Simplifying Christmas.

Still putting most of my energy into the career adjustment, but I wanted to take a moment to check in and post about Christmas.

When we were helping with my mother-in-law's house, my husband and I stayed in her bedroom. Which included a display cabinet, year-round, of about seventy bazillion Santas. I'll be honest, I don't like Santa Claus even in the singular. I've long had a sneaking suspicion that he's a pedophile. But that's just me. Even setting that aside, huge collections of tchotchkes make me antsy. Myself, I've been paring down.

I used to have a collection of snowmen, but I have donated all but my two favorites.

The one large grouping I have is a set of candles in silver and white that I leave out through New Year's.

Otherwise, there are just a handful of things (like the only one I kept of several Santa hats). And poinsettias. I put them in every room each Christmas and compost them in the spring.

And this little wine bottle sweater that a friend gave me when I was recuperating from my cervical cancer surgery a decade ago. I no longer fool with outdoor lights and just put lights on the tree and a string of bulbs in the dining room. Everything - all the Christmas tree ornaments, the lights, the tree skirt, and the few decorations I did keep - fit into the little trunk we brought home from my mother-in-law's house. The only exception are the candles, which I keep in a dresser drawer in the front bedroom when we aren't using them.

Instead of decorating, which took very little time this year, I'm focusing on time with people I love and food. I have big plans for both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day dinners and am eagerly awaiting having the boys here.

More on the career stuff when it's all more certain, but in the meantime I'm wishing you all peace and joy in this holiday season!

Ch-ch-ch-changes.

Fall is turning to winter in the neighborhood, with all its attendant chores - raking leaves, putting away the birdbaths, covering the outdoor water spigots, and so on. But the bigger work for me right now has to do with a slight change in my career path. It will start with a day a week later this month and, assuming I like it, gradually include more days each week. Still in psychology, but on the psychological evaluation end of the business. I find out more next week, but what it means for me is a LOT of re-acquainting myself with test protocols that I haven't looked at in many years. So as I'm getting up to speed, I'm going to briefly disappear from the blog world while I shunt all my time to this new venture. Back soon!

On a gorgeous fall day a couple of weeks ago, we walked in another cemetary, this one on the edge of our neighborhood.

I'd noticed it when I was first house-hunting, but never actually went in. Turns out it has winding paths that loop all through it and lots of shade so its a lovely place to walk.

I like the path up at the back the best - it's a little mysterious.

I mean, what do you think these little rooms built into the hillside are for?

Coffin is not an uncommon name around here but there was something about seeing it on a headstone that made me laugh.

Sometimes when I'm in an old cemetery I look around and pick out where I would like to be (if I weren't planning to be cremated, that is). Maybe this little house under a big old magnolia would be nice.

Not this, though - way too pretentious It looks like a miniature Capitol building.

And then there was this. Clearly Cole's first wife died and he remarried. And good for him. But I really don't think I'd want to have to share a space with the other wife for all of eternity. That's just a little too cozy.

We're definitely adding this into the rotation of places to walk.

And other recycling.

As part of my clearing out, I had to evaluate things I've been holding on to but not using. One was a piece of embroidered fabric my stepmother's husband had given us from his travels. It was lovely, but in colors (lots of purple) that we don't use in our decorating. I overdyed it in brown, and sewed it into a pillow cushion. There are snaps along the bottom and inside is a Christmas pillow I can take out and use, then return to its cover. No storage needed!

Höðr feels it is a fine place to take a nap.

And while I was making pillow covers, I took a gorgeous embroidered cashmere sweater that had belonged to my great aunt. It doesn't fit me at all, but was too beautiful to get rid of.

Turns out it made a perfect pillow for our bed.

One last recycling project - I wanted to add a wire cover to the existing glass globe ceiling lamp in the dining room. I spent a fair amount of time thinking this one through before getting to work. First, a big balloon, strips of newspaper, and a batch of flour and water glue.

Papier mâché is a messy process. Finally, I had the balloon all coated and drying on the sunporch.

Then I painstakingly cut the sphere into wedges and reassembled it around the glass globe. It was a brilliant idea: I would wrap copper wire around the form and then pull the wedges out through the opening at the bottom. Except it didn't work AT ALL. Major craft fail. The wire gauge had to be pretty rigid to hold its form and it kept knocking the wedges askew and sproinging all over the place. So I threw the wedges out and just started free-form wrapping the wire in the general area around the glass. It wasn't easy. Actually, it's was maddeningly difficult and there was some cursing involved.

Finally,  this is what I ended up with. My younger son pronounced it "whimsical." It is definitely that. But I like how the copper picks up the glow from the Edison bulb inside the glass.

Unusual, I'll grant you, but I like it.

America Recycles Day

It was America Recycles Day on Saturday, and the local nature center was hosting an event with an interesting premise - trade in glass and plastic bags for a beer. We were in.

But first a hike. This place has miles of trails and it was warmer than it has been lately, and sunny.

We took a path that wound up along the river.

I could have stayed out all day, but we didn't want to miss the free beer.

We traded in our tickets for IPAs and got some balsamic tofu tacos from the Captain Muchacho's food truck.

It was just too gorgeous to go home and do the housework we'd planned, so we headed back downtown.

As we were driving to the parking garage, I spotted several gravestones through the window with my last name! No idea how they might be related to me but I'm guessing they are. First, it's a Presbyterian graveyard, which matches up with other ancestors and secondly, my surname was given to French Normans who migrated to England and Ireland. I think we're all related somehow.

