Life is Good

Each day I count my blessings and it is probably trite at this time of year, but I found myself doing it again today. We have a wonderful new house in Vermont, all of my extended family are well. My son is newly engaged and my daughter is on the trip of a lifetime with her aunt, uncle and 2 cousins. I LOVE MY JOB, in case you have not caught that in the tone of Intuit blog posts. I do have friends who are going through tough times; cancer, divorce, estrangement from family, deaths. Who knows why we are dealt the hand we are dealt? Who or what gave cancer to one and not another?

At times like this I always wait for the other shoe to fall. I wait to have some hand dealt to me that it hard to handle. But for now, I count my blessings, and look forward to the New Year with anticipation and reluctantly say good-bye to this one. It has been a very good year.

How did we get here so fast? New Year's resolutions

Is it really December 29th? I love this limbo week between the 25th and 1st. Work is really quiet, the harassing of the 25th by the media is almost done with. There are all kinds of articles and shows about looking back over the last year and planning for the next one.

So, I have had my New Year's resolution identified for a few months now. The important part of these is making them a habit. DUH! My new habit for 2008 was to use reusable bags. It worked. I only used plastic 5-6 times during the year. If I forgot them in the car, I made myself go back out to the car. I also bought more reusable bags several times when I did not have them with me. Even my local yarn store gave me one this week. Free advertising.

So this year, 2009, I am going to use reusable mugs and glasses. Rather than take the Starbucks or Peets paper cup and plastic cover, I am going to hand them my mug. I have been practicing this and it is not that difficult. I really have already broken the habit of water in bottles. It is so stupid that we drink water out of plastic bottles, except if we are in areas where the water is not drinkable.

Back to bags, when I see people use plastic I wonder if they are reading different articles than I am about how bad they are for the environment. I want to lecture them and say, "It is not that difficult. I made a New Year's resolution last year and followed it most of the year." But, I should not butt in, maybe just gently suggest.

These are both very small gestures for the environment and at the rate of one a year, won't make that big a dent, but they are a start. A really difficult one would be to turn off all of the electronic machines in my house. When I walk through in the dark, all these little lights are still on. I would need support from other family members on this one, but maybe I could just do a few of those as well for 2009. We are thinking of a new car, and I can definitely purchase one with high gas mileage.

OK, on to the 1st and a trip to Vermont for 5 days. Yum, Yum . . .

Crazy Busy past 24 Hours

In the last 24 + hours we have:

• Dropped Bee at the airport with her aunt, uncle and 2 cousins to go on their trip to Egypt and Greece
• Played 4 or 5 games of Settlers with Tom Dau Sarah Meg Crick Rod Mike Peg
• Made a meal for more Settlers with 4 friends
• Saw Aurelia's Oratorios at ART in Cambridge (very interesting BTW)
• Walked into town twice to the yarn store and Peets, once for Judy and once for Peg
• Etc, etc, etc

This is a busy time of year, but extending Christmas this way does keep it alive beyond the 25th

What we have NOT done is:

• Head to the mall for "those deals"
• Eaten too much food
• Have regrets about the holidays
• Travelled (although the Vermont contingent did bring their young adults down to leave from Logan)

As an aside, George and Judy are taking their nieces and nephews on a trip during their college years as a way to show them countries and cultures outside the US. Bethany is going with Frances and Grady. It is a really great group and their aunt and uncle are incredible to give them this experience.

Some day I want to repeat their trip down the Nile . . .

Nearly Perfect Christmas

Yesterday was nearly perfect. Why not perfect? Well, maybe it was perfect after all. George asked me yesterday if there is anything about my job at Intuit that I don't like. "It is not in Vermont." was my answer.

What made it perfect. Having family around, even though it was only part of our family. Perfection for this extravert would have been ALL of our extended family, Russells and Lowes and Moores and Mayos and a Swartzbaugh, and a partridge in a pear tree.

The breakfast of eggs benedict is a must. George did the eggs which is always the hardest part for me. Judy made the hollandaise sauce and our friend Marilin did the english muffins. Bethany did the ham, and what did I do? Orchestrated . . . What did I do now that I think of it?

