Pioneer Children Sang as they Walked and Walked and Walked and Walked

I am, after all, descended from pioneers - Mormon pioneers to be exact.  My great-great grandparents walked across most of continental United States to settle in Utah.  That's a lot of walking.  Over mountain ranges, even.  I haven't been walking quite that much but I have been walking alot.  Yesterday I walked for 5 hours and that Primary song started going through my head.  "Pioneer children sang as they walked and walked and walked and walked".  There's more to that song but I can't remember it.  Just that line kept repeating in a loop in my head.  Today I walked for 4 hours.  I was canvassing for washing windows.

This weather is a gift for us - so mild and sunny.  You don't usually get both mild and sunny at the same time in the Okanagan in the winter.  So much for "La Nina" This is much more like "El Nino".  And the timing couldn't be better for us.  We need to have our affairs in order before we leave the country.  And despite my best efforts to save money ahead for this time there has just been one thing after the other all fall.  No one huge thing - just an accumulation of medium and small things.  Well, I guess Andrew's braces was a big thing...  Anyways, we are grateful for the weather.  I am booked now for washing windows to the end of this year.  That means tomorrow I won't have to walk so much.  Just 2 - 3 hours to get started on next week (next year).

Luckily I like walking....

Christmas Musings

Its almost 9:30 and the evening has wound down.  We went to the Alliance Church for their Christmas Eve service which I enjoyed.  We made quesadillas for dinner.  We teased each other good naturedly.  We each opened a present and Eryn and Tyler and Kaetlyn and Nadia left for other engagements.  I finished my last present and cleaned up the sewing room so that my sister Martha could sleep in there.  My brother Layne will be sleeping on the couch.

Its all quiet, just Christmas carols playing on the computer.  Martha is already in bed along with Rhiannon and Drew.  Layne and Dean are in the basement making music.  I just have the stocking left to do.  I am left pondering how things are the same and how things are different.  It amuses me how much pleasure it gives me how important some of our traditions are to my grown children.  Great fuss is made over when everyone can come to decorate cookies.  And I remember my own childhood and decorating sugar cookies - remember those little ball bearings that could crack your tooth and destroy fillings?  You never see those any more.... And I wonder how it will be when there is no one to decorate the tree...  Will I even do it if they aren't here to do it with me?  Children and family really are the point of Christmas for me.  I have had, until now, a steady, unbroken chain of young children and babies in my Christmases.  My daughter and my youngest sisters are the same age, after all.  Now Rhiannon is 11.  There is no one who even pretends to believe in Santa.  In fact, this year there will be no Santa gifts under the tree in the morning.  In lieu of Santa gifts we are going to Mexico as a family for Dean's 50th birthday.  We leave on January 11th so we actually be there for the day of his birthday. We are all pretty excited.  Andrew picked up his passport today so that is it.  We are a family with passports. We can cross the boarder together.  So we just got each other small gifts.  I made almost all of my gifts which isn't really different.  But this Christmas has a different feel.  A more grown up feel.  Its good different.  I know it is unlikely it will be like this forever, with all my children here around me.

I am going upstairs now to fill Andrew and Rhiannon's stockings... one of those things that hasn't changed yet.

I'd better write now...

Or it will be another two months and I won't have written and I'll have to join the ranks of certain lame brothers who blog and then don't.  (and I'm not going to even mention another)  Anyway, wow, it has been more than 2 months and Christmas is almost here.  In fact, if Dean wasn't sleeping in Kaetlyn's old room which has become my sewing/knitting/crafting room, I wouldn't be on here.  I would be busy making things for Christmas.  (Dean is sleeping in there because I have the flu and he doesn't want to get it).

I have been awake since 3:30am which is really much to early to stay awake.  I woke up because I had to go pee.  But I laid there for an hour and couldn't fall back to sleep.  So I got up and wrote my cousin a reply to her e-mail that she sent me last October.  What kind of lame cousin is that that takes more than a year to answer?

I am in denial that Christmas Day is now less than a week away.  I have so much to do.  So much to make.  And I'm going to have to have a nap today.