A Christmas memory

n a cold Minnesota Saturday afternoon in late December my mother is clutching my little sister’s hand as the crowd of women and children in their Sunday finery swirls around us. This much activity is not the norm. The sight of my mother in heels, hose and her “good” fur-trimmed coat meant a special occasion. The fact that we were accompanying her meant that something very extraordinary was happening:  Santa was coming to town. Three-year-old Louise grips her brown paper sack of hard ribbon candy and popcorn ball in her mittened hand. Brownie, Danny Brown manager of the Adams Furniture store dressed in his clip on bow tie and short sleeved white shirt, was busy passing out the gift bags to impatiently waiting children. I’m a very mature 7-year-old who has important accessories, along with my personal stash of candy, in my shoulder bag which was now hanging around my knees. Five-year-old Gale, my little brother, sees a friend behind us and twists around to try to talk to him. We’re hot and sweaty after coming out of the warm, stuffy furniture store into the cold afternoon air. We’re wearing heavy winter coats, snow pants and boots.

If you are a grown up lady you don’t have to wear boots in winter unless there’s lots of snow. There are some women who treated the Saturday event almost as if it was any other Saturday. They came to town with their heads wrapped in scarves to thinly disguise the curlers underneath in preparation for their appearance in church on Sunday. They went about the business of getting their weekly groceries at Johnny Wagner’s Super Value, mailing a Christmas package of homemade divinity to their cousin at the post office, followed by picking up red and white stripped candy canes at Schaefer’s Drug Store. What made this day unusual was that these women, including my mother, brought their children with them because the Merchant’s Assn had a wonderful marketing gimmick.

They put their heads together and decided to encourage the farm families to come to town to shop by sponsoring free movies for the children on the Saturday afternoons in December before Christmas. Vernon Schaefer, father of 5, devout Catholic, member of the Merchants Assn who sold insurance and also ran the Adams Theatre, choose appropriate films for young children approved by the Catholic League of Decency. I think we saw Babes in Toyland every Saturday one year.

On the Saturday before Christmas the air was full of electricity as adults and children filled the stores and sidewalks awaiting Santa’s arrival. Seated his La-Z-boy throne, centrally located in the middle of the furniture store, Santa heard all the children’s Christmas wishes. I wanted a real baby doll with beautiful crocheted clothes. Louise wanted a real puppy to could sleep in bed with her.

That wasn’t something that you wanted to hear from someone you share a bed with. Gale wanted a real tractor he could drive to farm the garden.

We were a typical Midwestern farming community in the 50’s. Sacred Heart Catholic Church stood down the crushed rock road yards from my back door. Little Cedar Lutheran Church was directly across the street from my cousin Linda’s house at the other end of town. Marshall Lutheran Church was out in the country. We passed it going to my grandparent’s farm. My dad grew up there and two of his three sisters still lived there along with his parents.

We were not a diverse community. Migrant Mexican farm workers picked potatoes near Blooming Prairie, but that was miles from us and we certainly never came in contact with them. I never saw a black person, except in Missionary pictures of pagan babies, or Life magazine until I was 10 years old.

You wouldn’t know it to look at us, but my two brothers, my sister and I were all the result of a mixed marriage! Our definition of a mixed marriage meant that one party was Lutheran and the other was Catholic. My father was raised in a very strict Lutheran home. My mother’s mother was a devout Catholic who attended daily mass. Grandma was a favorite of the nuns and they often walked past our house on Friday, baking day. Grandma always generously gave them a fresh loaf of bread to take back to the convent.

Despite the fact that we lived a block from the center of town, we kids were never allowed to run wild like a pack of Indians. Getting uptown for the December movies was a mixed blessing. A small taste of the high life, while we were expected to be on our best behavior because after all Christmas was only days away! The unfairness of the pressure to be good.

My mother had a firm grip on her handbag in one hand and my sister in her other leather gloved hand. Mother hurries us along as Louise stared at her reflection in the Adams Furniture Store window.  The bank president is passing buffalo nickels out in front of the Farmers State Bank and then it’s across the railroad tracks and home. I can almost feel the cold metal against my warm palm where I slipped it inside my mitten for safe keeping. A nickel bought a lot in 1957.

