December 17, 2014 Advent with SusieJ

Limits

For the last few years, I've taken every Monday in December for vacation, so that I can bake as much as I want to, without becoming overwhelmed. There's a lot of baking, a little decorating, a goodly amount of kitchen cleanup, and at least an episode or two of some favorite series. Weekends are free for decorating with my son Jake, shopping, seeing friends, and normal life with a fourth-grader.

In September, thinking about whether to write this calendar this year, I decided that it could be a tribute to Mom. What better tribute than twenty-four carefully written and edited essays about her and her affect on my life? I would start then, write rough drafts in October, polish them in November and probably December, and have one of the easiest years of writing this yet. No frantically grinding out paragraphs on the train to and from work! It wasn't until November that I could actually start writing. Although I had over a dozen rough drafts, days are going up much less polished than I would like.

Sunday, I tried to clean the house to decorate. The cleaning was not a problem, but I can't bring myself to get the decorations out of the attic. I wanted to shop — I need to shop if we're going to have presents — and can't be bothered to go on line even. Today, Monday, I can barely bring myself to make a few batches of cookie dough. I've hit the limit of Christmas without Mom.

Mom knew limits. It might have looked like she blasted through them, but she didn't. She worked around them. When she couldn't lift her arms to cook, she ate in the dining room at the retirement home, with her friends. She hired help, and bought equipment. She did what she could as long as she could, and then she did something else.

Today I will clean, and watch TV, and get Jake early from after care. Tomorrow will be better.

(I wrote this two days ago, and things are better. There will be a new entry tomorrow, no worries.)

[Copyright Susan J. Talbutt, all rights reserved.]Mom and I in Philadelphia or Washington, DC.

The recipe: Chocolate roll

This is the best chocolate cake ever. The cake is rich and intensely chocolatey. The whipped cream is the perfect balance.

The craft: German paper stars

The German answer to origami.