Two church programs to ring-and-sing and a Christmas brunch

Imagine these singers with handbells

I’ve had no “company” since the floors were all re-done, so I invited the eight bell ringers to a brunch. Why not? Our Christmas music presentation was December 14 and we wouldn’t be rehearsing until next year?

          You’ve heard that when one part of your house gets a new face (or floor, in this case), it calls for upgrades in other departments? Those’ll have to wait until next year. I’ve tried to repair the ceiling in the living room by hook and by crook, and up until I painted my handiwork, I was satisfied. Not now. All I could do was to hide it under a similar-colored, sheer cloth with push pins and spray glue. Time, time, time! Like reading the newspaper, it took ‘way too much time. I could almost write a BuzzFeed article, “Ten Ways to Waste Your Time Trying to Do It Yourself.” And I may—next year.

         To warm up the kitchen one recent morning, I decided to bake, using the peanut-butter cookie packet, the cornbread muffin box and one of the clipped recipes for pumpkin cake/pumpkin pie cake. I’d freeze the cookies and the pie-cake for the brunch and our family Christmas.

          The kitchen warmed before I started on the third item. And, because there were so many other things to do—do I have a short attention span?—I turned off the oven, loaded and started the dishwasher.

            As in 2013, this year, I toted the top tier of a 3-part, 6-foot, pre-lighted tree from the attic, set it in a fishbowl of marbles. Voila! Centered on a long, narrow table covered to the floor in maroon cloths and placed in front of the east window, it glows with symmetry--and pears.

           The dining table was re-dressed and readied for food. As BFF Dot knows, it’s hard to keep a dining table clear just for dining. It’s happened many times before: papers, notes, calendars, to-do lists got pushed off into a box and shunted under or behind or inside something. Hopefully, in all that clutter, no unpaid bills get lost. It’s possible the box will be forgotten until a deep-cleaning spell next spring—if then.

         In the meantime, two musical “programs” were planned—on the same day: early church at Bryant; late church at Salem. Sis Carolyn and I rang bells in both—she led the latter group, so we rushed out of the first service after we finished our part, then raced to the second venue to reset the chancel from THEIR early service to the traditional Lessons and Carols.

           With 3 bell tables, additional chairs for 3 brass players, the choir director was squeezed behind a bell player and the sopranos. I’m lobbying for a roll-out extension of the chancel for special programs—in both churches.

            But we survived, and after a long, Sunday-afternoon nap, and continued preparations for the bell brunch--which was a barrel of fun--well… here’s my post for this week.

           May we all slow down, breathe deeply and still enjoy the onrush to Christmas.

Seasonal preparations continue

by Pat Laster

Little by little, slowly but surely, Couchwood is beginning to look more like Christmas and winter. Sunday night I washed the last two windows and laid “blankets of snow” on the frames where upper and lower sections meet. On the “snow” are freshly washed pieces of cobalt blue glass--the light-weight ones ballasted with marbles.
Monday’s task was to organize the loose papers from the library table, one end of the buffet-cum-cabinet and the work table in the middle of the room. My BFF Dot (dothatfield.com) wrote on her blog last week about kudzu. My flat surfaces are kudzu-ed for sure.Here it is Thursday and those papers are still a mess.
When I told people that I was taking a break from church, one person said, “But the Christmas music! You don’t want to miss the Christmas music, do you?”
My CD and cassette players, the radio, the two bell symphony music boxes Billy (and his mother) bought me, the Christmas VHS movies, the piano with all the Christmas songbooks out of the bench and onto the ledge—how can I miss Christmas music? (OK, writer friends, I know I used Christmas five times in two paragraphs, but…)
Oh, and I was lucky enough to get invited to ride along to the River City Men’s Chorus Christmas concert last week. Talk about beautiful music! But a downside: the next morning, I had a fresh cold, a sore throat, as well as all-day sneezing and dripping, the first such malady to hit in many years that lasted longer than 24 hours.
Alas! My paperback dictionary finally came apart at the “o”s. (If I were on Facebook, would that be the kind of information I’d post?) Keeping to the trivial, I have something in common with Taylor Swift, who at 21, is the same age as grandson/ward Billy: “I love a good flea market,” she told Parade magazine.
Parts of Arkansas woke up to a surprise snow last week Check out my blog, pittypatter.blogspot.com to read some poems that developed from it.
Records for a one-day rainfall fell in five Arkansas towns on December 5. Amounts at Adams Field in Little Rock broke the record set in 1936 (my birth year). In North Little Rock, the last record was set in 1984. In Hot Springs, in 1996. At the Jacksonville/Little Rock Air Force Base, rain shattered the old record set in 1984. And in Batesville, the record set in 1943 was broken. I still haven’t dared look in my basement to see how high the water is.
Billy auditioned for next semester's Henderson State University Chamber Singers and “made it,” he told me last week. Color me proud, again. I missed their concert a Sunday or three ago. It was raining and I didn’t want to drive in it. Color me cowardly. He said me there was a link to viewing it, but he’s yet to show me where.
Hot Springs’ son Eric “didn’t get even one shot off” during this deer season, he said. None he saw was large enough to produce a “trophy.” But his 10-year-old niece (my granddaughter) Emma killed two in Mississippi. There should be enough venison to go around in the Paulus-Laster family in 2012.
May it be so with you and yours.