An Advent Journey

We're waiting here at Casa de Cub.   Waiting for Christmas.  We've also been waiting for Camera Guy to finish working and have 2 weeks off so we can get a Christmas tree, start decorating the house, finish Christmas shopping (or in his case, start) and finalize plans for Christmas Day.  We aren't waiting for that anymore.  He finished working 2 nights ago!  We went to 2 parties last night!  We decorated the tree tonight!  Let the celebrating begin!

Advent really is *my* season.  The color the church uses to signify Advent is purple.  Purple is my favorite color.  I wear it all year long, but I really love wearing it during Advent.  I feel like I really fit in during Advent, fashion-wise.

We're waiting for the Christ child.  I'm trying very hard to instill in Cub the notion that Christmas isn't all about Santa and getting presents.  He's pretty good about saying back to me that it's Jesus' birthday when I ask him what Christmas is.  But, he's almost 4 years old.  He's also quite enamored with TV commercials filled with toy ads and frequently tells me of something new he saw that he wants.  It's been a journey for me to explain (over and over again) that we can't afford to buy him everything he wants, that he's already a very lucky boy to have the toys he has and that some toys will have to wait until he's older before he can have them.  


However, one toy eludes me that he wants.  He says it’s a jumping robot.  I have NO idea what that is.  He says he saw a commercial for it.  Yet, with all the time I’ve watched with him, I have yet to see it.  I don’t know what it is and perhaps it will be a journey of learning for him that we don’t always get everything we want.

We're waiting for the city to clear the debris from our street from the wind storm we had 2.5 weeks ago.  Don't get me wrong, our street is very passable, but there are a couple of large debris piles and tree limbs blocking portions of our street that I'd like to see removed before New Year's Day.  While it might serve as a nice deterrent for unwanted people to park some vehicles on our street for the parade, the better choice is too have it removed.  I called to remind the Public Works Dept. that there will be several thousand people passing through our area on January 2 and that the children may want to play on the downed tree limbs and may potentially get hurt, opening the city to a lawsuit.  They took down my street name.  That was last Tuesday.  This is Sunday and the debris is all still there.  I plan to go and haul some of the wood away tomorrow to keep for firewood for us.  Camera Guy hasn't let me have a fire in the fireplace since Cub was born for safety's sake.  He says I get to have one this year!

We're waiting.  Anticipating.  Eagerly looking forward to and hopefully wishing for our individual heart's desires.  waiting is so very hard when you're not yet 4 years old.  Heck, it's hard when yo're my age, too.  :)  My heart's desire?  To watch Cub experience and enjoy the thrills of Christmas Day and spending time with my family.  With a warm fire in the fireplace.

A Windy Journey

For the amount and force of wind that went through my city the other night, we were very fortunate with the outcome at Casa de Cub.

I had not been aware of how hard the winds we were expected to have would blow.  I was pleasantly ignorant.  I took few precautions.  I laid our patio chairs and a ladder on their side.  I put our hose on top of Cub's outdoor toys inside his plastic pool. But that was about it.

As I prepared for sleep, I put in my earplugs per usual (Camera Guy snores, don'tcha know) and heard the wind a few times throughout the night.  Thankfully Cub slept through it all.

I awoke to find a large piece of tree branch blocking half of our street and twigs and leaves in our yard.  A neighbor had a relatively small-sized tree crack and fall over.  Our next door neighbor had a tree crack and fall into our yard.  She also lost most of the shingles on the front of her house.  I saw several branches in the street farther down aways.  Not anything catastrophic, just inconvenient and unfortunate.

Our mayor asked us to stay inside and not venture out if it wasn't necessary, leaving the roads to the emergency vehicles and Water & Power crews.  I did just that.  However, I did walk around the corner to a local church to see what I had heard was a very large tree that had fallen.  Very large was an understatement.  It was then that I started to get a sense of the magnitude of this wind event.

After deciding to clean up our front yard and salvage what I could of the twigs for free kindling, Cub and I retired to the house for the remainder of the evening.  We were supposed to have another windy night so I got out the flashlights and candles, just in case we lost power, which hadn't happened the previous night. But, again, fortunately, we didn't.

