Learning Things

We all know that old adage that "You learn something new every day," and when you have a three-year-old loose in the house, that really becomes an absolute truth. Some times you learn things you knew before and find yourself re-learning them because you didn't have to use that knowledge for a long, long time. Other times, you learn right along with the three-year-old too what things are now called - in her book.

One thing Maya has learned fairly recently, is the expression "Oh, my gosh!" When she picked this one up, we're not sure because sometimes she says things and they may be said when she is playing with her toys and talking to them so we don't always pay particular attention to some things she says right then. But now, she has a tendency to knock on the bathroom door for instance, when someone is in there and whether she gets an answer or not, you can often hear her say "Oh, my gosh!"

Last night though, she was running from the kitchen to the living room and apparently those clumsy genes (acquired from dear old Gram here) kicked into gear as she tripped over her own two feet, started to fall, went down on one knee and just as quickly, picked herself up, did a little brush-off and said "Oh, my gosh!" And, she went right back to her running again.

Last week, one day when Mandy had to leave the house early in the morning, before Maya's normal "rise and shine" time, when I went upstairs to get her up and bring her downstairs, she greeted me in a way that is unusual for her. Normally, when you go in to get her out of her bed, she's awake, happy, smiling, plays a little peek-a-boo with her quilt but then, pops up, gathering her special blanket (Mr. Blanky), grabs the bink and pops it in her mouth and is reaching up for you to get her out of there.

However, last week, when I went in her room, she pulled the blanket over her head and started saying something, over and over, that sounded like she was saying "Berback, berback!" And the tone of voice, was that one she gets when she is about to start crying and could very easily go into a bit of a meltdown phase. So I had cajoled her that morning into getting up and she was then ok, but I forgot about what she had said. I hadn't been able to figure it out at all at the time and much later, when I mentioned it to Mandy, she couldn't figure out either what it might have been she was trying to tell me.

Last night, I found out what she meant!

Mandy had both kids in the tub, giving them a bath together and was ready to take the baby out of the tub. She asked Maya did she want to get out then and let Gram dry her off and Maya's response to her mother was "Berback, berback!" Hearing that, Mandy had said, ok, in a bit and left it at that. I told Mandy then too that was what Maya had said to me last week when I went to get her out of bed but I didn't know what she was saying then. Mandy interpreted it for me last night though: "Be right back, be right back!" Meaning I'm not ready right now so come back in a minute or two or so.

Today, I learned something else new and this didn't come from Maya though.

I received an e-mail this morning from a young woman in Sweden with whom I have been e-mailing back and forth for probably almost 8 years now. She does geneology work in Sweden and has helped me immeasurably to trace a lot of my Swedish ancestry - at least on my maternal grandfather's side of the family.

In this e-mail, Anneli said that she will be coming to America this coming Saturday for a "Geneology Tour" along with four other people from Sweden. And, while they are here -until May 14th - they will be traveling from New York City to Minnesota, from Minnesota to Rock Island, Illinois and from Rock Island, Illinois, they will go to Jamestown, New York. And after their seminar in Jamestown, they will end up HERE - in Clearfield - which is about 23-24 miles from where I live!

Needless to say, I am really excited about this upcoming visit and looking forward very much to meeting her and learning a bit more about my Swedish roots in the process. Isn't that just fantastic though?

And, now - that time has come too - time for you to learn along with me the Bushism for the day - this one is for Thursday, April 26, 2007.

"As a matter of fact, I know relations between our governments is good." - On U.S.-South Korean relations; Washington, D.C.; November 8, 2005.

Four Brothers

This picture, taken probably around 1906, shows four of the sons of Carl and Maja Till Eld in the back row from left to right: August, Oscar, Elmer and Adolph Eld. The child seated in the middle is Bertrum Carl Eld, second child and son of Adolph and Ellen Johnson Eld. Seated at the left is Emily Johnson Eld, wife of August Eld and she is holding their son, Wendell. In the middle, the girl in the rear is Ethel Amelia Eld, oldest child and daughter of Adolph and Ellen Eld, In front of her is Emily Eld, oldest child and daughter of August and Emily Eld. Seated on the far right is Ellen Johnson Eld, wife of Adolph Eld.

