Between Holidays

Now that your Christmas tree is a dried out fire hazard and your garbage can is full of wrapping paper, what do you do after the Christmas season has come to its conclusion.  For most children and college students there is another week to recover from the holiday hangover.  I am in the college category this year and am going to build a shelf with my dad in the garage during this week off.

I asked my wife a question at the beginning of December "what do you think the chances are that I get a shelf built in the garage?"  A simple question to inquire about how much confidence my wife had in me.

To this she replied, "on a scale of one to ten?"

I said,"yes."

"Zero"

"Zero!" I exclaimed!  How could I have zero chance.  That was off the scale. "How do you see it that way?"

"Well here is how I imagine you spending your vacation:  you will wake up around eleven each day.  Then you will do nothing all day until I get home at six when you start to make dinner."

I couldn't do anything but laugh.  She was right.  When days off hit, I am guilty of doing nothing but lounging around all day.  But why not?  This house is really nice.  The lights work, the plumbing works and I have wifi.  Someone has to try to find the end of the internet.

    Photo by: M. Stude                           

The house that makes you feel young

A milestone was reached in my life yesterday marking the end of fall term at George Fox.  The only thing that was on my mind was gingerbread houses.  A party was in order to mark the beginning of the Christmas break and the engineering students and I decided we should build some gingerbread houses.

Shortly into the party we began home construction.  The materials were graham crackers, m&ms, old fashion candies, white frosting, and gummy bears.  Focused minds surrounded a crowded table was a great sight to see.  The gummy bears became the citizens of a small town of gingerbread homes.  The bears were casually hanging out on their balcony, riding on their four cylinder sleigh, relaxing in a hot tub, and even riding a zip line between houses.  It was a nice break for me to spend some time having fun creating something with my imagination.  Quickly I had forgotten that I made mistakes during the school year and realized that a good GPA is not the end of the world. 

If you have spent too much time working the days away, take some time and do something fun with a friend.

Gifts of the Mind

I forgot my childhood.  It is nothing really to worry about.  I wasn't abused or neglected.  In fact, my mother and father were great parents.  I seem to have a bad memory.  My wife helps me remember names of people I knew and things I did before the military.  It seems as though when I spent some time away from home I pushed out my childhood memories.  However, now that I am back home, the more I am around my family the more I remember from my childhood.

My young nephew recently was given a football shaped toy box from myself that was in the possession of the family.  I knew that I put my toys in it and played with it when I was a kid, but until yesterday I didn't realize that my parents gave it to me when I was three for Christmas.  What a treat!  I felt like I was receiving the gift all over again.  Now to know that my nephew is playing with it again it is a gift to myself.

As for my memories, I enjoy recalling them more and more when they sporadically come about in conversation with family.  If your memories were good as a child, on the whole, keep them locked up more tightly than I did.  Unless you want little gifts of reminders.