Joker is a bit of a self-professed humbug when it comes to Christmas.  In many ways I can understand it.  He sees it as a season of excess where people most often look past what Christmas is really all about. 

On the other hand, I see it as a celebration!  A celebration of Jesus’s birth and the beginning of new life for us all.  And I would decorate whether I was the only one in the house or not… lights outside and small trees inside.

There were no decorations last year for our first Christmas together.  We hadn’t been at the house since October and our Christmas was spent on the road in an impromptu trip to surprise the D’s that day.  We spent the day with family, sharing of ourselves… just as it should be.

As I was going through things in preparation for selling the house and living out of the camper fulltime, I packed away the things that had been gathered throughout the years to put into storage for Amy.  The only other things I kept were a very small lit tree and two wreaths, thinking that perhaps I could “sneak” some small things in without objection.   The clear rope lights that already line our site would do for the outside along with the wreaths on the door.  And the small tree decorated with birds and gold bells would fit perfectly in the small space of our home.

I so wanted to add two small lit deer outside in between the large trees by the road, but I was certain that would go over like a lead balloon!

So imagine my surprise in the middle of Walmart when I heard my husband talk about putting lights around the camper windows.  Broaching the subject of the deer met no objection.  And then I heard him say that a small lit tree would look good out there with them too.

Who stole my husband??? 

But the smile on the face of the man standing next to me told me exactly who he was.  Nobody had spirited him off in a flying saucer nor did he get lost in the hardware department.  He was standing right in front of me, realizing that it had become a celebration for him too.

There will be no gifts again this year as we promised each other.  There WILL be a large donation to the Food Bank so that others can be helped just as we needed the help not that long ago.

And there will be lights… reminding me daily of the True Light of the World!

I have never been the type of person to dwell on superstition. Where some people hold to avoiding black cats and stepping on cracks in the sidewalk or walking under ladders, I’ve never given them a second thought.

 

So I was a bit surprised 28 years ago at my first reaction to the news that I would be going into the hospital to have my baby THAT VERY DAY…. Friday November 13th. After a half-hearted unsuccessful attempt to convince the doctor to induce labor the next day, I went home to get my bag and left to get down to the business of bringing a much-awaited life into this world. Amy was meant to be born on that day, no two ways about it! She’d hung out an additional month past her expected arrival date, marking the days with hearty kicks and stretches. Friday the 13th was obviously meant to be her day!

Rather than being an unlucky day, Friday the 13th is one of the most blessed days of my life! For on that day God chose to bless me with a baby girl who has grown into one of the most beautiful young women I know. Strong, beautiful in body and spirit, courageous, spirited, funny, smart… she constantly amazes me each day as she makes her way in this world we live in. Mere words are not enough. I am so very proud to be her mother!

So Amy… this one is in celebration of YOU!

Or you can see it here

Happy Birthday baby girl!

When Joker and I came to Hazlet State Park for the first time last February, we delighted in the pheasants that wandered through the campground, finding their nesting places, and sitting at night by the fire listening to them call each other through the fields across from us. It was a rare day when we didn’t look out the window to see brightly colored heads bobbing through the brush. These were the ones who somehow managed to survive the hunting season without capture. Their beauty and serenity captivated me, each one becoming familiar to me in some way whether it be their broken tail or simply their personality.

Always curious, I was delighted when I was told I could tag along this early morning to help release the pheasants that are brought in for the controlled pheasant hunt at the state park of which today is opening day. Joker thought I was a little nuts for getting up at 4:30 to ride along, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to experience something I never had and may never again.

And as I looked at the crates of pheasant tucked into the bed of the truck, I wondered how many of them would make it past the hunters to go through winter at the campground with us.

Nothing prepared me for the gloriousness of those releases. Through ten dropoffs, I stood watching in awe as the pheasant wriggled out of the crates and flew into the air without a backward glance. Their cries filled the morning air as the sun rose over the fields and they soared ever higher. Some needed a little nudge out of the crates, sitting on the ground for a few seconds as if to get their bearings before flying to freedom. But fly into the fields they did!

With the last drop made, we headed back to the site office. The place that an hour before was quiet when we headed out was now ablaze with orange. Orange hats, orange vests, orange jackets. Even a few orange bandanas around the necks of the dogs who were eagerly prancing and waiting to be released to do their work of beating the brush. The roads are lined with trucks and the air is now filled with the sound of the occassional gunshot and a question in my mind of “did they get it or not?”

I understand the beauty of the hunt… I have hunted and will again. The beauty of being in the woods or fields and the challenge of the hunt sometimes defies words. How lucky I was this morning to experience the other side of that beauty up close and personal in a way that few people get to experience.

