The Gypsy Wagon

The Sound of Crickets

 

It's a bad sign when one hasn't blogged in so long, that log-in becomes next to impossible.  Multiple attempts, and multiple swear words resulted in a reset password and a new resolve to post more consistently.  

I took a short break from Facebook last week - I think it lasted 3 days.  Then intention was so good - I was very self-righteous about the amount of time that I was going to save doing things other than trolling my news feed.  It worked for a couple of days until I remembered that if I was ever going to finish my Christmas, New Year's, Epiphany, Martin Luther King, Jr. cards, then I needed some addresses that were in messages on my Facebook page.  I innocently reactivated, logged on, and promptly fell down the rabbit hole.  There you have it - self-righteous paragon of time management to nosy information junkie in just three days.  I spent a couple of days reactivating and inactivating my account for the five minutes that it took just get "caught up" and I realized that that anything short of a full-on intervention is probably futile. 

So - I'm owning my shortcomings and promising myself that I don't have to get caught up in other folks' politics, religious convictions or lack thereof, or even misguided sports team alliances.  I'm going to disregard the parts that make me crazy, and enjoy with gusto the parts that I like.  Within reason.

Bloom - No Matter What!

Here's an almost-finished quilted wall hanging that I made this summer.  When I made it, I was deep in the throes of homesteadiitis.  That's my made up term for the disease that afflicts military wives from time to time.  I had touches of homesteadiitis from time to time early in our marriage, but now that we are halfway through the 21st year of frequent uprooting and resettling, I can tell you that it becomes more intense as I get older.  

This malady reached a fever pitch (as it periodically does) last summer, soon after we left Conner in Annapolis to begin Plebe Summer.  I wallowed in the pity pit that so often swallows moms when their firstborn leaves for school, and then trudged through the valley of despair when I realized that Carey would be leaving for college the following summer, and THEN, just a few, short, (Four Years!) later, Cullen would leave for college too. 

My question became "Where is HOME? Where will the kids come back to visit?  Where do they feel is the place that is their touchstone, their anchor, their starting point?"  (I'm nothing if not melodramatic in a crisis).  Once I identified this potential family breakdown and subsequent scattering throughout the country never to be together again, I obsessed  focused on the lack of a true home base - incessantly.  

My concerns were not without reason as we have moved almost 20 times in our life together, and our children have moved to a new home, school, state about every two years.  When they are asked where they are from, they look confused and answer with something that sounds like, "well I was born in Washington State (or South Carolina, or Virginia), but I'm FROM all over".  

All my worries and obsessions aside, there's a lesson to be learned from the mouths of babes.  We have been planted a lot of different places in our military journey - from one coast to another, and up and down the East Coast several times over.  But.  And here's the important piece.  Home isn't a place.  It isn't a building, a town, or even a state.  Home is a place that we create - and it goes with us wherever we go.

More than once, I've watched the big semi truck pulling the extra larger tractor trailer pull away from the curb as we prepare to move from one duty station to the next, and I've realized that everything - EVERYTHING that matters to me is what's   who's left behind.  Should anything happen to that big moving box full of everything that we've accumulated over our years together, it would be a bummer.  But's that it.  Because what travels with us is what makes us home.  

My definition of home has changed - it can't be pinpointed on a map, but it can be found anywhere.

Reviving the [Almost] Dead Blog

In an attempt to procrastinate the Christmas un-decorating for a little bit longer, I thought I'd update The Gypsy Wagon with some photos of the Christmas decor here in our SE Georgia casa.  We decorated five trees this year which is neither the most nor the least trees that we've decorated in the past. We ran out of time before we ran out of decorations which says something about our lack of moderation.  

This tree resided in the corner of the room that we lovingly call "the hamster cage" because the kids think that the sisal rug smells like the (fresh) wood shavings that line hamster cages.  The Tex-Mex fiesta tree isn't a new addition to the family forest, but it's shown up in various iterations throughout the years.  One year all of the decorations were affixed to a heavy lighted garland in the kitchen.  Another year, it was a short squatty tree in yet another kitchen.  This year I sprang for a new narrow pre-lighted tree at Joann Fabrics.  It came with a sprinkling of multi-color lights and I added another string of larger multicolor lights to add more depth and gaudiness.  The ornaments on this tree have been collected over the years and Our Lady of Guadalupe is one of my favorites and is always carefully wired to ensure that it will survive another year in the O'Neill household.  I collect things all year long to add to this tree, and this year brought back several tin ornaments from El Tesoro in Austin.  As John said, "nothing says Christmas like a skeleton sailor made of tin".  

Most years we have a full size faux tree with all of the food ornaments tucked in a corner of the dining room.  This year, the furniture arrangement wouldn't allow that- and that particular tree is ready for disposal so we went another route.  Dead branches from the live oak tree became the food tree this year, and while it was a little unconventional I loved it.  

