Sweet Potatoes and Advent

Today we mostly decorated for Christmas. It's also the first day of Advent. One year I wrote a post for every day of Advent, and I'm not entirely sure that's something I can commit to this year. I spend about 12 hours a week in a car commuting to work (by choice, and audiobooks are awesome!), so it's all about setting good boundaries with my time these days. Maybe I'll write again before Baby Jesus comes.

Anyway, we watched our first day of Advent church online from our bed. There was a little football game last night that you may have heard about, and it had us in bed after midnight. As we watched on TV this morning, we were reminded that the first candle of Advent is lit for hope.

Fast forward to this afternoon. I turned on a Hallmark movie to try to get myself hyped about decking the Hickman Family Halls. If you know me at all, you know I believe Hallmark movies are mostly good for heckling, not so much for entertainment. Nonetheless, I Hallmarked. I think this made Trey happy, but it mostly made me grinchier.

While setting up nativities and Santas, I was struck by how much has changed in 2024. I left the organization I worked for for 21 years. Keaton moved out, leaving us empty nesters. We (kind of) started going to a new church. All of these fundamental things in my life are the opposite of the last time I hauled the Christmas decorations out of storage. 

So I had a moment. A good cry, if you will. And bless the heart of the wonderful Trey Hickman, he sat with me right through it. 

Once I got over myself, I remembered the sermon from Church #2 last week. I should probably mention the scripture here, but honestly I don't remember it. I remember the message being over the great debate about marshmallows or pecans and brown sugar on the sweet potatoes at Thanksgiving. 

People have opinions, man. 

The point? In the end what really matters is the sweet potatoes. We can fuss and fight and argue (and be sad) about the toppings, but without the sweet potatoes we got nothin'.

I read something today that said "You can't live in gratitude and expectation. You have to pick one." I'm not sure I agree with that, but today I choose gratitude. 

And so on this first day of Advent I am thankful for the sweet potatoes. For the good guy God gave me to marry. The fun job I have with encouraging people. All the great folks I got to work with and love on over the years in my other job. That my kids live basically down the street. That Trey and I are 47 and 57 and still have all four of our parents here this holiday season. And a million billion other things. 

As Mike Greeson would say, "The Good Lord takes care of us, don't he?"

Apparently I'm co-opting the advent week of hope for gratitude. Let's call it the final week of Thanksgiving as well. I hope you have a week of gratitude ahead of you. 

(See what I did there?)

Baby Jesus is coming to save the world! And he loves every darn one of us whether we like it or not. He is the sweet potatoes!  

I love Christmas!

P.S. - The right answer is pecans and brown sugar. 

P.S.S. - This is my cardinal tree. If you ever gave me a cardinal ornament, it comes out every Christmas and I remember you with joy in my heart. 

The end. 

The World's Most Beautiful Saturday

I've been thinking lately I should write more or write again or whatever. It's a much better hobby than phone scrolling!  Last weekend in San Antonio I made some notes in my phone about things I should write about, but then I never did. Maybe they will come later.

Today is the World's Most Beautiful Saturday and my heart started out full. Sunshine, cool/tolerable weather, brunch with Mr. Hickman at a new place (La Gabriella - I had avocado toast), errands, top down on the Jeep. Life is good. 

And one of my teacher friends posted this on Facebook this morning. 

All morning as we piddled around town I thought about making sure I got there right at 1:00 so I could make a donation and get something delicious because A) I love food and B) I love kids. Around 12:30 I ran to HEB to get ingredients to make dinner, then I headed on over to Miles's bake sale, excited about an afternoon treat!  

Now, I do not know Miles or his family. I know people who know them because we live in a big small town and he went to my schools. 

(Sidebar: all CS schools were my schools but now they're not my schools but they still are but also Elgin schools are my schools and I love them all with my whole heart although it's weird to have two schools be my schools when only one school was for so long. Makes sense, right? )

Anyway.

Here's what I know about him: he was a contestant on Master Chef Junior and his was born without a portion of one arm. The idea behind the "bake sale" was to raise money for him to get a prosthetic. Sign me up, right?!?

(Sidebar #2: "Bake sale" sounds like I threw together some cupcakes in my kitchen to pay for my Girl Scouts uniform. This kid's food is gourmet amazing, but I'm not sure what else to call the even so "bake sale" it is.)

When I got there, the line was SO SO SO LONG!  Like, a line I would not have stood in normally because it was too long. But it's the World's Most Beautiful Saturday and I had nothing else to do, so I waited. 

Miles was torching creme brulees as fast as he could while people chatted and waited patiently. Around 1:20 an adult made an announcement - only blackberry cobbler and creme brulees were left, but you could leave your name and order on a sheet of paper and they would get it to you later this week. They were all but sold out twenty minutes into their fundraiser! 