Today was my first time venturing outside of my little pocket, my protected bubble.  When I recalled someone on the internet having referred to the destruction they saw in my city as a war zone, I decided to modify that (after all, a war zone surely is horrific) to say this looked like all the trees, and I mean ALL the trees in the city got into a war with one another.  Hardly a tree is unaffected.  And this is a city that loves it's trees.  As are our neighboring cities, which also sustained a fair amount of damage and loss.  Driving takes more concentration than usual as large amounts of tree branches and trees are blocking entire lanes of some streets and parts of lanes on others.  Not one street has full use of their driving surface.  You cannot imagine what it looks like by seeing a news report on TV or pictures on the internet. It's almost beyond comperhension.

I mean, how hard must it have been blowing to break a cement light pole in half?  I saw a half dozen in that condition in the 2 mile drive between my and my mother's house.  How many more are there like that?  Several friends are still without power and one friend in a neighboring city had her apartment red tagged after a power pole AND a tree went through the wall of her kitchen.  I am thankful it wasn't her bedroom.  She is not allowed to live there until the pole and tree are removed, and presumably until the wall is repaired.  How long might THAT all take?

It's truly devastating and disheartening to see the destruction that has occurred.  It makes me sad knowing that some folks aren't going to be able to afford to pay to have their trees cut down and removed and the city will only take care of those trees in the front parking strip or if they are blocking a road.  And if it's not a main artery, they may not get to it for awhile.

My journey today is one of pain.  I am hurting for the loss our city has suffered and the amount of clean up we as a whole are facing.  And yet, I am even more thankful and grateful knowing how truly fortunate we were at Casa de Cub after experiencing a small portion of what other folks are facing.  A few roof shingles is nothing in comparison.

Anniversary Journey

This week Camera Guy and I will have our 9th wedding anniversary.  We've been together 13.  We take turns planning the anniversary celebration.  This year was my turn.

Earlier this year Camera Guy mentioned that he had never seen a stage production of Phantom of the Opera.  This was my cue of what I was going to plan our celebration around.  Since Phantom hasn't been in our large metro area for many moons, I had to plan a trip to Sin City, the closest place with a current production.  We usually end up there at least once a year and we hadn't been yet this year.

Leading up to this weekend I pretended I hadn't yet planned anything (not very convincingly, I might add) and that I thought I might only be able to get a room at the Embassy Suites in the next city over.  Thus was born a running joke that ensued for nigh on 2 weeks.

After leaving Cub in the capable hands of his grandmother and godmother for the weekend (thanks, ladies!) we were off.  I'll spare you all the non-hilarity of pulling off getting to and arriving at our final destination and suffice it to say, I don't think he was the least bit surprised when we stopped in Las Vegas.  However, I *do* think the establishment I chose did surprise him.

The gal at the front desk informed us that we were being upgraded due to the nature of our celebration, however, that room wasn't ready yet.  After sitting down and imbibing in a cocktail we remembered from several years ago and enjoyed immensely, our room was ready and we arrived to find a roomy suite with certainly more space than we needed, but certainly appreciated.  But, it did come with one very large down side.  We had no view whatsoever of anything other than the hotel's HVAC system and the walls of other wings of the hotel.  *sigh*  Oh well.  We were fine with it and proceeded to prepare ourselves for a dinner at an restaurant I had been looking forward to for 5 months now.  It's co-owned by a celebrity chef and I had been looking forward to partaking of his cuisine.

We got dressed up and found ourselves seated in a quiet corner of the wine room.  Fabulous!  Dinner was scrumptious and tantalizing.  Dinner the next evening was equally so in a different restaurant owned by a different celebrity chef with a different take on cuisine followed by a later performance of Phantom. Camera Guy seemed surprised by my choices of places to dine, however, less so by my choice of show to see.  Once on this particular property, it was easy to narrow down what we'd be seeing.

The journey this weekend was not one without flaws and hiccups.  I tried to hide as much from him for as long as possible, including what clothes he'd need to have with him.  In the end I packed for both of us so he wouldn't know we'd be going out twice and in doing so left behind a few key items that I'm certain wouldn't have been forgotten if we'd each been responsible for packing our own items.  I won't do that again.  It wasn't worth it.

Secondly, I don't plan to go to Vegas again on Thanksgiving weekend, and IF we do, I'll try desperately to remember how horrific the drive home was on Sunday.  We'll come home on Monday next time.  If Camera Guy's not working, that is.  6.75 hours to go what should normally take 4 was an unbearably long time in the car, especially knowing Grams and Godmother wanted to get back to their lives away from our home and that Cub was anxiously awaiting our return.

