There is a Tarot card, the six of wands, that represents a person returning from battle with the celebratory laurel wreath on their staff, signifying a triumphant win.  Still, all of that joy and revelry aside, they’ve been IN BATTLE and they are TIRED and just want to sink into a hot, Calgon bathtub with scented candles and tinkly music and a masseuse waiting of the after party, followed quickly by a long, long doze into a feather bed

That’s how I feel.

The financial challenges have been considerable and although we are far from being out of the storm, the punishing freezing rain, hail and tornadoes have subsided and we are now down to a cold, steady downpour.  (That’s all metaphor in case I lost you).  Eric has picked up a 2 day electrical job that is going to go a long way toward patching up the holes in our budget (we’re talking holes you could drive a pick up truck through were you so inclined) and then next month, he begins receiving his subsistence for college.

Speaking of which, his classes start on January 19th.  Before then, he will start working on a job study program in Placerville which will bring in a little bit more income.   It’s only 25 hours a week, but it is tax free money and it gets him out of the house and directing his energy into something positive.  Thirty-three year old men are not meant to putter.

The kids have THREE weeks of winter break this year instead of the traditional two.  They missed and entire week due to the power outage and there is not yet a determination on whether or not they will have to make that up.  They go back to school on January 11th, have a minimum day that Friday and will get home at 2pm, then are off the following Monday for Martin Luther King Day.  

The menopausal woman in me wants to grieve the loss of my alone time, especially after that week of intense family togetherness during the power outage, but the menopausal woman in me is also very excited over the prospect of 3 weeks of not having to get up at 5:30am, mostly getting to sleep in until I am ready to get up.

I spent the most part of the last month working on crafts.  That is all done now and I don’t expect getting crafty again except for candle pouring, which I love.  My hands are finally starting to heal.  For a while there, I looked like a leper from all of the glue gun burns I had.  

Yesterday was our “Christmas” as we celebrated Solstice together.  It’s almost exactly the same as traditional Christmas, we just do it on the Sunday closest to Solstice.  I’ll keep the tree up for a while, but will likely pack away the ancillary decorations and start getting the house back to normal again.

David (my second son) came up Saturday afternoon and stayed the night to spend yesterday with us.  He typically has a plan for how he wants the morning to go.  This year, he and Eric  moved the tree from the living room to the  family room and he put three small black bags on the empty, treeless floor that said “Coal” on them.  With it, he put a note that said, “PSYCH!  It’s in the family room.”  I wanted the note to say, “It won’t light up on one side.  Signed, The Grinch,” but my idea was promptly discarded.  I’ll survive.

He also told the kids that the LAST kid he saw or heard on Sunday morning would get a bonus.  He’s wily, that one.

Things were quiet, but successful and another Solstice is tucked away into the crevices of Time.  

The wild storm we were supposed to receive on the back of the wild storm we actually did receive ended up only being rain, so it melted off a good bit of the snow that had piled up.  Those of you who know me well know that I did not cry for the loss.  We usually do not get such heavy snowfall until after the first of the year,  but the snow plus the 5 day power outage really took a lot of spirit out of us.  

Immediately after the power outage, my DSL went out.  It last worked on Sunday and was finally up and running again on Thursday.  I don’t ever want to be on dial up again, cruising the net at a blistering 14.4kps.  It was like the old days where you click on a link, go to the bathroom, get a drink, go check mail, take the dog out to pee, make a couple of phone calls and then come back to find that you’re at around 85% of the page loaded.  This was back when computers used to teach us “patience.”  

Around the same time, one of my hard drives went out which complicated things a bit.  The kids’ computer died.  Delena’s wouldn’t access web pages on the browsers, but she could get emails.  The microwave had already died a month or so before.  My sewing machine had the fly wheel pop right off and would not reassemble.  I manage to get the critical bits of a promised sock monkey done before it completely crapped out, but not the other 6 I planned to make.  The bathroom fan broke.  The generators both went down (evidently 22 seconds before the power outage hit).  This seems like an absolutely perfect time to complain about the fact that I have, for the past five years or so, been cooking on a range top that has two functioning burners, neither of which is one of the “big” burners.  Can you tell I am tired of what can only be referred to a “broke ass shit?”

David managed to fix my hard drive (God bless him) and install a new DVD drive to my computer (God, just go right ahead and bless that child again) and fix the settings on Delena’s computer so she is again wildly surfing the net (God, just give it to him one more time, please).  Eric purchased a baby microwave at the thrift store for $15 a couple of weeks ago, so I can at least do the basics even if it’s not big enough to cook baked potatoes for all of us at the same time.  Eric is also assigned to phone a lady from the Freecycle newsletter about sewing machines she has available.  The boys’ computer is now diagnosed with a dead motherboard, so no love there.  Eric got one of the generators going with a carb rebuild kit and borrowed a second one, so we should be able to run on electrical skeleton crew if (that’s optimistic to the extreme – should read “when”) we lose power again.  

Ah.  Another chicken emergency.  These have got to be the most ill-fated chickens on earth.  After a quick round of “rock, scissors, paper” for three, Nathan ended up with the task of going out to feed chickens this morning.  After much persecuted grumbling, he finally managed to haul himself outside to render unto Chicken Ceasar the scoop full of laying mash that is Ceasar’s.  Ten minutes or so later (I could have fed the chickens myself about 15 times during the time frame between his return and the beginning of the rock, scissors, paper championship), he came back into the house using that shrill, hysterical girl voice that has become his calling card as of late – something just before the point where the dogs’ ears begin to bleed but no human can hear it.  I was able to make out that one of the hens was in great trouble leg-wise and that he had evidently been calling me for “ten minutes.”  Since I am neither a dog or outside, I could not hear his frantic cries, which has left my soul damned to the lowest levels of hell, based on the results I am seeing.

Sure enough, little Stella’s leg was all wrapped up in (and slightly manged by) a net that Eric had put over the chicken pen to keep out predators.  Pine needles had fallen on it and crashed it in and she was quite tangled and lying eerily still with her feathers all akimbo.  I got her untangled, but one of the legs does not look very good.  She can’t put pressure on it and the other one is really shaky.  Of course, some of that could be from exposure if she was outside all night.   I put her in the chicken house on some hay and gave her some food.  She was really hungry.  Now she’s just chillin’ in the chicken crib.  I do wish her sweet chicken self well.

I am again considering writing a book.  My first thought was to retool the novel I have been working on (literally) since 1986.  Since I am terrible at dialog, fiction is by far not my long suit.  Instead, I believe I will write a book called “Stories I Will Tell When I Am Old” and have it be a collection of short, written experiences like the time my girls and I stole the gravestone from a cemetery and when I accidently killed an old man in a nursing home. Things like that.

So yes, holiday stuff is mostly behind me, crafts are done (hurray!) and January brings great changes.  This year, in retrospect, feels like a quest for survival on so many levels and 2010 seems like a time of rebirth and renewal and tremendous change.  I look forward to it and plan to use the winter months to charge my batteries and rest up for what is to come.

I hope all of you have a very happy holiday with those you love and find joy and blessings everywhere you turn.