We like our traditions, especially when holidays and special occasions are concerned. don't we? Traditions give us comfort and bind us to our families. Every Christmas, M. and I travel to South Carolina to be with my sister and parents. But this year is and has been a different sort of year, and we are unable to travel. We are sad about this glitch in the tradition, especially my mom and myself. This is the first year in my thirty-seven years that I will not be with my parents and sister. Yet I am also looking forward to creating new traditions, for M. and I.
Bear with me a moment... The other day I was looking through my old sketchbooks looking for something (didn't find it) but came across an entry that I had written in early March of 2006. Next to a brightly colored watercolor sketch of dots, dashes and orbs, I wrote that M. had been framing our house addition.
Well, this week and last in late 2011, that very same house addition has been getting the drywall installed. Yes, five years later we are nearly finished with this part (dining, living room, and two bedrooms) of our house and will soon be able to move back in. There's so much to say, about building things yourself, about the legacy of having something your husband designed and built with his own two hands, and the waiting for all sorts of things along the way. One thing I can say is that God has been teaching me patience and the ability to live with what we have. And to continue to hope.
So that digression is to say that this year, since we are so close to being done with construction, we are scrimping to buy things like paint, light fixtures, outlets, etc. That and the fact that someone (ahem) still needs two wisdom teeth pulled, is behind the reason why we aren't flying to S.C. this year. And here, while the house won't be completely finished by Christmas, there may be paint on the walls and we will have a Christmas tree in a new room, if nothing else. Since we're here, I must have a tree! This weekend we got a potted three-foot blue spruce. A lovely little Charlie Brown tree. It will be simply decorated with a strand of white lights, seven tiny gomphrena wreaths I made yesterday, pinecones, and maybe a few silver tinsel stars I made ten years ago. And around it we will celebrate, so much.
Now, I'm not sure how to end this post. Except here's to making new traditions and finding beginnings. And hope. Always hope.
And Mom, I love you.