Adolph Eld and his wife, Ellen Johnson Eld, were my maternal grandparents. My grandfather was born September 26, 1874 in Bolstad, Dahlsland, Sweden and immigrated to America in 1881, with his mother, three brothers and one sister. His father had come here the year before and was living and working in a little coal mining town - long since defunct -in Lycoming County, near Williamsport, PA - called McIntyre.

My grandmother's parents were both born in Sweden and immigrated to America where they then met most likely someplace in New York State. I don't recall my grandmother ever talking much about her parents, when they came here or how they met. My grandmother was the next to the youngest of seven children and was born in Mayville, New York, October 1, 1880. (Mayville is located in Chautauqua County, near to Jamestown, NY.) Sometime in the 1880's, her parents moved to a little area just on the outskirts of Warren, PA, to a little place called Scandia, where they had a farm. When my grandmother was 14 years old, she went to work as a maid for some well-to-do family in Warren. She worked from the time she was 14 until her marriage at age 21, to my grandfather and somewhere along the way, went from working in Warren, PA to working, also as a maid, for a family in Olean, NY. It was while working in Olean that she met my Grandfather, who had gone up to that small city in search of work away from the coal mines of central Pennsylvania. He boarded there with his mother's sister, Anna Olson-Till Johnson.

The family story of how they met was that they both were attending the same church in Olean and both, being music lovers, had joined the church choir there. (My grandfather had one of the most beautiful bass voices I have ever heard and I guess because of his vocal ability, I have always had an affinity for the bass harmony.) My Mom's brother, Ralph, who was about 3 years older than her, used to tease my grandmother about how she and Grandpa had come to meet. Supposedly, the name Eld, in Swedish, means fire. Whether this is true or not, I have no clue as I know only a very few select words in that language. But Uncle Ralph, knowing especially how prim and proper Grandma tended to be, would always tell her that when he was first introduced to "Dad" and was told his last name was Eld, her comment to him then was, "OH, Eld! That means fire. You must be hot stuff."

As a kid, I often heard him gently tease Grandma about this and she would, lower her head slightly, blush and laugh at him, telling him, "You go on now, Ralph. My land sakes!" And, since this was a family joke, usually told around the dining room table at Christmas gatherings or for some other big holiday type event when most of my aunts and uncle and cousins would be here, this story just stayed within the house and the family.

However, the spring shortly before Grandma's death, she had been in the hospital for a few days and after coming home, our pastor at the time, The Rev. Edward Corneilson, had come to pay a house call on Grandma. As they sat out on our sunporch talking and he was inquiring as to her health and such, because he was relatively new to our parish, he didn't know much of people's background and so, he began to ask Grandma about her parents, her early life, etc.

During this entire conversation, my Mom (who related this event to me later that evening when I got home from work), was in the kitchen, preparing coffee, and getting other general kitchen work done but she stopped everything completely when she happened to hear my Grandma telling the Pastor this particular family story, which in essence was nothing but a joke. When my Mom told me about this, she said she wanted to laugh so hard, but had to choke it back at the time. However, as she related it to me, she was then howling laughing at this whole scene because to begin with, to call someone "hot stuff" wasn't exactly part of the vocabulary in the era when my grandparents met, plus had my Grandma actually understood the meaning Uncle Ralph was putting into this little tale, and for her to be repeating it to the minister, she would have been mortified!

But, back to the photo again. I never knew Uncle August, who was the third child of Carl and Maja Eld, as he died in the mid-thirties. But I did know his widow, as well as the two other brothers in the photograph. Uncle Oscar, who was about a year old or a little over that when they came to this country, was the joker of my Grandpa's siblings. Uncle Elmer was very quiet, never married, and generally just sat back and listened to what everyone else had to say, smoking his cigar and nodding his head apparently in agreement.

Uncle Oscar married a daughter of the family who lived next door to my great-grandparents. Her name was Hilma Johnson and she, like Uncle Oscar, had a great personality, a wonderful sense of humor too.

When my grandparents first married in October of 1901, they shared half of a house with Grandpa's older brother, Erick and his wife, Beatrice Johnson Eld.

