WINTER:

This has been Saturday choosings and musings with Lynniebeemuseoday – with a nod to Gurgi of The Chronicles of Prydain.

No deleting or cheating with time so fleeting.

This just in from a small and seemingly peaceful town in Minnesota. Every year in December (or even starting in November), a group of Inflatables moves into town and begins a season of visual harassment. It used to be just one gang of Inflatables: Santa Claus, Snowman and the occasional Reindeer, with Santa as the indisputable leader. You’ve all seen them. They look innocent enough, but the harassment is real.

Until recently, they’ve had a complete monopoly on the local snow-covered lawns, but in a shocking upset this year, another gang has rolled into town, fighting for their share of the turf. Headed up by the nasty Grinch, this other group of ne’er-do-wells has attempted to gloss over the bad reputation of their leader by featuring the universally adored Baby Yoda. We talked to some people on the street (who declined to be named) and asked them what they thought of this unsettling development. “Well, I’m still loyal to the Santa gang,” said one man, “but I have to admit that I’ve been considering going with the Baby Yoda group next year.” Apparently, this man hasn’t realized that the nefarious Mr. Grinch (he’s a mean one!) is the actual boss, so Grinch’s diabolical plan has been an act of PR genius. And of course, we already know that Mr. Grinch has a Santa suit and knows how to use it.

When we stopped to talk to a woman in the neighborhood, she looked around carefully to make sure no one was listening and then said, “I just LOVE Baby Yoda! As far as I’m concerned, Santa is yesterday’s news. But don’t tell him I said that. I mean, I guess the old fellow still has a little bit of charm. But that Baby Yoda, I WANT ONE!”

When we went to interview Santa about this development, we were shocked to find him already down for the count.

Fingerprints were taken at the scene of the crime, but they were all smudgy and not much use. The forensic experts found some tell-tale green hairs in the snow, but will it be enough to make an arrest?

Meanwhile, Jesus, the real reason for the season, continues to show up in quiet manger scenes, unconcerned about the Battle of the Inflatables. He’ll still be there long after the last Inflatable has been deflated.

O come, let us adore Him!

This has been (mostly) Fiction Friday with Lynniebeemuseoday.

I might delete this in the morning, but I might not. Talk to my press agent, please – I’m not doing interviews right now.

Remember that scene on the train in “White Christmas” when they start singing about snow?

“It won’t be long before we’ll all be there with snow
Snow
I want to wash: my hands, my face and hair with snow
Snow
I long to clear a path and lift a spade of snow
Oh, to see a great big man entirely made of snow

Today’s the kind of day when that song is running through my head.

Snow…
Snow…
Snow…
Snow.

Snow drifts were like little mountains to us as children. The plows would go by and leave these mountain chains all along the sidewalks and we’d scale them like Mount Everest. We lived near a park with hills that were prime for sledding during the winter and we went there often. In fact, the sledding hills were named – we called them “King’s Hill” and “Queen’s Hill.” I don’t know who named them, but we all knew them that way.

We used regular sleds and toboggans, but when I was in junior high, the sled people put their heads together and said, “Why don’t we make a sled out of plastic? It will be a long sheet of plastic with a hole at the front for grabbing. Let’s call it a mini-boggan.” And the mini-boggan was born. These modern sleds curled up when you picked them up, but they were a lot easier to carry up a hill and they came in lots of bright colors. All the parents lined up to buy them and soon the sledding hills were full of these colorful plastic sheets with children on them.

One day my dad came down to watch us do some sledding and to take some movies of us with his super-8 camera. There were five us us kids in the family by then and he had us all pile up on the toboggan first for a nice shot of everyone going down. Have you ever been the last person on the toboggan? At the first bump, you end up on the hill watching everyone else go down. It’s true – ask anyone.

