As promised ...

Look! Look! I'm posting on consecutive days! My 2009 non-resolution just may be kicking in early. Yep, I'm going to try — try! — to post much more frequently in the New Year. It would be nice if my supposed co-author (ahem) would help out. Maybe he'll strike up a non-resolution of his own, and then this blog would be a really good read (or at least, there would be more stuff to read; I'll settle for quantity over quality).
In the meantime, for your viewing pleasure I have this to share:

Lavender therapy bag with lovely cherry blossom print slipcover.

The bag sans slipcover.

And here's what my beautiful and talented sisters made me for Christmas:

Not the best representation of the beautiful framed photo from Julie. She took the photo at a park she visited whilst in France this summer.

Cute hand-painted sign from Carolyn (please excuse the horrible wallpaper — clearly, not my choice).

Carolyn strikes again: Can you believe this hand-painted mug featuring a portrait of my favorite cat? And yes, Caddy's eyes really are that neon green.

So, promises kept! That's a good way to start 2009. Happy New Year ... anything's got to be better than 2008, right?

Christmas comedown

So Christmas came and went without much fanfare, which is a good thing. And, I'm proud to report that my handmade holiday was a success! The only store-bought gift this year was for Nick, but I balanced it out with a handmade gift, too.
Here's a few images from my Christmas projects:

Lentils, navy beans and lavender was the filling for the therapy bags I made for the women on my Christmas list. They can be microwaved or popped in the freezer to melt away a headache or to help you relax. After this project, lavender is my new favorite scent!

After a lot of agonizing, I finally settled on making these lined drawstring bags for the men on my list. Men are incredibly hard to make things for, but I figured if we filled these bags with some treats, who wouldn't love them?

And here are some of the treats: Nick's homemade contribution — yummy marshmallow chocolate squares with nuts. Delish!

Carolyn (a recent college graduate!) and Nick ham it up at the extended family Christmas party.

For my next post, I'll share:
1. Photos of the actual therapy bags I made (need to go take some before I give the last one away).
2. Photos of the awesome handmade Christmas gifts I received.
and
3. A New Year's non-resolution (because if I call it a resolution, I will inevitably break it).

Special holiday column: Christmas music

Christmas music seems to be a love-hate kind of a thing. People either love it or hate it, and there doesn't seem to be any in-between.
I'm one of the love-it types. Once Dec. 1 rolls around each year, I'm scrambling for my favorite Christmas music CDs, much to the irritation of my husband. My top three Christmas CDs? Harry Connick Jr., Diana Krall and Aaron Neville. All of these stick with the traditional arrangements of the holiday classics but still manage to give them a special touch. It makes for delightful Christmas listening.
I think my love of Christmas music stems from my junior high choir experience. I was one of the fortunate ones deemed good enough at auditions to be chosen for the choir (although the standards couldn't have been terribly high, because now that I'm an adult, I realize I was no Charlotte Church).
The best thing about junior high choir was the two major productions each year — the Christmas concert and the spring musical. Ms. Couvillion, the choir director, was a fantastic and encouraging teacher who we all admired. When she found out I was taking piano lessons, she bestowed the ultimate responsibility on me by asking me to play the piano accompaniment to one of the songs in the Christmas concert.
I was thrilled — and terrified. I immediately went home and practiced "The First Noel" until my fingers cramped. It was an easy song to play, but I wanted to make sure I didn't screw up on the big day.
When that day arrived, my mind raced with the lyrics to the carols on our program, the advice Ms. Couvillion had given us about not locking our knees on stage and, of course, the timing of my piano debut.
When the moment arrived for "The First Noel," all my practice paid off. Yes, I may have rushed through the song just a little (in my hurry to get that terrifying two minutes behind me), but all in all, it was a success.
To this day, "The First Noel" is always on my top three list of all-time favorite Christmas carols. It's followed closely by "Christmas Time is Here" (from A Charlie Brown Christmas) and "O Holy Night."
The hands-down best version of "O Holy Night," my mom would be quick to point out, is by Aaron Neville. Walk into my parents house at any time during the weeks leading up to Christmas and there's a 99.9 percent chance Mom will have this song, cranked loud enough to be heard throughout the house, on repeat.
One year, Mom's Aaron Neville Christmas CD got "lost" (well, she couldn't find it, but I don't know if it was technically lost. It likely was hijacked by one of my siblings and stashed in a super-secret location, never to be found again).
Could we have Christmas without Aaron's soulful rendition of "O Holy Night" being played around the clock? Not prepared to risk it, good old Dad promptly went out and bought Mom a replacement CD. Whew, crisis avoided.
Despite the slight overkill through the years, Aaron is still one of my standby favorites.

