The Unexpected Thanksgiving

There was not going to be a Thanksgiving this year, at least not in the traditional sense of family members gathering to eat.

This November has been a hard month. My silence on this blog reflects that: I have been pulled and stretched too thin to find the quiet inner space in which to be still and write. November held two conferences out of town: one to Pittsburgh (mine), one to Indianapolis (Warren's). November also has been a bucket, filled to the brim and slopping over, of family and friends struggling: financial issues, health issues, hospitalizations, deaths.

Certain friends and I at particularly difficult stretches of life will say in passing, "So, other than that, how did you like the play, Mrs. Lincoln?"

It's been a Mrs. Lincoln kind of month.

Two of those hospitalizations involved my dad, who just earlier this week was released from the hospital to a skilled nursing facility to regain his strength and independence. Throughout it, my siblings, our spouses, and I were all dealing with long hours at the hospital, irregular schedules, broken days, and lots of stress. We're not at our best as a result.

Originally, my and Warren's Thanksgiving was going to be at dad's house, where my youngest brother Mark and his wife now live too. After dad's well-being took a tumble, and after we wore ourselves out (Mark has a chronic, progressive illness which wears him out and I am into a decade and a half of my progressive, incurable cancer), my brother and I talked and agreed to cancel Thanksgiving. They were tired, we were tired. That worked for the four of us, and our other brother Mike had his own family to host, so his plans were already set.

Well, that was his plan until his wife Kate called me earlier this week. Could they join us for Thanksgiving? Please? There would be five of them. Warren and I talked. Okay. But wait! If we were eating at noon (our plan), that would eliminate two of them (son Mike Jr. and daughter-in-law Hannah who would not be coming this way until later that day). Okay. Then a granddaughter who didn't want to go to her stepdad's family was added. Okay. Six of us total. More plans were made: you bring this and that, we'll make that and that.

On Thanksgiving morning, their youngest son, Timon, driving down from Cleveland, showed up early. Per his mother's instructions, I put him to work helping pull chairs out, washing china, setting the table. Then I get a phone call from Mike Jr.: they were coming earlier after all. After I got over my shock (I ordered him to hang up and call his mother immediately), I recalculated. Okay, now we're up to eight. That meant reconfiguring the table settings, adding another table, washing more china. That's okay, though: I had help. So we all worked some more, although Timon said, as we rearranged things, "I bet you they don't make it in time. They'll be late."

My brother, sister-in-law, and their granddaughter arrived. The turkey was close to done; we may have had it out of the oven already. One of their phones rang: the travelers are turning back to switch cars because the check engine light came on. Sorry, they are still coming, but they will be late.

Timon pumped his fist in the air. "I told you I'd win that bet!"

We pulled down the folding table that had been added to the end of our kitchen table to fit eight. We hastily took up the extra place settings. Warren started cutting turkey and piling it on a platter. Food went into bowls, water glasses got filled, and we all sat down.

I anchored one end of the table, my brother Mike the other. He looked around the table, beamed, and said "It's good to be here at this table and to all be together."

Those were more than just casual words tossed out to make everyone feel good. Mike was the brother I was least close to, both when growing up and as an adult. In the spirit of full disclosure, I am the one who kept Mike at arm's length over the years; Mike did nothing to create that breach. When I was diagnosed with the myeloma in 2004, I apologized to Mike for how I had treated him by, frankly, not treating him at all. Mike just smiled and said, very gently, "It's okay, April."

Mike meant it. It was okay. And now here we were at the most improbable of Thanksgivings, a Thanksgiving that wasn't supposed to happen and surely in a million years would not have been spent with Mike and crew.

The meal was wonderful. We shared good food, good conversation, and laughter. Mike and I shared stories from our childhood of Thanksgivings (and Christmases). We passed the turkey, we passed the rolls, we passed the love.

The pies were delicious.

As Kate, Warren, and I started clearing plates and making containers of leftovers, the door opened and Hannah and Mike Jr. walked in. We made a clear spot at one end of the table, rescued the settings we had swept off the table earlier (I had just set them on a small couch in the study) and loaded them up with food. Warren started the dishes. Several of us grabbed dishtowels. Talk flowed through the kitchen; talked flowed in the living room.

And then it was over. Mike, Kate, their granddaughter, Timon, Mike Jr., and Hannah headed out to go see dad before going their own way. Hugs, thanks, "wait, Grandpa forgot his phone," goodbye waves.

And, like that, our unexpected Thanksgiving was over.

2019 marks my 64th Thanksgiving. There have been some great ones.

This was one of them.

Small Moment: Soup Stock

What is it about soup stock—so blessedly simple to make, thrown together from an assortment of scraps and discards—that can make the house smell wonderful even before it gets down to the business of coming to a boil?