Then he went to the bottom of the hill to watch us from there. I came down a particularly bumpy part of the hill on my mini-boggan and when I hit a large divot at the bottom, I flew head over heels in a spectacular way. Dad was thrilled, but he hadn’t had the camera on, so he asked me to do it again. “I’ll film it in slow-motion – it’ll be great!” I wasn’t quite as thrilled about this proposition. My knees had taken quite a beating on the way down and the crash landing at the end hadn’t been nearly as fun for me as it was for him. But the show must go on! I went back up valiantly to do the whole thing over again. At least that was my intention. But when I saw that huge divot looming up before me, my knees made a unilateral decision and we veered to the left of it. Poor Dad…he tried to reassure me that it was okay, but I could see the disappointment of that missed shot on his face. He didn’t ask me again.

This has been Tuesday True Stories with Lynniebeemuseoday.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning – watch for me on the sledding hill where I’ll throw the blog post in the air on the way down. Whee!

The sun is just now setting, which reminds me that about a week ago I came downstairs in the morning just in time for the sunrise. If you wouldn’t run outside in your bathrobe and slippers on a cold morning to take a photo, then you can at least say that you know someone who would and did.

Sunrises and sunsets are a dime a dozen, but never commonplace. You may quote me on that.

I went to a Victorian Tea Party in Stillwater last Friday, meeting three old friends there. That’s “old” in the sense that we’ve known each other a long time. But to be fair, we’re all getting within spitting distance of being described as actually “old,” too.

I’m still having my own special “tea time” at 4:00 p.m. every day. Yesterday, I tried a mushroom tea for the first time. Interesting…very interesting. I’m surprised that mushroom tea exists, and that it’s not disgusting. With cream and sugar it was pretty good.

My blogging schedule will probably be a bit spotty from now until January 1. ‘Tis the season!!

I’ll probably delete this at tea time tomorrow, extending my pinky finger in the proper way.

And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him,
having forgiven you all trespasses,
having wiped out the handwriting of requirements
that was against us, which was contrary to us.
And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.
Colossians 2:13-14

The Lord bless you and keep you.

When clouds are very busy,
It puts me in a tizzy.
When clouds are drifting by,
It makes me want to cry.
When clouds fill up with wrath,
I need to take a bath.
And when clouds are simply poofy
I get so awfully goofy.

I’ve got more cloud photos somewhere, but couldn’t find them. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

When the clouds are full of rain, this post will go down the drain.

At last! At last! I finally finished Colonel Purslane! Well, almost at last…there’s one little detail that needs to be finished.

He’s supposed to be holding an apple with a leaf sticking out of it. I tried making the apple the same way I made the little pom pom for his hat with hilariously bad results that went directly into the trash. So he’s just holding the leaf.

Ideally he’d be riding his sleigh in the snow, but Minnesota has forgotten its weather directives and we still don’t have snow here on December 1.

The skis for the sleigh were every bit as hard as I imagined they’d be. Do I regret procrastinating? No. They slanted inwardly, so I cut some “axles” from bamboo shis-ka-bob sticks and stuck them under the sleigh to keep the skis more or less upright. I felt like Albert Einstein at that moment. The only thing left to do is to finish knitting his blanket.

And speaking of December 1 (see above), this is the long-awaited day that I get to start my Advent Tea Calendar, a birthday gift from some of my children. It’s been hanging on my wall for several weeks.

There will be one tea bag per day from now until Christmas Day, each one unique and interesting (from Teeccino). I plan to have my tea in the tradition of the British at 4:00 p.m. each day and I’ll keep a little tea journal so I can rate the taste of each one. Are you excited for me? If not, it doesn’t matter – I’m excited enough on my own.

I discovered today that there will be some sort of “holiday” quote behind each tea bag. I don’t expect a lot of spiritual wisdom there, but look forward to seeing what the Teeccino folks thought would be appropriate for the season.

It’s almost tea time – gotta go!

I’ll probably delete this unless Prabhas tells me to journey within the blog post. If you don’t hear from me tomorrow, I got lost in the blog post. Prabhas never tells you about the risks and dangers of journeying within, does he?

A word about fashion is in order at this point. Fashion and I were not really on speaking terms. This was not entirely my fault, as I was dependent on Mom to buy my clothes and in her pragmatic way, she wasn’t really into following all the latest fashions, particularly if they were expensive. But on my part, I wasn’t terribly observant about the latest “thing” either. Even so, I had a feeling that cousin Mitch’s hand-me-down pants were not good enough and I had started to notice that everyone was wearing “bell bottoms.” I was slow to get to the starting line, but once there, I was all in. I HAD TO HAVE BELL BOTTOMS.