Our stockings were hung on the hearth with care and were stuffed. I love the stocking part of Christmas the best. There were very few presents under the tree and the tree is perfect this year. We had enough time to make some presents this year. Only one was a WIP. George wondered why I Santa gave him a partially finished pair of socks in his stocking.

The theme this year was Smart Wool socks. At least 3 if not 4 of the Santas in our house were giving them and no duplicates. Our feet were very warm.

We ventured out for a 6:30 showing of Doubt. It was very good, back to hot cider and a game of Settlers with a new twist, a fishy thing that George gave us as an addition.

BTW, George also gave us a travel version of Settlers that is going on a wonderful trip to Egypt and Greece with George, Judy, Frances, Grady and Bee.

So, yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus and the perfect Christmas is not on the TV screen or in the ads in the newspaper. It is in your heart and with the love of your family and friends. It is a day to pause and count your blessings and to have family and chosen family around. It is a carrying on of traditions and the making of new ones.

What do I want for Christmas next year, Peace on Earth and Obama administration success. I can help out on both of those in a small but powerful way.

As promised - Our Holiday communication

and the letter . . .

A Capsule of Our Lives 2007 and 2008

Hello to everyone. Just as we finished writing our 2007 letter our computer died on us so it never did get sent out. So this will be a two year flight through our lives. Put on your reading glasses, we have a lot to cover.

The last two years have seen many significant developments in our household. Sally started a new job, and Bethany is now in her second year at Hampshire College. Rodney and Sally have bought a holiday/ weekend/ retirement home in Vermont, Chris got engaged to his girlfriend Meg, and Rodney has sent off his papers applying for American Citizenship.

2007 started off with Sally ending her consulting career as she started working for Intuit, a software firm with its HQ in California. She loves working for this company that is recognized as one of the great places to work. It is amazing to see her morale stay high, when the work environment is a great one. She has made ½ a dozen trips to the West Coast in 2 years, including combining a long weekend to rendezvous in San Diego with Kathy, a friend who moved to Hawaii a few years ago.

Bethany ended her high school years on a high note as our house seemed to be filled more and more often with more and more young men and women simply enjoying one another’s company. They arrive back within minutes of her arrival home from college.

Rodney still works at Fidelity and in 2007 was embarking on an exciting project to replace the database he has spent most of his working career supporting in some fashion. At the end of 2008 the project is still keeping him employed but as we end the year with financial markets melting down into a monetary roué every week things do not anything close to certain he’ll be employed at Fidelity next year.

We bought the Mini Cooper for his commute to Merrimack NH.

On the health front, Sally had arthroscopic surgery to trim a meniscus in her left knee. Rodney had a trip to the doctors office as one of his two kidney stones decided to make its way out, the other is still in there and he awaits its appearance with trepidation and a supply of Vicodin close at had.

Riding remained a focus through the last two years. Bethany competed on Autumn while still in Eastern Massachusetts and took him with her to Hampshire last year. She joined the pretty new Hampshire equestrian team and the team surprised lots of competing better financed college teams by doing pretty well. Rodney started riding again last year before Autumn went off to college last year and when her returned this summer. He stayed here this fall, not the least, because he had damaged his eye. But now he has recovered and Rodney is looking forward to riding him again.

This year Sally and Rodney independently stumbled upon a house online that they ended up buying in March this year. They named it CONISTON after the street Rodney grew up on and after one of his favorite places in the English Lake District. It in South Hero on the southern most tip of the Lake Champlain islands in Vermont. As we write this it marks the first time that Rodney has been away from the place for more than two weeks. Our first summer/fall we have had a flurry of visitors up there. We want people to know where to find us once we move. The Sisters came for 2 weeks in September, and we drove them straight to Coniston for 5 days. One friend named our front floor to ceiling windows that look out on Mt. Mansfield, Camel’s Hump and Lake Champlain, “Channel 1”. So far, we have resisted having a TV in Vermont.