The aroma of soup stock: that's what is filling our house this morning. Both Warren and I were out working in the yard, doing some cleanup before the winter sets in harder, and the moment I walked through the door, the aroma wrapped around me.

October Money Review

As we start to wind down the year, I took a long hard look at my food dollars and did some calculating. Based on what we spent in October (keep reading), if we spent $175.00 and no more in the months of November and December, we would finish the year averaging $180.33 a month for all of 2019. That would be just above our goal of $175.00 a month for the year. We would have to spend no more than $140.00 in both November and December to bring the yearly average to $175.00. I'm not sure we will hit that mark.

As I look ahead to next year, one thing I am going to start calculating into our overall food costs is our eating out costs. I have been tracking those dollars for a few years, but do not count them in the $175.00 a month goal. The bulk of our eating out dollars directly relates to travel, especially Mayo and conferences, and performances, especially those in Mansfield when dress rehearsal falls in the afternoon, followed by a mid-evening concert. Yeah, some of our eating out dollars are just us taking the easy way out, and I still very occasionally have tea with a friend, but the bulk of the expenses are related to not being home. I will have to take a long, hard look at what we spent this year (and how much was strictly pleasure versus the travel/concert issue) and come up with some realistic targets for 2020. Just saying.

So what did October look like? In groceries (food), we spent $179.78, which, I am thrilled to say, included the reception we hosted after opening the Symphony's 41st Season. Back in April, I had budgeted $75.00 for the end-of-season reception and wildly overshot that amount, spending double those dollars. For this reception, based not in small part of on my notes of what worked and what didn't back in April, I spent a grand total of $67.38 for a wonderful reception (with a lot of leftovers)! So that revamping of our reception spending made a significant contribution to our overall monthly bottom line.

As for household items, our October expenses were a modest $5.18. Total spent in October? $184.96, $10.00 over the $175.00 goal. Monthly average for the year? $182.06.

As for eating out, our costs were not outrageous, but scaled up towards the end of the month because I had a conference in downtown Pittsburgh and the expenses were higher. (Most of the eating out expenses from Pittsburgh will hit in November and I will be reimbursed for much of my food costs, but it was still expensive.) Our eating out costs in October were $117.41, counting tips. That's pretty high for us.

One of those eating out occasions was due to my not standing firm on not eating out in a training session. Along with some close coworkers, I attended a lengthy training session through our local school district, with the training located in our downtown. As I always do with local training, I frugally packed my lunch. I had it with me. When the lunch break came, everyone started making plans to walk to different places downtown and done together. Everyone. I said "I brought a lunch." I got pushback. Then I said "Lunch is my most difficult meal to eat out because of where I'm at in my health" (a true statement). I got pushback. Loving, friendly, come-join-us pushback, but pushback all the same.

And I folded. I walked to lunch, I ended up sitting with some attendees I did not know well or at all but got to know a little (a positive), I ate very frugally ($6.00 with the tip), I took the planned walk to the library immediately afterwards so I could drop off the library book I had brought with me (a chore accomplished), and I ate the packed lunch the next day (so no waste). Was I better for joining the others? Perhaps. Certainly in the sense of getting to know attendees (all school employees) and sharing stories. That's always a plus. But I am nonetheless embarrassed that I let the peer pressure get to me. I'm 631/2 years old. I should be over this.

So that was October. As I noted in my last review, we did indeed miss Halloween. It snowed lightly in Delaware that night. (It probably snowed in Pittsburgh too, but I was inside.) According to a friend down the street, Halloween foot traffic was light as a result. So yes, I missed Halloween but I also missed sitting outside on a bitter night.

Since I missed Halloween here, I took great pleasure when pictures from the west rolled in:

All three of them, Ramona being the dinosaur posing! 

And in true Halloween fashion, the youngest of the trio didn't even last past the third house:

November is swirling all around us. We just ate the last of the lettuce (which I moved inside before going to Pittsburgh, knowing it would be getting cold while we were gone). And I will eat the very last 2019 tomato tonight. The. Very. Last. Tomato. We are joining Thanksgiving, not hosting it; I already have dibs on the turkey carcass. So we'll see where the dollars fall when we come out the other side.

Small Moment: Late Lettuce

Back in late September, I planted four planters with lettuce seed, hoping for a late fall harvest. Right after I planted them, the weather turned quirky: hot dry days, gray days, dry days, early light frost days.

I doubted anything would come up. Nonetheless I watered the planters during the sun-stricken days and pulled them inside Warren's shop on the frosty nights.

And my efforts were rewarded, more or less. The Black Seeded Simpson did not come up, the Emerald Jewel did:

It came up despite the irregular weather. It came up despite the squirrel or two who insisted on digging in the planters (that is why the planter at the top of the photo has an irregularity in the soil at the end on the right side: squirrel digs).

