HIGH BUTTON SHOE
December 14, 2005
Good morning & Merry Christmas,
I say Merry Christmas because I am thoroughly disgusted with all this politically correct jargon about having to have a "holiday" tree rather than a Christmas tree! We are letting a very few zealous people change words and traditions we have held dear for decades into something else. My theory, if you don't like that, you don't have to say it, but I am still going to say Christmas! and I demand the right to do so. When did we become SO afraid to offend somebody that we allow everything we knew to be altered into something different? OK, I will get off my soap box. I know newsletters are NOT to be religious or political, and for my outburst I apologize. Generally I keep those opinions to myself. If you prefer to be taken off my mailings due to this "opinion", let me know.Having said all that, I don't have a tree at all! BUT if I did, it would be a Christmas tree. This is my third year of no tree. I never would have imagined I could get through the season without a tree! My house remains too full for a tree. I do have 6 small ones in the living room and two tiny ones in the dining room. However, my feather tree stays out all year, so I don't know that I could call that a seasonal decorating. The collections are mostly out. I find some of my older ones aren't quite primitive enough anymore for my taste and they remain in the boxes. Yesterday, with the arctic packs on, my red wool hat plastered down to only allow sight (but kept my ears and forehead warm), I trudged thru the mounting snow to some of the tall pines left from our tree harvest, and cut fresh pine boughs for the house. I did this for the shop weeks ago, on ground void of snow, and it was much easier going. However, probably not as much fun. While out, I shoveled a wide path from the shop to the road, and paths to the pole barn. Shoveling snow remains to be my only exercise of the winter, beside the inevitable grumbling about winter. I don't suppose sitting on the porch with a cup of steaming hot coffee, watching the snow fall & birds would be considering exercise, however, that is a daily winter pastime for me. I suspect the 'thaw' of the past two winters that took all the snow down to bare ground in January is too much to expect. But one can always hope. Shoveling snow is supposed to make me tall and thin, but that hasn't materialized in past winters either. Even hope is lost on that subject, I am sure.I took lots of pictures of the house. Well only 3 rooms, as the others need cleaning desperately.I sent Beulah the pictures, so hopefully she can find time in this busy season to upload them and you can see my house decorated. I took some, but failed to see things before the picture that the camera captures, and you wonder WHY didn't I move that? So I need to do some retakes.Like most of you, December is a very busy month for me. To add to the general confusion, I had to be in Cadillac every day last week! Even if it is only for a few hours and a few errands, that tends to disrupt my entire day. I was working on a card order, and needed to get the photos printed, and par for the course, when under deadline, anything and everything that can go wrong does. I did eventually, of course, get them done and shipped, but who would have figured it would be so many trips into town to accomplish that? Murphy's Law...or Clotilda's brain. There are days that nothing you do goes right. Around that schedule, I worked in a newspaper interview and photographer coming to the shop. Wedged in would possibly be a more appropriate term. I was literally on my way out the door for an errand for my folks (and never should have answered the phone) to find that the photographer would be coming as soon as I got back home. Have I mentioned in this cold that I have many bad hair days due to a hat plastered down over my head OR the alternative which is wind, snow and rain on your hair. That day I was hatless. Thinking he would just take pictures of the shop (wrong!), I found ME on the front page of the paper!! Good grief! Two hours notice certainly did not give me enough time to loose 40 pounds, or fix my hair after being out in the elements.Speaking of elements, what is with the big parking lots?? Yegads! WHO teaches people to drive anymore? Do drivers lose all sense of etiquette, common sense or just plain sanity when snow covers the lines? I generally park way out in the lots and walk the distance, to protect my beautiful truck from some idiot. I should write a book on the common sense rules of driving and walking in parking lots and make each person entering the parking lot take a quiz. How can people walking, totally NOT look at cars coming at them? They walk right out in front of the car. Even from their peripheral (sp?), they must see something there.www.crowsoup.com comes out tomorrow, as it always does on the 15th of the month. Probably later in the day, as it has gotten so big. We are at http://www.crowsoup.com/Market586.php I will be starting new patterns the first of the year, and hope to revamp the website in the first few weeks, with the new things. Check back often.We at HighButtonShoe wish all of you a warm & happy Christmas season.Thank you for asking to be a part of our farm!in fond regard, Tilda, Beulah and Ronnie