Rodney and Bethany went down to work in New Orleans with the church youth group last year, and Rodney and Sally went down with the youth group this year. The appalling state of the city has to be seen to be believed, or not believed. Bethany also went down this year with a fellow youth group friend to work in Plaquemines Parish in an area that was almost obliterated from the earth by Katrina in 2005.

Things that continue to sustain us are our UU churches, VT and MA, Star Island (the family has a new ballerina), family, friends, General Assembly in Portland and Ft. Lauderdale.

Our travel and vacations in the last 6 months have been to Coniston. We travel there every other week and sometimes drive back early on a Monday morning to be able to spend one more night there. While up there this last weekend, the wind from the South was absolutely wonderful. The snow drifts in the driveway accumulated pretty quickly. Fortunately we have someone who plows when there is 4 inches.

To quote Bethany “our faith in humanity was renewed” at 11pm on November 4th this year, or 10: 57 if you were watching Jon Stewart. We have never watched an election with so much passion and excitement.

Last year marked the end of our annual First Foot celebration. It did throw a few people off, but we intend to replace it with something, sometime, somehow.

If you feel inclined to contact us more personally our email and cell #s are: (removed since this is open to the WWW . . .

Or friend us on Facebook.

Electronic presents

A few days ago I was thinking that more than the past years, there will be treasures that people share in various social media sites. It started this morning when I discovered that my sister and I posted similar youtubes of a musical group "Straight No Chaser". That is on my Facebook profile now.

I just read a colleagues blog and there is a wonderful joke and I am sure these will continue over the next few days. Social networking has grown so much in the last year and there has to be a limit to how much time we spend on those sites. Part of the reason I blog is for myself, so that I can go back a year and see what I was up to. Also, I store important urls here, in case I forget them. A few times, I have emailed a link to someone because of something in my blog.

Yesterday I got an emailed Christmas letter from my cousin which confirms my earlier post, that next year we are going electronic.

OK, off to finish a few things at work, head home and make some more Christmas . . .

I have kept over the years a hard copy of 12 letters responding to the gifts of the 12 days of Christmas. I think I could find that online and recycle my hard copy.

You can find almost anything online.

Malls - the Antithesis of Christmas and Holidays

OMG, unfortunately due to a series of decisions, I spent 3 hours in traffic yesterday. I had a work lunch at the Burlington Mall, and tried to run an errand 1.5 miles away from the mall before the lunch. I was 35 minutes late for the lunch. FIRST HOUR IN TRAFFIC. I thought I would be very clever and run one errand at the mall, my Christmas PJs, and then got in my car to leave. The police man would not let me leave to the left, so I literally circled the mall and left at the other end. Traffic was so bad that it even was backed up in Lexington, 3 miles from the Mall. I was on work phone calls for part of the 3 hours, which was a good use of the time.

OK, so I am going to stay in the Christmas spirit this year. When I got home Bee was making dinner. I love her. She always knows when to pitch in. That freed me up to make Lemon Poppy seed bread, which is my traditional gift to people at work and at home. I also was able to paint the star decorations and start a bracelet which has a due date of Christmas Eve. So the last 3 hours of the day were the best part of the day.

I don't go to the Mall outside of the holidays and I darn well try to stay away during the holidays. Who thought it was a good idea to have a work lunch at the mall on the 22nd of December? Never again.

Ho, Ho, Ho . . .

One Year Notice

OK, so this will really only be effective for my blog readers and in that case I am preaching to the choir. Next year, I am going to make an attempt to go GREEN with our Christmas letter routine. I know, the USPS may go out of business eventually if more people like me do this.

Working for a technology company where we talk a lot about social networking, I think web is the way to send this out next year. If you really think about it, my BLOG readers, I love you guys!, have way more information already than our letter. The letter is very cathartic for us to realize what we did in a year, or in the case of the current letter, the last 2 years. That is another story.

So maybe I will experiment this year and post our picture collage and letter here, and you guys can give me feedback on the experiment. Spenser if you read this, you are a key person to input into this decision, because you will have to direct your Mom and 2 Aunts to this blog next year. What do you think? I guess we could print a few out for those who just won't come here. I will discuss with Rod and Bee and Crick and Meg and see what the consensus is.

