Nothing of great consequence happened Thursday.
It was one of those days full of working, running errands, dropping the kids off here and there, followed by cooking fried rice for dinner.
Other than the fried rice, something we don’t eat often, Thursday was the kind of day that makes up the great majority of life. And, it was the kind of day we don’t remember.
However, if I had a time machine and could go back and visit a day of my youth, I’d probably pick a day like Thursday. One of those days that in its commonplaceness becomes rich.
The kind of day that makes us who we are.
Examining such a day made me realize just how fleeting these days of kids and piano lessons and play practices are. All of this train of thought reminds me of a word I learned last week.
Ephemera.
Maybe it’s a word you know and use on a regular basis. If so, you’re a step ahead of me. I had never read or heard it before. Ephemera is written and printed matter not intended to be retained or preserved.
Truth be told, I’m somewhat of an ephemera collector.
Turns out, there’s an Ephemera Society of America, a non-profit organization formed in 1980, dedicated to cultivating and encouraging interest in ephemera and furthering the understanding, appreciation, and enjoyment of ephemera by people of all ages.
Officially, according to the 402-page Encyclopedia of Ephemera, there are more than 500 categories from luggage tags to fruit labels to theater tickets to seed company ads. Who knew all that stuff could become so official?
As it turns out, my grandmother was an ephemera collector too. She kept cigar box after cigar box (another ephemera category, by the way) of empty seed packs, receipts from the county co-op and every Christmas card she ever received. The stuff she kept is from way before my time, but when I look through the small boxes, the items give me a sense of what life must have been like back then that I just don’t get from anywhere else.
Sifting through my grandmother’s unintended collections is a window into her world—just like opening an old book and finding an airline ticket from 1987 or a hall pass from middle school brings back a flood of feelings and memories from my own life. The ordinariness of the item is jarring in its preservation.
In case you’re interested, some retail outlets sell packets of ephemera. The packs include a variety of stamps, postcards, pages from old magazines, trims and toothpick flags. They can be themed upon request. Yep, you can buy 5 oz. of vintage ephemera for $25 or 6 oz. of contemporary ephemera for $18.
“Every pack is unique,” so one catalog says.
I would imagine so because it’s difficult for me to wrap my head around selling such.
The word ephemera is, of course, related to the word ephemeral, which I’ve heard but probably misinterpreted or mis-used over the years. Ephemeral means lasting for a very short time.
As Thursday passed and I simultaneously reminded my children to brush-teeth-pick-up-clothes-clean-off-the-table-because-it’s-time-for-bed, the present-tense nostalgia of how quickly today’s ordinariness will pass lingered with me for just a moment.
And I tried, as best I could, to take it in.

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A giant live oak tree stretches over an expanse of my family’s backyard and home. Until the fall, we had three other oaks (not live oaks) that the city/parish cut in our front yard.
Our house looks completely different now without those three tall trees standing guard.
While I’m certain the power lines, not to mention our home, are safer without those three trees, I miss them—one of them in particular.
It was the closest tree to our front door.
My daughters and I stood and watched them make the deathblow cut to the trunk of the tree.
We cried.
So did the tree.
Literally.
As the chainsaw tore through the giant expanse of the trunk, buckets and buckets of water poured out all around. The workers said it happens sometimes because the tree has stored up water. I must say that the workers who cut down our trees were as nice and professional as they could be. I didn’t want to like them, but they made that impossible.
But this is not a column about those trees.
Or those workers.
This is a column about hope and regeneration—and nature’s examples of both.
Judging by simple observation, I have to believe our home is not the only spot in Acadiana that has been attacked by acorns in recent months.
Falling like pennies from heaven on an almost constant basis, the squirrels in our yard are downright plump and lazy at this point. I’m serious. The squirrels are ridiculously fat, and, even still, acorns are everywhere. We can’t take a step in our yard without stepping on at least 20 acorns. No one I know has ever seen anything like it.
When this bumper crop of acorns started in the fall, they tiny missiles would hit our roof, and we would duck for cover. Now they fall so often and so loud, we barely notice.
After a bit of research, I’ve learned that arborists have a technical term for an acorn year like this. It’s called a mast year. It’s a phenomenon when the fruit produced by trees in a given year is exponentially higher than the average.
Indeed, this is a mast year. There are so many acorns that there is no way the squirrels or anything else can eat them all.
And what will that produce?
Well, more oak trees, of course. Nature surely will take care of itself. The oak trees are doing what they need to do to beat the predators — regardless of who the predators are.
It’s like the old oaks, which have survived thousands, even millions of years, are saying, “You think you can beat us? Just watch this.”
To borrow the lyrics from one of my daughter’s favorite songs, “From little things, big things grow.”
With each acorn that falls, the oaks are reminding us of that all over again and again.
Jan Risher’s column, Long Story Short, appears Sundays. Email her at jan@janrisher.com.

