November Rain

Holy Daughter dressed as Snoopy the Red Baron - Halloween night

Holy Daughter dressed as Ugly Betty - Halloween Day

What a busy month. Whew.

I haven't been blogging nor journaling nor writing much - just mostly handling what's in front of me and taking this time to be introspective. The daily grind of listening to economic and mortgage doom & gloom as yet more crumbling pillars of corporate society take their place in the ever-growing soup kitchen line and beg for change, not to mention reading of certain disillusioned voters who are already quick to blame Obama before he's even taken office ~ it's all made me want to tune out of the whole blame game.

My personal favorite though is the Palin lovers, whose continued devotion to her has this stomach bug of mine sticking around longer than normal. It just serves to remind that the only normal is of the snafu variety.

Creation Theory
I've been up to my assets in alligators with studying creativity this fall. The fine art of it as well as my place in it. More on that later. In the midst of all this creative thinking, I wrote a kid's book, which I plan to market here in the near future. Sung to the tune of this little bookie went to market. Wish me luck...and a Newbery Honor.

I've also been pretty busy this fall spearheading my Artist's Way group at church. Our 12-week journey is almost complete and it has gone really well. I gauge this success based on the fact that I have only had 3 drop out - one because she felt too young, and the other two because of work demands. Given the intense, psycho-therapeutic nature of this work, having only 3 drop out is rather amazing. The other nine ladies have proven to be very committed to the journey and we have become a very close-knit group of creative types.

My job, apart from keeping us on task and on time with our verbal sharing and insights, has been to come up with creative exercises during the second half of our sessions, based on whatever the chapter theme happened to be. And so, in the course of the past several weeks, I have schemed various activities ~ ranging from drawing our muses, to making shadow self tarot cards, to playing an art auction game, to making play-doh gifts ~ to this past week's activity for the theme of Self-Protection, which involved creating a recipe for creative living card and asked them to come back with all the necessary ingredients and a way-forward list of instructions for how they can begin to manifest this in their daily lives.

This was my art auction creation, Tutti Fruiti - I decided to buy her back.

Said recipe for creative living is not to be confused with the cutesy, sprinkle in a dash of joy and add a pinch of variety and spice crap that you see in vile, errr virile e-mails. These recipes are more abstract and methodical, and are very much personal statements that resonate with each individual "concerning all acts of initiative" and creativity.

I have a more general instruction list for living that I've created for myself but I've noticed - because I stare at it each day such that I'm reminded when I am or am not living my list - that I haven't been heeding the first rule on my personal instruction list (a.k.a. the holy grail, secret to my universe stuff that got thrown out with my placental matter but has since been reclaimed in the netherlands of interplanetary, most extraordinary lost and found).

My first rule is to breathe.

How many short shallow breaths can a person take before they finally have to stop and, in Cheech and Chong "oh wow, man" fashion, breathe in the big kahuna? It will be nice for time to tick slower this week. I love how Americans have carved out this entire week practically, where life comes to a virtual halt. People are remiss to schedule things on the Monday and Tuesday prior to Thanksgiving, or so I've noticed. And that's fine by me.

Many Happy Returns
Holy Son played in his last soccer game of the season and scored a goal. That was a big deal. He's usually good for one a season, but not always. He mostly plays defense and has yet to really hone his offensive skills. He's almost a foot taller than some of his teammates, so it's a different game watching him run those long strides of his across the field with the ball.

He's gearing up for his jazz band concert tonight ~ last week was orchestra (yes, he's both a jazz spaz and an orch dork). That means we scrap Irish Dance and Scouts and watch him be the bass guitar dude. And he is beginning to look like a dude. Scraggly, shaggy blondish hair that spends most of its time in his eyes. He likes to brush it forward. He thinks the look becomes him. I fantasize about getting the clippers out in the middle of the night and shaving it all off.