Happy Winter (I see now, why she is named Winter Lola)!!!!!

Candle Extinguished

I guess I knew it could not last forever, but one can hope that it will. What the hell am I talking about?

Our Christmas Eve service ends with all of us lighting candles, after we have put on our coats, and we walk out of the church with lit candles, singing carols.

OK, so it is very dangerous, all that flame and hair and jackets and close proximity to the same BUT for me it is the magic of Christmas. To look at all those people I love and some who I barely know. To see the candle flame reflected in their eyes, and to see the children for who this is even more magical than it is to this 54 year old sap.

So, this year we will extinguish our candles before we go outside. Part of the challenge at FPLEX is to get home with your candle still lit. Silly, but yes many of us try to do this every year.

This year George and Judy are coming for Christmas and I was really looking forward to sharing this experience with them. SO, I guess we will bring matches and light our candles once we are out of the 150+ wooden building.

It makes sense, but are we going to end up in a society where we are so cautious about everything that we don't take chances to experience magic? NO, I don't like change when it is done to me and affects my favorite 10 minutes of the church year. Rev Bill also changed the Christmas Eve service in a year when Bethany and the Senior High always lit the candles in the service, and his first year, other younger kids and adults lit the candles. I was crushed about that one as well.

Some of my thoughts last night were:

• Shall we just leave our candles lit
• Go to another church, Bethany talked me off the wall on that one
• Sit in the balcony, where you have to extinguish them anyway before you come down
• Try to get it changed.

In the end, it will not be changed, and I should not expect to have it changed. It would have been great to know this a few months ago when it was decided so I had some time to absorb it, but we don't communicate the tenuous stuff well do we?

I will get over it and no one can extinguish my candle forever, just temporarily until I get outside.

In the end I emailed the Minister and Board Chair asking if there is anything I can do to get this changed.

My virtual candle will be lit, and I will still make eye contact without the most important part of the lit candle. It will not be the same. I cannot control everything especially when I have been so detached anyway. Just remember that I am often the canary in the coal mine. I am not the only one feeling this way, just one of those who expresses it.

Taking things for Granted

While talking to several employees who have been without power for 5 days now, I quickly started counting my blessings. Somehow the problems with our toilet at Coniston seems less drastic; it flushes. The wind that I wrote about last, was incredible but we did not lose power. And if we do lose power, we have a wood stove which can heat the house and I guess we could cook on the wood stove.

Again, Intuit is a fabulous company. I am running a meeting at 2:30 today to brainstorm how we can help those employees who don't have power. I am offering showers and laundry and a hot dish brought to your house. People are going to lend generators and get batteries, or large quantities of water in containers to use for flushing. There is no doubt but all of us would offer these things. Mountain View is getting involved as well, by publishing on the corporate intranet that employees can donate with matching funds to the Red Cross.

Yes, at this time of year, I am counting my blessings and reaching out when I can to help others. This after all is the message that Jesus taught us all.

We are in for some Wind

I am sitting here in the living room at Coniston, listening to the wind. I don't think it has let up at all since midnight last night so for 18+ hours there has been a south wind blowing off of the lake. Our driveway this morning has a pretty big drifted bank of snow near our new septic mound. The plow guy plowed at 10am and when Crick and Meg left at 11am, only 1 hour later (after Rod won the most incredible game of Settlers) they had to accelerate through a new snow bank. The plow guy came again at 4pm and plowed quite a bit of snow so Rod and Bethany could leave. I left my car at the end of the driveway just in case we have enough drifting to create another impassible bank.

So for those who keep asking me "Have you spent a winter up there yet?" rest assured that this wind situation is very exciting for me. I am sure we will get snowed in a few times and we may have to reposition our driveway because I think where it is currently positioned, is the most drift prone part of our cleared 2 acres.

Growing up in Colorado, some of my best memories were when we got snowed in.