Now, if you've been paying attention to the maiden names of the wives of these four brothers, don't for a moment think that they married sisters because all four of these women had Johnson as their maiden names. Not by a long shot! It was one of those things that is purely coincidental and due to the proliferation in Sweden of people with the surnames like Johnson, Carlson, ERickson, Anderson, etc. Sweden used the patronic naming system, where the child took the father's first name and added either "son" or "Dott" to the end of that for a new surname. However, if a man went into the Swedish Army, often they would be assigned a name - due to the confusion of having all these men with the same last name - and that is how our family surname became Eld, because originally it was actually Andersson! (My great-great-grandfather's name was Anders Svenson and when his children were born the boys had the surname of Andersson and the girls -some went by Andersdotter, others were listed as Andersson. Again, a bit of a "go figure" there too! I still can get majorly confused trying to piece together which Andersson this or that person is in my family tree without going to the records and looking it up to see, by the date of birth, which Andersson family this might be within the tree.

My grandfather, his father and most of Grandpa's brothers all worked in the coal mines here in central Pennsylvania. Some, like Uncle Erick, worked almost his entire life in the coal mines. The boys generally went to work in the mines around the age of ten and that was no different for my grandfather. But, he left the area, as had Uncle Erick in the late 1890's and both had gone up to Olean, NY to work. Both had met their wives there as well and I think it is possible that Uncle August too may have gone to Olean to work for a period of time too but I'm not positive about that.

However, both Uncle Erick and my Grandpa had moved back to Pennsylvania by 1901 and were working in the mines here then. Over the next couple of years, my Grandparents remained in this area, having built the family homestead here in 1903, which is now my home. But, somewhere along the lines, Uncle August, although he worked for a mining company, had managed to extracate himself from working in the mines to a position where he eventually rose to be a store manager for some coal company back then. Through this position, he and his family often got transferred from one small coal mining town to another throughout southwestern Pennsylvania and even down in to West Virginia for a time. Also, because Uncle August was in a position that had a little more authority, if times were hard back home here and work was sparse, he was the one who found jobs for two of his brothers, my Grandpa and Uncle Oscar, and they too then worked the mines or sometimes in a clerking capacity where ever Uncle August happened to be based at times.

It was from about 1906 till 1924 that my Grandparents moved around a lot in Westmoreland County especially, then down to Tunnelton, West Virginia, following the work demands through whatever mining company Uncle August was with at any particular time. Thus, my Mom was born in Edna, PA -which is someplace near Greensburg. I'm not sure exactly where Uncle Ralph, who was just above her in the family, or my Uncle Cookie (Clarence) were born, but Mom's baby sister, Aunt Marian, was born in 1923 in Tunnelton, PA and the following summer is when the family returned back to Clearfield County, to this little village of Grassflat, where I was born twenty years later.

LIfe was hard for my grandparents. Wages were low whether one worked in the mines or in a different capacity for the company, there was very little to go around. I find it amazing that while they hopscotched around the state for at least 17-18 years, they managed to keep this house by somehow finding tenents who must have been good, responsible people at that time and didn't rip the place apart as all too often can happen when one takes a chance to rent their property to others.

My Mom always credited my Grandma though for being the one who was the "manager" of the family and who, by her side work wherever they lived, managed to pay off the mortgage on this house. Grandma took in laundry for folks and also, being a very talented seamstress, would do dressmaking for others in these little towns where they happened to land during those years. Grandma, after they returned to this area, was known to many along this street too as being an excellent seamstress, one who women could bring a picture from a magazine or newspaper ad to her and show her a dress and from seeing the way a dress was shown in the picture, she could take measurements, make up a pattern from which to cutout the dress and stitch it up so well that no one would ever know it was not a "store bought" item.

Although Grandma taught my Mom many of these sewing skills, Mom never learned how to make her own patterns but she did become quite adept too at doing alterations and often did sewing when I was a kid, mending clothes, taking in seams or letting some out, hemming, etc for many of the neighbors.

Now it was this talent of my Mom's that was something of a befuddlement to me though. Someone could bring her a skirt they bought and although it maybe fit perfectly around the hips, it might be very loose at the waist and Mom would alter it to fit their waist to a tee! However, when it came to sewing clothes for me, that talent seemed to fly right out the window!

When I was in high school, Mom decided since I needed to have a gown type dress to wear for the high school chorus' spring concert, she would make the gown for me. She found a pattern she felt was suitable - even had spaghetti straps on it - got some taffeta in a not pale blue, more of a color I would call a light steel blue, nylon tulle net and went to work on making this gown for me. All was fine until she put it together with straight pins and had me try it on for sizing. The bodice fit tighter than you can imagine, pulling my breasts in till they were virtually as flat as pancakes. Then at the waistline, although it was to be fitted down to the waist and then the skirt, gathered mind you, attached there, as the bodice worked down to the waist and the skirt was pinned to it, it flared out there! I was irate and told her this just wouldn't do because it didn't fit me properly. We argued and argued over how much should be taken it to keep the bodice fitting snugly as to where it attached to the skirt, but she would always win out by putting her hand in the waistband area and by having the side of her hand against my skin, thus creating a gap of about 3 inches between my skin and the skirt, she would proclaim that there was no way you could possibly have this skirt, the waistband area, any tighter!