Continue reading “Tuesday, November 30, 2021 Fashion” →

I hope you all had the kind of Thanksgiving in which you knew to Whom you were giving thanks. And in which you were able to feast and enjoy the company of loved ones. The rest is all gravy, right? Ours had all the right ingredients.

We did our annual Christmas Tree Hunt on Saturday. I used to be a bit of hardliner when it came to what kind of tree people got, real or artificial, looking down my nose somewhat at the fake tree people. The years have mellowed me – what does it really matter, after all? I love the smell of a fresh scotch pine in our living room, but you can just as well light a pine-scented candle and have all the same ambiance. As we get older, I can see the day coming when we’ll realize that an artificial tree is just perfect for our needs.

Still, there’s something nostalgic about going out to a Christmas tree farm and strolling amid all the possibilities, looking for just the right one with the right shape, height and needle length.

This year we found ours almost immediately, which doesn’t happen often. Our son and daughter-in-law were with us, looking for their tree. When we told them we’d already found ours, our son thought surely we were being too hasty. “Are you sure? You should look around some more!” It was very un-entish of us, that’s for sure (you won’t get that comment unless you’ve read Lord of the Rings, sorry).

We paid for our tree and I went around taking photos while waiting for the other tree to be selected.

The triumphant processional of the tree carrying has been enacted many times over the years. It is the only kind of hunting that we do, so there is a certain amount of pride in the conquest.

True story: I was at a veterinarian’s office many years ago around this time of year and at one point he looked out the window and saw a truck going by with all sorts of cut Christmas trees on it. His face darkened, he shook his head angrily, and said “MURDERERS.” It seemed a bit over the top and very Gollum-ish (if I may continue the LOTR theme).

We are officially in the Advent season, the start of the church year. I love Advent, the time when we await the Lord’s coming each year. We put our evergreens in our homes and remember that He rules and reigns for eternity. We put lights on our trees and celebrate the Light that came into the darkness. He has come; He will come again.

This has been Monday Musings with Lynniebeemuseoday.

I’ll probably murder this blog post in the morning and stick it in a lot with other murdered blog posts, hoping someone will buy it.

It took me seven years to get a four-year degree in college. I spent three years trying to avoid choosing a major, but at some point they pinned me down. Okay, how about social work? I did that for awhile and then switched to music therapy. That didn’t last either. I took a break for about half a year and then one day, whilst eating my tuna fish sandwich at work, I thought, Hey, I like food! Why don’t I become a dietitian?

Continue reading “Tuesday, November 23, 2021 Omicron Nu” →

Have you started your Christmas shopping yet? Some of you are done already (you know who you are). We don’t usually even start until December, but this year with all the supply chain shortages and shipping delays, we thought we’d better hop on the train early.

A lot of our shopping is done from the comfort of our living room, but I remember the days before Amazon and online shopping. Our kids were young and we’d hire a baby sitter to come for an entire day so we could go out to a mall and get all the shopping done in one fell swoop. It was exhausting! It was fun!

Have you ever considered how streaming content digitally has ruined Christmas shopping? Think about it. You used to be able to buy DVDs for people, but now everyone can stream the video content they want. You used to be able to buy music CDs for people, but now they just stream it from Spotify. You used to be able to buy books for people, but now, many people prefer digital audiobooks. Down with streaming!

I don’t really mean that, of course. We enjoy being able to stream content ourselves. And you can actually purchase streaming or digital content to give to someone – I’ve done it – but it’s not nearly as fun!

My favorite kind of gift to give is an unexpected one. It’s great to shop off of a list, and we use them heavily in our family but I also love to find something that’s not on the list – a surprise! And hopefully a good one. There’s always a risk involved in that kind of giving since your gift might bomb. But it might be a big hit, too.

Monday Musings has been brought to you by Lynniebeemuseoday.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning – digitally, of course.