Merry Christmas from CheesePress Publishing!

 We've been diligently working on our youtube page for our publishing company, Cheesepress Publishing. 

We have managed to put up several videos a day for the last month, and as of today, our stats are climbing! 

Here is our Christmas video: I hope you enjoy it! 

As 2016 draws to a close

As 2016 draws to a close,  I sit here in a proverbial pillar of salt.  While it was an interesting and reasonably good year on a personal level, I am sad and despondent over the state of our nation. As much as I would like to be positive and say that 2017 is going to be a banner year, it is far more likely to become a shit-storm.

That me for me it is a time for introversion and building.

My book will be finished.

I will be working more with homeschoolers and maybe less in the arts... unless those two things combine.

I will make a decision about my Masters degree.. will I get one or not?

I hope I can find some joy this year.. as I have a wonderful family and am well cared for, but what good is my comfort if others are being persecuted?

Goodbye 2016.  I will spend the next few days putting on my armor for the coming years.

Tis the season to Give

I'm not going to go into it.

Matthew 6:4-6 says "Give your gifts in private, and your Father, who sees everything, will reward you."

So only a handful people will know the details... the person I had to get permission from to spend above the pre-set amt, the 2 women I tell my secrets to, and my children who notice everything I do... but the short and short of it is I was moody.  I knew someone had a need, and I took care of it.

HELLO CHRISTMAS SPIRIT.

For today anyway.  So that's the answer... think less about me and my moods and my ... depression... and think more about others and the mood will lift.  Good news. Good news.

So if you are one of those people for whom this holiday season brings you more down than up, find someone who is in need and help them... they are not too hard to find.  Just ask a couple of friends, or call a church or something. I know I didn't have to look far.


ps... I hope no one thinks I am bragging... I just really, really want to give advice to help those who get extra moody this time of year.

Til next time.

I seem to have lost my Christmas Spirit

Well.. actually, I've never been real big on Christmas.  I decided it was anticlimactic around the age of 11. My older brother used to wake everyone up at 3am to open gifts when we'd rather be sleeping and then we would go back to bed.  I never felt the warm fuzzies about that exercise...  I preferred the Christmas Mass at the church instead.  That's just me.

So I have been the producer of the Christmas show at the community theatre this year, and while it was fun and Christmassy, it occupied my thoughts in a way that was not very 'holiday'.. more business instead.  So that it over now, and I like 1 week before Christmas... OK... wow!

We have gifts that I need to wrap (put in store bought pre-decorated boxes) and I guess maybe we should start making cookies or something.

I wonder if anyone is having a party.  That might put me in the mood... or at least A mood.

Looking forward to Christmas break

I'm more excited about the boy's college graduation and the girls 3 weeks at home more than the actual holiday.  If I ever was a scrooge before, I am certainly feeling it now.

I just paid college tuition for the last time... for my daughter... for the school she is in. We are waiting to hear from my son's college re his grad school application, so there's money.... and girl wants grad school eventually, and I'm sure that's gonna cost us something... sooo...

Anyway, I can't wait for my daughter to get home so we can hang out and sew stuff and have inappropriate conversations... cuz that's what we do.  She's just growing up so fast that I find it both depressing and exciting.  She even had her first doctors appointment without me this week... she felt like garbage and did not ask me to drive 2 hours each way to accompany her to the doctor.  If course I had to reimburse her for the copay (yikes) and the prescription (double yikes) but she was well enough for her voice jury today, with her voice being as clear as a bell... just a few days ago she sounded like a sick frog.

I probably shouldn't talk about her so much... one of these days she's gonna come for me... and it aint gonna be pretty.

So signing off for now until I have something proper to complain about.

Merry Christmas, Share Something Today

View from my foyer... yes, we have 2 trees.

Newsflash.  I'm not a big fan of Christmas.   Hubby thinks it is because my mom died 17 years ago on Christmas morning, but it is not. It is not even because I have lost 4 of 8 siblings at a young age.  Nope.  I was over Christmas in the way it is celebrated sometime around the age 10.

I got over the way I found out about Santa... though it was cruel.  There was not enough money to go around, so everyone but the youngest two got a rude awakening... sure I was a little old to be believing, but I had a child's heart.  But that wasn't even the worst part.  The worst part was getting waken up at 3am every year to open gifts for one hour, and then it was over. Christmas was something we waited for all month or even much of the year, and it was over in 1 hour while still in a sleepy stupor.

Can you say anti-climactic?

So long before my first sibling died when I was 19... long before my mother passed away on my daughter's first Christmas morning, I was over it.