I tried and tried to show her how she was making this big gap there, but for some weird reason or other in her head, she could never see this my way!

Now that I think about it, I do believe that gown may have been the last piece of clothing my Mom ever made for me. I know everytime I saw it hanging in my closet, only ever worn one time for that spring concert, it still was a thorn in my side because it never, in my opinion, fit properly along my side from below the bust to the waist!

That story is a little off-topic from where I started relating about my Grandparents and great-uncles and their families, but just thought it "fitting" to put it in here when talking about the sewing talents that did exist in my Mom and in her mother before her as well!

My grandmother, as long as I can remember back in time, always, every October, would set up her quilting frame in the living room of our house. That quilting frame came down about a week or two before Christmas and as soon as the tree was removed from the living room after the Christmas holiday, the quilting frame went back up and stayed up usually until early, even mid-May. She worked on quilts all winter long. During the late spring and summer months, she would spend her evenings sitting with all types of scrap materials she had accumulated and would carefully mark out the designs for her quilt patterns and then begin to stitch these together. Then, come October, she would have gathered the fabric she wanted for backing of the quilt, batting for the inside and these pieces all sewn together would be stiched in place on her old treadle sewing machine - a Singer - that she had bought while working as a maid in Warren, PA in the late 1890's. She would then lay the pieced part of the quilt over the batting with the backing underneath it all and somehow, I have no idea how she did this, she would wind it onto the quilting frame and night after night, would sit there, carefully marking with a ruler and pencil her quilting lines and then, stitch this all together.

I have no idea how many quilts she had made in her lifetime but I know she made one for the older four of her grandchildren which were given to each one of them as their wedding gift from her. I know she made several quilts too which were given to each of her children for use in their homes, for their kids to be kept toasty warm. Considering we had three bedrooms in this house, plus a twin bed for a while that was in my grandparents' room, and with the 13 bedroom total count of the rest of her children's homes, at a minimum of two quilts for each bed, would come to at least 36 quilts right there that she had made. Considering the fact that each bed here had at least two quilts on it, year-round, and there were enough quilts stashed away upstairs in the cedar chest, in storage drums in her closet, in the attic in more storage drums, heaven only knows what the final tally of quilts might have been.

All I know is that it was an extremely labor intensive project and one that went on, in one form or another, year-round as her pasttime. I still have one of her quilts made in the late 50's, before her eyesight finally gave out on her and she couldn't see to make the tiny, meticulous stitching for which her work was known. And that quilt doesn't look all that worn considering it is close to fifty years old now.

Now, that was quality workmanship!

There are probably many other stories that will come to me from time to time about my ancestors, others within both sides of my family tree, but for now, I think it's time to find that last quilt here and crawl under it and get some sleep to be ready to tackle another day!

Fair play to the Other Side of the Family

These are my mother's grandparents - Karl and Maja Lisa Till-Olson Eld-Andersson, originally from Bolstad, Dahlsland, Sweden, who immigrated to Pennsylvania in 1880, for my great-grandfather and followed in 1881 by my great-grandmother and their five oldest children

The church is the Lutheran Church in Bolstad where they had been members until they immigrated to this country. A lady in Sweden who does family tree research sent me this photo of the church along with records from which I was able then to trace my roots on this side of my family back to the early 1600's. Needless to say, I was astounded to receive records that far back in time for these ancestors who were, as the old saying would aptly apply here, "As poor as church mice!"

Just absolutely incredible, isn't it?

Festival of Light - in honor of St. Lucia

Tonight is the annual pot-luck supper, followed by a pageant honoring St. Lucia - patron saint of Sweden - at our church. This is also one of my favorite church-related events - topped only by Christmas, Easter and Reformation Sunday. (Being a "true blue Lutheran" explains my mentioning Reformation Sunday there. Of course, there are many who know me, from our parish no less, who probably would argue my assertion there as to being a "true blue Lutheran" because I am not among the faithful who manages to get to church every Sunday or for all the special services held throughout the year too, but whether they believe that comment or not, trust me, I hold the tenets of my faith deeply within me.