Yes, I know that there's too much grain in that photo, but I'm having camera issues with two different Nikons right now, and the IPhone is the camera that works right now.  The Chinese take-out box was the new addition this year to the food tree.  And you can see the taco above and too the left of the take-out box.  Doesn't everyone have a blown glass taco Christmas ornament? 

The Army/Navy tree was placed out in the screen-in porch for the Army/Navy party and it stayed there throughout the season.  The silver tinsel tree came from a serendipitous shopping expedition in Teena Flanner's attic before she moved away from Norfolk.  Joann and I spent an hour and a half digging through all of her ornaments, paper-mache snowmen, Santas and angels.  The tree was one that she had used for display in her shop.  I love getting it out every year and remembering how much fun Joann and I had sitting in the doorway of her attic laughing and shopping.

One of my favorite Navy ornaments is the one that Lara made for me in 2001 when we were stationed at the Naval Academy the first time.  All those french knots are love manifested in embroidery floss.

The first of two real trees this year was the Texas tree out on the porch.  We had hosted a Texas barbecue several weeks prior and left the bunting, the Texas flag and the party decor up through Christmas.  Since there were so many decorations already up, it made sense to put the Texas tree up near all of the existing Texana.  I had only one photo of that tree and it was a night shot so the quality isn't great.  However, it had all of our Texas ornaments on it, silk bluebonnets and Indian paintbrush flowers spotted throughout.  Conner's old lariat made a great garland, and the battered wooden Texas flag sign stood in as the tree topper.  Burlap and bandana circled the base as a tree skirt and old boots and antlers represented presents.  

Finally:  the fifth tree.  This was the tree in the living room and the one that received the most attention in the decorating process.  We decided to go with a loose (very) coastal Georgia Christmas theme.  A friend contributed cotton on the stalk from south-central Georgia and that was added to the tree along with faux metallic pheasant feathers, shells and sea stars, along with ornaments in gold, silver, blue and citrus green.  More than 1,000 lights made this tree sparkle and the floral picks in silver and gold added to the shine.

The photo quality has me resolving to do better in 2012 - both in quantity and quality!  Either I've got to learn to clean my Nikon DSLR sensor, or I've got to bite the bullet and send it off.  

In any event - there's Christmas 2011 in a nutshell.  I don't think we'll be in Georgia for Christmas next year, so I want to document our time here for this season.  

Happy 2012 to you and yours ~  it's going to be a great year!

 

Good News and Bad News.

 

As it turns out, I'm not incredibly good at the whole "juggling many plates in the air" thing.  I never would have made it in the circus and not only because clowns creep me out.  

To catch you up, here are the highlights:

The good news is that my kids all had great school years in Annapolis.  The bad news is that we had to move them this summer.

The good news is that they were excited for their new adventure and have been pretty darn helpful during the move.  The bad news is we get to do it all again in just a few weeks.

The good news is that we are going to live in housing again.  The bad news is that our housing isn't ready so we are temporarily living in a very small house.

The good news is that we are all together.  The bad news is sometimes we are too, too together.

The good news is that we have a very good air conditioner in this house.  The bad news is that it's a billion degrees outside.

The good news is that people here are very friendly, hospitable and helpful.  I have no bad news to counter that one.

The good news is that the beach is only 25 minutes away.  The bad news is that the beach is 25 minutes away.

The good news is that the internet wireless works great throughout the entire house. The bad news is that I'm using that to blog instead of working on schoolwork.

The good news is that I only have about a semester's worth of work to finish. The bad news is that I have a semester's work to finish.

The good news is that I can then do my student teaching. The bad news is that my county doesn't work with my school.

The good news is that the two neighboring counties do work with my school. The bad news is that the next two counties are far, far away and one is in a neighboring state.

The good news is that we are starting a new adventure and the bad news are all merely inconveniences. So really I guess the bad news is good news too. 

So then four months went by. . .

 

November came and went with a quiet Thanksgiving.  December blew through like it was rocket-fueled.  Christmas parties, and pageants, cookies and decorating, cards and gifts were all a blur as the month came to a close.  Photographs were taken to mark some of the events, while others were recorded only as memories.  2009 crept in quietly as I continued schoolwork and prepared to start my new job teaching ten fourth grader. Once school started, time took on a quality that I didn't know it had - and warp speed became more than a concept to me. It became reality.  February brought the annual Fab February Five birthday weekend, and then it was March.  Now it's Spring Break and I'm just barely coming up for air.  Holy cow - what a wild ride!

I've loved all of the new components of my life - my schoolwork and my classroom, but I struggle daily to find a measure of balance and a little piece of quiet.