Just as my family loaded up our car with all our recently received gifts and a week’s worth of luggage last week, my mother hurried out the door with something in her hands. We were about to drive away from my parents’ home after a Christmas visit, when in the middle of the driveway, she said, “Here, we’ve got more calendars than we know what to do with. Take these, if y’all can use them.”

She handed me not two calendars, not three, but four 2012 calendars.

Though I expect I’ll primarily be using the electronic calendar on my phone that syncs with my computer, I appreciated the variety and beauty of the calendars my mom shared with my family.

One from the Easter Seals with a bright sunshine made of handprints on the cover.

A 16-month Special Olympics calendar.

A Garden Walk calendar from the bank my parents have used my entire life.

And a pretty, brown leather bound calendar from a poultry vaccination company.

Quite an assembly of ways to plan for and look toward the coming year.

There’s comfort in these calendars for some reason. For one thing, there’s a sense of present-tense nostalgia these days with a printed calendar. For another, there’s that little thrill that goes with a full calendar with a year in print out in front of you.

So fresh.

So clean.

Today represents the metaphor of a blank slate—a whole year wide open in front of us, full of possibilities.

It is why we start exercising at this time.

It is why we make decisions to improve our lives in a variety of ways on this day full of promise and prospects. On this day, no matter how many new years we’ve welcomed, the world is our oyster.

And yet we know next year at this same time, if the good Lord is willing and the creek doesn’t rise, we’ll be having the same thoughts and saying the same things at this same time. We’ll do it all over again like the Roman god Janus who had the ability to look toward the past and the future simultaneously. Janus, as the god of gates and doorways, represents exactly where we find ourselves today.

Maybe part of why this time of year is especially poignant is because it’s more alike from year to year, than the months in between. The rest of the year is so full of so much and that fullness morphs in activities and people from year to year, but often this day and the week that proceeds it have an air of sameness to them that the rest of the year misses. We know and reflect on exactly who and what have been added to the mix or is missing from one year to the next.

From this vantage point, we can look behind us at where we’ve just been and ahead to where we’re going. We don’t know what’s there, but we recognize that this is the place that begins a new chapter—and that offers a fresh sense of control.

This is a time to reflect on the lessons life is offering us and make deliberate choices about which paths to choose and which steps to take. We can reflect on how to change our lives for the better.

If we’re resisting what is, today is the perfect day to take a look at the situation and figure out how to either make it work or make a change to create something that works better. Part of the secret is realizing that making it work is up to each of us an individuals. Even if fault lies with another, blaming the situation or circumstances on anyone or anything else is pointless.

Today is a day to relish the wonder of possibility the blank pages of the calendar holds.

