Well, Christmas is over and I am getting into my New Year mood - doing all my little New Year rituals. The urge to clean - really clean - came over me on Boxing Day. Suddenly I had the motivation to fix things that had needed fixing for a long time and to organize things that had long been in disarray. Perhaps receiving the dvd player from Erin was the catalyst. Perhaps. To hook it up to the TV meant a lot of changes. Dean loved throwing out our old CD player which only worked a small percentage of the time and mostly we had given up using it due to the large frustration that came with it and the disappointment as inevitably when you had a craving for certain music, it wouldn't work. Or maybe it was once we had the dvd player hooked up, we could play music freely. I burned a disc of mp3's and put it in. I still haven't listened to the whole thing. Each time I start where I left off. While listening to music, I can tackle any chore no matter how unpleasant and the music keeps me happy.
On the disc are also songs that Layne and Evan have sent me of 'the brothers' singing. I love it when they come up. The kids always want to know which uncle is singing. I mostly know but I have a hard time telling between Layne and Evan. Dean laughs at their schmaltzy singing and arrangements and general goofiness. He is jealous. He wishes that he had brothers like that to sing and play with.
So I mended shelves and unpacked boxes of books that had been packed for more than 2 years. I love my books. Why had I left them packed for 2 years? It is good to see my old friends again. Like the copy of Little Women with JM on the inside cover (Mom's initials). Silly maybe to unpack them all when I am sure it won't be long until we will have to move from here. But I hate living in the state of suspension. Better to be here while we are here. Anyways, all my books (and Dean's who is a likewise lover of books) are unpacked. I also totally rearranged the living room furniture. I think it is the best arrangement yet. I like it. It is a joy to sit in, now. I have a little bench by the window now ready to start little seedlings in a month. Flower seedlings and tomatoe seedlings and pepper seedlings and melon seedinglings.
The first night (after the rearrangement) Dean and I watched the Last Samurai (a DVD which Drew owns - he and I saw it at the theatre - and Dean has never watched). For the first time we could sit comfortably without moving furniture to watch. Dean liked the movie. It was the 3rd or 4th viewing for me. Japanese is such a gutteral language. It is like they are in contrast to the Chinese who are so nasally. It is like as a culture they swore they would never sound like that. Maybe Japanese is not so gutteral when they are not talking about war... They yelled ALOT in the movie.
Yesterday I ran my other Christmas break mini camp. I had 8 kids from 4 - 12 and they were mostly boys. Whew! That was a lot of energy. It was fun, though. We made candles for New Years and played upset the fruit basket (they loved that game - they didn't want to stop!) and went for a hike and painted. My friend Abbie came in and did an hour with them about India (where she was last year) and their traditions for this time of year. It was not so much a camp of teaching but more a camp of keeping the energy going in the right direction. And it went okay, I think. So today I rest. I would still be sleeping if Rhiannon hadn't woken me up. I'm reading a book by Amy Tan - the Bonesetter's Daughter - and I am really enjoying it.
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