We operate at such a crazy pace, that I feel as though I never really PREPARE for the next thing, I just grab what I need and GO.  Whether the "next thing" is dinner, a lacrosse game, a field trip or houseguests, very little thoughtful preparation is happening these days.  I have lesson plans prepared, and that's just about it.  I know that this first year in the classroom has demands that are incrementally larger than subsequent years will be, so I find myself hanging on to the safety bar as the roller coaster prepares to rush down the track.  

Last week's fluke snow day gave me an unexpected day off - and rather than playing catch-up on all of the housework and laundry, I grabbed the camera and went out to catch the day.  I'd like to have visual documentation to augment my memories. 

Happy Birthday, Birthday Girl!

   

She's funny, witty, creative and a damn good cook.  She takes ordinary days and turns them into an adventure.  She has beautiful girls , a handsome husband, and friends from one corner of the country to the other.  She's a Texan through and through, and a proud Aggie.

She has great collections:

   

She's the go-to-gal, when you've gotta go to Round Top:

 She loves the country, and wildflowers and horses.

And today it's her birthday.  Pop over and tell her Happy Birthday.

Oh, and let her know her present from me is going to be late!

 

Road Trip

I missed the Welcome to Virginia sign but we did traverse the entire state before entering Tennessee.We spent the night in Chattanooga - along with the under-six baseball all-star teams from Tennessee and Georgia.  It was a lively place.The next day took us to Georgia (guess I missed that picture too), then Alabama.

Then Mississippi (with the nicest Welcome Center manned by a lovely lady passing out cups of the best. diet. coke. ever.).  

Then into Louisiana - again, missed the sign.  As we got closer to New Orleans, the devastation of Katrina became more and more apparent.  In the outskirts of Metairie, we began to see houses abandoned and overgrown with vines and weeds, next to houses under construction with FEMA trailers parked out front.  In between were houses that were stuck in limbo - rickety and broken, but still inhabited.  Whole apartment buildings were broken like popsicle stick sculptures, and while some were being reconstructed others were left behind - remnants of a life that is no more.  As we drew closer to New Orleans we saw neighborhoods that showed pockets of empty lots, and more houses that nature had reclaimed.  I couldn't take photos of those houses.  Somehow it felt intrusive and unseemly, and that taking photographs would be akin to taking one more thing from these people who'd already lost so much.

We stayed in Algiers, and took the ferry over to New Orleans.Then we wandered around the city on one of the hottest days of the year. Periodic stops for water helped, but ultimately we needed an early dinner and the reprieve of the air-conditioned hotel room. I hadn't been to New Orleans since 1977, and I was surprised at how little the downtown area had changed

Evidence of last year's Mardi Gras is still evident in the trees.

And wrought iron artistry is everywhere.

Yesterday morning, we got the first ferry over to New Orleans

and arrived while the sidewalks were still wet from their daily cleaning. We went to the famed Cafe du Monde for cafe au lait and beignets.  One bite took me back 31 years to the summer of 1977.  The hot delicious powdered sugar coated pastry was worth every calorie and the sugar coma that followed.

We left Cafe du Monde and headed for Texas.

This One's For You, Beth!

I can't tell you how proud it makes me to see this beautiful shell named in honor of one of our favorite people. 

Dale devoted time, energy and enthusiasm to the countless midshipment that he coached, and it's a tremendous honor that they named a shell for him.

Dale will recognize, of course, that this photograph is upside down, but the magic of computer manipulation let me turn it so that you can read it.

I'm not really sure that he's old enough to have a legacy, but it looks as though he's got one anyway.

Very, very cool! 

Hats

It was a day of hats at the United States Naval Academy graduation ceremony today. 

There were hats with ribbons and hats with bows.

There were hats for high fashion

And hats for utilitarian function

Wide-brimmed hats

And hats with a narrower brim

There were high-tea hats

And court-side hats

There were official insignia'd hats

There were hats at a rakish angle

And there were hats anticipating their big moment

 

And then there were hats aloft

And when it was all over, some of those hats found new homes - perhaps on the heads of future midshipmen.

Mothers Day

This is one of my favorite pictures of Mom and me. It was taken when I was about 5 months old in the backyard of my grandparents house.  I think Mom looks very Jackie-O in this picture, and so happy.

I remember the slatted fence in that back yard and peering through it when I was small, and climbing to look over it as I got bigger.  And I remember that tree with the caladiums around it.  Can  you see the caladiums behind Mom?  They were enormous.  I see the jalousie windows in the background, and I don't remember those being in the den - but I guess they were.  I spent hours in that yard, days in the house and wonderful overnights in this house that Mom grew up in.  I wish I had a picture of her mom (my Muller), Mom, Carey and me, but Muller was gone before I ever had children.

  I 've been so lucky --that all of the moms in my life - the grandmothers, the great aunts, the aunts, and the girlfriends have all contributed to my vision of motherhood and to what I hope to be as a mother.  They've all given me so much - experience, stories, advice, wisdom and strategies.  None have given me as much as my Mom. 

Thanks, Mom.  I love you.