Waiting

I'm in the customer waiting lounge of Brattleboro Subaru. I had a 7:30a.m. appointment and brought my breakfast, which consisted of a smoothie and a bowl of oatmeal which I heated up in their microwave. Plus a complimentary cup of coffee. The Impreza is just 2 1/2 years old but it has 98,000 miles on it. Those trips out west add up.

                            Customer lounge 

Last evening we had a concert choir rehearsal at the River Garden in Brattleboro. The music is beginning to sound really good - and we have over a month to go to the concert. But we'll miss a couple of rehearsals while we are in CO and WY over the holidays. 

                                Concert choir rehearsal 

Car success

John has been agonizing for some time about his car - his 1988 Honda Civic runs well but has terrible rust in the rocker panels, fenders, etc., and a lot of miles - like 300,000. But it gets great gas mileage and he loves it. He looked for another car but could find nothing he liked for a price he could afford. So with many second thoughts he decided to ask Cynthia's nephew, Robbie, to do rust repair. Well, he got the car today, and Robbie did a fabulous job, and at a very fair price. John was flabbergasted. We took John up to White River Jct. to get it and met Robbie. We were impressed, and since our Impreza needs body work too, we asked him to look at it. John said the Honda just sailed home. They are both happy, I think.

The newly restored Honda. You'd have to see what it looked like before to fully appreciate this.

              Robbie and John

After dropping John off we came back to the Vermont Country Store to do a little shopping and then on to a River Singers rehearsal. Earlier today, I dropped Ellen off at Eliza's and went swimming while she helped Eliza hem a skirt. 

Yesterday evening we led a Hallowell holiday sing at Pine Heights Nursing Home. No songs about death and dying - just our upbeat repertoire mixed with carols. It was fun. Ellen said I made a good MC.

                     The party breaking up at Pine Heights Nursing Home

Ecumenical day

This morning was the second Sunday in Advent - John the Baptist was the theme. John came preaching in the desert before Jesus began his preaching,  and he had a stern message: repent! The kingdom of God is at hand! When asked what they should do, he told tax collectors to be honest and just, not take bribes and try to pad their income. Similarly, he told soldiers not to try to extort money from people and be content with their wages. Basic economic justice, which is called, surprisingly, "good news!" Still relevant today!

The choir sang really well and we got a lot of appreciation. 

                                   My lovely choir! 

Ellen was in Guilford this morning playing in a recorder trio. That went well. She joined us at a sing for Bill Maravelle at his house - Bill is 91 and loves music. His son, Dan ,  and nephew, Matthew, were there too. We sang a lot of Advent hymns and had a lovely time. Then E and I dashed to Northhampton for Tamar's piano recital. Part of her performance was a duet  with her sister, Miriam on Home on the Range. Congratulations Tamar and Mimi!

                          Tamar at the piano

                                 And Mimi

Then, we came to Feinlands for the first evening of Hanukkah. Ellen cooked latkes, which were delicious with yogurt and apple sauce. We lit the first candle on the menorah and chanted Hebrew blessings. An ecumenical day!

                       The menorah and Mimi making a bracelet. 

We also played a new game, Ticket to Ride. 

A fun new game, in which you build trains. Sort of like Monopoly, but trains instead of buildings. We didn't get to finish. 

Miriam made a lot of progress on her bracelet, though. It's a Klutz kit.

Getting buttoned down for winter

Today I was up early. Despite the late evening arranging cookies, I was awake at 3a.m. and slept sporadically, if at all (it's hard to know sometimes) until I got up at 6a.m.  I stoked the fire and photographed a file folder - the last one from the "sermon file." -  though this file was not sermons. It was notes for a series of bible study sessions at the Guilford Church, held mostly in the late 80's and 90's, maybe 20 sessions in all. I had sort of forgotten about these notes. One series was five or six sessions based on questions people in the congregation had submitted. Questions of faith like, "Believing in a kind, loving God, how does one then understand and accept the suffering of children? What could be the meaning? How can God allow so much suffering in the world?" My task was to take this question and prepare a study guide on how one would try to use the Bible to wrestle with it. That was an interesting series.

