Pansyiana: December 2003 Archives

It tried very hard to not be a good Christmas. The transmission on our van died somehow. We were in one of those positions where when something like that happens, perhaps you should get a new car, but do not have the money for one, so you end up spending a lot of money to fix it. Groan. So now our used van has a new transmission. And we are really broke.

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Christmas Day was very nice. We finally got it into our heads not to spend a bazillion dollars on the kids and keep it simple. This was more out of necessity this year, but it worked out well. The children were very happy and our family usually spoils them something terrible. Also, I did not have to spend a month after Christmas finding places to put things.

We went downstate to visit my grandmother who made her usual Italian dinner, antipasto, followed (usually by soup, but not this time), lasagna and then dinner which was roast pork and vegetables. After that we went to Pennsylvania to visit my mother in law.

On the way back up, I stopped at CVS in Yonkers to pick up dramamine for the boys and met Phylicia Rashaad purchasing allergy medicine. It was all my daughter could do to contain herself because she loves old reruns if the Cosby Show. No I did not make a fool of myself and say "ohmy gosh, your Mrs. Huxstable!" but I thought about it when she told me "we're here for the same things..." and I recognised her voice.

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The Saturday before Christmas, we were blessed to meet some more of our neighbors. We are grateful. One neighbor offered to help with our driveway in exchange for help fixing his woodshed. Another offered to show us how to raise chickens in exchnage for eggs. Our neighbor next door gave us a gift basket or cookies, canned peaches and pineapple peach jam. I have yet to meet his wife due to the snow. Most of it is melted now, and I stopped by yesterday to drop off a panettone I baked, but they were not in. Their driveway was a bit of an obstacle for a car, so I am not sure if we will attempt that again unless on foot.

Now my husband is on vacation for the week. I was supposed to go down to Washington with my father (who now works there) and hang out with Peony, but with our expensive car troubles, it was not very prudent. Next vacation.

He did not want to drive an hour away to Oneonta at midnight to go see Lord of the Rings. Claiming that we would have gotten home at like 4 am and he would have had to leave for work at 5 am. What a pill! I guess we will have to wait until Saturday like some kind of psuedo-fans.

I met one of my Amish neighbors who comes by to use our phone. The kids were thrilled to see him and loved his horse. He asked me again if it is OK to use our phone because it is the closest one to him in miles and he did not want to be a nuisance. I told him not to be silly. He also said if my husband needs help with anything, please ask because he is concerned we will get our van stuck in the drive-way, but he can see my husband is a FedEx driver, so he is probably a good driver.

He told me he had three boys and he looked like he was in his early twenties.

I wonder if I would be allowed to meet his wife and socialise with her a bit.

Before I start whining, I am so grateful to be finally here. My husband did a wonderful job painting and whatnot. Our upstairs still has boxes of clothes that need to be unpacked, or gone through or just chucked. Kids accumulate so many clothes.

The hard part (so far) is the plumbing. The Mennonites who lived here previously had no use for hot water (if running water at all-the bathtub is brand new and completely unused). We had Agway come and install a tankless hot water heater and our cooking stove. I was not able to cook for a week, so what a relief that was. After the Agway guys left, we found we only had hot running water in our bathroom.My husband looked around our plumbing and saw the cold water pipe was simply disconnected from the pressure tank. Last night he reconnected it and tested the cold water. It started to rain in our house. Ugh. Our Amish neighbor (perhaps knows) the pipe probably burst last winter, and they simply disconnected the cold water pipe since all the water was running cold anyway. Now we are waiting on the plumber. The good news is, despite the "rain", it was only a small amount and the damage to the ceiling is fixable. I do feel like I am in some bad comedy about a city family moving to the country.

In other news, tomorrow is my birthday. I have reached the point in birthdays where I wish they would stop coming too quickly, or at least stop making me a year older.We are expecting a big snow storm and will probably be snowed in for the weekend.