For those who have no clue about St. Lucia - and because I happen to thoroghly love this special celebration - I thought today it would be fitting to give a little information about her and why she is celebrated as a Saint.

I don't remember right now all the exact dates but will try to give you as clear a picture as possible with time approximates.

Way back around 300 A.D. - or thereabouts - Lucia was a young maiden in Italy who had been born into a well-to-do family and, was engaged to be married. She also, about that time, learned of Christianity, accepted it as her faith and gave of her wealth to the church community. This was also during the period when Christians were frequently persecuted, even slaughtered for their belief, and often, many hid in the deep, dark catacombs of Rome.

Lucia often took food and drink to these early Christians in hiding and to find her way through the catacombs, legend has it that she wore a wreath-type crown of candles on her head to provide light to find her way to bring aid and comfort to her fellow believers.

Her fiance was a non-believer and being upset for her giving freely of her wealth, to say nothing of her bringing sustenance to other Christians in hiding, he turned her in to the authorities and she was killed for her beliefs.

Many, many years later, when the missionaries first branched out to Sweden, Norway and other Scandanavian countries, the Vikings were quite taken by this story of the young maid who brought not only food, but light to her fellow Christians.

They likened the story of St. Lucia to a pagan belief pertaining to December 13th being the shortest day of the year, after which the sun's rays begin to stick around longer, providing more light, warmth, comfort to them and that, in a very small nutshell, is the basic story of St. Lucia.

When the Vikings compared her to the sun's rays, the coming of a new season, it is akin to the Christian beliefs that Christ's birth heralds the coming of a new season within us too - within the heart and mind - and St. Lucia brings the first light to remind us of the coming of Christmas - also a Festival of Light, if you will.

The Vikings then began to emulate St. Lucia by setting up a tradition with the ritual of having the oldest daughter in a household rise very early in the morning of December 13th to prepare a breakfast and beverages for her family. And, she served this meal to them while wearing a crown of candles to signify how St. Lucia also came to the early Christians, bringing them comfort and light for their way.

For the past 26 years now, our parish - which was founded by Swedish immigrants to this coal mining community in the mid-1880's - has chosen to honor St. Lucia on the first Sunday in December which falls closest to December 13th. For 2006, that would be today - December 10th.

We have a wonderful pot-luck dinner with church members bringing many delicious casseroles, breads and desserts and the church social room is decorated not just with a tree but with lovely small wooden Swedish candlestick holders on each table, including several large tree-shaped wooden Swedish candelabras on the large buffet table. There will be an abundance of other Swedish decorations around the social room as well to make it a warm, welcoming and truly lovely place.

After the dinner, we will have a pageant to re-tell the story of St. Lucia and one of the teenage girls from the congregation will be given the honor of portraying Lucia by her entrance into the dining room, wearing a crown of candles, and with her "court" in attendance. The court is made up of any of the younger members of the parish - boys and girls alike (the boys are called "star boys). They will enter the hall in a procession, led by the youngest of the children, each carrying a candle holder with one lit candle while the congregation sings the beautiful song "Santa Lucia."

It is just a beautiful program, to hear the story of St. Lucia retold each year and to watch as the young lady chosen to represent St. Lucia appears. It never ceases to bring tears to my eyes no matter how many times I see the pageant. Of course, the years when my daughters had the honor of portraying Lucia did make me a bit more weepy.

After the procession and St. Lucia's story has been presented, St. Lucia then carries a tray of "Lucia" buns - a specially made bread, formed into a croissant-like shape and flavored with saffron - and goes from table to table offering a Lucia bun to each person present.

This is followed by an old-fashioned Christmas carol sing-along and ends with any member who wishes to come forward - generally those who have at sometime or other belonged to the church choir and who know the Swedish Christmas carol - "Lyssna, Lyssna" which is then sung, always with great gusto!

Although I know the words to the closing song in Swedish, I can't put them in here mainly because I don't know the spelling or the proper placement of the little symbols over various vowels. And, I don't know the full English translation either, for that matter. But I do know what the first two lines mean in English: "Listen, listen, hear the angel's song."

When the choir sings that song as a call to worship at our Christmas Eve Candlight service, it will bring forth tears to me as it always does to hear the music, listen to the words and remember Christmases of my childhood when my Grandfather used to love to sing this particular carol. It was by far and away, his favorite as it is mine too.

