt she made. I will put a label on it soon.

Lawrence was able to come to both the program and the dinner – out of sheer determination, I think.

Home again, I cut up all the fresh vegetables we had purchased to make a large vegetable tray. There were Homestyle Ranch and Poppy Seed dips. I also took some orange-cranberry, chocolate, lemon custard, and crème pound cake that we’d gotten at the Wal-Mart bakery.

Larry loaded the Jeep with all the gifts, and away we went to Bobby and Hannah’s house for our family get-together. Teddy and Amy needed help hauling their gifts – but the Jeep was clear full. So Kurt and Victoria stopped by and put presents in Kurt’s pickup, as it has a tonneau cover over the bed.

Late Saturday morning, I made split pea soup. Outside, I could hear two chain saws – Loren was helping Larry take down eight trees for the new neighbors, who plan to build up the road – nothing but a two-lane goat path, at the moment – that runs south of our property on the right-of-way. Sleet was thick; it was cold and icy outside.

When they came in a few hours later, tired and cold, the soup was ready and waiting, piping hot and exactly right. Mmmmm, mmmm, I love good split pea soup – ‘good’ meaning, not mushy, and with plenty of carrots, celery, onions, ham, butter, salt, and pepper.

Loren had brought us gifts, and we gave him his. Some of the things he gave Victoria and me used to be Janice’s – knickknacks and sewing things, for instance. He gave me a cute little LED lantern, too – the very one I’d admired and wanted in Wal-Mart (but I don’t often spend money on myself for stuff like that).

I spent part of the day editing a heap of photos I took both at our church dinner and at Hannah’s house. I’m less than halfway done.

A friend was telling me about living in Alaska when she was young. Once as she was reaching for a towel to dry her hair, she saw a cub at the window, paws on the sill, sniffing for all he was worth. She figured he could smell her – and she smelled like lunch! And then... she saw the middle of what must have been the mother bear. “I was out of that bathroom in the blink of an eye or faster,” she wrote.

Eeeek, yikes, aaaiiiyiiieee! A bear, looking in the bathroom window?! I’ve had a young squirrel peer in my bathroom window once, does that stand up to her story, do you think? Oh, and once Teensy came sailing through the open window, startling me a wee bit.

I am so intrigued by Alaska, I used to subscribe to Alaska magazine, years ago. Now I look at youtube videos.

I would love to go to Alaska. I have wanted to ever since I was about 10 or 11, and my parents and I were heading there, but had to turn back. We went through the beautiful mountains of Alberta and British Columbia ... got almost to Grand Prairie – and my mother got sick. She was rarely sick; Daddy was really worried about her, and that of course worried me, too. I think it was altitude sickness; we’d been in the mountains all the way from Wyoming, north. So we abruptly turned east to get to lower altitude quickly, headed for Edmonton, and then straight south toward home. I was sooo disappointed; I’d really wanted to see Alaska! Still, traveling with Daddy wasn’t at all like taking a tour. It was never a vacation, it was a trip. There is a difference. :-D We drove all in a rush to a certain destination, perhaps 1,000 or more miles away, took a quick, fast look around, leaped back in the car, and raced home again.

This, because Daddy was a pastor at heart, and his congregation was back at home, and most of the time he didn’t have an assistant pastor. A few times someone tried to take his place with dismal results, prompting Daddy to quote the poem, “Substitutes would irk a saint, for you hope they are what you know they ain’t!”

Somewhere north of Jasper, we were traveling at about 11:00 p.m., seemingly alone in the world. We hadn’t seen another car for hours. It had just gotten dark, with the sun finally falling behind the mountain peaks to the west. And then, like a huge, majestic curtain unfolding, the aurora borealis lit up the northern skies. Oh, the colors that shone and glistened and undulated through the indigo sky! Crimsons and jades and brilliant blues, shot through with streaks of fiery orange and royal purple. The colors rippled and rolled from the northern horizon straight up until they arched over us and curled to the south. Daddy parked beside the road and we got out and stood there in silent awe, just watching without a single word for a good half an hour. What an amazing, astounding display that was!

Speaking of big critters of the wilderness... we nearly hit a moose once near the east entrance of Yellowstone National Park. I was lying on the back seat of our International Travelall (a fairly tall SUV, in about 1972, maybe), sleeping. Until Daddy slammed on the brakes.

I tumbled right off the seat and found myself wedged under the front seat. The vehicle was stopping so rapidly, momentum held me there until, at the last minute, Daddy jerked his foot up off the brake and gave the steering wheel a violent wrench, sending that big rig, which was towing a 31-foot Airstream camper, swerving and skidding around that big ol’ beast standing ponderously in the middle of the road. I was looking up, from my position on the floor, right out the window – and found myself staring at the bottom side of the moose’s bearded chin, huge platter-like horns protruding far above his head. Now, that was a spectacle.

