Very Crappy Christmas

Well, of all the things you might wish for from jolly old St. Nick, a sewage back up probably wasn't one of them.

I went to visit my daughter and her family for the holidays. The live in the country and have a septic tank rather than being connected to city water and sewer.  I have never fully understood how septic tanks work. I know the basics, things that go down the drains in your house wind up in the septic tank and somehow they work themselves out from there.  It is one of those mysterious things in houses that, when working, require no thought and when not, require panic on my part.

While we were in the midst of enjoying all the usual pre-Christmas preparations including planning our Christmas Eve dinner, my daughter decided to do a load of laundry.  Upon entering the basement, she noticed a lot of water on the floor. Unfortunately, it wasn't just water. There were, um, other things floating around in the water. Ugh. She came upstairs to announce to her husband that there was a problem in the basement and he proceeded to take a look and try to fix it. I have to say that his value in doing this went up quite a bit in my book. I would have taken one look and called for an air strike. He tried to clean up the mess and determine the cause of the problem and decided he needed to clear the line to the septic tank. Not having a plumbing snake, he went to borrow one from family nearby.  Upon his return, snaking of the line commenced, but the problem remained.  In the meantime, we were all told under NO circumstances to use the toilets or to run ANY water whatsoever in the house.  I began to have thoughts of a worse Christmas than when the Grinch visited Whoville.

About 3:00 PM, it was decided that professional help was needed and we made numerous calls to local plumbing contractors. As you might imagine, these companies were all closed for the holidays. While emergency plumbing service might be readily available in a big city, local plumbers in a rural area apparently don't work on holidays.

I was beginning to think that we would have to find hotel rooms for the long weekend and have Chinese food for dinner a la "A Christmas Story". I had visions of Chinese waiters singing FA RA RA RA RA to us while we ate roast duck. I dashed off a quick note to Santa requesting a plumber for Christmas and included a provision that if he could supply one, I'd forgo all other gifts.

Time was dragging on as only it can when it is Christmas eve and you have a basement full of raw sewage. Repeated calls to plumbers were becoming fruitless when a true Christmas miracle occurred. One of the plumbers called us back to say he would come out.  I was ready to sing the Hallelujah Chorus about this time and at 7:00 PM our savior appeared to clear the drain.  We proceeded to cook dinner knowing that we would be able to wash up afterwards and joyfully danced around celebrating the vision of a crap-free future.

It took about an hour and half, but finally the wonderful plumber ascended from the basement announcing that he was finished and all was well in septic tank world.  We would have idolized him and gazed fondly on him pronouncing him a true man among men, but some how his countenance, covered with suspicious brown speckles all over, was a bit tarnished.  My son in law, ever grateful that someone else handled the problem, gladly paid the double time rate charged and in his appreciation gave the plumber a box of chocolates for his troubles on a holiday eve.

Now instead of visions of sugar plums, I had visions of that plumber driving home raiding that box of candy with those brown speckled hands. Ewwww. But he did save Christmas for us and I sent up a little thank you the man upstairs and also the one who drives the sleigh with eight tiny reindeer.

I hope your holiday was truly wonderful and did not involve plumbing disasters of any kind.

The Year I was Very Bad

When my daughter was quite small, before she could read, she and I celebrated a Christmas alone. I was recently separated, we had moved into a new place and I was trying as hard as I could to make a nice holiday for her.  This would be the first Christmas we were ever alone just the two of us.

For weeks prior to Christmas, I had purchased toys and gifts for her and hidden them in the attic of our house in anticipation of Christmas morning.  Being a single mother was a challenge as money was tight, but I had carefully planned how to spend what I could and still get her the special things she wanted that year.

We bought a tree at a local Christmas tree stand and brought it home and decorated it.  On Christmas eve, she carefully hung her stocking up after I assured her that Santa would know how to find her in our new home.  We set out the traditional milk and cookies for Santa along with carrots for his reindeer and I tucked her into bed where I hoped visions of sugarplums would dance in her head.

That evening, once she was sound asleep in bed, I pulled the attic steps down from the ceiling and crept up to retrieve the gifts I had hidden.  Most of that night I spent wrapping presents, tying on ribbons and bows and carefully placing them under the tree.  I think it was about 5:00 am when I finally laid my head down on my pillow to sleep.  Not too much later a very excited little girl awoke me with cries of "Santa's been here!". I pulled my bleary eyed self out of bed and we made our way into the living room to the wondrous sight of a beautifully lit tree with brightly colored packages arrayed underneath it.

She quickly set to work pulling package after package out from under the tree.  She had to keep asking me to read the tags to her so she would know who the gifts were for. (Of course they were all for her).  Eventually she exhausted the pile and turned to me with a very odd expression on her face.
Looking strangely at me she declared in a solemn voice:  "Mommy, you must have been awfully bad this year, Santa didn't leave you anything!".  I was thunderstruck when I realized that I had failed to put any gifts under the tree for myself. I guess I thought she wouldn't notice and then I felt terrible as I wondered what awful things she might be thinking I could have done to warrant not receiving any gifts.  I felt as low as George Bailey standing on that bridge.  I managed to cover by suggesting that Santa just forgot me. An already sad Christmas was made even sadder by my small child full of the wonder of the holiday and fear that her mother was, actually, fallible.