But tonight, when we "old-timers" come forward to sing it, it will "rock" the room as the young people there might say. And, it is a fitting end to the program with much anticipation of a coming Day!

"Hurry, Hurry!"

Several bloggers I visit regular do a thing called "Friday Feast" in which they select from a menu setup like a regular dinner type thing and post a comment pertaining to each segment of a meal. One of the questions this Friday was which language would you like to learn and why? If I were answering that one, I'd have to say Swedish because it is in my ethnic background, I have several things in the house that are written in Swedish but, I can't read, and also - if I ever hit the lottery, Sweden is where I'd absolutely love to visit so knowing a bit of the language would be a good thing.

But what does that have to do with my title today? Well, another thing about language came to mind and that was some remembering of the two years of French I had in high school. I don't remember how to spell the word correctly so will put it here in my phonetic spelling - veet - which in French as I recall means "Hurry." Our French teacher (Miss Radomsky) often used that word but in double - "Veet, veet!" and that is what I need to begin doing every day now - till the big Holiday gets here!

Last night, I got a small start on my sewing projects. I cut out ten bibs I will be making for the two younger grandchildren and got six (I think six) completed before my vision and energy level ran out on me at about 3 or 4 this morning. These bibs are made from either cute dish towels or fingertip towels and you simply fold one end of the towel down about 1/3 of the length, then fold it again but down the middle and cut down about 1 1/2 to 2 inches then at your foldline and cut a semi-circle for the neck opening. Then, using a knit fabric - preferably the rib trim variety - in a matching or coordinating color to make a crew or turtleneck closure and, after sewing this up, you then attach the "color" part to the towel and presto-magic, you have a really neat little big that pulls over the head, fits fairly snuggly around the neck and protects a multitude of the child's clothing then while they are eating! The dish towels work best for toddlers and the fingertip towels - if you can find any at a decent price - work better for babies. I've made many of these over the past few years and sold quite a few of them at craft fairs too because they are cute, but also are very, very useful. Just a thought there for anyone with little ones and who has a bit of a knack for sewing cause they are also very easy to make.

The "Hurry, Hurry" thing applies to me in lots of ways right now. I have a stack of fabric sitting in my room, with several patterns pulled out too, all ready and waiting for me to get busy and cut out some shirts, jumpers, coveralls and long pants things for Maya and Kurtis. The makings of some Christmas gifts there you know.

Then, there's the ham in my refrigerator that I have to cook off today and make up a big casserole of Ham and Bean Potpie for the church supper tomorrow that will be held prior to the St. Lucia Day celebration our parish has every year. I may blog more about St. Lucia - for those who don't know about her and this special day observed in Sweden and by many here of Swedish ancestry.

I have to finish addressing my Christmas cards too. Now there's one thing about Christmas stuff I really dread doing. My penmanship is terrible and after one or two cards, I start getting writer's cramp in my hand and my penmanship gets even worse then. Wish I had a Christmas Card Fairy who would show up here and take care of that task for me.

I don't have much left to do in the way of shopping - thankfully! Don't have much money to do any shopping with in the first place, so - well, that task will kind of take care of itself due to the lack of funding I suppose!

And then, there's the Christmas baking to consider. In years past, I have been known to take several nights in a row, stay up all night mixing up upteen batches of cookies and getting them all baked for the holiday. It used to be nothing for me to have baked anywhere from 15-20 different types of cookies - some in double, even triple batches too - and have every freaking tupperware container in the house filled with cookies! This year, I doubt I will go that crazy with the cookie list, but I am hoping to get at least 8-10 different varieties baked off. And, while I am baking, I will have to make several loaves of Limpa Rye bread for the family and also, enough extra to give to some of the elderly members of our church who can no longer bake breads but who I know love this particular type of bread - just a little thing I can do for them and it helps put me in a better spirit mode for the season that way too.

Yep - so much to do, never enough time! There'd be more time available if I would ever get myself organized but at this stage of my life, I doubt seriously that is going to happen!

So, in the meantime - as the title reads, for me it will be "Hurry, hurry" over the next 2 weeks! Hope your life isn't too stressed out and jam-packed with all kinds of things to be done to make it a pleasant holiday. Still have to remember the reason for the season while doing all this too, you know!

Till later and off to "hurry, hurry!"