He turns 12 this week, and as usual, we have to ownplay-day the age-ay ing-thay in front of all his 13 year old friends. Even though he towers over all of them and runs circles around them socially. Middle schoolers amuse me. I'm at his school every day to pick him up so I get my fair share of seeing them in the action. He's mostly oblivious to all the groupies he has until an adult happens to point it out. Like his former International Studies teacher, who is fond of stopping me in the hallway and pointing out conspiratorially, how my son "always has girls around him. They follow him everywhere!"

But as I say, he's clueless to the attention. He has one particular girl that he likes. I saw her in the school play. She is exactly his "type: - tall, leggy, long blondish hair and is 12 going on 22. He asked her to the upcoming Snowflake dance and she's all excited. She wants them to dress matching - she'll wear a bright fuschia dress and she's hoping he'll wear a matching fuschia tie. I said welcome to the world of girls, buddy. He bought her a snowflake necklace and his all excited to give it to her that night. Age eleven and already a player.

Cheater, Cheater
Holy Daughter has her own drama. She's been hanging with a certain boy in class who is the son of one of the most senior elected officials in this state. They are just friends, of course, but the whole class teases them about their chumminess. He's very smitten with her, on account of her being an animated, fearless and captivating extrovert. And she's extremely amused by him. He confessed to her that he was going to vote for Obama, despite his father being a staunch Republican. And he admitted that he stuffed the ballot box with 11 dirty ballots during their class Halloween contest. She thought that was pretty funny. So did I. If his father only knew.

She had a meltdown last week and decided that she's just way too busy with too many extra-curricular activities. Mwah-ha-ha. My evil plan is working. I've been desperate to dump a couple of these for awhile now. Brownies will likely end this year. I'm not sure we'll carry on but we'll have to see how that goes. It's only once every couple of weeks and is right after school, so that one is no biggie. And soccer season is over now, thankfully. That one was 2-3 times a week, although we never did make both weekly practices. The problem with dropping something like soccer is that it's the only aerobic exercise kids that age get. Gym is only once a week for 1/2 an hour and they usually only end up doing lame games and activities.

Ballet is the big issue. She wants to drop it. She isn't enjoying it, mostly because it's so repetitive and her instructor, the studio owner, is always a no-show. Ballet is the one activity I'd like to see her hang onto for awhile longer. She's agreed to see this through until the Nutcracker performance is over and then in the new year, switch studios to a more challenging class and see how that goes.

But during her meltdown she confessed that she's cool with dropping Irish dance, and that tickles me. Irish dance requires insanely high leaps and kicks, neither of which she's been able to muster to a competitive degree. And competition is where it's at in Irish dancing, unfortunately. Not to mention that it's pricey and we're at that stage of having to invest in soft and hard shoes, both of which can be awfully expensive. So, I'm holding the vision that by the new year, Irish dancing will be a thing of the past in this house.

Pumpkin Eater
Time has flown since Canadian Thanksgiving. I'm so glad we're not doing the turkey and pie thing again. This year for Thanksgiving, we're heading to our church potluck. It's a great way to be in community with our 'fellow Americans' and best of all, have an opportunity to enjoy the fun and feast without having to deal with a huge kitchen mess.

I'm grateful for the time to relax a moment or two. It's been a hectic fall with little time to chill out and breathe. Big fat sigh.

I'll Be Home For Christmyth

I've acquired a lithp. We're back home in Edmonton for the holidays and even though we've jumped ahead an hour to Mountain Standard Time, I feel as though I've timeslipped back a million years to the Christmyths of my childhood.