Not one person left the line. 

I decided I would just take whatever they had left when I got to the front of the line or at least make a donation, but I was really hoping for some creme brulee because it's my all time favorite dessert. I inched closer to the front. 

Person after person wrote orders on the sheet of paper. Creme brulees were torched. I got closer.

A man came up from the parking lot - maybe 25-35 age range. He stopped Miles's dad and said, "He did so great on Master Chef!  I mean, he's awesome!  Can I just make a donation?" 

The dad seemed surprised, replied "of course!" and called Miles over. The man then told Miles he should keep cooking and that he hopes to see him on Master Chef someday, then handed him a hundred bucks and walked away. 

Finally I made it to the front of the line. While Miles torched my smores and classic creme brulees, I heard his mom tell someone that their oven went out twice this week with all the cooking and that the first few customers bought all of the full sized pies before 1:00! 

Y'all.

Today, on the World's Most Beautiful Saturday I was reminded that people are good. For real. A kid is working for something he wants. His family is helping. And his community showed up smiling and happy. I thought I was going to cry with overwhelming joy right there, thankful for my sunglasses to hide my tears. 

Again, I don't know these people personally, and I don't want to steal their thunder on a great event, but it absolutely made my day. Their little event was a reminder for all of us who came that in the midst of political turmoil and divisiveness we're all just people capable of showing up for one another.

It was The World's Most Beautiful Saturday. All because of a kid with a bake sale. 

P.S. - I don't know how to get money to this kid, but if I find out I will definitely share a Venmo or something. 

P.S.S. - My dessert was fantastic!

Four Years Ago

It's Spring Break! I'm not sure I've ever needed to walk away so much in my entire life. It's made me reflective. 

During the day on Friday, several people popped by to say, "Remember the time we left for spring break and never came back?"  It was four years ago.

I'm working on my superintendent certification because Trey is making me, and this week's discussion post was about how HR processes changed as a result of COVID. 

Currently I'm reading Tom Lake by Ann Patchett. It's set during COVID. 

And I'm feeling reflective about what begin that spring break four years ago. 

Things I remembered today:

1) Work meetings from my bedroom. Lots of them. I worked from home from mid-March until June. I remember a particularly tenuous situation I had to deal with remotely - that was a challenge. But mostly I remember working with the windows open and the breeze blowing and the birds singing. And Zoom calls. 

2) I remember my 43rd birthday when there was some sort of benefit on the radio with all of these country artists, and we sat outside on the patio with margaritas while the sun set and the music played. 

3) I remember worrying about people who were "high risk." For us that was our parents. We were never too worried about getting sick ourselves (not sure why), but we wanted to be so careful as to not make someone else sick. 

4) I bought ten pounds of flour at Farm Patch because no one else had flour. I can do pretty much anything if I only have flour!

5) We planned to reopen schools that fall. The way that the people I worked with collaborated to put kids first while making every attempt to keep our staff physically and mentally safe was indescribable. From the superintendent to every principal, we worked together toward the same goal and cared for each other all the while. It was the pinnacle of what leadership can and should be. 

6) When school reopened, we opened a COVID testing center for our employees from 6-8 am every day. It was difficult to get in somewhere to get tested, so we got a bunch of tests and did it ourselves. If someone woke up not feeling well we were able to give them peace of mind or send them to the doctor. I think I worked the testing center at least several days a week (memory is funny). I bet I gave over a thousand COVID tests. And I never got COVID during that time. 

7) I think it was spring break 2021 when a vaccine was available. This memory comes up now because we had a vaccination center for our people and I worked there for a bit during spring break. I also got the vaccine despite political and other disagreements about it. I never got it again. Not for any reason except I just didn't.

8) I went to two funerals in a week. Both family members lost to COVID. The world close to me forever changed. 

9) I remember a zoom with my cousins. I don't see them often because I live farther away than most. The zoom was fun. 

That was both a terrible time and beautifully simple. I remember the sentiment that we never knew how busy we were until it was all taken away, and then further realization that all the busy and the regular day-to-day drama and small-problems-made-big were mostly irrelevant. 

Instead we stopped. We just stopped. And we cared about each other and we worked together and we appreciated all of the moments. 

And we realized what we had become in our business and in our sometimes manufactured discord. And we resolved to never do that again.  

It all started four years ago.

This spring break, whether you are one of the lucky ones who actually get a break or not, I hope we all remember the minute we knew it all stopped, and then soon after when we realized most of what we were worried about didn't matter anyway because we had the people we loved and the world conspired to come together. And that's what really matters. 

Happy Spring Break!