lots of stuff...

It's official. I've pulled my Christmas Baking muscles - seriously. It started slowly, ya know, like warm-ups, with the peanut butter cookies and gingersnaps, but we kicked it into high gear on Friday with the quadruple batch of Christmas cookies (they couldn't even fit into my biggest Tupperware bowl, so I had to go the final few feet to the summit with my bare hands), followed by the puppy chow (shaken vigorously in the closed Tupperware (same bowl as used in above Christmas cookies) to thoroughly coat with healthy powdered sugar), topped off with fudge (stir constantly till it boils (on low - that takes a long time)) and a double batch of brownies.

"What are you baking all of this stuff for?" Kari asked.

"Uhm," answers Mom (me), "I don't really know - I just love to bake at Christmas."

So here I sit on this snowy Sunday morning, my back tight across the shoulders, my 'popeye' muscles on both of my forearms tired, like I've just nailed the hour long Body Pump class at the Y

Am I proud? You bet. Would I do it again? Probably not without warming up better. Is it important to have goals? Yes. Does Christmas baking count as a goal, really? Yes, really, in MY world.

I finished "The Subtle Knife" around midnight last night. It's the second book ini the Philip Pullman trilogy, of which "Golden Compass" is the first book. I found myself dog earing the pages that I found particularly brilliant and true. Here are some excerpts:

p. 25 - this is when Lyra meets Will, who's a human like us. He is surprised to see her daemon, her guardian animal, and she's answering him back:

"You HAVE a daemon," she said decisively. "Inside you."

He didn't know what to say.

"You have," she went on. "You wouldn't be human else. You'd be ... half dead."


p. 271 - this is Ruta, a witch, speaking of why she wants to help Lord Asriel defeat the Authority:

"And he invited us to join him, sister. To join his army against the Authority. He showed me that to rebel was right and just, when you considered what the agents of the Authority did in His name ... And I thought of the Bolvangar children, and the other terrible mutilations I have seen in our own southlands; and he told me of many more hideous cruelties dealt out in the Authority's name - of how they capture witches, in some worlds, and burn them alive, sisters. Yes, witches like ourselves..."

Yes, woven in between the lines of the story are a great Truth, but I acknowledge that it's a Truth I believe, and I can speak for no one else. All I can do is encourage every single person to decide for THEMSELVES what they believe to be true, and not to take anyone else's word for it. Yes, we listen to those we respect, but ultimately, we're responsible for our own choices. We can't hide behind the Church, or our jobs, or our politics, or even our families. We each have a voice, we each have an opinion, and we each have our experiences about what this life is all about. For me, it's about enlightenment, about realization, about knowing, and above all else - it's about love. In the end, that's the only thing that's real. For me.

So I'll finish off the trilogy with "The Amber Spyglass," finish my baking (with cinnamon glass candy and Snicker Doodles), get ready for our neighborhood kid's Christmas party at our house at 5, get ready for the huge Goddess Christmas bash that's on Tuesday, then wind down helping the kids at Bill's school celebrate their Christmas party. Kari's coming home on Friday, and I'm looking forward to hunkering down (whatever that means) for the holidays - with fires, and popcorn, and Christmas lights and sleigh rides, with Mastermind and chess, Scrabble and chicken or pig. Ahhhhhh... I can almost feel my muscles becoming less sore as I take a lot of deep breaths and just enjoy.