Coming Up Fast!

All kinds of things happening here lately! Some nice, good -and of course, with these two grandchildren present, some aren't always that great to deal with either!

Where to begin now? Hmmm. Well, let's start with Friday morning and Maya getting ready for school. This was one of the "not so nice" episodes with the DIVA side of Maya making a really strong appearance.

Let me say this about her - she is and can be quite fashion conscious, sometimes. Friday morning may have been one of those times when SHE thought she was being quite the princess but her choice of shoes that day left a whole lot to be desired in her mother's mind as well as mine.

She had decided to wear this cute pair of leggings with a matching top and I have no clue as to what possessed her when it came to the shoes to wear to school that day but she decided that she should wear this pair of really pretty, very dressy, black patent numbers that are also, open-toed! For openers, the leggings and top were "schoolish" -not party-time pieces, if you get my drift and where we live, here in central Pennsylvania, we have snow on the ground, on the road and oh, a tad of ice here and there underneath all that too. Open-toe shoes on Friday, when it may have been a tiny bit warmer than it had been earlier that week, it still wasn't near warm enough for open-toed shoes.

Needless to say, Mandy put her foot down on Maya's idea and, if you know the old joke about a married couple where the guy makes a comment that doesn't go over too well and the next line is "And then the fight began" well, that's pretty much what happened here.

Maya does not always deal very well with being told something other than what she thinks is the best thing to do so she and Mandy got into a battle that had Maya first whining, then wimpering, then wailing and there was a good bit of yelling and maybe you could even say, gnashing of teeth that resulted in her missing her bus.

Now, this is also a child who loves going to school and the thought of being late -well, unlike her aunt, she takes great offense to that idea and just KNEW that Mr. McClelland (her teacher) was going to be very upset with her. Add to that, Mandy then told her she was going to be a little later than she would have been if Mandy had been better dressed because now, she had to go change her clothes in order to drive her to school and walk her into the office and go through all that rigamaroo that you have to do when coming to school late. As Mandy put it, "It would be one thing for MarKay (the bus driver) to see me in my raggy old green sweatpants, but I'll be damned if I'm walking into the elementary office wearing these things, so you'll just have to chill a bit till I get dressed!"

I don't know how late Maya was -for all I know, Mandy may have even beaten the bus in getting there, but I sure do hope we don't have many more mornings like that one was. (However, something tells me that by the time Maya hits her teen years, there's gonna be a whole lot more mornings like this one was!)

Friday nite, Mandy and the kids were in Philipsburg at the Weis Market there, picking up a few items we needed and somehow or other, Maya managed to loose another tooth. And yes, it was another upper tooth too so now, she really is toothless across the front and can be singing "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth" but she'll have to change to her "three front teeth." We've been teasing her that if this keeps up, pretty soon she'll totally be "gumming it!" (Either that or she can join me in eating soft foods that are easy to chew and digest.)

The tooth fairy forgot to show up Friday night and didn't make the standard appearance here till Saturday night but again, Maya left instructions for the tooth to be hidden under Gram's pillow and the reward placed there. No tooth fairy is allowed to enter her bedroom ya know. Hmmm. As much as that individual is paying these days, I think I should at least get a cut considering it's my pillow that's being used, don't you?

I was supposed to have an appointment tomorrow with my surgeon in Pittsburgh but as of Friday afternoon all the weather forecasts for today and Monday were calling for a 70 percent chance of snow and that it would be a heavy snowfall at that. So, without too much more thought about that forecast, I called my doctor's office and canceled that appointment! Mandy had said earlier in the week that there was no way in God's green acres she was driving to Pittsburgh if there was even the slightest chance of snow and as much as I don't really want to be riding that far if it is just really, really cold, I'll be darned if I want to ride that far if it is snowing, even just flurries, ya know! Ya, I'm turning into a big old coward in my dotage.

Today was a big day at our church too. Every year, on the Sunday in December that falls closest to the 13th of the month, we celebrate St. Lucia Day, in honor of St. Lucia, the patron saint of Sweden. (The people who founded the church my family and I attend, back in the late 1800s, were of Swedish descent and even when I was a kid, the majority of the membership was of Swedish ethnicity. Although today, our congregation is very diverse with respect to culture/ethnicity, we have made this celebration an annual tradition for about 30 years now and I love this celebration -"The Festival of Light" is what it really is.)