There would be many more Christmases, wonderful memories and very happy times to come, but that year was particularly poignant. I have never forgotten that morning and you can bet the next Christmas I remembered to put some gifts under the tree for myself.

Wishing you the joy and wonder of a small child this holiday season! I hope you behaved yourself and that there will be gifts for you from Santa.

Ahhhh warmth!

Well I have escaped the farm and the cold and am enjoying the sunshine in Florida.  Of course it did get cold here and actually snowed a little bit - just flurries the day after Christmas.  But it is now warming up and supposed to be in the 70's by Friday. Yippee!!!

I am spending the holidays with family and my 3 year old grandson.  What a wonderful way to see Christmas! This is the first year he really "gets" it and has been singing Jingle Bells -well not the whole song, just the Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells part. He has also been saying "Ho, Ho, Ho Merry Kristas" to everyone. (he is still learning to talk--sometimes none of us can understand him and I wonder if he learned speech from "Nell") But he is really doing well.

I got him the Polar Express DVD for Christmas not sure he would really like it as he is a firm addict to Sponge Bob but he did.  In fact I have now seen it about 15 times and it is on again.  Soon I will know it word for word.

Today we will go outside and play--maybe to the local playground, and enjoy the weather. Take the dog for a walk with us.

I will enjoy being here for the next several days until I have to go back to the frozen north. But I can count the days before our soldier comes home and I will be free to move on. I forecast warm weather from then on out as the palm trees are calling.

It's 12 minutes past midnight

So that makes it officially Christmas.  I have my daughter, youngest sister and grandson all together this holiday which makes it really nice.  Things have been very hectic with travelling, visiting and the general holiday frenzy but we made it.  The last gifts have just been placed under the tree and everyone is now nestled all snug in their beds with visions of who knows what dancing in their heads. Of course the evening didn't go exactly as planned and was not as idyllic as we would have liked.  It ended up including a spanking for the grandson who decided to take off all his clothes and run around the house terrorizing the dog and tearing up the decorations. When told to stop and get dressed he responded "No Way!" and proceeded to hit his mother. This resulted in the drinking of gingerbread martinis on the grownups part. Speaking of gingerbread, my daughter and sister decided to make a gingerbread house from a kit today with my 3 year old grandson "helping".  At one point my daughter  had icing all over her hands and my sister was trying to hold the sides of the thing together so the house wouldn't all fall down. Meanwhile my grandson was happily eating all the candy decorations that came with the kit and licking the icing from the icing bag while everyone else was busy trying to get the house to stay together. I decided that was a good time to leave and go to the store for something I needed at, of course, the last minute.  When I came back the house was pretty much done and actually does look better than the photo above albeit minus most of the candy. 

So now all is calm, all is bright and quiet and I am enjoying this time along with a nice buzz from the martinis.  Ahh, Santa's drunken elves! I don't remember them in the Night Before Christmas!

Hope your holiday is great! Or at least uneventful! Cheers!

Mooory Christmas!

Just about two weeks til Christmas.  There is snow all over the farm, the tree is up and decorated and the kitchen has been producing wonderful scents of homemade goodies. Sounds idyllic doesn't it? Well, life on a farm just looks that way.  Now that it is cold there seems to be more work to do. 
The cows seem to eat more now that it is colder and they let me know when they need something by moooing - loudly!  I know when I hear that noise that I will need to trudge out to the barn to see what they need. They used to be afraid of me but now they are friendly. Too friendly!  I didn't know cows would lick you like dogs do but they do only but they are much bigger and have really large, rough tongues. Trudging out to the barn in the snow is not much fun. The boots I bought at Tractor Supply seemed like a good idea this past fall but I am finding that the deep treads on the bottoms tend to get clogged with snow and other matter (we won't mention what) and I gather this stuff up until I am walking around with a large, heavy mass under each foot which I then need to knock off to get into the house. I can never get it all off so I end up with a yucky mess that melts all over and have to clean the floor. Besides having feet that look like I am wearing snow shoes made of ice, snow and crap, I come back to the house with wet spots all over from cows licking me. Ewwwww.
We have to be sure to gather the eggs on a regular basis each day so that they don't freeze.  The cows and chickens need their water checked as it is freezing and needs to be kept fresh so they have water to drink.    The wood burner is going full time and eating wood like candy. I have to shovel the snow off the steps and walks and put down some salt.  Have I said how much I HATE snow! I think I have.

Well, anyone who would like to visit a working farm and enjoy the life is welcome to come!  There's a snow shovel, feed pail, and muck rake just waiting for you!