And tonight, not knowing how much more these planters will produce, I added some to our salad:

There's probably enough to make a small salad or two, or to supplement a salad with a different (i.e., store bought) salad base. And then the lettuce is done for the season.

Next year's garden is already in my head.

Some More Thoughts About The Essentials: Unplugging

My last post I  wrote about balancing the essential again the urgent or, really, about my tendency to shove the essential aside for the urgent. I have been thinking about that very concept for days now, trying to be more aware of my actions and activities.

As part of this, I have found within myself the commitment to finally tackle the paperwork clutter that I let pile up in my study. I'm not talking about a small stack on my desk. I am talking about a voluminous stack, which I then shift to the bed, which I then shift to a paper sack, telling myself "I'll get to that soon." And then don't.

For the past several days, I have been dealing with the piles (yes, plural) in 15 minute shifts. I set my alarm for 15, then tell myself to sort through and make three stacks: Keep (and file away at the end of the 15 minutes), Recycle, Shred. I am embarrassed to say the Shred pile has been large, the Recycle pile larger. The Keep pile? Small potatoes.

This morning I tackled the paper pile in two separate sessions (with enough interlude between the two that I did not feel overwhelmed by the task before me). While doing so, I came across some notes, meant to be a blog post, from just after we got back from vacation. Here they are, as they perhaps tell a story related to the essential:

Unplugging

 When we went on vacation, I left behind my Chromebook because it pushed the limits of my minimal packing too far.

12 days without email or Facebook. That was interesting.

And eye opening.

Two things I learned:

1. Despite my protestations to the contrary (and reading books as much as I do), my mindless perusal of social media has steadily increased over time, especially on weekends.
2. Along with that increase, my time to do other things decreases.What other things? Write letters, read, prep zucchini and apples for freezing [remember, this was written in early September], or just sit and luxuriate in the moment.

So now I am looking at all my electronic tethering: the computer, the Chromebook, the phone. I carry a flip phone, not a smart phone, so the temptations are fewer, but there is still texting. And based on that and my vacation experience, I am ready to take a few more steps:

1. I am already not on my computer/Chromebook most evenings after 6:00 (and often earlier). What if I eliminated Saturday and Sunday too? Or only use Word and Numbers for work-related or Clinic purposes? Or only turn it on an hour one of those days for those reasons and also to blog? 
2. When I am at work, I carry my phone. I always have it on me or nearby at home. I always carry it in my car if I am running errands or driving to a school; with a 14+ year old car, I want a way to call someone if I get stranded. But what if I stopped carrying it at all when we (Warren and I) go out? There is no news, good or bad, that the delay in seeing the message would make a difference. 

I am penning these thoughts sitting at a rehearsal an hour away from home. I left my phone at home. I'm not sure of the time because I am not wearing a wristwatch and to wear one again would require a new battery. But with the phone gone, I am also not glancing constantly to see what the time is or whether anyone has texted me or tried to call.

So what if I tried this? What if I tried stepping away even more?

I know there will be exceptions from time to time. We should be reestablishing weekly chats with Ramona soon and those will fall in the early evening because of the time difference between here and there. There will an occasion, most likely related to my writing the Symphony press releases, which will find me on the computer some evening.

It is hard to break the lines of the electronic. One of my favorite minimalists is Anthony Ongaro at Break The Twitch. He came up with that name to describe the mindless clicking of the mouse to make yet another unnecessary purchase, but it fits here as well. My twitch is not to buy, but to click mindlessly across sites.

So what do I hope to get out of breaking my own twitch? I hope to be more mindful. I hope to be more thoughtful. I hope to deepen my personal connections to my work, to my day, to my marriage, to my friends.

To my community.

I hope to be more connected to my self.

*******
That's where my notes ended. They were written about a month ago. In the time since, I have managed to turn off or not even start the computer most (all?) evenings and even some weekend days (this is not one of them, obviously, but it IS going off soon). I have found it even easier to turn down the phone and only check for messages/calls occasionally.

And this goes back to thoughts of the essential. It is essential for me to connect outside of the electronic world. It is essential for me to reclaim that time.

Let's see where this goes.

The Essential And The Urgent

I spoke last week to a local United Methodist Women's group, an engagement that had been scheduled in late 2018 and, through a series of calendar complications, mostly of my own making, got moved more than once. It had been scheduled long enough that, in preparation for my talk, I scanned the most recent church newsletter to see if there was any note about the evening.

There was not. But in the minister's message, which I just happened to glance at, I found such a nugget that I have been walking around quoting it (usually badly paraphrasing it) ever since.