Pick a holiday jingle and chances are I've been singing it. The weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful....let is snow, let it snow, let is snow. I can't believe I've already forgotten the feeling of freezing snot dangling from my nose. Or the sound of crunchy snow beneath the feet or the pain of thawing numbed fingers and toes as they adjust to heat again. I've quickly been reminded and it's only been about -14 celcius ('though it did dip to minus 25 the other night which translates to freakin' cold in Fahrenheit). Yes, baby, it's cold outside. But it's nice to be home amongst friends and kin. My people. I've missed Canadians. I ran into a fellow Canadian woman at a Nutcracker party last weekend and we both agreed Canadians look distinctly different from Americans. I can immediately spot Canadians. Unless Canucks happen to live in a couple of affluent pockets of Canada's major cities, chances are they are dressed ultra casual and driving a pick-up. It's so not like the West Coast dressy casual look of our fair American city, where highlighted blonde hair, French manicures and pedicures and designer label outfits are the looks du jour. I've seen many First Nation peoples and Ukrainians, too. Both of these are my people, too. Speaking of Ukrainian, I'm looking forward to pyrogies and cabbage rolls for Christmas at my birthmom's. Yes, it's nice to be home where memories loom large. We drove by the courthouse and I recalled my days there, working as a judicial clerk whilst covertly searching the basement archives for my sealed adoption file. Driving by The Fairmont Hotel Macdonald brought back fond memories of working late nights in sales and promotions, in prep to re-open the grand dame to the public after an extensive restoration. Everywhere I turn, I see stomping grounds and old haunts and the ghosts of Christmas' past. I recall going to visit my grandfather in the penultimate days to Christmas - usually Christmas Eve -as a child. I remember the excitement of seeing the lights and hearing the holiday music and waiting for fresh snow so we could go toboganning. And I remember sneaking out Christmas Eve as a teenager with my imaginary Catholic friend to go to midnight mass, so that I could stay out til 2am. And I remember Christmas morning coming way too early those years.

I had forgotten how pretty the city is, all dressed for Christmas. And of course, my children have been away so long, they've all but forgotten the home and native city of their parental units. We are here to visit grandparents and siblings and other friends and family until the 30th. We have three families here so visiting everyone is impossible and very exhausting.

Holy Hub flies in tonight and then the real excitement will begin, as we visit families, check out the holiday lights of Candy Cane lane, and do our last minute stocking stuffer shopping.

Anyhoo, hope your holidays are filled with as much holiday fun, feast and frolic with family and friends - both mandatory and otherwise - as our's are sure to be.

Seasons greetings, one and all.

Nutcracker Sweet

Warning: This blog contains overt boastful parental statements concerning said blogger's beautiful, talented and holy children. Said blogger is aware that this may be the second blog in as many weeks to contain such abject praise and devotion but nevertheless, makes no apologies for this fact. After all, there's a reason the tag line says, same schmidt, different blog and there's a reason this blog is titled Schmidt Happens. 'Tis the season for fawning folly. Having said all that, if you should find maternal bragging to be in the least bit offensive, repulsive or disturbing, then do heed the following rating: BB (boring blog)....Reader discretion is advised.

We made it through another Nutcracker extravaganza season.

Holy Son was, once again, performing the roles of the Nephew, Nutcracker and Nutcracker prince in a local production of The Nutcracker with his sister's dance company this past weekend.

His sister danced in Act II as an angel and she was, to steal a quote from her: "heavenly." This was the first year she was able to audition and land a part, but hopefully not her last. She was terrific and when she moved across the stage with her big hoop skirt, it looked like she was floating on air.

Last year, there were two full December weekends dedicated to The Nutcracker - one for tech and dress rehearsals and the following weekend for four performances. A venue screw-up this year necessitated that everything be packed into one weekend, so the kids were up to their eyeballs this weekend with rehearsals Friday night and Saturday and two performances Sunday afternoon.

It was exhausting but rewarding. Exhausting because doing hair and make-up on a boy who hates me so much as touching a stray strand of hair. And don't even get me started on how he felt about having eyeshadow, foundation, transluscent powder, blush and clear lip gloss. It weren't perrty, Berty. Multiple that equation by the number of times Holy Daughter screamed, yowled and cried while we attempted to get her chin length bob into a bun at the very top of her head - thank God for gel and plenty of pins - suffice to say, it wasn't simple math. More like a combination of weird science and classic literature.