After looking around in the graveyard, we walked over to the square. There was a Garth Brooks concert happening that night so there were LOTS of folks dressed in cowboy hats and boots.

We stopped at a restaurant and had some Weller and the hummus and vegetable plate as an early dinner. On days like this, I really love my city.

Incorporating some of my husband's childhood.

When my husband moved in with me, I was happy to make room for this huntboard that was part of his household growing up. It sits along the wall in the dining room and holds napkins, placemats, candles and the like. Also games in the bottom drawer. It used to hold all our liquor, as well.

After my MIL's funeral, we brought home with us the one item my husband had really wanted from the house. It was this very cool bar. The top flips open and there are places for glasses inside.

Originally we put it on the sunporch but it partially obstructed the window. So we moved a glass-fronted attorney's bookcase to the opposite side of the living room and moved the bar in here (the walls aren't that bright - I added a little fill light so you could see the pattern in the wood more clearly.).

We were encouraged to consider whether we wanted any of the other furniture that had not been claimed. Interestingly, the other sibs mostly liked the more formal and newer pieces. But we decided to bring home this beautiful old icebox and put it on the sunporch where a book shelf used to be.

The book shelf contents of vases and candles and so on are inside. The main compartment had been painted a garish yellow, so my husband got some enamel paint and painted it white to match the other side.

On the inside of the door we hung the old sign that came with it.

As I helped clear things out at my MIL's house, I nudged my husband one day and said, "You know, there's a really cool old trunk in your mom's room that would make a great coffee table..." We already had a coffee table, of course, but it was bought for my much larger previous house and was just awkwardly big. We ordered some short hairpin legs to match the ones on our dining room table and my husband made a base for the trunk from a piece of wood we had. I painted the whole thing a metallic bronze.

Et voilà, our new coffee table. I plan to store our Christmas ornaments in it.

We had to do a little shuffling to make the new pieces work. The bookshelf that used to be by the television is now next to the front door. We shifted the couch down a bit to fit in the bar.

And the old attorney's bookcase is where the shelf used to be. My older son laughs at my love of earthy colors and says it's very '70's. In the past he's described my style as "obnoxious modern hippie." But it's warm and comforting to my husband and me. And I like having more of his past included in the house. Personally, I think we got the best pieces in his childhood home.

Something else worth celebrating.

The average American household has $144,000 in  debt. And yet the median income is only $59,000. And I'm not judging - there was a time in graduate school when I took out a student loan to buy a computer. And, um, a stereo system. Around the same time, I bought my first new car, making monthly payments on grad student pittance wages. But then I started reading -  Personal Finance for Dummies, the Dave Ramsey books, books on voluntary simplicity -  and I changed my outlook. Gradually I developed an increasing distaste for owing people money and got out from under all loans other than a mortgage. I used my credit card for its airline points but payedg the balance in full each month. When my husband and I got engaged in 2015, he came with a whomping post-divorce credit card debt. No worries - eliminating debt is my jam. And so we tore into it, throwing every spare penny at it until it was gone. Fortunately, my husband was happy to let me be the money manager in the household. We both have jobs that aren't well compensated for what we do. I made the conscious decision to serve a poor Appalachian population which means a lot of Medicaid/Medicare work. And my husband is a medical assistant with low pay but health insurance that we have cause to be most grateful for. Doing some good in the world just matters more to both of us than making a lot of money. Which is why we do things like last year's no-spend challenge and throwing our spare change into a "Dom fund" container - with the idea that one day we'd buy a bottle of Dom Perignon to celebrate a special occasion.

So how do we reconcile modest incomes, an appetite for good food and travel, and an intense debt aversion?  We decided that a little house suits us fine. We pay cash for used cars and drive them until they die. We never darken the doors of salons and instead cut our own hair (well, except for that one time when I paid thousands for chemo to cut it for me). We think hard about every purchase, deciding if it's a need or a want. We take passes on most expensive outings, looking for free music and festivals and hikes. And in the meantime, we have been adding extra to the mortgage payment every single month until this month. We mailed off the last check and I called Friday to verify - only 5 ½ years into a 15-year mortgage, we are now zeroed out. The house is ours and we don't owe anyone anything. We burned the monthly mortgage statements outside in the firepit.

If there was an occasion for really good champagne, it was this. We cracked open a bottle of the 2008 vintage and made lobster tails, new potatoes with sour cream and caviar, zucchini with sun-dried tomatoes, and feta and onion tarts.

We had chocolate champagne truffles for dessert and talked about plans for future travel. Loving our small house and old cars and being content with what we already have has become second nature to both of us. There's something wonderfully freeing about deciding you don't have to be on the consumer treadmill. And that Dom Perignon? It was damned good and perfect for our toast to being debt-free.

Local election update.

Last night we got invited to the watch party for the mayoral candidate we supported. I'd never been to one, but it sounded like fun. Quiet at first, and then as more people arrived and results started rolling in, it became very festive. We milled around drinking wine, eating snacks, and meeting new people.

People anxiously watched the live streaming results, first from the absentee and early voters and then a long, tense delay before the day's results started being posted. A huge cheer went up when our candidate took the lead.

And then way sooner than I would have expected, the candidate announced that the other candidate had conceded and she was our our new mayor! Only two of the city council members that I'd voted for were elected, but it is still a positive change. And interestingly, of the 5 positions up for voting, 4 were filled by women. That means the city council has a female majority for the first time in its history - 7 women and 2 men. Rock on, powerful women!