December brings us the holiday season which many consider to be the happiest time of the year, but the challenges of being a personal shopper, gourmet baker and chef, tree decorator and correspondence queen lead many of us to promise that next year we’ll do things much differently. Over the years I’ve tried to incorporate ways to make the short time between Thanksgiving and Christmas less hectic by buying gifts all year on sale and stashing holiday baking in the freezer weeks ahead. But then I’d forget where I hid the gifts, and somehow the treats would disappear from the freezer. Yesterday, I spent the day making sugar cookies, ginger snaps, banana bread, and a family favorite–my famous peanut clusters. The house smelled wonderful and with the combination of the scent of fresh Christmas tree in the family room, my holiday season had officially begun.

There’s still time this year to simplify and ransom the joy of the season that we wish for everyone else back for ourselves. My suggestion for living a Simple Abundant life this month has to do with wrapping your gifts. When wrapping your holiday treasures, choose one paper pattern for each gift recipient. You will know immediately who gets what and they will appreciate the fact that you took such care in wrapping their gift. It could even be a game to match the paper with a personality or the contents of the package. Have fun with it and be creative. Remember, gift wrap doesn’t have to come from the store. Think Green:  use the comics, newspaper, butcher paper, brown craft paper, or grocery bags. Or, “wrap” using a fabric bag.

Wishing you all the Blessings, Beauty and Joy

of this Holiday Season

and a Simple Abundant Life today and every day!

As I write this the house is filled with a wonderful scent from my childhood. I’ve been baking bread all day in anticipation of our Thanksgiving feast tomorrow. My assignment is rolls and Orange Sherbert Jello because it wouldn’t be a complete dinner without Aunt Mary’s rolls and Jello.

When I was growing up Friday was bread baking day. We children couldn’t wait until supper to have a fresh biscuit, we begged to have one right out of the oven with the butter still shimmering on the crust. Sometimes, we’d get to indulge in the treat. But usually we were told to wait because the hot bread wouldn’t digest well, or something like that which we didn’t quite believe. I was reminded of that simple joy when my daughter came into the kitchen as I was buttering a batch of dinner rolls and said she wanted to eat one right now because they smelled so good! I told her to go ahead and I sat down and ate one with her! It tasted like my Grandma’s best biscuits.

We’ll gather at my sister-in-law’s home for a traditional menu of turkey with all the trimmings. I’m grateful to be able to contribute in a small way and perhaps because my daughter, neices and nephew have grown up with my home made rolls, they’ll have stories to tell some day about simple things like fresh bread that made their childhood special.

Wishing you and yours a Happy Thanksgiving!

It seems as if it was only yesterday we were together at our Morning Break for Women Simple Abundance Close-to-Home Workshop. This picture shows the smiling faces of the wonderful women who invited me to lead them on a journey to discover their “authentic self.” We discussed how important it was to take time for ourselves and I recently sent out an e-mail with a little suggested activity. As we approach that season of frenzied activity, don’t forget that in taking care of yourself you will be in a better position to take care of those you love.

One of my favorite pamperings is to take a long, hot bath with Lavender bath salts. The salts smell heavenly!  I close my eyes and breathe in the lovely scent while the hot water soothes my sore muscles. After a full day of _____________ (you fill in the blank:  baking, card writing, decorating, craft making with the children, and of course, your “normal work routine”) perhaps that would be something you’d enjoy as well. I make my own bath salts and you can too.
You will need:  1. Epson salts (you can find this in any drug store, Target, or Wal-Mart)
      2.  Essential Oil (you can find this at a drug store, Target, or Michaels)
      3.  Glass jar with a tight lid (such as a Mason canning jar)
Fill the glass jar just full enough that the salts move freely when you shake it.
Add 2-3 drops of your favorite scent of Essential Oil to the salt, cover securely and shake several times to distribute the Essential Oil.
Allow several hours before using so that the Essential Oil is fully absorbed into the salt.
Then fill the tub, add the scented bath salts, pour a glass of Sparkling Cider, light candles, slide into the watery bliss and ENJOY!
Wishing you a Simple Abundant Life today and every day!