The minister had taken time away from the pulpit in August. In the September newsletter, he reflected on what he had learned during his renewal leave. His second observation caused me to stop reading:

It's easy for the essential to be crowded out by the urgent. 

I read that again, then said it out loud.

It's easy for the essential to be crowded out by the urgent. 

Holy moly. If that isn't my life, then I don't know what is. When I look back on my posts, my conversations with colleagues and friends and my dear husband, my letters, my thoughts (day or night, a day just starting or a day half over, or a day spent and gone), an overwhelming portion of my thoughts and sentences are spent on the urgent (or what I perceive to be "urgent") and on complaining (internally or externally) about how I never have enough time to get to the essential. My writing comes to mind immediately. Even when I have in mind a brief post or have sketched out some thoughts for one (or for my column or for a poem), I too easily shelve it in the urgency of the moment. ("How can I take time to write now? There's [name it] that needs done.")

And when I talk about the "urgent," I am not referring to the daily routine. Yes, the laundry needs done. Yes, the meal needs prepared. Tasks are tasks. I am talking about the white noise: the everything else that I frantically grab at and tend to all the time. All. The. Time.

So this sentence grabbed me and shook me.

It's easy for the essential to be crowded out by the urgent. 

It is still shaking me. April, it shouts, what are you doing? You are throwing away the essential to do the urgent.  STOP IT.

As I noted, I read that sentence last week. I have been handing it out like business cards ever since. I met a new friend for coffee in one of our local shops this Thursday past. Standing at the counter, I chatted with the proprietor about how her week was going. She made the typical comment about how busy things were, how hectic things were. I started to agree, then remembered my sentence and pulled it out, clumsily paraphrasing it.

Shelley stopped immediately. "Oh, I like that! How true!"

How true, indeed.

I do a poor job of not letting the urgent crowd out the essential. I know that about myself. That is why my study is a mess, why my writing is in piles here and there (some literal piles, some figurative piles), why I always seem to be busy. Coming off of the High Holy Days, during which I indeed let the urgent (the tasks and demands of the day) crowd out the essential (the spiritual significance and self-reflection required), I am telling myself that, in this year that has just started, I need to make an effort to live more essentially and less urgently.

Need to make? Have to make.

It's easy for the essential to be crowded out by the urgent. 

Let's see where this takes me.

September Money Review

Here we are in early October. After a week of blistering, high heat summer days (temps in the 90s), Thursday evening the weather suddenly looked at the calendar and dropped into suitable fall weather: cool days, blue skies, and crisp nights. The lettuce I planted last weekend has come up (its germination helped along by the high heat, no doubt); now the question is whether there will be enough days before the frost to get a bowl or two of salad out of my efforts.

And the black eye (and black and swollen jaws) from last week are fading, enough that casual interactions do not result in curious stares or questions. Kim of Out My Window worried whether my predicament was the result of treatment. Nope: I do not have treatments at Mayo. My situation was simply my body saying "I've had enough." As I told my dad when I saw him earlier this week, my body is a union shop and it walked out. Management has duly noted the severity and legitimacy of the issue and changes will be made.

After the vacation-increased food expenses of August, our September spending dropped substantially, although not to or below the $175.00 a month average I am aiming for (to my surprise). We spent $178.31 on food at the grocery and farm market (come on, it was the end of the sweet corn season!) and another $19.74 in household (half of which was a big toilet paper pack at Aldi; most of the rest of which was foil, freezer bags, and other kitchen items related to food storage) for a total of $198.05. When I plug September into our year-to-date spending and divide by nine, I get a monthly average of $181.74.

So we're running six dollars ahead of our goal. If we hang around that mark, we'll finish the year $120.00 ahead (in a good way) of where we finished last year.

Eating out in September included the trip to Mayo, We spent a whopping $36.75 on that trip. ('Whopping" is to be read with great sarcasm.) Our food costs were so low because we packed a lunch/supper for Day 1 (the supper was supplemented with a salad from my beloved Kwik Trip) and ate the free breakfasts that came with our overnight accommodations. The rest of the month came to $72.77, a figure that included a concert night in Mansfield and treating ourselves to fair food when the county fair rolled around. Grand total: $109.52.

October food costs on the home front should be routine, with the exception of the opening of Season 41 with the Central Ohio Symphony. I'm anticipating we'll be hosting a reception afterwards; my mind is already turning to what to prepare and how to keep the costs reasonable. If nothing else, I do not have to buy any proseco, because I still have the five (5!) bottles from our reception at the end of Season 40.

One food expenses we will not have this year is Halloween candy, not because we are ignoring it, but because we leave town on the 31st for a two-day conference in Pittsburgh. I will miss our town's Beggar Night: I love to see the children and their costumes, I love to pass out the candy, I love to snack on the candy while I sit outside...

Next year.