At about 8:30, I called our friend Judy Kinley, who in past years had helped us assemble cookie platters, but this year was not able to help, because of a mysterious illness that was plaguing her. I remembered that she usually got two platters to freeze for the holidays, and I wondered if she wanted them this year.  She did, and also said she had just had a consultation with a physician in Boston and was feeling much more hopeful. So I went down to the church and got two platters. I got there just fifteen minutes after the opening and got the last two large platters! They were selling like hot cakes!

Today was a day we planned to go to Northhampton to a Winter Fair at Tamar's school. She was in a choral performance. But the day promised to be perfect for outdoor work, so I begged off since we were also going to see Tamar tomorrow in a piano recital. Ellen went off and I had a lovely time raking leaves and getting the wood pile covered. There are still things to do, but I'm beginning to feel ready for the arrival of winter. It is amazing that I'm able still to be doing chores like this on December 5th. Often, there is snow by now. But today it was in the low 50's!

                          Getting buttoned down for winter. 

                           Think we have enough wood? I hope so.

   

The end of the long cookie road

Today was the final cookie day - the day Ellen finished baking about 700 cookies- c. 100 of seven kinds- and we delivered them to the church and assembled 36 platters of three sizes - small, medium and large - and then wrapped them all in clear wrap, put a ribbon around them with a sprig of green and arranged them on a table. The delivery and assembly part took about four hours, after Ellen had baked for two days - she was up till after  3 a.m. this morning. A lot of work! We estimate they will bring in over $400 for the church.

                  Loading cookies into the Impreza

         Assembling the medium and large-sized platters. 

               A completed medium platter. 

The small platters - these are very popular and are a really good buy. $6 gets you a lot of really good cookies. 

            The church hall where the Bazaar will be held tomorrow. 

                          The completed platters - quite a sight! 

                            Christmas wreaths - another popular item

Cookie-making time!

Our house has become a cookie factory -  an annual transformation in preparation for the Guilford  Church Christmas Bazaar which is Saturday. My role is to do occasional cleanup and be the disk jockey for Christmas music from our large CD collection. Right now, the Waverly Consort is playing.

                Ellen in the kitchen. 

The first batch - chocolate thumb-print cookies - awaiting the chocolate genache that will go into the center. 

Earlier I did some errands and went swimming. Also mined the big brush pile for more wood for the stove. I've gotten all the "low-hanging fruit" from it, so to speak, and some not-so-low. There's still a lot there, but it's buried. 

Rainy days

We've had a lot of rain these past couple of days. Tuesday it was borderline freezing rain and there was a lot of black ice in the area, with resulting accidents, but fortunately not where we were, although at our River singers rehearsal, someone slipped on ice and fell outside the church. Not hurt.

A member of the Guilford Church choir, John Amidon (no relation to Peter and Mary Alice Amidon) died Monday. He had learned he had pancreatic cancer only eleven days earlier. Sobering. We were part of a little group who went to his home on Tuesday and sang hymns and carols with his wife and two sons. That was very special. 

Monday evening was Dummerston choir rehearsal, which went well, Tuesday evening was River Singers rehearsal, and last evening was Concert Choir rehearsal. I guess you could say we've been singing  in the rain! 

                           The basses during a concert choir break

Yesterday, Ellen went to Northhampton to see Tamar at a choral rehearsal at her school. We'll see the performance next Saturday. I stayed home and did some outside work, despite the rain. 

Meanwhile, the Shays are having a fabulous trip out west. These past few days they've been at some beautiful wineries and resorts in California. I think they are in Las Vegas now. Betsey seems to be taking it all in stride. If there are difficult times, we're not hearing about them. 

Today and tomorrow will be cookie-making time for Ellen - she 'll be baking about 50 dozen cookies for the Guilford  Christmas Bazaar! That's down from the 100 dozen she used to make!