Water, water everywhere

As a new Relief Society president for only a few weeks (RS is an organization for the women of our church--I'm the president for the women in our congregation) I've been mostly dealing with flood. There have been evacuations, teams sent out to find members who haven't been to church in a while, work teams, donations and a big potluck for workers. The task that proved to be the most difficult was finding assignments for our work crews to do. Since they came only on weekends, we had to be sure that there would be work for them at an address, that there would be an owner willing to sign a release and to stay on the premises. Obviously, I didn't do all this myself. But it was a huge group effort and I had my part to do.

That's why I've been silent for a while.

And this blog hasn't featured photos for a long time because a) it rains every time I think of it and b) we were asked by our church leaders not to take photos of the work sites in deference to the tender feelings of others.

We had even more flooding this week. It's been enormous. The damage has been tremendous and the heartbreak incalculable.

I'm going away, far, far, away tomorrow. It will be a welcome break. Sadly, Michael can't go with me but I get to meet not one but two new grandchildren in Texas and Utah respectively and attend the baptism of my oldest grandson.

It's good knowing that the last of the work crews finished last weekend and that my counselors are more than able to handle things in my absence. And this Sunday is our church's World Conference which means no local meetings but satellite and internet broadcasts.

Life can be very unexpected. I didn't expect to ever be a Relief Society president and to take over the job in such adverse circumstances has been a real surprise. The bigger surprise is that if you asked me, I would tell you I like the job and find great satisfaction in it.

Mondegreens and other idle thoughts

I learned a new word--mondegreen.

According to Wikipedia:
A mondegreen is the mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase, typically a standardized phrase such as a line in a poem or a lyric in a song, due to near homophony, in a way that yields a new meaning to the phrase.

Um, that's a mouthful, but we've all done it. You hear a song and not quite understanding what the words are, your brain makes something up. One of our children, bless her, came up with "from the mountains to the prairies to the oceans white befoam" in the song "God Bless America." Another thought the words to Annie's famous song were "Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya, tomorrow. You're only a day awake."

But we adults do it too. My fave, that we still use in our family, was the puzzling song from "The Phantom of the Opera" which I thought was "Awesome Day" but, in fact, is "Masquerade." But I like "Awesome Day" better.

And so, without further ado, I'd like to wish an awesome day to my last-born, not baby. How little he looks like a baby today at almost six feet tall. I had a great chat with him today and he's going to spend the evening with his sister. They are both really fun people so I am sure they will have a good time.My son thought that sushi might play a role in the festivities.

And our darling V had her fourth birthday in Prague yesterday and I got to see her open her present on Skype.What a doll!

I really don't like living so far away from my family. It's a lovely sunshiney day in Wilkes-Barre, PA today. But I would much rather be in the rather dreary weather in Denton, Texas today making a big dinner and probably cheesecake for Z's birthday. Our children always got to pick their birthday dinner. And type of cake (or dessert), of course. One child picks lemon meringue pie which works just fine for me. One son-in-law has the dessert first and then the dinner. How clever of him to know what's really important.

I'm missing a lot of awesome days with my family. Which means I just have to make the most of every minute I get to spend with them. So I'm off to take a walk in the sunshine which we don't get a lot of. It will make up somewhat for the birthdays I've missed this week.

Sprinkles and Pins

We have already established that this is land o' sprinkles, I think. They must sell more ice cream sprinkles here per capita than anywhere else in the world. So natch, I had to take a picture of this ice cream store.                                                              

Now the other photo is my brilliant idea for fitting a pattern. You can't even afford muslin these days and since I'm twenty pounds heavier since the last time I did a lot of sewing for myself, I decided I'd better make a "muslin" of a blouse pattern I'm making.

So in lieu of muslin, I used one of my son-in-law's shirts. Sounds awful until you know that it had a rip in it and was unusable. My daughter had left it here last summer and I've not been able to throw it away. Such gorgeous fabric. But it worked great as a substitute for muslin since I was cutting out a shirt. My pattern was smaller than his shirt, so the pieces almost fit perfectly. (The pocket on one of the back pieces is kinda weird.)

The funny part comes after I baste the thing together in just a few minutes. (Wow, sewing goes fast if you can just baste everything and you don't have to finish seams or tie off darts! ) In order for Michael to have an easier time pinning me in the blouse, I stitch in a dark color the seam lines for the zipper on the back of the blouse. All he has to do is pin the lines together and I can test the fit. It was really cute. He asked me why I didn't just sew the back seam. I explained that I would have no way of getting into the blouse then.

So the pinning begins. The first thing that happened is that he stuck himself with a pin. I expected that. But then he struggled to pin me in and I kept trying to help him. So I wiggled and he told me to stop. And I tried to help him again. I wiggled and he told me to stop. This happened about three times. It brought back such vivid memories of me pinning patterns on my girls. I was much more impatient than the girls ever were. No wonder the girls had trouble standing still while I pinned a hem. It is BORING.

Come to find out, most of his problems were because I had cut the thing too small. When he got to the bottom pin around my hips, he just said "No way!" and he was right. I will be adjusting the pattern.

But he sure had a struggle with me. I was the worst mannequin ever. Girls, I apologize if I ever fussed at you for wiggling.

It ain't over til it's over

One of the great things about living here in the Wyoming Valley is that Christmas lasts a long time. Folks here love to decorate their houses with lights and put them up even before Thanksgiving. (They just take down the Halloween ones and replace them with Christmas.) And many of the lights are still up. Our neighbor's are all blue. They're new this year. The first time they lit them up, I felt like I was having a UFO experience.

Yesterday was Epiphany which is the day that many Orthodox Christians have their Christmas. And there are tons of Orthodox Churches of every type around here. So they're still celebrating. And check this video of the wildest Nativity scene in America. My cousin found it online. It's in Plymouth where my dad was born and is evidently still running today. I just found out about it yesterday and couldn't go since I had a rehearsal. I'm not sure whether Michael and I will go tonight. I'm afraid I might have a seizure from sensory overload.

So no worries that my tree is still up. Or that the wreath is still on the door. One of my  lovely daughters told me the other day that Christmas was magic at our house when she was growing up. That was the most inspiring compliment I've received in a long time. I cannot take all the credit. Some of the magic came from Michael and his family traditions. Michael's best man contributed the recipe for anise biscotti. It's a family recipe and he asked us never to give it out. But we didn't make them every year. A recipe that takes more than ten cups of flour is a hassle. But these cookies in the photo look very much like them. This is a picture of an Italian bakery in the Reading Station Market in downtown Philly.

So if you need a little Christmas, come on down. We're not done here yet. And we're still doing Christmas music at church on Sunday because my soprano finally came back after being out of town for the past three Sundays. If you're Grinchy or Scroogy, I'd avoid Wilkes-Barre for at least a couple more weeks.