Good Ole Charlie sums up Nutcracker weekends best I think..."It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way." But as in this last Christmas past, all the performances were near flawless, the music was seasonally inspiring and the performers enjoyed theatrical fun and fame. And of course it was rewarding to see how both kids continue to get recital and theatre stage experience, such that butterflies and jitters are pre-emptors to that wonderful feeling of achievement rather than dread. They both love to perform and are the very picture of grace under fire backstage. Me? I'm a nervous wreck.

Oh, and did I mention that our Prince was a regal sight to behold? (Re-enter boastful mother, stage left). This year, he looked more comfortable on stage and he even managed to smile and look quite animated for most of the show. Holy Hubby and I looked at each other in amazement, trying to figure out whose gene pool this theatrical flair came from - we decided it was the stork.

I was momentarily relieved to see that he had all but dispensed with last year's nervous tic of licking his lips at 10 second intervals ~ only to discover that he had, in fact, replaced it with an annoying if unconscious habit of grasping his long shirt sleeve cuffs and flexing his hands at odd and/or awkward moments.

Despite these minor moments, he provided great props to all the ballerinas, who were really the dancing stars. Holy Son had very simple choreography - no real dancing to speak of (which is good because he is not a dancer). He was there to look good, as the only male, apart from the small karate mice and the adult men at the party scene during Act I.

And he even managed to amass a bit of a following. One of the tiny Ginger cookie dancers took quite a shine to him - sending him little love notes all weekend to let him know what a great actor and dancer he was. She sent him so many notes that he relented at the end, with his mother's prodding, and presented her with a flower after the final curtain call. It was very sweet, and doubly so because he did this in front of his girlfriend, who made a special trip to come watch his performance.

He received lots of praise from friends, family and strangers and was even asked to pose for pictures with young children who were smitten to be able to see a real live Nutcracker Prince in person.

The weekend was topped off with a visit from my brother and SIL from Victoria, Canada, who stayed for a good time, not a long time. (Y'all come back now, ya hear?) I lived with them when Holy Son was born 11 years ago and Holy Hub was starting his Pakistan contract, so it was a bit of a shock for my sister-in-law to stand nose to nose with her nephew and realize that in a matter of weeks, he'll be taller than her.

So that was our backstage pass weekend. Short, busy and Nutcracker sweet.

Walking in My Winter Underwear

I miss the kids bounding up or down stairs with thrilling exclaims of, "It's snowing, it's snowing!"

But as would be the case with most places we move to, thinking we've escaped the worst bites of winter, winter follows us. We moved to Halifax in 1988 - it was bitterly cold - one of the worst winters on record. We moved to Pakistan a decade later and both winters, we got unseasonably cold weather, as in seriously, wear fleece, crank the heat up and shiver me timbers cold weather. Just prior to Pakistan, when I moved to Victoria for the birth of our son, we were snowed under in the worst blizzard ever for weeks.

So while I miss the so-called timeliness of these excited outbursts, alas, I'll admit - we still get them. Winter has followed us once again: it has snowed here every winter since moving here. We now live up on a mountain, or so the locals dub this them thar hill we're perched upon...so we get snow where others might not.

But for it to snow, like clockwork white, on December 1st, the first day of Advent in the Schmidt house, when six chocolate and/or toy-filled calendars (three each this year) vie to be the first window ripped open or pocket peeked in ~ that is simply and seasonally divine.

Yes, that's right kiddies - we woke up to a blanket of white this morning. Not quite skiing or tobaganning white, but if it's snowing here, it's dumping in the mountains.

This is timely because we will be setting up our newly-arrived, beaut and Noble 8 ft. Christmas tree in our vaulted living room tonight. We'll be lighting a fire, drinking some Merlot, listening to Holy Son play Good King Wenceslas on the cello, and lifting little Miss Wonder-filled up so she can dangle ornaments from the highest boughs.