In the hullabaloo that has been the week we’ve just known, too many of us have been piled under so much stuff that a periscope would have been handy to see what was at the surface.
But in between all the madness of traffic and trying to take care of too many details in too many places, modern day magic and marshmallow miracles have happened one right after another.
As a part of the Do Good Project, the iShare Concert is happening tonight at 6 p.m. at the Blue Moon at 215 East Convent Street. Admission to the event is a new or gently used iPod, three CDs or $10. We’re donating all proceeds to The Extra Mile, who will give the iPods to area youth who don’t have a whole lot to look forward to under the tree this year. My prayer is that those kids who receive the gift of music are blessed in some special way.
The outpouring of support for this special event has been overwhelming.
Local musician Kevin Sekhani jumped on board from the word go. He recruited other musicians—including The Mercy Brothers— who instantly got what we were trying to do. The Specklers, a folk/rock group, and Jonathan Herron will also perform.
But the person who inspired this whole event is Cole Pham—or Cole Train Pham, as he refers to himself regarding all things music. I’ve known Cole since shortly after we moved to Lafayette. He was a little boy back then. Now, at 15, not only is he a super cool/smart sophomore at Lafayette High, but he’s also got a level head on his shoulders. Plus, he’s courageous. He knows how to laugh at himself.
I learned of Cole’s rap ambitions earlier this year when he started tutoring our 14-year-old daughter in math. When I listened to his music, I was—for lack of a better word—enchanted.
Sounds strange, I know, but there was something about his super-clever lyrics that made me smile (and even want to rap too, on occasion). Frankly, with Cole’s math-wizard skills, he was one of the last 15-year-old kids on the planet I expected to be aiming toward a rap career. Maybe that’s part of the appeal of his music—and this whole thing, in general—someone wanting to and having the guts to do something that isn’t logical. He’s going for his dream by coming at rap from an atypical perspective. In doing so, he creates a strange and wonderful intersection of lyrics and musical accompaniments with a hip-hop sound.
But enough about him. You get it. It’s the stuff of dreams.
To make a dream happen requires a lot of hard work and some help along the way. That help-along-the-way part of this project has been amazing and uplifting. So many people have just picked up and done what they could do to help.
As far as I know, the people who offered to help have and continue to do the stuff they’re good at doing. It started with Kevin Sekhani who got the potential coolness of this event immediately. Then Mark Falgout at the Blue Moon, and his wife Nicole LeBlanc joined the cause. Tim Landry and Lindsay Dreher designed the poster. Jeanette Toups Chavin printed the posters. Debra Taghehchian is cooking gumbo…and the list goes on and on.
So many others have helped spread the word all over. Support, both moral and financial, has come from near and far—from strangers at the Rosa Parks Transportation Center downtown to friends in the land of the didgeridoo.
As this season of giving and joy continues, I encourage each of you to be a part of Doing Good. You’re invited to come to the concert at Blue Moon this evening at 6 p.m. Just bring a working iPod or make a $10 minimum donation at the door. Again, all proceeds go to The Extra Mile. You’re welcome to call them at 237-2060 if you’d like to donate directly or for more information.
Then again, maybe you’d like to do your own good. Take $50 (or more or less) and come up with some good to do—or give each member of your family or a group of friends some cash to Do Good on their own. Compare notes and see what happens.
Watch the circle of love grow.
Claim your place in it.

Jan Risher’s column appears on Sundays. She’d love to hear all about your efforts toward Doing Good. Really. She would. Email her at Jan@janrisher.com.

About a week ago, Aileen Bennett asked me to be a part of the Do Good Project, a brilliant idea she has put together that involves giving 22 people $50 each and asking them to Do Good.
There were lots of options to Do Good. Narrowing the field has been a challenge. Ultimately, I had to go with my gut (and heart).
Here’s some background:
My 14-year-old daughter is not a fan of math. Neither is her mother. We decided a math tutor was in order. At the advice of a friend, we have hired her son, who happens to be a 15-year-old math wizard. About that, I will say this: If ever you’re looking for a math tutor for a 14-year-old girl, a 15-year-old math-wizard-genius-boy is an off-the-charts good idea.
All math comes easy for this kid. He doesn’t miss a beat in explaining it in terms she can understand. I really don’t know if he’s ever missed a math problem in his life. I hear there are others, even stronger math wizards, but math wizardry is a difficult thing for me to comprehend. The interesting thing about this particular math wizard does not lie in his mathematical prowess.
The interesting thing is that what he really wants to be is a rapper—and not just any rapper, but a really good, clever rapper.
In his words, he “works hard for his rhymes.” He gets frustrated at lazy rappers who don’t do the same.
I have never been a big fan of rap.
But this kid’s rap makes me enjoy a style of music I didn’t expect to like—it’s clever. It’s fun. It’s good. It’s smart. He rhymes words like Uncle Sam/Vietnam or meet that quota/small Toyota/Master Yoda.
Here’s are a few lines from one of his songs:
I’m tall like a giraffe.
Strong like a bison.
I eat so many ears of corn.
They call me Mike Tyson.
The hard work he puts into his rhymes pays off. He’s got a few YouTube videos and facebook fans, but he’s never performed live.
So, I thought, “With my $50, I’ll put on a concert and ask some other local musicians to join us and give this 15-year-old future rap sensation the chance to debut his live music.”
We’re going to call the concert iShare.
To attend the performance, concertgoers will bring and donate new or gently used ipods (yes, there is a generation that gets new, improved, better ipods when their old ipods still work). For the rest of us, we can donate music CDs. (In full disclosure, the ipod idea was the rapper’s.)
The Extra Mile, a local non-profit, will give the ipods and appropriate music to teens and pre-teens who may not be receiving anything else this Christmas.
“We get stuff for the babies and the little ones, but for our older kids…nobody knows what to do for them. This is perfect!” said Linda Boudreaux, executive director of The Extra Mile.
Of course, the non-profit will also accept money to buy the gifts, as well.
I’ve spoken to established, professional musicians. They are on board to make this concert happen—including the fabulous Kevin Sekhani.
On the other hand, the 15-year-old rapper is having second thoughts. He’s just not sure he will be able to perform live. He’s nervous. He may opt for a video performance. Either way, we’ll have a concert and Do Good.
As my column deadline approaches, details for iShare are being finalized. The concert will be at 6 p.m., Dec. 18—one week from today. We’re finalizing the location. Stay tuned or email me to learn more.
What I can tell you is this; there is a lot of opportunity to do good. Ultimately, I decided that music and the fulfillment of dreams could make a big difference in the lives of many.
Getting other people on board to Do Good is remarkably easy. People want to help. They want to Do Good too. Being a part of something good that takes on a life of its own is the stuff of dreams that stays with you for years to come and warms your heart when it’s cold outside.
If you’d like to help with this project in any way, please contact me.