This weekend gave up the opportunity to meet a few neighbors. Rich took care of the situation this week where we lost water. We had to hire a diver with a dry suit to go see what was wrong with the pump, that is in Lake Champlain. Apparently we/they also lost power for 2 days this week.

Yes, this is going to be an exciting place to live and I am up for the challenge. It is a great weekend to test some of the inclement weather that we will be experiencing when we live here full time. Rich was surprised that we are spending New Years up here.

We also met Laurie who is one of our closest neighbors. We took over our check for 7.8% of the snow plowing. They calculate it on our far down Phelps Lane your driveway is. She served as the treasurer for the snow plowing.

We also heard some of the neighbor relations. I guess we are pretty ignorant at this point, so will invite all of them to our New Year's party and sit back and observe.

Saturday morning, a non-Phelps Lane neighbor arrived walking down our driveway with a shovel. Could he shovel our pond, so his kids can skate on it? Sure. Now we need to buy ice skates so we can skate as well. It was pretty funny, that he arrived with the shovel. I think he would have shoveled it, even without asking us.

So, yes we are up for the wind, and drifts, and snow and fire. We also got connected to the internet this weekend.

What we bring up to Coniston

Last night, as I was falling asleep, Rod was packing a box of books to take with us this weekend to Coniston. He has already taken several boxes up there.

Walking around at work it got me to think about what I want to bring up there and leave. Unfinished knitting projects. To get them out of the way? NO! To make room for more unfinished projects? NO!! Because at Coniston, I have more time and might finish them with less distractions around.

I first thought of bringing up some of my stashes e.g. yarn, fabric, craft books. However, if I start splitting those, then I might need something in MA that is in VT and visa versa.

So I might start bringing up projects, put in bags of unfinished knitting projects and then start finishing them up there.

It is interesting to think about what we want to take and leave up there, and what we want to keep around us the majority of the time.

Milestone achieved

So yesterday was Crick's birthday and he asked his girlfriend of 5 years to marry him and she said YES. It seems like the perfect timing for them. I have felt since I met Meg and saw them together for the first time, that they are perfect for each other and belong together. She beats him at video games, loves playing games as much as he does and they often launch into dialogue from a movie. I am usually clueless about the movie since I don't remember details, but they have their own private laugh about the movie dialogue and I love it. They share a lot of the same values and want the same kind of important things in life. Needless to say, as a parent I could not be happier. One can only hope for your child to be happy in their marriage and to marry someone who you know makes them happy.

This is the first engagement in the Russell/Swartzbaugh family of the next generation of cousins.

I love all of the reactions from my siblings but the best is from my sister. "Another girl, Sal"

Yoga only lasted for my body not my mind this morning

OK, so I go to yoga at 7:20am in the morning on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I usually leave pretty relaxed and focused on the day. Today the mind part did not last long. Last week we sent out an email to the office describing the inclement weather policy. We did it proactively to avoid any confusion. Bottom line "You are a manager. Unless the state closes, we are open, and use your judgement with your employees." An ice storm is due so one manager emailed last night wondering when we close. DID YOU NOT READ THE EMAIL? I was talking about this with the site manager on my way to work, and a moron in back of me starts flashing his lights at me. I cannot see an obvious reason other than the fact that I am driving a flashy Mini cooper with a union jack on top. My first meeting was one with a lot of excitement about a press visit tomorrow.

So, my body is still relaxed and focused but my mind had a few ups and downs prior to 9:30am.

It was still a worthwhile yoga class. I am working on having muscle memory so that these classes help calm my mind, stretch my body and in general help me with the ups and downs I might unexpectedly face.

OH, and for the jerk who was flashing his lights at me a few bits of advice:

1. You actually cannot occupy the same space as my cute little mini
2. There is only one lane ahead so I don't know where you want me to move
3. If you are trying to send me a message other than the top 2, try another way to send me a message
4. Merry Christmas

Honest - we were good parents

Saturday night, December 6th, 2008

"Wow, I love this picture of Bethany with the case of beer!"

Silence while Rod logs into Facebook . . .