Until now, I’ve lived all my life in cities. Nothing huge mind you, but cities of considerable size enough to have a gas station on every corner with a strip shopping mall sandwiched in between. Places where you often didn’t know who your neighbors were and where small kindnesses from people you didn’t know were few and far between. Where people often didn’t recognize your face even though you’d seen them a million times, much less know your name. And where the air was palpable with a buzz of “busyness” in all the people and the traffic.

When Joker and I decided to “live the dream” a little earlier than retirement and pull our stakes out of the city, we landed here at Carlyle Lake in the country. The town of Carlyle is 5 miles away. There is a real downtown with real stores that you really go to buy things at. There is a postmaster who knows who you are before you hit the door because he saw your truck pull up. There’s a butcher who offers to cut you a piece of meat specially if you don’t see a cut you like. There are no Great Clips or other hair chains, but there IS a true barber shop on Main Street complete with barber pole. The clerks in the stores know you by name. If you don’t find what you need in Carlyle, you go to another little town (most of which are only 20 minutes away at the most) where it’s the same thing all over again. When you go to Rural King, the clerk asks if you still love your bomber hat and hate the coveralls. Fast food is limited… “mom and pop” restaurants abound where they know you by name and ask you if you want the usual. Want an old-fashioned variety store? Just half hour down the road as the crow flies. No matter where you go there is always a smile, always a wave, always a hello.

The only buzz you might feel is the whisper of a bee against your ear.

As usual on a Tuesday morning, I loaded the truck up with the laundry and headed to Breese about 15 miles away to the laundromat. As I was folding towels, the owner stuck his head in the door and said one of my tires was flatter than a pancake and offered to call the town service station if I’d like so that they could fix it while I was finishing up my laundry. Not 5 minutes later they were there… airing the tire enough to get it to the station, telling me they’d have it fixed and back before I was done folding sheets. True to their word for in a half hour I was loaded and heading back for home. My thanks for going above and beyond what I supposed to be the norm was waved off. “That’s just how we do things around here Miss.”

Small town values… that’s what I was raised up with even in a bigger city. That’s what I’m living in the here and now.

It’s so nice to know they’re not dead.

The morning starts as it always does. I sit at the kitchen table sipping coffee before I brave the chill air and let the dogs outside. Harley is busy getting out every toy he owns and strewing them over the floor, going back and forth bestowing attention on each one, coming over to drop one in my lap on occasion in hopes that I’ll toss it for him. Laddie is still laying in his customary place by the door, looking up at me with love as I pass but not moving as he usually does to follow me around the camper as I wake up. His hips must hurt. In a moment of feeling like a pup again last night, he went to fetch a toy I tossed. The strength in his legs left him on the turnaround in a pile on the floor. With back legs trembling as he struggled to get upright, he gave up the game to go lay down again. It’s getting harder and harder for him to move as he wishes he could and as he remembers he could. There are days when he moves with fluid grace as if he were a puppy. There are days when his movements become that of an old man and I am reminded that our days together become shorter every day.

All of my animals have held a special place in my heart but none quite like Laddie, my 15 year old Sheltie with the liquid brown eyes. He and I met 13 years ago at a PetSmart during a rescue adoption event…and I fell in love. It wasn’t meant to be that he would come home with me that day however, because he had already been adopted. Two weeks later when I went back to the store, his picture remained on the poster of available dogs. So on a whim I called to find out if it was an outdated poster or if he was still available. I was told that he’d just been returned from his last adopted family and they were going to be quite particular about his next placement, putting him with someone who truly understood Shelties.

Oh… you mean the barking and the herding and the hair??? After all, I’d grown up with Shelties and knew full well what I was getting into. His first three owners didn’t like the barking (resulting in one of them having him surgically debarked as a puppy and leaving him with a squeaky little bark), nor did they like the amount of hair that he generated much less the paths he ran herding circles in in their yards. Classic cases of people getting dogs because they were cute and not understanding the breed.

2 hours later he was a permanent part of my life. And he has remained steadfastly by my side through all that life has thrown at me… the moves, the divorce, the work life that ate most of my time, the laughter and the tears… always stopping to rest his head on my leg and looking up at me with those warm coffee colored eyes.   Shortly after moving to Illinois, he was stolen from my yard only to find his way home 3 weeks later in some of the worst snow of the year. No matter what, we were meant to be together.

As precocious and funny as Harley is, it is Laddie that has truly become the love of the campground and the campers who come through here. Kids and adults alike come by to say hello to “the dog who can’t bark real loud”. He basks in the attention, starting up with his squeaky bark when the petting ends. He’s turned into quite the country dog, laying in the grass alongside the camper regally surveying the acreage and the wildlife around him… looking much like a regal prince. He delights in the treats that Joker gives him at night, often getting so excited that he’ll offer both paws one after the other when told to shake hands for his treat. So far he is managing the three steps into the camper well, though I know one day it will be a struggle.

His legs may falter at times but his love never has!

Just as my love for him never has either.