Jan Risher’s column, Long Story Short, appears on Sundays. Email her at Jan@JanRisher.com.

For this week, I’m offering an opportunity for readers to challenge me for next week’s column. I will do my dead-level best to find a way to work in the first five suggested words to me — no holds barred (unless it’s vulgar and unprintable). Other than that, fire away. We’ll see what happens. I have no idea what I’ll be writing about so this should be interesting!

She reached into her jewelry box and pulled out a tangle of necklaces.

“What am I going to do with this?” my friend asked with a sense of gloom.

I tried to conceal my glee.

As strange as this may seem, untangling a nest of jewelry knots is one of my favorite things to do. Knots are my cup of tea and have been since I was a kid. Way back then, I figured out the same method I use today.

My knot untangling technique:

Whether it’s a mass of knots or a single snarled strand, I place the necklaces on a flat surface that won’t scratch, making sure I’m in good light. Then, like a surgeon, I assemble my tools — which amount to two straight pins or toothpicks, or one of each. Then I start poking and prodding and gently pulling. Using minimum preparation and that method, getting the knots out is ridiculously easy — and very satisfying.

The most important part really has very little to do with skill. The most important part is to place the necklaces on a flat surface, rather than holding the clump or letting the chains hang. The flat surface takes away the gravity factor of the knotty problem and relieves the pressure that keeps the knots intertwined.

Taking the pressure away from different ends of the predicament is the most important part of getting the knot undone. Once I have the chains flat and spread out, I simply poke around the entanglement with the straight pins and separate the crossed wires, and in a few minutes, the lumps and clumps of chain begin to disappear.

As I worked on my friend’s thicket of gold and silver, I thought about how aspects of untangling knots of cast-aside jewelry have a lot in common with untangling the knots we come across more often.

When pressure is pulling both sides in opposite directions, untangling the predicament is nearly impossible — regardless of the skill or passion to repair the situation. Even if the pressure is relieved from one end, but not the other, the knot just gets tighter and tighter as one end gives and the other end takes in the extra length. The trick lies is figuring out and providing what both ends need to relieve the pressure.

As I worked to untangle the knots in my friend’s necklaces, my thinking went from considering both sides of political arguments and what it would take to relieve the pressures of those disputes to closer to home and the knots my daughters get into with each other.

I wonder if those kinds of knots need simply to have the pressure relieved on both ends. While I know sibling squabbling is, for the most part, just a way of life, I wonder what I can do improve my children’s relationship. Would relieving pressure from each of them help to untangle the knots between them? What is it that they need? Is it something I can provide? Or do I need to do something more for my daughters to realize and find whatever it is they need for themselves, so they can relieve their own pressures?