And we'll be praying that we don't get the weeklong power outage we got this time last year during the wind storms. We managed to set the tree up but had to decorate it in the dark and weren't able to enjoy the lights until 8 days later.

On that note, I'm off to a snowflake workshop to make Christmas ornaments with Holy Daughter.

Sleigh bells ring, are you listening?

Infestation, Germination & Celebration

Here's a shot of the Callobius spider I trapped a couple of weeks ago. How's that for spooktacular? We have no fewer than four different kinds of giant house spiders vying for real estate in the nooks and crannies of our basement. All appear to be harmless, or so my arachnid net sleuthing tells me, but still. I'm getting tired of sleeping with one eye open.

And this is a shot of the plant cell model Holy Son (and I) constructed last week for his Science class. It's made from floam and has a green tortilla membrane and all the other plant cell parts made from gummy worms, bubble gum tape, green jello, fruit by the foot, radiatori pasta, yogos, pecans, jello, giant jawbreaker and a foam golf ball. I've already forgotten all the plant cell components, except the golgi apparatus. I always liked saying that - golgi apparatus. Anytime I would see a Bulgolgi restaurant, I would always thing of golgi apparatus.

And finally, the big day came and went - Holy Daughter's Crazy 8 birthday party. It was fun but tiring. It was a cross between a backwards party and a Mad Hatter Tea Party and a games theme party. I couldn't decide. We were originally going to host it on a Wednesday and do a Wacky Wednesday party but ended up doing it on her actual birthday. All the kids showed up dressed silly - although I think I had them all beat. I was so strange looking, my daughter gave me a look of horror and said, "Mom, you're not going to wear that hat, are you?!" I asked her why and she replied, "because it's embarrassing!" And I said, "Perfect!" Nothing makes this mom's day better than em bare assing her kids. In fact, my ultimate parenting dream would be to embarrass my kids on national TV with an elaborate prank on Hi-Jinks. That would be sweet.

Anyways, we began the party with gift opening (which she loved) and then moved on to eating cake, then lunch, then freeze dancing so the kids could get their wigglies out. Then we assigned them into three teams of 3 and sent them from station to station to play croquet outside, bowling down our hallway and Twister. We then took them outside to whack the pinata hanging from the basketball net and finally, sent them marching up the street on a Crazy 8 Brigade Parade with assorted pots, pans, chopsticks, plastic bowls and utensils, whistles and New Year's noisemakers. And then we ended it with giving her eight birthday bumps, a pinch to grow an inch and a slap to grow fat - another fine Canadian tradition we've exported.

I was originally going to bake a triple layer checkerboard cake and had it all set to decorate with a checkerboard pattern of chocolate squares, together with dark and white hershey kisses for the game pieces. But ever the procrastinator, I ran out of time. So I pushed two round cakes together, had her brother decorate it with Smarties to resemble the circles of the 8 (Canadian m&m style chocolates, not the US pill candies), and that was that. Just as well, given the sum total of 12 seconds that the kids ever seem to even pay attention to the cake, except to devour it.
And finally, here's a shot of our crazy 8 year old dressed for Halloween. She's going as a flower in a pot, but couldn't resist posing in the pot for an Anne Geddes moment. Holy Hub cut the bottom out of this plastic pot, so we just need to drill holes in the sides, affix some rope to go over her shoulders like straps, so that the flower pot will hang right over her hips. Holy Son is dressing as the Candyman. Pictures tomorrow at 11. I duct taped about 600 pieces of candy to an old denim dress coat of mine. It weighs a good six or seven lbs. So together with a bright shirt and a tall striped velvet hat, his ensemble will be complete. He's looking forward to being the ultimate chick magnet tomorrow at school. Rumour has it from a reliable source (the mother of his closest friend at school) that he already has 17 girls - ranging from grades 6 to 12 - chasing him. He's 10 years old. Oy veh. We're in trouble - ack!. Speaking of ack, I'm off to go buy liquid food color to make gak. Don't ask.