In the end, the journey we took together this weekend was a lot of fun.  I left our establishment taking with me $28 of their money with me.  :)  But, mostly, I was with my sweetheart, celebrating us.  And that's one of the sweetest journeys I can think of.  Happy Anniversary, Camera Guy.  I love you.

A Friendly Journey

Cub is having a brand new journey as I write this.  And it was a journey for me, as well.  A journey of letting go and watching him expand his wings and break away from Mommy a little bit.  I am choked up with pride at his blossoming, and at the same time am sad at being replaced.

He wanted to play with a boy this afternoon.  I was told that Mommy is not allowed to play Zurg in his game of Buzz vs. Zurg because Zurg is a boy.  Mommy is not a boy.  *sigh*  So off we went to a neighbor's house and Cub asked the Mommy-of-the-House if the little boy could come over and play.  Sadly, the answer was no, he's getting ready to go somewhere.  Cub was crushed.  It broke my heart to see his face fall.  Maybe another day, he was told.  After a small protest we departed.

It seemed little consolation that I offered we could try asking another boy in the neighborhood.  Again he asked the Mommy-of-the-House if the little boy could come over and play.  She seemed hesitant because they have to go somewhere soon, too, but the boy said he'd like to and she said ok for a little while.  Cub practically floated on air as he ran home, leading the way.

His journey today was one of branching out beyond what's comfortable and known.   We rehearsed what he should say, what words to use to be polite.  He soared with flying colors!  And learned a hard lesson that sometimes the answer is no.  I think that furthered his journey of learning about playing with people who don't live in the same house he does.

With this experience my journey today has been one of watching him reach out to others and allow him the space and safety to do so.  Having another child in our home playing, without another adult supervising said child is new for me, too, being responsible for someone else's child.  I am enjoying listening to them playing, interacting with one another, deciding how to proceed with what they are playing.  It makes my heart swell knowing he has reached a new milestone.  And at the same time I am sad that I truly, truly, no longer have a baby, toddler, small child who looks to Mommy for total companionship.

Although he has been running over to me every so often to tell me what's going on.  I like that.  :)

It's a good day.  A good journey for both of us.

Homecoming Journey

Life is a journey.  Each year is a journey.  Each day is a journey.  Changing jobs is a journey.  Getting married, having kids, moving, and the death of a parent are all journeys.  Of course, taking a trip is a journey, and for me, a new recipe is a journey.

I love being married to Camera Guy.  I love being Cub’s mother.  I love my friends, my church and cooking.  But some aspects of my life annoy me and I want them changed.  Working through these aspects of my life is a journey of patience, faith, love and chemistry (that’s about the cooking part).

My intention with this blog is just to write about what journey I may be on that day or have gone through recently.  It might be about parenting, being married, being me or yes, a new recipe.

I am proud to be on the Board of Directors of my high school Alumni Association.  Overwhelmingly proud.  I bleed our school colors.  Truly.  Helping plan this weekend’s activities was a year-long journey.  We started after last year’s Homecoming weekend by reviewing what went well and what didn’t and looking towards making this year better.  We talked at every monthly meeting about what we wanted this weekend to look like and our planning paid off!  It was a fantastic weekend!

Today my journey of Homecoming Weekend 2011 has ended. 

I went to one of the 2 major high schools in my city.  The big football game was played Thursday night against our cross town rivals.  We won!  We usually win.  Trust me when I say this game is big.  Huge!  Not only in importance to the two schools, but in the venue it’s played in and the attendance we get at the game.    I doubt there’s anything like it anywhere else in the country. 

The win just put that much of a sweeter spin on the rest of the weekend’s activities.  We inducted new members to our Alumni Hall of Fame and had our Alumni Homecoming Faire & Picnic.  So much planning and work goes into all of these activities.

The journey of planning these activities is truly a labor of love by all the volunteers on the Board who put in tireless hours to ensure everything that happens is the best it can be for the enjoyment of the returning alumni.  The people who pulled this weekend off are extraordinary people and I’m humbled to know them, work with them and call them friends.

It’s been a journey, this past year.  But we sailed through with flying colors and I’m so proud of everyone.  This journey was definitely fun, as was the destination.

I hope you’ll decide to journey with me again here on my blog.  Until then, I hope you enjoy your journey.