The World According to the Peevish Kitty
Nov
30
Well now. Lookit me. I finished my NaBloPoMo, all 30 days of posting in November. Not all of them interesting, not many of them useful, nothing really earth shattering, but that’s okay.
Most days it was pretty easy to come up with something to write about, which is good. And keeping up my tradition of Saturday photos for Grammy and Grandad was helpful, too. A couple of days I had the OMG MY LIFE IS SO BORING IT SUCKS WHAT WILL I WRITE kind of angst, but generally speaking, it was a pretty good month.
I am not the sort of person who writes deep and meaningful things. I don’t try to discuss issues. I don’t generally write about anything topical, except to the parents and potential parents of other small humans. Or cat owners. Sometimes I appeal to cat owners. And people who like to read about someone who experiences life FAILs on a regular basis.
I don’t pretend to be an expert on anything, and I think that makes it pretty easy to talk, mostly superficially, about just about everything.
I’ve noticed the number of regular readers here has dropped steadily over the past couple of years, mostly as people lose interest once a milestone common to their own lives has passed. Once the infertility stuff was done, those folks sharing the journey moved on. Once our adoption was complete, the parents looking to learn from our experience moved on, one by one, as their own families became united. And a lot of folks who are also bloggers tend to drop off when they lose interest in blogging themselves.
And all that is fine. That’s the nature of blogging, really.
But that’s also why NaBloPoMo is a good thing for people like me, people who blog because… well, because we like to write about stuff. It is sometimes hard to stay motivated when your readers and commenters are disappearing, and hard to think of things to say that are of interest to those who remain. Having to post everyday makes you stretch your muscles a bit.
You have to dig a little deeper sometimes, and think of something to write about. Sometimes it may be short and sweet, but it’s still something. Sometimes, it’s simply an exercise to put words together, come up with some interesting turns of phrase, or find ways to express your thoughts or experiences in unusual or creative or more thorough and thoughtful ways.
And as you can read, the exercise didn’t always succeed for me. Meh. That’s the way it goes.
So congrats to my other successful November bloggers, for getting it done, and for those of you who gave it a good try even for a little while. I know how challenging it can be, so a hat tip to you.
And maybe it will inspire me to be a little more… at other times of year. We’ll see.
Nov
29
It’s been raining a lot in recent days. A LOT. Which, I have to say, is okay, because at least we don’t have to shovel it.
But it doesn’t make for a very festive mood, looking out at the rain. We got soaked to the skin going to swimming lessons today. The commute this morning was no fun for BDH. The spot where our pool was this summer has become a pond. And it is generally cold and damp.
And I am peevish. Little things are annoying me — the rain, people being stupid in cars, the old fucker in Toyota this morning who told us to turn off our car when we were dropping BDH off in the service bay — and because I am damp and it’s making my hair do that weird and annoying cowlick thing whereby it sticks out perpendicular to my head, I am finding peevishness giving way to the urge to punch someone right in the junk.
So maybe it’s best to stay in.
Except I can’t. I have to go to the mall. I need to get my new OMG YOU’RE GOING TO GET GLAUCOMA SO HAVE SOME EXPENSIVE NEW GLASSES YOU’RE GETTING OLD NOW YOU CAN’T DENY IT eyeglasses. And there are boots to be returned. And probably other things to do.
And, while Stinkerbelle is positively DANCING AND CLAPPING at the prospect of going to the mall, one of her favourite places IN ALL THE WORLD… I am less enthused.
Firstly, it’s raining. Now, last week, we went into the mall to the threat of rain and came out to OMG CARSICLE HERE HAVE SOME FREEZING RAIN. So you know, I’m not thrilled with the rain at night recently.
Secondly, it’s raining, and it’s late November, and there’s no good way to dress for this weather, and CERTAINLY none that will keep my hair from doing that ridiculous sideways forehead curl horn thing.
Third, there are PEOPLE in the mall. Many of them, as you well know, will be STUPID. A lot of them will also be ANNOYING. So there’s that.
And fourth? Well, I am sure there is a fourth, but I am TOO PEEVISH to think of it right now. BUT TRUST ME IT IS THERE.
So, it is going to be a case of suck-it-up-and-deal, of this I am sure. BDH is good in crowds at this time of year. He plasters a smile on his face and adopts a pleasant demeanor and then gets in and out before any homicidal impulses present themselves. Perhaps I will hide behind him. Certainly I will take his arm as I am old and blind and decrepit. And have that crazy old lady hair going on.
In the meantime, I am going to go make gingerbread with my kid, currently waxing poetical on the joys of THE MALL and EAT AT THE MALL. And perhaps it will make me less peevish.
If nothing else, it will make me full of gingerbread. And that is never a bad thing.
Nov
28
.
Another week has begun here at the House of Peevish. Our weekend is done, and for this I am sad. The weekend went too quickly, and although full of good things, having another day off or two would have been nice.
We are feeling the festive season here, and as such there are always things to do. But they are by and large good things. We rearranged our attic so that it is getting to be just so — or, at least, as “just-so” as it will get until we can get new furniture to replace the giant and cat-damaged furniture we currently have. Still, it has taken a couple of days of concerted work, a fair bit of faffing and waffling, and we’re getting to the point that were really starting to like the space. It’s a hard space to figure with the angles and lines and such, but it’s getting to as good a place as I think it might ever be, short of bringing in a professional and spending a buttload of money.