Sometimes parenting has me in my own personal knots. I vacillate from over-thinking it and trying to orchestrate too much to a laissez faire approach, on the opposite end of the spectrum. Figuring out the amount of pressure to place on kids is the most difficult part of parenting for me. I want my daughters to be self-starters, conscientious and productive. Yet, I also want them to appreciate the value of taking time, on occasion, to do very little and not be in go-mode.

Sadly, untangling the knots between siblings cannot be solved with a level surface and a couple of toothpicks, but I do recognize my responsibility as a knot-surgeon to alleviate the pressure and give them the best space to untangle themselves.

Providing a level playing field or a safe breathing space is really the extent of helping others solve their messes. For any real truce to last, I can’t do it for them. They have to do it for themselves.

Nine years ago this week, my husband and I traveled to China and welcomed our youngest daughter to our lives.

Since then, nothing in our world has been the same.

Greens are greener. Candy is sweeter. Pinks are pinker. The sun is brighter.

Her existence is living proof that the more love you give, the more you have. I often tell people that she naturally is the happiest human I’ve ever known. Her laughter, song and smile bless us every day.

Through the years, she and I have had many conversations of the hows and whys she came into our lives and hearts. At age 9, she will readily explain to anyone who listens about China’s one-child-per-family policy. Not only does she need to talk about her adoption process, but she likes doing so.

Of the many intangibles and unknowns of her adoption story, China’s one-child policy is the one sure thing—what isn’t sure is anything related to her biological family. We have no idea what circumstances led her mother and/or father to decide to part ways with their daughter. We don’t know if she has siblings. We don’t know anything for certain about these mystery people who gave our family so much.

As things stand now, there is no means for us to ever know.

Of course, that could change eventually.

Things do.

Just ask an adult adopted American whose biological mother placed him or her for adoption decades ago. Even domestic adoptions were closed back then with no way for anyone to get any information or make contact with their biological relations.

Our daughter’s so-called “Gotcha Day,” happens to coincide with Adoption Awareness Month. In an effort educate more people about the possibilities of adoption, Paula Milner, Director of Catholic Social Services, has an important message to local birth mothers and adoptees — especially those interested in reconnecting that they can contact their agencies to start the process of getting their records.

“We want people to know that they can contact us,” Milner said. “There are a few out there who still don’t want the information out, but if either side would want to search, we encourage them to do so.”

Milner told me that the first step is for adoptees and birth mothers in Louisiana to contact the Voluntary Registry in Baton Rouge. It is specifically set up to open lines of communication for closed adoptions from previous years. Adoptees, birth mothers and fathers and siblings should call (800) 259-2456 for more information. Most states have a similar registry.

Locally, Catholic Social Services is available to assist anyone who has used the agency at any time. Call Milner at 337-261-5654 or go to www.adoptionlafayette.org. However, if you’re reading this from afar, you should contact an adoption agency in your area to start your trek.

Milner understands the importance of keeping lines of communication open in adoption.

“We’re a part of making families, and seeing the light in couples who want a child,” she said. “It’s a two-edged sword. The other side is seeing the pain that the birth mother goes through. Even though that’s a sad part of the job, we do believe that we are there for them. Once the adoption is done, we don’t just shut the door and say we’re done with you. We’re there for them for a lifetime.”

Adoption and adoption services are alive and well in Acadiana. Last year, the Lafayette Catholic Social Services office alone assisted with 7 female reunions and four male reunions.

“We do counseling before they meet to make sure their expectations are within normal range,” Milner said.

They also counseled with 106 birth moms, birth fathers and birth families. Additionally, they had 157 orientation sessions for domestic adoptions and three international placements.

“We want to dispel the myth that a couple adopts a baby and thinks, ‘This is our baby and that’s the end of that.’ There are other people involved,” Milner said. “The child grows up with questions — who am I? It’s a lifelong process. Situations change. Needs change. Issues change. It matters that they get the counseling. They can get reunions if they were adopted years ago, and we work to make it work in everyone’s best interest.”

From my perspective in the adoption circle, I understand the value reconnections with biological families offer. Even though my youngest daughter is and will always be my daughter, getting answers and explanations to those questions that never go away would, at some point, be good for our heads and hearts.