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Dear Ellen,

Last week I got to meet Santa Claus…the real one who rides in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.  He came to the command to get his official NORAD mission brief prior to his flight Christmas Eve.  He is as kind as you might imagine and very jolly.  He was especially jolly after I asked him if I was allowed to be a little bit naughty for Dale’s sake.  He said that since we would both be on duty Christmas Eve tracking his sleigh as part of the NORAD Tracks Santa effort, it would be okay.

Our watch was from 8:00 PM to 10:00 PM Mountain Time…the prime hours for Santa activity on the east coast.  The watch center logged over 34,000 calls an hour during that time frame and Dale and I handled about 200 apiece!  It was an honor to know we were helping Santa and it was LOTS of fun.  It was pretty noisy with all those helpers on the lines, and the phones never stopped ringing.  I loved the calls where you could hear the children in the background as the parents checked on Santa’s location and time to arrival in their area…and then asked if it was true that the kids needed to be in bed for Santa to stop.  We, of course, told them that not only do the kids have to be in bed, but they have to be asleep, so any kids in the house had better get to bed quick.  Lots of “You hear that kids?!  I told you that you needed to go to bed!” My favorite call was from the young boy who, after asking where Santa was and when he would arrive in their town, wanted to be reassured that Santa would find his Dad in Bagram, Afghanistan.  He said that was more important than Santa bringing presents to him.  I hope he got a lot.   As you can see from the photos, the operations center was busy, but festive, and outfitted with the most cutting edge technology.  Only the best for Santa.

I guess Santa appreciated our work as he rewarded us well on Christmas morning.  Dale and I got everything we wanted and the doggies were very happy with their haul.  We headed over to our friends Bill and Cecelia’s in the afternoon for a fabulous ham dinner.  The doggies came along and enjoyed it as well.  Bill is a softy when it comes to doggies, and all 3 visiting dogs plus their own dog, Bonsai, were after him for treats much of the afternoon.  Max hung out with Dale.  Bill and Cecelia are friends from the Hawaii days.  We’ve known them for 26 years and spent some holidays with them when the kids were tiny.  The only downside of this was the absence of leftovers…oh, maybe that’s a good thing.

The next day I met Cecelia at the little stable where she boards her horse (pony) Willie.  He is such a sweetheart!  Very well behaved — even bows for treats.  That is when he’s not hinting broadly that he deserves one!  They are across town from us, but I hope to get out and play with Willie come springtime.

I’ve made some progress on Allen’s sweater — have figured out the shaping for the armholes and almost have the back complete.  The fabric is lush, lush, lush!  I’ll post a photo when the back is off the needles and blocked.

I’ll wrap up with a quick photo of Paula wearing the shawl that I knit for her.  She did finally get a firm offer on her house and she’ll be closing on it on Tuesday and heading for Pensacola, FL.  We’ll miss her…she was a great secretary and a real friend.  I’m glad she has something from the hear to remind her of her friends back her in Colorado.  I hope to see her again — Pensacola is a Navy town after all!  As it turns out she’ll be working for a Captain who once worked for me and is a terrific guy.  I’m glad.

Stress test and cardiac work-up tomorrow.  No real reason — except that my primary care doctor wants no responsibility if I kill myself hiking and running.  He says that I’m 50 now, and I need the tests.  So be it.  I’ll let you know how they go.

Love, Jan

Dear Ellen,

I think I’m about caught up with this post.  (Except for filling you in on status of Allen’s sweater…that will just have to wait.)  The last thing I wanted to put up was a bit about our Thanksgiving.  We spent it in Denver with Katie and Marc , daughter and son-in-law of our dear friends John and Betsy.  And John and Betsy were there too!  (As was Tuesday, the cat.)

It was Katie’s first year to  hostess and she did a brilliant job.  It was lovely for us to just make pies — pecan and pumpkin — and to still have a full blown, homemade Thanksgiving dinner.  The turkey was awesome as was everything else.  Yum.  And best of all was spending the afternoon with friends who are family.  Betsy and I knit, we all enjoyed some nice wine and we played Trivial Pursuit.  Perfect.

Love, Jan

Vanessa’s Sweater — Complete (modeled by Ann).  And already received by Vx!  She loves it…says it fits like a glove and is exactly what she wanted with the very important pocket hidden just so inside the right front.  I’m very pleased…only problem is that she says she can’t wear it because when she does, she cries!  She promises to work on that so that she can get some wear out of it.

Scarf for Marie — A fun knit on the car ride through PA.  Made with “shag” yarn it was fiddly on occasion, but I love the fabric that results and can imagine Marie wearing it as she walks to work.  The color is a bit more pure than appears here and it should look great with her eyes.