I gratefully acknowledge I am able to celebrate another birthday and another year full of the creative pursuit of healing.

I observed the crisp fall days signalling that summer had ended and another season has begun.

I the welcomed my great neice when she was just hours old and days after we buried my father-in-law who died suddenly when the month was new.

I launched my Simple Abundance Workshop Leader career in the company of enthusiastic Sarah supporters.

I discovered a wonderful new tea place and reconnected with a Kindred Spirit.

I attended my 40th high school class reunion; thoroughly enjoyed reminiscing with old friends for hours and the synchronicity of the fact I’m embarking on a new career while many of them are relishing retirement.

I presided in my official WNBA capacity at a Natl Reading Group Month event and was delighted at how comfortable I have become speaking in front of a group.

I sat among the 14,000 women who filled the Long Beach Convention Center for the California Women’s Conference organized by Maria Shriver which had all the glamour of Hollywood with the intensity of Washington D.C.

I slipped away for a Napa retreat and found myself in an Italian Villa designed to facilitate rest and relaxation. It was an incredibly inspiring atmsphere and I can’t wait for another opportunity to be surrounded by the company and the setting.

Here we are notebooks in hand, pencils freshly sharpened and a new pack of 24 Crayola Crayons ready to face the classroom again. I know, I know many of us haven’t seen the inside of a classroom in quite some time. But doesn’t the calendar page turning from August to September automatically take you back to getting ready for school? With the weather we’ve been having on the Coastside I’ve defintely been thinking Indian Summer - without the glorious oranges and reds of the Fall leaves, but with lots of unsually warm temperatures.

The air is deliciously full of possibility this time of year; a pre-schooler is suddenly entering elementary school, a shy child has discovered her peers and bounds into middle school, an awkward adolescent has blossomed overnight into a high school student who will soon disappear into the “real world!”  And it occurred to me that we are all those individuals every time we step out to try something new as “students of life.”

I am so grateful that I have the ability to tap into my creativity to help me cope with the challenges I encounter along the way. Being able to dream, to hunger for something more, to risk falling by reaching beyond my grasp for new experiences and stepping into the unknown. What shall I be today? The options are just too exquisite and I’m hugging myself in anticipation.

I wish you freshly sharpened pencils, pages of unblemished paper, a wild pallet of pigments and time to create a splendidly educational opportunitity for yourself - as only you can…

I attended a workshop recently where we were asked to tell as many people as we could what we were passionate about in five minutes. There were 60 of us in that hotel ballroom, but I only managed to talk to two people. The first woman I spoke with nodded in agreement and said “Cool,” when I recited my line: I’m passionate about encouraging women to use Creativity as a healing tool. She said she was passionate about going to a game in Yankee Stadium before it gets torn down. She was quite serious.

The next woman I spoke with said she was passionate about her 2-year-old son. I said it must be hard to leave him for our five day conference. She said “yes, I miss him so much!” and asked what my passion was. I told her and her immediate response was, “I don’t have a creative bone in my body.” To which I immediately launched into my usual line of questions.

Do you like to cook?

No, I don’t know where my kitchen is!

Do you like to garden?

I live in an apartment and I have a black thumb.

Do you ever read a map and choose a different route to travel?

Do you try new things?

Do you take risks?

Are you adventurous?

Well, that I can say I do, she said warily. But, I’m not creative. I don’t paint and I’m not crafty.

OK, she conceded, then I guess I am Creative!

What about you? After all this discussion you have to consider yourself Creative too!