Once I was over the magic of St. Nick, however, I did discover midnight Mass Christmas services.  I can't tell you how much I love it- Celebrating the birth of Christ.  Interestingly enough, after moving South from New York to New Orleans, and eventually settling in Georgia, Midnight Mass Christmas celebration has become hard to find. (And aren't we in the bible belt?) So once again, I slept through midnight on Christmas Eve when I would have much rather been lighting candle's with strangers.

I did happen to make the best of today though.  (I am not saying this to brag, but to let you know how good it felt.)  Through the magic of Facebook, I was able to pass on a chest freezer I wasn't using, to a family having a refrigeration emergency...  they were so happy, and I was glad to help.  Those few minutes of sharing something I no longer needed, meant so much more to me than anything under the tree.

So with that said, have a Merry CHRISTmas, Happy Holy-days, and share something today- you won't regret it.

God Bless!

So glad my kids are all grown up - I can't deal with the elf

I have a relative- very glamorous young lady, with two adorable kids, and not too shabby hubby either. Beautiful family.  I am constantly in awe of her and her parenting prowess.  Even when the kids are driving her nuts, she holds it together and comes out looking like a supermom-fairy.  I am fascinated by the little joys she is finding with her small children, posting genuinely funny and insightful things they say and such.  And then there's the elf.  Their elf has a distinctive name, given by their oldest very clever child (no it's not just bias... he's amazing), and they manage to keep up the ruse quite effectively.  I am impressed.  Impressed and so glad my kids are all grown up.  The last thing I want to do is hide the elf. Next to her, I would look like a rank amateur.

I was so glad when I woke up this morning to the following post entitled Dear Perfect Elf on the Shelf people, an open letter.  I thought, "Oh Thank God", I'm not the only parent who just has better things to do than to figure out what to do with a creepy elf that is watching me every day.

Just to put it in proper perspective.  I didn't do Santa Clause either. I didn't make a big deal about telling my kids there was no such person. I just didn't ask get all giddy about it.  I let other people have their illusions, but I just didn't participate.  And when they asked, I gave them the best explanation I could find. I read to them stories like this and this. My daughter's take-away was ... so there was a St. Nick (Santa) and he lived long ago, and we give gifts at christmas because he gave selflessly to demonstrate Christ's love... or so I thought.

My daughter promptly went to school the next day and announced to her Kindergarten class that Santa was dead. "My mother said our parents are giving us gifts because someone named St. Nick started the tradition."  The end. The teacher promptly replied, you are a liar and so is your mother. (The beginning of the end of public school for us.)

Could you imagine me playing along with the elf story? Me neither.  Day 1, he might be clinging to a sticky candy cane. Day 2 he might be in the dog bowl... he'd probably lose a limb to the dog. Day 3, he might be packing a suitcase and heading toward the door.  Day 4, there might be a good-bye letter.

My kids probably won't let me near their kids at Christmas time.

Young people, re-think your vocabulary

Here is a video of Frederick Douglass' "Fourth of July Speech".

I promise you that Frederick Douglass took great pains to measure each and every word from his mouth.  He did not rely on slang and self-denigrating words to get his message across.  He used formal and intelligent speech and was still able to deliver a shocking and forceful address to his audience.

This speech and his representations of his race in many speeches helped to move mountains and changed the mindset of the intelligence of the black man in the minds of many doubters.   

I dare say that if today's young people would write and speak as intelligently, they would make an even stronger statement - deliver as much shock, as the most swear-word laden rant ever could.  

Measure your words. ... and take delight in vocabulary. 

Happy Fourth of July. 

Merry Imperfect Christmas

This Christmas tree is in my foyer.  It's about 15 feet tall and is pre-lit.  A couple days after we put it up we realized that there is a section (upper center) that did not light or is no longer lit. Oh well.  It is our imperfect christmas tree.  There was no way we were going to take everything off and play with each light until it lit up.  We will worry about that next year.  

Sometimes everything does not go as planned.  This Christmas, especially, the nation is depressed as a whole, for many reasons.  We are emotionally spent.  

I am going to call my tree a poetic representation of that. 

But........

We are together.  

Everyone can't say that we have our families in our homes right now.

All our children

Our siblings

 and if we are lucky, our parents.  

So my foyer tree, the first thing people see when they enter our homes are imperfect. 

But our family tree, and our family room is warm, cozy, and pretty darn nice, just like our family. 

And so with that, I say to you

Merry Imperfect Christmas.

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What is it about the holidays?

What is it about the holidays that makes the kids not want to do work?

The kids have been trying to ingore me all week. It is obvious they want a Christmas break... soon guys, soon.

They have one more class on Thursday, and then they are free until after New Years, though they will have to bring in completed projects when they go back. Meanwhile, they are doing everything possible, to put off things like...math, science, reading, etc.

If they were younger, this would be a good time for an advent calendar of a unit studies. If you are going through the same thing right now and want to do a unit study instead of fighting with your kids, here is one you can try.


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