Last year was the first year that Maya participated in the pageant/program and was part of St. Lucia's court. Last year, all those in St. Lucia's court also held a lit candle as they did their entrance into the church social hall and Maya made a few of the women's heart flutter a good bit in fear as they watched her walk in holding that lit candle. This year, one of the ladies who gets the kids ready for their grand entrance solved that problem as she had found some little "flameless" candles the younger kids could use! Same effect, just a whole lot less scariness, ya know.

And Maya did her part quite well, walking in behind the only "star boy" this year but when she got up front with the rest of the court, you could see how proud she was that she was able to participate in this event.
Here's the full court for St. Lucia this year. From left-to right, Tom, Maya, Rachel, Jenny, Casey and this year's St. Lucia, Liz! A much smaller court than we've had some years, but the kids each did their part and there were more than a few proud parents -and grandparents -present to see them -and also, to hear the kids sing this little Swedish folk song -which I don't know the name of it, much less the words, but it's really cute anyway!

We have a lot of juggling we have to do here now too since my son's pickup truck broke down last Monday and neither he, nor his uncle (who is one of THE BEST mechanics in the county) or my ex-son-in-law (also a mechanic) have a clue as to what is wrong with the poor little pickup. So, since sonny-boy is also majorly job hunting, he has been using my jeep to run around, dropping off applications, praying for an interview and beyond that, to an invitation to become an employee of some outfit around these hills, and make it soon too please!!! And that, of course, leaves me with no vehicle, doesn't it?

Aside from having canceled the Pittsburgh appointment for tomorrow, I am also supposed to report to the Cancer Center in Clearfield early in the a.m. to have my weekly blood work drawn so, if it isn't dumping tons of snow and looks like we can get through from here to there, I'm going to have to have my son take me for that appointment so he can then still be able to use my jeep to go to a little bit of a job he landed on Thursday -bartending at one of the local establishments here. Tuesday -I have another doctor's appointment in Clearfield -this one with a heart specialist that my family doctor ordered I see him because she had detected some "relatively minor changes" on my last ekg -done the day they tried to give me the first chemo treatment, which you all may recall ended badly with my mega allergic reaction to the drugs in the chemo! Sheesh! I ask you now, if you had something like that happen and immediately after, they ran and ekg on you, wouldn't you pretty much expect it to be a bit different from the previous ekgs? I know, I'm just whining here simply because I don't want to go see this heart specialist and get forced into having a freaking stress test which would mean I would have to go, 12 or 24 hours (not sure which) with NO nicotine and NO caffeine either! Man, these people want to kill me, not cure me when they order things like that! I'm just whining tonight but wait till I have to have that stress test and you all will probably hear me wailing then, I bet!

On a pretty good side, I do have most of my shopping for the holiday complete now. Darned good thing too, because the coins aren't there to support much more spending anyway. I'm just relieved that the kids are as young as they are and as such, have never heard of Wii or an Xbox 360 or any of the other high-priced things most kids have on their wish lists! If they ever begin expressing a desire in the near or far off future for anything that would cost an arm and a leg, I'm afraid we'll have some mighty disappointed gift recipients in years to come!

I just checked the weather here -still a tiny bit of misting but thus far, nothing else. I suppose since I canceled that darned Pittsburgh appointment, it will end up to be nothing but a little spritzing. Just my kind of luck in trying to figure out what the heck avenue to take, ya know.

So now, just remember that Monday -December 13th -is St. Lucia Day and the way to honor her completely is for the oldest female in the house to rise and shine about 2-3 a.m., bake a batch of St. Lucia buns (and ice them too, I might add), make a pot of coffee and then, don a white robe, a crown of live (lit) candles and to then wake up all the other members of the household by serving them coffee and St. Lucia buns in bed.

I'll pay my tribute to St. Lucia on the Sunday nearest that date at the program at church and the great pot luck dinner we have there then too. Even though -as most of you are aware - I do tend to be a night owl, there is no way on God's Green Acres you're gonna have me report in later that I stayed up all night baking rolls, making coffee and being bright and chipper around 6-7 a.m. to serve that to my family.

Their on their own tomorrow morning!

But have a Happy St. Lucia Day -do it for me, Okay?