Sunday evening when hunting for something to wear to church, I found a red/black plaid skirt tucked deep into a drawer. I’d forgotten I had it; maybe I’d never worn it before. I coordinated it with a black knit vest with black beads all over the front, and a thin white collared soft fuzzy knit sweater (get a load of all those adjectives) underneath. It was thin enough, and cold enough that night (16° with a wind chill of 5°, and a winter storm warning had been issued) that I thought I should wear a thin Cuddl Duds top underneath – and then I discovered that the sleeves on the fuzzy sweater were too tight for any other sleeve to fit under.

It’s a wonder my hair wasn’t standing straight up on end with static electricity by the time I was ready, since I put two sweaters on, took two sweaters off, put one sweater on, and then put on a vest – all over my head.

It was baby Warren’s first birthday. He’s our youngest grandchild – but he won’t be for long! After church, we stopped at Teddy and Amy’s house to deliver Warren’s present – a puppy that does all kinds of tricks – pants, barks, sits up, trots, etc. Teddy showed us his and Amy’s new Christmas toy: a big curved screen in their living room. He pulled up youtube and played some old-time quartet music that we are all fond of. An Indian man (the tenor) with a full head of thick, straight hair combed quite a lot like Larry combs his (which is also thick and straight) came on the screen, and Grant, who will be 3 in a month, exclaimed, “Grandpa, there’s you!!!!”

We all turned and looked at the screen – just as the alto came on, a man with a big round moon face and an enormous double chin. Everyone burst out laughing. Grant looked puzzled. He turned around and looked back at the screen. His eyebrows flew up in amazement, and he exclaimed, “Noooooooooooo!” – and looked amazed again, because we all cracked up over that.

(Funny thing is, Larry has a good deal of Indian in him – and I think that made the resemblance that little Grant saw.)

After we got home, Jeremy, Lydia, Jacob, and Jonathan came visiting, bringing me a CD full of beautiful quilt books in PDF version, and a DVD with home videos. We plugged the DVD into our player and watched it while they were here. We needed another video cam going in order to capture the little boys’ reaction to seeing themselves on our big screen.

Shortly after Jeremy and Lydia left, Kurt and Victoria and their entourage arrived (Kurt’s brother Jared, their cousin Robin [Victoria’s best friend], and another of their cousins and good friends, Brianna). They’d been to another family gathering.

And then, suddenly, the company was gone, and all was quiet. I answered some emails, edited some photos, and read the news.

About the time I could no longer keep my eyes open, it occurred to me that there was a load of clothes in the washing machine (good thing the laundry room is cold, or they’d’ve probably smelt stale and I’d’ve had to rewash them)... and the outfit I’d worn to church was thrown in a heap on the bed, because company arrived just as I was changing. By the time those things were taken care of, I’d gotten a second wind; so I poured a steaming cup of coffee, ensconced myself in my recliner, put a heating pad behind my back, and looked at a few uneducational and time-wasting things on youtube before getting back to my photos.

Remember how the front-wheel-drive Cadillac we used to have couldn’t get out of our sloped drive when it was backed in, rear end lower than the front, if the drive was a sheet of ice? Well, neither could Victoria’s front-wheel-drive Aurora get out today, after somebody backed it in. Fortunately, she didn’t have to go to work; she was only trying to go to Robin’s house (despite the fact that she has a bad cold, and there’s something close to a blizzard going on).

“She either wants to kill me or make me catch pneumonia,” coughed Victoria.

“Yet you tried to go,” her mother countered. “Maybe your father’s trying to keep you home!” I added, since he should remember that we sometimes absolutely could not get that Caddy out of an iced-over drive when it had been backed in, since the slope shifted the weight so that it was no longer over the pulling tires.

The Aurora is now blocking in the Jeep. If the bumpers might happen to match up, I could conceivably push it out of the way. Being blocked in makes me need out, you know? Claustrophobia! CLAUSTROPHOBIA!!!

This little squirrel is getting a drink – of snow.

Several members of the family are sick with colds, fevers, and/or flu. Hester was sick Sunday. She went to work one day despite being ill. “I slept most of the day once I got home from work,” she wrote. “There was a heater and lots of blankets..... and the cat, of course.”

Cats are great helps when one is under the weather! You know how they call various candles ‘aromatherapy’? Well, cats should be labeled ‘audiotherapy’ – on account of what a pleasant sensation they give us when they purr. :-D

It’s been snowing much of the day; we have 3-4” of snow. The feeders were full of birds (and squirrels), the entire day.

Here’s a little nuthatch, spiraling his way down the rebar to the suet cakes I just put out, which Teddy and Amy gave me for Christmas.