"Oh, that picture, I thought you meant a recent picture."

I remember so clearly this photo. We were returning the empties (I think there are 3 boxes of empties, did we really drink that many?) to the store and our little jewel loved boxes, full or empty. She was always a ham in front of the camera and smiled in just the right way for this one.

I can see that there might be some misunderstanding from some about this picture. Ask Rod some time about pouring beer all over his stepson shortly after we were married.

It is currently her facebook profile picture.

Sock knitting maniac

I love knitting socks, and this time of year is a great time for knitting socks. As I knit away at a pair today I remembered a particular year in college. I don't remember which year it was but 73 or 74. We were going back to Colorado for Christmas. The prior year our first Colorado cousin had gotten married and we were in Colorado for that, so the parents decided that we should come back for Christmas. That year I knit socks for everyone. I cannot remember how many pairs it was but it was possibly a dozen. They were easy to pack, fun to make and everyone would like them. My cousin Clay always reminds me that I make the best socks of anyone.

Last year, I knit Christmas stockings for my new nephew, his Mom and brother.

This year I find myself one again making LOTS of socks for Christmas.

At this time of year, it is a comfort to have needles in my hands, wool between my fingers and the magic of socks appearing off of the needles. Back to the knitting. I have a few orders for after Christmas as well. There can never be enough hand knit socks around.

Fairly common rant - I am sure

OK, so 3 months ago, all the media could talk about was the price of gas, but now all they can talk about is the economic crisis. These are both very short term news trails, but occupied gobs of time on the TV. OH, sorry they had the Hilary Obama show to report on for a long time, and then the Sarah Palin show and the "Will we ever elect a black president?" show. Honestly, if they don't have something to report on, they make up something.

So, as I get more depressed about the Dow Jones I have to remind myself, they have to report on something. I guess the best strategy is to not listen to the news, and to keep the long term in mind if you do listen to the news too much and get depressed.

I always wonder why we cannot report on good things happening. Don't we as human beings love a happy ending? I do.

So, for sanity purposes, less news, more happy stories and don't let the turkeys get you down.

December 2nd - time to get stressed about the holidays

Tonight was way too relaxing. After all, the TV tells us to be shopping and creating that perfect Christmas. We will have a perfect Christmas because George and Judy are coming, and we have decided to only do stockings with them.

This really is a strange year for the economy. I hesitate to look at the Dow Jones Average, because what can I do about it anyway. That is not why we are simplifying this year. Material things are not where it is at.

What is important for the holidays are: family and the gathering of the same, stockings, making things, Christmas eve service, snow, lights, cookies, eggs benedict, staying in PJs until after noon, carols and caroling,

What is NOT important for the holidays are: rushing around, getting stressed out, going to the mall, huge amounts of food, traveling long distances, tons of presents to wrap, being stressed about getting our Christmas letter out (we might do it this year, but maybe not)

I remember blogging last year about this same topic. Each year we get even simpler in what we keep in our lives at this time of year.

OK, back to making things . . . and to relaxing on the couch, and to not letting the media get me cranked up about making the PERFECT holiday. It already is prefect.

December 1st - RABBIT RABBIT

When we were growing up, on the first day of any month there was a very strict routine. You woke up, did not speak and jumped over the end of your bed and said "Rabbit, Rabbit!" The early birds in the house would always tried to catch those who don't wake up as quickly and get them to talk before they said it. Weren't we mean? I think you were supposed to have good luck for the rest of the month. I think our birthday month was a really important one to do the Rabbit Rabbit thing.


I say there were strict rules because you could not jump over the side of the bed it had to be the end. You could not whisper. The spell was broken if you said anything. The entire family did this.

While on my walk this morning, I remembered that it was the 1st, so I said "Rabbit, Rabbit!" Qammi said "Where?" in her dog way. I have given myself a lot of slack as I grow older and this one on my walk counted.

I have met a few people who have this routine and understand me when I say "Rabbit, Rabbit!" but just a few.

So big birthdays today are Carlton Warren is 100, and brother Ted and friend Liz turn less than 100 today.