Advent Calendar and Writing

The Advent season starts December 1, and I'm nipping at the bit.  I love this season.

The kids and I made an advent calendar that I stole from Pinterest (gah. one more addiction to battle.) and combined with our Nativity story books.  Each day has a different activity on it for December leading up to Christmas. 

I kept them rather small scale and unambitious because this is such a busy time of year for us, with Brandon working out of town nearly every day through December 20.  I didn't want to become frustrated by the activities, so we're going to do things like watch Polar Express, drive around to see Christmas lights, make hot cocoa, buy Christmas presents, etc. 

Coming up with the activities actually helped me to plan out the holiday season a little bit better than I might otherwise.

In the poetry world, I've been trying to write poems out of the advent wreath with its various meanings and themes.  From various Google searches, I've compiled this info: the first candle is the prophecy candle, primarily Isaiah – represents hope or anticipation of the coming Messiah.  The second candle represents love – Bethlehem candle, representing the manger, John the Baptist.  The third candle, the pink candle, represents joy – Shepherd’s candle, Mary. The fourth candle, purple, represents peace – Angel’s candle, the Magi. And on Christmas Eve, the white candle is lit – the Christ candle, life of Christ – purity.

I have two solid poems out of this project, the first more directly advent-ish than the other, but even if I sway from the prompt, I'm writing poems.  These kinds of projects make me think and help me stretch, so I'm not just waiting for inspiration to strike.  Sometimes inspiration is slow.  Like I'm late to work and trying to get three kids into winter coats and hats and boots but they aren't interested kind of slow.  :)  Amazing how motivated they are to leave the house when it's to play.  So that's what I'm doing for my inspiration - playing in poems.

On another note, my hearing seems to be coming back (hallelujah!), but tomorrow I have an ENT appointment just to see if they can determine what caused the hearing loss in the first place, and what I can do to prevent that from happening again.

This weekend is the Ashland Poetry Workshop.  I am teaching my first workshop.  I'm both excited and terrified.  I have a plan to reduce the terror, though, so there's hope.



Just Hear Those Sleigh Bells Jingling

We are home after visiting with family for the last few days, an always lovely time at Thanksgiving.  I'm grateful for family being so close and being able to spend time with both sides.  And, can you say leftovers?  Yum.  I'm on carb-overload.

I love coming home to a Christmas decorated house.  It's warm, welcoming, cozy, and peaceful.  And sometimes quiet.  This afternoon we watched The Grinch (the unanimated version), played Sorry, and folded laundry.  Now we're watching The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, and next on the list is the first Harry Potter - I think the others are all too frightening for these little people.  Maybe next year.  Henry is still napping.  Dinner is marinating.  Brandon is traveling and should be home tonight.  Oh, weekends!  May you never end. 

The coming week is a hectic one, with Brandon working a lot and me working a lot, several evening commitments, and some health issues I'm trying not to worry about.  Since Thanksgiving I haven't been able to hear out of my left ear, a problem I think started on Monday night when I was running with ear buds in.  After I ran for about 30 minutes I got off, and like sometimes happens, I had this hollow crackly sensation in my ears for the rest of the evening.  Normally this happens to me when I run in the cold outside, not while on a treadmill, but it usually fades away after a couple of hours.  This time, the crackling persisted through Tuesday and Wednesday, gradually turning into a fuzzy ringing until Thursday morning, when I woke up totally deaf in my left ear. 

When it didn't go away the rest of the day and continued into Friday morning, I went to the ER in Akron.  There's no sign of infection or blockage, and I still can't hear, though I do have some crackling again instead of just silence, ringing, and static.  I'm taking steroids and Mucinex to try to clear up any unseen blockage or reduce inflammation, whatever might be causing the hearing loss.  I plan to see an ear, nose, and throat doctor this week.

As usual, googling any health issue ultimately leads to cancer.  Every health concern you could imagine has some rare chance of being cancer, I'm convinced.  So I've stopped googling symptoms, except to see about any home remedies for stuff. 

Probably it's nothing but music too loud on my headphones while running, and hopefully it'll just go away.  Any constant off-ness in the body results in relentless thinking about what could be wrong, though.  Worry leads me to worry leads me to worry even more. 

I'm not sure it'll be fine, but I'm sure it'll be fine.  In the meantime, I will play Sorry, watch movies, cook dinner, do laundry, hang out with friends, and wait for my husband to come home as if it doesn't feel like I am wearing earplugs, and rejoice that it is the holidays.