Sunday column: TV-free living

Someone once described television as "the menace that everyone loves to hate but can't seem to live without."
For the past year, though, I've done the seemingly impossible — I've lived without TV.
Why would a person do such a thing, you may ask? The answer is simple: To save money.
Now, I realize that the $30 or $40 or $50 a month savings may not seem significant enough to sacrifice cable TV, but I beg to differ. When your financial situation is as tenuous as ours is (thanks to my husband being a full-time student and my choosing an industry not known for its millionaires), every little bit counts.
Forgoing cable TV is not a big deal in larger markets where you can still pick up a few local channels with the trusty rabbit ears. Believe me, I've gotten my money's worth from the pair I purchased years ago.
Here, though, we're too far away from any of the regional channels' satellites to reliably catch the major networks on any kind of consistent basis.
Believe me, I've tried.
Even with the help of a "signal booster" compliments of my dad, our TV channel reception has been spotty at best.
Believe it or not, this is not the first time I've lived life without television. When I was in high school, I did it for more than a year. My friends all thought I was crazy. After all, by not watching TV how could I keep up with the latest music videos on MTV (back when MTV still showed music videos … occasionally) or the newest twist on My So-Called Life, Dawson's Creek, Party of Five and any number of other high school nighttime soap operas?
Somehow, I managed. In fact, my no-TV project of the '90s started out as only a two-month undertaking, and I voluntarily extended it. Why? Because I was using all that time I otherwise would have spent in front of the TV in a much more productive way.
And that's the same thing that's happening now. Instead of watching back-to-back episodes of Law and Order — which I would if I could — I've come up with lots of other ways to fill my time.
I take Casey the dog on long walks, I cook, I read, I even do a little cleaning. Thanks to this no-TV lifestyle, I've already got Christmas gifts for all my friends and family. And, I didn't go out to the store and buy them. Nope, I made them all by hand. The lack of TV availability forced me to finally clear off a spot for my sewing machine and viola! Christmas gifts. Not only are they handmade with love, making them gave me a rewarding feeling that you just don't get when you buy a gift, no matter how perfect it is.
The homemade Christmas gifts also have contributed to my efforts to save money, because I spent the same amount on supplies to make a bundle of gifts that I otherwise would have spent on one gift for one person. Now I'm no math genius (clearly, I'm a writer), but even I know that adds up to some savings.
Before I get too carried away, though, I must admit that this no-TV picture isn't 100 percent rosy. Take my disgruntled husband, for example. Without his minimum daily allowance of sports, COPS and the occasional SpongeBob SquarePants episode, he's understandably grouchy. But even he has flexed a little to accommodate TV-free life. Early on, he discovered 97.7 FM ESPN sports radio, and he hasn't looked back since. He's also visited the public library more times in the past year than he probably did in the first 20 years of his life. While he does grab a book now and then, his primary motivation is the library's collection of movies and TV shows on DVD. So although he hasn't completely surrendered his TV-watching, the frequency has diminished significantly.
I've written before about his total inability to eat a meal without watching something on TV. Thanks to DVDs, I'm happy to report he has not gone hungry yet.
I'm sure the TV-free days at my house won't last forever. It did bug me that during the presidential campaign and on Election Day I had to resort to radio and the Internet for up-to-the minute voting reports. But even that wasn't too bad.
On that glorious day when cable TV turns on at my house once again, the key will be to remember all the things I've been filling my time with. Although it will take some willpower not to succumb to marathons of Project Runway and Grey's Anatomy, I think I can stay strong. At least until it's time for Law and Order to come on.

Sunday column: Family

Disclaimer: I feel fairly confident that my family members mentioned in the column that follows have a thick enough skin to appreciate the humor I was attempting. If not, however, read at your own risk. And grow a thicker skin!

