Lights In The Darkness...

It is amazing how just when things seem darkest, there are lights to remind you that all is not lost. A little stuffed elephant arrived in my mailbox with twinkly stars on the fabric that lines its fuzzy ears (thanks a million Erin!), a stitcher called from Toronto to see if I wanted the phone numbers of the Mac shops there who might have parts kicking around, a friend called out of the blue to say that she’d been sending happy thoughts my way because I’d been on her mind, I got lots of sympathetic and understanding e-mails about the delay in getting the Morning and Evening Dragons on-line... and after I came home from running an enrichment afternoon at Nick’s school there was a message on my machine from the contact person at Apple Canada telling me that my logic board part shipped out today!!!

Of course, with the holidays this weekend, it might not get here quite as quickly or get repaired in time for Christmas Eve, but I think I have an alternate plan in the works so that I can still get a tiny gift ready for stitchers to enjoy from the newsletter thanks to a few helpful elves!!

Upstairs as I write this, 140 cookies are drying after being iced with all kinds of colours. As soon as the Royal Icing is hard enough to package, they will be assembled into baskets, boxes and mugs for teachers, bus drivers, neighbours etc. When the dragon can’t be on her computer... she bakes! Actually, I do it in batches every weekend in advent and feed the freezer then take everything out the night before to ice/decorate. The only bad thing about being stressed and having baking around is the incredible temptation to eat it all!!!

So.... tomorrow is the last day of school for the girls. I am having a craft session at our house Friday morning with my girls and 4 neighbours kids who have chosen not to go to school for the 2 1/2 hours that it is open on Friday morning. It should be a half day, but because of the bus schedule, our kids would arrive at school at 8:15 and leave again at 10:30... which seems really silly to me. We’ll just take in all the teacher presents tomorrow and get them out of the way so that we can relax a bit Friday until their teacher parents come to our house and the real unwinding begins!!

If nothing else, these past few weeks have taught me that you need to be persistent and firm when trying to get an answer to a problem, to laugh when you feel like crying, to remember that there are always lots of other people who would still trade places with you in a heartbeat, that there are still many wonderful moments of light and hope amid the chaos... and that the true magic of this season is that it can work miracles through people all around you!