9 days left. . .

Are you a gift-buying procrastinator?  Are you trying to find the perfect gift for the neighbor you don't know all that well?  What about gift-giving etiquette for the workplace?  Have a co-worker that celebrates a different holiday?

Well, Mrs O came across a great resource for give giving and I thought I'd share it.  It's called Cool Mom Picks.  They list all sorts of ideas for all sorts of people and they break down their suggestions by price range.  From DIY homemade gift ideas to gifts that give back by supporting African women or literacy initiatives, there are tons of great ideas.   

Let this be your springboard!

If the above link doesn't work for whatever reason, here's the URL you can paste into the address bar of your web browser:

http://www.coolmompicks.com/holidaygiftguide/

Also, for the gent who has trouble finding the perfect gift for his lady, don't forget to take advantage of things like pinterest and facebook.  If she likes it on facebook and pinterest, she might like it under the tree as well!

Merry Christmas!

A Touch of Whimsy

My Grandpa is a man of little whimsy, but during the summer projects that I did with him, he would sometimes recite these silly rhymes.  I'll remember them as long as I live.

I did a little looking around and it seems that these are rhymes that were popular in the '30s and '40s.  There are many versions, but this is the way I remember it.  It appears the author may be Asa Martin, a country/folk musician from Kentucky in the early 1900's.  If anyone knows where they came from originally, I'd love to hear more about it!

"Twas midnight on the ocean,
Not a streetcar was in sight.
The sun was shining brightly
For it rained all day that night.

"One evening as the rising sun
Was setting in the West,
All the fishes in the trees
Were cuddled in their nests.

"On a summer's day one winter
As the rain was snowing fast,
A barefoot girl with shoes on
Stood sitting on the grass.

"The organ peeled potatoes.
Lard was rendered by the choir.
When the sexton rang the dishrag
Someone set the church on fire.

"'Holy Smoke!' the preacher yelled
As he madly tore his hair.
Now, his head resembles heaven
For there is no parting there."

The barn floor

One of my fondest memories is working with my grandfather on some of the projects around his farm.  I love telling this story to my boys.  I don't know who enjoys it more, them or me!

I remember one summer working on replacing the barn floor.  We first had to remove all of the equipment sitting on the old floor.  Then we continued by pulling up the old rough hewn boards.  Some of them weren't even nailed down and Grandpa slipped on one of the boards and fell through to the dirt floor, about 8 feet below.

I ran inside to get Grammie and fortunately, Grandpa wasn't hurt.  We continued our job of replacing the boards.  That summer, my cousin was working with us.  He was only about four years old, but he had--and still has--a strong work ethic and enjoys manual labor.

When we got to the point of laying down the new floor on the old boards, we used 2x6 boards and 16d galvanized spikes.  These are fairly thick boards and large nails.  They're not easy to drive.  One of us would start a nail for my cousin and while he tap-tap-tapped away, we'd work on a row of 2x6 boards.  My cousin worked feverishly on his 16d spike.  He missed more than he hit the head of the spike, but he succeeded.  At the end of the day, his spike was fully driven.

My favorite part of the story, though, is what Grandpa said to me at the end of the day.  He brought me over to review the day's work for our four-year-old partner.  There, in the soft wood, were a large number of very small dents surrounding the 16d spike over about an 6 inch circle.  With a grin, he said, "You used to do that!"

Why did I like that so much?  Because in not so many words, he told me, "You have come a long way.  You have what it takes."  He was saying that he had believed in me back when a day's work was driving a single nail and hitting the wood more than hitting my target.  He gave me the freedom to miss my mark, because I would eventually learn to hit the nail on the head.

Mrs O at the mic

Mrs O and I were recently invited to participate in a sermon series at The Highland Vineyard Church in Louisville, Kentucky.  We were delighted!  It's not something we have a whole bunch of experience doing, but we have had a lot of fun.  It has been a blessing to us and I pray that it was a blessing to everyone else as well.

I'm attaching the audio in a link in this post below.  This is the last of three.  You can listen to the audio for "The Myth that Everybody's Doing It" presented November 25 by Mrs O.

Happy December tomorrow!

The O's at the mic

Mrs O and I were recently invited to participate in a sermon series at The Highland Vineyard Church in Louisville, Kentucky.  We were delighted!  It's not something we have a whole bunch of experience doing, but we have had a lot of fun.  It has been a blessing to us and I pray that it was a blessing to everyone else as well.

I'm attaching the audio in a link in this post below.  This is the second of three.  You can listen to the audio for "The Myth of the Greener Grass" presented November 18 by The O's.

In order not to inundate anyone with more than you can listen to at one time, later in the week I'll send along "The Myth that Everybody's Doing It" presented by Mrs O yesterday.  

Me and the mic

Mrs O and I were recently invited to participate in a sermon series at The Highland Vineyard Church in Louisville, Kentucky.  We were delighted!  It's not something we have a whole bunch of experience doing, but we have had a lot of fun.  It has been a blessing to us and I pray that it was a blessing to everyone else as well.

I'm attaching the audio in a link in this post below.  I'm trying to figure out how to make a clip with our slides and everything, but I haven't figured out how to do that yet.  When I figure that out, perhaps I'll post it on one of the other pages.  In the meantime, you can listen to the audio for "The Myth of the Self Made Man" originally presented November 11 by me, Mr O.

In order not to inundate anyone with more than you can listen to at one time, later in the week I'll send along "The Myth of the Greener Grass" which we both presented on November 18 and "The Myth that Everybody's Doing It" presented by Mrs O yesterday.  

The Porcupine Tree

This is a story from my childhood that I tell to the boys sometimes before bed.  It's one of their favorites.

A long time ago when I was little and I lived at Grammie Munchkin's old house up in New Hampshire there was a tree called the porcupine tree.  We called it the porcupine tree because sometimes we would see a porcupine sitting up in the top at night.

We would come home sometimes in the dark after the sun went to bed.  As the car came up the driveway, the headlights would shine in the backyard.  Sometimes, there was a porcupine in the backyard and when he saw the lights, he would run as fast as he could--which was not very fast--over to this little hemlock tree.  He would climb up the tree all the way to the tippity top to a place where there weren't many branches and we could see him sitting up there.

My brother also like to climb the porcupine tree.  He would climb up to that same spot at the tippity top where there weren't many branches and look out.  I had a favorite climbing tree which was not far away down the hill by the rope swing behind the brush pile toward the swamp.  It was also a hemlock tree and I would climb near the top to a place where I could sit comfortably and look out and see my brother sitting up in the porcupine tree.

I would sometimes pretend that I was in a castle watchtower or some other place where it was my critical duty to guard the backyard from the evil that was trying to penetrate it.  In reality, there was very little evil trying to penetrate our backyard, so that game didn't last long.

Truth be told, all the fun was in getting up to the top of our climbing trees and not in the fabricated drama.  I was not made for drama.  By the time I got to my sitting spot I'd had my fun and the game was all but over.