Amanda Variation Hat for Heidi — Started on finished on a quick trip to DC to speak at a conference.  It was fun and the pattern stitch was simple, but effective.  I changed the top of the hat to create the squared off design.  Heidi doesn’t care for anything too fru-fru — I think this meets the mark for being a stylish, but serious, hat to keep her ears warm on the train ride into Springfield.

Ballband Dishcloth — We needed a new dishcloth.  Need I say more?  It was really time I finally broke down and made one.  I’ve since developed a quick knit to make a ballband soap sachet with the leftover yarn.

Shawla for Paula — My secretary is leaving for a new job in Florida.  She’s been a source of sanity so I wanted to make her a special Christmas/Farewell gift.  The shawl is the outcome.  She loves, loves, loves it…and I’ll get some pictures of her in it next week.  I may have to write up the pattern…very efficient, I had 1 inch of yarn leftover!!!

Dear Ellen,

Contrary to all evidence, I have not fallen off the face of the planet.  There were certainly moments in the last few weeks when I wish I had.  Work has been very intense with everyone trying to push one last thing through before we hit the holiday leave period.  I’ve had a number of speaking engagements and we had mandatory fun coming out of our ears — or until our ears bled…however you want to think of it.  All piled up to exhaust me and give me a nasty fibromyalgia flare-up.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not thrilled about “standing” cocktail parties in the first place.  I’ve dropped the dosage of my pain meds with the trade-off that I live with a higher pain level but have reduced cardiac risk.  A good call in my opinion, but I have to admit second-guessing my own judgment while acting the potted plant at an event to which I did not even wish to go.  On the other hand, I also had a few events that were smaller, more intimate and SEATED that I enjoyed very much even though they contributed to my state of exhaustion.

Suffice it to say that I have been tending to my own health needs by foregoing some activities to gain time to rest.  Blogging was one of those and I’m very grateful that you’ve been pulling the load in my absence.  I have taken the time to at least read your posts and have enjoyed them and been glad that our readership has not been disappointed by an idle site.  (I’m way behind in reading other blogs on which I normally try to peak in.)

Am I back?  I think so…lots of sleep in the last two days and the next two weeks at work are expected to be very quiet.  My writer and I are collaborating on a 360 fitness program to get our acts together mentally, physically, spiritually and nutritionally.  Keeping in touch with friends, knitting and spending time reflecting are part of the spiritual quadrant and all three relate in some way to my blogging.

I’m going to be doing random update blog posts for the rest of the year.  To catch people up on my absence of the last month and to baseline for the coming year, so don’t expect the next few entries to have any chronological correctness to them, okay?

Love, Jan

Hi, Jan,

I’m falling a bit behind on my altar posting.  I suppose most of that is the result of the frenetic pace of the last two days - Thursday long day at work followed by finance ministry meeting at church where they asked all the prior treasurers/bookkeepers to pool collective knowledge on how to do the job well.  Yesterday was our annual shopping day, started when we used to take a day off while the kids were in school and spend the whole day shopping and having a quiet lunch out together.  Jenny went along this year, so there wasn’t a great chance for romance, but somehow that was fine.  We laughed really, really hard at lunch and had great food and I even managed to have a cashier bootleg a gift for Jenny into my bag while Jenny stood right next to me.  Still, not a lot of quiet, spirit of the season moments.

But an interview I heard on  Talk of the Nation on Thursday has stuck with me.  It was a chat with Amy Dickinson about how to manage everyone coming home for the holidays.  A lot of the focus was on handling long term but unmarried relationships spending the night - what are the sleeping arrangments?  One caller, who admitted that her personal values were more of the marriage first, shared bed later color, stated eloquently why she was putting her son and his long term partner in one room.  He was leaving for a long tour of duty right after the holidays, and she boiled it down to the question of how do we love each other best in a given context?   It was so selfless and loving.

How can we love one another well when we are in one another’s presence?  This is the question I will try to carry in my heart as I head to Ohio on Monday.  It is easy with Wilson’s family; they embody respect and love.

It is much more challenging with our mother for me, as you know.  I need to work on my ability to be selfless, I guess.  I think if I can try to respect her values without allowing the assumption that I share them, perhaps I can make some progress.  One of my coworkers is so good at not being frustrated by other’s behavior - she immediately says, “different value system”, which I think allows her to not judge them NOR judge herself.  In essence, she is respecting herself and the other person simultaneously, and that is a loving act.

With love and respect for you,

Ellen