“When our relatives are at home, we have to think of all their good points or it would be impossible to endure them.”
— George Bernard Shaw

Family is a wonderful thing, especially around the holidays, right?
True, but let’s be honest — everyone’s family has its own set of idiosyncrasies and challenges. These are the things that are glossed over in the holiday made-for-TV movies and Christmas carols. They are what makes us wonder why we willingly drove two hours or more to spend time with these people who know how to push all of our buttons and inevitably do so, year after year.
So in the spirit of the holidays, I’d like to present a more realistic family portrait of my own. As the oldest of four children, it has been my pleasure and my curse to watch the three people I claim as siblings develop into functioning adults. Well, at least we’re functioning most of the time. The beauty of this exercise is I get to leave myself out of the picture because not only am I the oldest and the bossiest, I’m the writer. They won’t get their say until well after this is printed and sitting in driveways.

No. 2 of 4: The brother
As one of only two men trying to hold their own in a household of women, I have to give my brother credit for being the underdog. As my sisters and I agonized over hair styles, boyfriends and clothes, he understandably holed himself up in his room with only his friends and his electronics to console him.
Phillip, a Louisiana Tech alumnus, has been the only one of us four to choose a major that could actually guarantee a healthy bank account. And believe me, he’s worked that angle for all it’s worth. Although he will go to his grave denying it, Phillip is a true yuppie at heart, evidenced by his downtown apartment furnished with Pottery Barn and Ikea designs, his souped-up black BMW and the fact that he will drink only gourmet coffee, freshly ground and French pressed.
But despite all of that, he’s actually a nice guy. He’s helped me move countless times (although he probably has kept count and will hold it against me to the end), and he was even a Boy Scout. This is probably why, to this day, I have a soft spot for Boy Scouts.
In a one-on-one situation, Phillip is easy-going and fun to be around. But bring the whole family into the mix and there will be trouble. Especially when No. 3 of 4 is around. The tension, and the sarcasm, get thick.

No. 3 of 4: The middle sister
When I refer to her as the Black Sheep of the Family, don’t think I’m hurling a stinging insult her way. Carolyn embraced this title years ago and certainly has lived up to it. A painter, a raw-foodist and lover of all music that would make most normal people run screaming, she is truly unique. But in addition to all that, Carolyn is a hard worker and, when the mood strikes, can make the people around her feel happy and alive. When the mood doesn’t strike, though, she can make your blood boil in 10 seconds or less.
Middle-child syndrome was rough on her, and her episodes of acting out probably permanently made my parents dread answering the phone.
It seems South Louisiana suits her best, since that’s where she’s stayed the longest. And in just a few weeks, she’ll graduate from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette with a degree in painting (see, I was right about Phillip — engineers can pay the bills. Painters and writers, not so much).

No. 4 of 4: The baby sister
Is it wrong that sometimes I still think of her as a kindergartner? It’s strange that I do, especially when I’m helping her edit a 300-level English paper she’s written for one of the many advanced courses she’s taking at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. I guess at any age, the youngest sibling is always considered “the baby.” And in our family, Julie is usually the peacemaker, too. She’s as flexible and easy-going as they come — probably out of sheer necessity. Growing up with three older siblings like us, she had to be laid back simply to survive.
Don’t let her low profile fool you, though, because her tongue can cut deeply if you touch a nerve. This is probably another survival mechanism developed from years of watching the three older ones go at it.
Julie and I have a lot in common, which makes being her big sister even more fun. I’ve dragged her around as my sidekick for years, and I hope she knows I plan to continue doing so for many more to come.

This may be the first holiday in years that the four of us won’t all be together under one roof, which I admit feels strange. However, experiences in the recent past make me think that it may not be the worst thing in the world. Now that we’ve all got unlimited text messaging, we can pick and choose what we say to whom and when. If we all text carefully, then this may prove to be the best holiday yet.

For Your Marriage

Click right here and you'll see a column I wrote featured front and center on the Web site. How exciting! I originally wrote the column for the paper, then on a whim e-mailed the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to tell them that their campaign made me stop and think. I included the column in the e-mail and offered it to them if they had any use for it. Looks like they did! It think this is a wonderful message the Catholic Church is trying to spread, and I'm excited to be a small little part of it.

Happy Birthday to me

OK, this post is a week late, but you get the idea. Instead of posting a goofy picture of myself, I'm posting a festive photo of Caddy. She quite enjoyed the birthday celebration, as you can tell! That's what happens when you're the blogger — you get to decide when to post goofy photos (too bad Phillip, Carolyn and Julie).
Although I don't know if getting another year older is something to celebrate at this point in my life, it was a great day (actually, a great week) anyway. Good thing I married such a thoughtful man!