2008-11-21

As the temperatures weakly struggled to surpass 20 degrees F, Mick and Gary suited up in every warm dud they owned and set out after Morning Offering to crunch leaves and trim up lawns for JLS. They arrived back home at 1:00, triumphant and hungry! We had lunch together and then Mick spent the afternoon clearing leaves from our very own yard while Gary cooked our feast for next week. We’ll need to cook again mid-week for Thanksgiving, so Gary fixed half-recipes of everything.

Meanwhile I expected to spend the day editing Lana’s chapters and then getting started on a backlog of transcripts from our own channeling sessions which need editing. However some days do not go as planned!

I received a good and thoughtful letter back from my sister-in-law, Mary concerning Christmas plans. My previous letter to her was a request for deeper communication, as it had been my perception that she had not enjoyed her last visit here, and if she were to come, I dearly wanted her to have a better time. On my part, I had also had difficulties during our last visit.

She responded very substantively and lovingly and asked for my best shot at a good schedule for the upcoming visit. I spent a good two hours on coming up with one which took all our issues into consideration. Now she can tweak it and perhaps between us, we can fashion a far better-fitting Rueckert Christmas this year.

Two parts of our clan will not be here this Christmas – Carlos, our cousin on Dad’s side, the son of his brother, David, and a wonderful guy, and Jim, our brother, will not be coming with their wives and children. So the crowd will be Jim and me, Mary and Tommy, and their children, Ted, Rosie and E. J. (short for Emily Jean). We have yet to set the date, but it will likely be around New Years Day.

Then Ian began working on the back cover of 101, sending requests for details as to the contents of the back cover. Over the course of the day we agreed to have an author photo page inside the book and use the back cover for blurbs only. Then I set about editing the blurbs down, as we have too much copy for the space.

We also worked on how the title should read, and played with different versions of the three parts of it, “Living the Law of One”, “101”, and “The Choice”. By bath time I’d gone through two generations of edits on text, and I suspect there is more to come!

Then I took up the question of what new names I wished to add to our Christmas Card List. I went through the St. Luke’s address book and my e-mail folders and added about two dozen new names and sent them to Gary to add to our Christmas Card database. That felt good!

While I had the St. Luke’s directory handy, I got Mason R’s e-mail address – she and her husband had hosted the choir after church a couple of Sundays ago for a rehearsal. She fixed a pasta dish with peanut butter in it, and Gary loves peanut butter. So I asked her for the recipe. In return I traded her the recipes for the Benedictine and Worcestershire Cheddar sandwich spreads I took to the rehearsal – the choir members all brought pot-luck dishes to go with Mason’s pasta.

Back to working on Christmas! I sent an e-mail to Mick with Mel’s ladder information and asked him to select the ladder he likes the best, which he did. I was able to send that info on to Mel, who will order it on my behalf. It’s Mick’s big Christmas present.

I will get to the editing tomorrow! It was far more important to my peace of mind to spend my time today working to make the Christmas season a lovely, quiet and peaceful one for our little family. And I think Mary and I came a long way towards that today.

After Mick and I bathed, we had a lovely date and danced in the light together with wonderfully exciting energy shared between us. We came down to find Gary already gone to Valerie’s, and so enjoyed a late supper alone. Mick offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.