Basket Ladies Shooting Moons!

Now that the girls have gone it's been pretty quiet around the house. When we moved to Connecticut we bought a big house so we could have everyone here for the holidays, and this year showed the value of the decision. With multiple events and dinners, and even with just the four of us, plus Andrew, the house worked well for spending time together (or apart) as we wanted.

The original plan had been to go skiing on Monday at Wachusett Mountain, only about thirty minutes north of Worcester. Before Christmas it seemed like a good plan since we had 14 inches of snow here and more on the mountain, but as the weather deteriorated, or got better...depending on your point of view, we changed the plan.

Actually it worked out much better to have the time on Monday. Sarah and Andrew had 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. flights back to London. By the time people got up, ran a few errands, and got packed it was fairly close to the time we figured we need to start heading for the airport.

We had Jess with us for another day. Monday evening with her was nice and we spent some time watching a DVD, going out to the hot tub, and then off to bed at a reasonable hour.

New Year's Eve found us at home alone. We had considered earlier in the week going to the Morris' in Maine for the evening--they were in an empty house as well--but decided it would be nice to spend the evening at home and not have to think about driving back on New Year's Day.

Early in the evening Dave and Karen called and let us know that one of the couples they were meeting in Boston had cancelled and would we join them. They had a group of families going to the Medival Manor, a comedy dinner-theater, and it sounded like a good time. We considered it briefly, but there was a nice fire going, one of us already had a lemon-drop martini and the other was into his second glass of wine, so we took a pass.

We did spend some of the evening watching a few episodes from the second season of Tales from Avonlea. This is a Canadian television show we use to watch with the girls when we lived in Vermont and could get the Canadian channels. We use to watch it on Sunday evenings and it reminded me of when we were kids and use to watch the Disney show on Sunday nights. The show is a little hokey and takes place in the same area (and with some of the same characters) of Anne of Green Gables. But it is a fun story line and the scenery is beautiful. Nana and Papa currently have our copy of the first season, but if anyone would like to borrow it after they have watched it just let us know.

This year we did manage to stay up to see in the new year. About 11:50 we headed out to the hot tub and sat in 103 degree (39.4 C) water while it was only 7 degrees (-13.9 C) outside. Icicles kept forming in the hair along the back of my head because of the temperature and there was a steady breeze so the wind-chill was certainly below zero (-17.8 C).

On New Year's Day I decided to finally download Skype to my computer. In case you don't know, Skype is a Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) system that allows users to speak with each other over the internet for free. I loaded the software, started to fill in the contacts list for people on Skype and within five minutes Sarah called me on the system. Her computer has a camera built into it so we were able to see her on screen as we talked with her (you can see her on the side of the screen with Cheri talking to her in the photo). Of course this meant on Friday I had to stop by Best Buy and pick up a camera for our computer so we could all see each other. Since then we have video-talked with Sarah and James Morris several times. Here are a couple of shots from the video connections with them.

New Year's Day stayed cold and you can see the effect on the bubbler in the pond. It was nice and sunny several days, but you can almost feel how cold it is in the windswept front yard. I also took the opportunity of the clear cool days and nights to try some more outdoor pictures around the house.

Since I'd been watching football quite a bit over the last several days, Saturday was a time to get some house projects done. There has been a problem with some squirrels getting in to the basement and trying to set up home in the insulation. I found a couple of the holes in the foundation they have been using and filled them in, but you can see the havoc they have caused in insulation and the difficulty it has caused in keeping some of the rooms overhead warm. I had decided to try a new roll of double sided insulation first and you can see how effective putting that single roll in has been in cleaning up the ceiling area.

For those of you interested I also took some pictures of the house's rim joist. You can see the original ax cuts in this wood that was put in place over 260 years ago--all hewn by hand.

I also thought Saturday would be a good time to try out one of my Christmas presents. Cheri got me an Cuisinart ice cream maker that I have wanted for a while. I looked around the house for something to make and decided to try a sorbet using some marionberries preserves that have been in our pantry since our trip to Seattle a few years ago. I used Splenda to keep it sugar-free and used an Alton Brown recipe as an example. It made a pretty good sorbet that can help us go through the ice cream withdrawl of post holidays.

Cheri and I decided to go out to the hot tub early on Saturday evening. We got out there "in the glooming" or civil twilight. Since stars were just beginning to show and the horizon was still visible I pointed out to Cheri that this was the time in celestial navigation when you 'shoot the stars'. I also commented that this would not be a time I would 'shoot a moon' but included that she had probably never done that. Boy was I surprised when she said, "I have so. . ."! I asked her when and she said when she was out with the basket ladies group.

"So when you were in Maine with these ladies last year you shot a moon? When....where?"

"When we were playing cards. You've seen me shoot the moon before"

At this point I realized that we had a failure to communicate. Cheri thought I said 'shoot the moon', as in taking all the tricks in a game of hearts, when I had actually said 'shoot a moon', as in....well you know what I mean. We did get a good laugh out it all.

Sunday was some more insulation work; this time in the area under the kitchen. I have been noticing when we open the cupboards under the kitchen sink it is always cold. Checking the area under the kitchen showed areas without any insulation. Fortunately, I had some styrofoam insulation that I could cut to fit between the joists so I filled in the area. Now we'll see what effect it has.

You could say that with the girls gone plus Christmas Day and New Year's Day past then things return to normal. But as I think about it, what is the 'normal' we want? Wouldn't we rather spend time connected with friends and family throughout the year? Jamie spoke of this in his sermon today and shared the following poem:

Work of Christmas Begins

When the song of the angels is stilled,
when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with the flocks,
then the work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost,
to heal those broken in spirit,
to feed the hungry,
to release the oppressed,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among all peoples,
to make a little music with the heart…
- Howard Thurman

Let's plan on this year being one where we stay connected as if it were Christmas.

You can see all of the pictures I took over the last few days (mostly 'artsy' things....I must get it from my brother and Dad, they do call him Art), if you click on the picture below.

Twelve Days of Christmas 2009