It was a gorgeous summer day today and I found myself needing to be outside. I took a blanket, a cup of tea and settled on the deck chair to see what the afternoon would bring me. Soon all my senses were engaged. I was entertained by the gentle breeze making the leaves on the trees dance and the birds playing tag in the branches of the lemon tree heavy with ripe fruit. The sweet scent of spent roses greeted me as I buried my nose in the flower and the soft velvet of the falling petals brushed against my skin. My tea has never tasted more delicious than this afternoon while I was being lavished with Nature’s affection.It was very, very pleasant to sit in the garden without an agenda or specific task to accomplish. Lately, I’ve been consumed with some very ambitious projects and while I have accomplished a great deal, there are other tasks I have not been successful in completing. I have been letting myself become caught up in a cycle of overwhelm and disappointment. I have to remember that every morning is a brand new day and all I have to do is to just keep showing up with gratitude, love and joy in my heart and remember: All I have is all I need.

I hope you have a chance to stop and smell the roses, sit in the garden, or watch the waves roll in, and consider how with tapping into our Creativity we have more than enough to handle whatever life has in store for us. See you in the garden…

Since my last dispatch I have had numerous incidents to write about, yet I have not. My reasons are frustrating, exciting, tedious, and just plain boring. Life happened and I’ve been running from one project to another at warp speed. Here are some of the occasions which have consumed my attention:

1. Launching is the Simple Abundance Close-to-Home Workshops:  Overcoming the stress factor  is my motivating argument to encourage women to sign up for the workshops. However, this has not been the case and despite my best positive thinking approach and the  encouraging advice of “just set a date and people will sign up,” to my disappointment, I have not had anyone sign up for a workshop - as yet.

2.  WNBA-SF Gala and the WNBA National meeting:  The flury of activity of preparations and overseeing that long-anticipated weekend consumed my thoughts for almost a year. When the time finally arrived, I was amazed at how calm I was and delighted in the fact I could step up to the microphone without notes and welcome 87 people for dinner as if I did it all the time. It ultimately was a fun evening, but I’m so glad it’s over!

3. The Journal Writing Conference in Denver immediately followed the WNBA weekend and I got to spend time with my sweet friend Cindy and get reacquainted with my first writing teacher, Christina Baldwin.

4. I was the subject of an interview, instead of the other way around, and it was a very heady experience. I liked it. Now, in addition to my writing samples I have a file of stories about me!

5.  I’ve been invited to write a column for an on-line magazine and to choose the subject matter I wanted to write about. Of course, it will be about Creativity and it’s healing properties.

Well, it seems I have lots of material to keep writing about here so stay tuned, Dear Readers. I’ll be back… 

It would seem a farmer’s daughter would have more affinity with the earth, but alas that has never been my story. Planting a garden full of vegetables has never appealed to me and having dozens of thriving house plants has not been my good fortune. My mother used to refer to the tangles of indistinguishable green vines which lived on a chrome utility cart as her “jungle.” It subsisted on intermittent watering so that it was either a rain forest or desert and absolutely no plant food of any kind. I guess I’ve taken after her in that respect because plants that come into my home have little chance of survival if they do not possess a strong sense self-preservation. But I do believe the house, indeed everyone in our home, is happier when there are healthy green plants. Consequently, I am a very good customer of the local nurseries. I have very good intentions when I purchase plants for inside and outside my home. However, I did not inherit the “farmer” gene. (Thankfully, my brother did inherit it as the family farm is his livelihood.)

I took myself to the local nursery not too long ago to refresh the plants in the house and change the landscape in the pots by the front door. I took my time wandering the aisles of scented lavender, sprawling hydrangeas, scented geraniums and tailing ivy. Enjoying fantasies about all the wonderful combinations of plants I’d like to see in my surroundings made me smile and sigh. Some day I would love to have a trellis loaded with sweet jasmine in my garden so the heavy perfume would penetrate every cell of my being as a lie in the sun in a hammock, sipping lemonade and reading something wonderful. Turning the earth in big clay pots gives me a sense of of connection with my Minnesota roots. Right now I’m content having Martha Washington Pink Geraniums greeting me when I approach my front door.

A visit to your local nursery may start you on a Creative journey as well. What about lingering in the floral department at the grocery store, sitting on a park bench enjoying the sun on your face, or stopping to smell the roses..what will be your first step towards a getting next to Nature Creative excursion be?