It’s a welcoming space that we now want to spend time in, and have made the effort — sometimes with Stinkerbelle’s prodding — to go up there and just enjoy it. We’ve watched The Vicar of Dibley with That Girl snuggling between us at bedtime. The “one TV show at bedtime with Mommy and Daddy” tradition is something I remember fondly from my early childhood, if you put aside the strange pathological fear of The Smothers Brothers I had for awhile.
We’ve also started watching some holiday movies — “auditioning”, as it were, some new movies to add to our collection before we break out the favourites and the season gets into full swing. Last night we watched The Polar Express, or “the Trains One” in Stinkerbelle parlance. She was enchanted, and if one memory will endure from this season so far, it is That Girl sitting in the light of the Christmas tree, her little voice soulfully singing along to the main Christmas song in the film.
But the downside to being excited about the festive season for the first time in years is the expense. We’re very conscious of our spending now, as a single-income family, and so as the excitement carries us away we’re finding we’re spending, obviously, more than we normally do. And after eleven months of budgeting and watching the bills and such, it’s hard to get to grips with the sudden OMG OUR VISA BILL IS HOW MUCH.
But perspective is important, and we remind ourselves that we are actually spending much less this year since we are not travelling. And we are spending conscientiously, although more than usual, with the thought that we will have to plan for some frugality once again in the new year. But still, as the month progresses, I’m sure there will be more than a few long dark tea-times of the soul as we regret the ridiculous number of books Santa is bringing and the three adorably schlumpy new elves we’ve added to our collection of holiday decorations.
The only real negative of the weekend just past was in coming home from dancing class on Saturday to find we have new tenants. Our lawn was looking particularly scruffy, as though a dog or something had come along and scratched and scrabbled at the ground and laid bare big patches of dirt. Divots had been created, with tufts of grass thrown about, like an entire family of raccoons, say, or maybe skunks or something, had come rooting for grubs in our lawn.
On closer investigation, it looks as though voles have decided to take up residence in our front lawn, and the wreckage is from them tunnelling under the grass at root level, munching away. Usually, we see the tunnels in spring, after the snow is melted, and they’re superficial because by the time those tunnels get created, the ground is too hard for them to do much damage other than scrabble around at ground level. But it’s been rainy and damp and cold, and, well, I guess they’ve been looking for food early and with ease.
Now, voles are as cute as all get out, like a cross between a hamster and a field mouse — but they are destructive little bastards. And, to be fair, we haven’t really been tending to our lawn much in the last little while, so the leaves and the long grass must have been tempting. And we DO live next to Nature-O-Rama here, so you know, it’s not like we can bang up a sign saying “No Voles Allowed” and they’d think “Oh, well then Mildred, let’s take the family down the street for dinner”. You get what you get. And we got voles, the furry digging little bastards.
So, while we’re enjoying our festive season, no doubt the voles will be as well. And when we budget for the new year, to pay for our festive fun and excesses, no doubt we’ll be budgeting for some grass seed to pay for theirs.
Nov
25
The time is upon us to start our Christmas baking. So, today, as is my annual holiday baking ritual, I went to the bulk food store to stock up.
(I did a whole bulk food musing post on my cooking blog. If you went there first, don’t panic — this is not the same thing. But I am going to cross-post this over there later.)
So, I love the bulk food store. I cannot lie. I do tend to go A LEETLE BIT MENTAL when I am there, buying ALL THE FESTIVE BAKING THINGS. I don’t go in very often, because I tend to go nutty, and because I don’t do that much baking to warrant it.
Today, since Stinkerbelle was with me, I wanted to get in and out fairly quickly. Mainly, this was an attempt to curb the crazy shopping bonanza, but if I am really honest, part of it was because I had forgotten to make That Girl have a pre-game pee before we set out this morning. I had a relatively short list of things to get, so it should not take very long. Plus, she and I both are still battling this nagging cough, and it’s not cool to cough your way through the bins of food.
I decided it was best for all concerned to be as quick as possible.
We meandered through the aisles of bins, scooping and bagging up what we needed. We started in the Christmas goodies, wandered through flour, sugar, candied fruit and chocolate, and eventually ended up at the other end of the store in the spices, with our cart getting full up, our list getting checked off, and Stinkerbelle getting impatient to get moving.
So, I finished up getting a little bit of ginger, some nutmeg and some allspice, and then we were off to the checkout.
We got home and brought our bags inside, but it was sunny and eleven degrees today, and Stinkerbelle wanted to be outside, so I thought a little walk up to the post box might be nice. By the time we got back, it was lunchtime, and then naptime, and before I knew it, it was three o’clock. And I had not put our baking supplies away yet.
That Girl was still snoozing, so I went down to put away all our shopping. Another thing I like about shopping at the bulk food store is that I get home and I can just empty my little plastic bags of sugar or flour or whatever into the appropriate canister TAA DAAAH. So I did. Sugars, flour, sprinkles, chocolate, spices, each had it’s appointed spot.
It was then that I realized, as I picked up my three bags of spices — I had neglected to label what spice was which.
In the majority of the bulk food store, you have twist ties to tie off your bags of supplies, but in the spices section, there are bread ties with a piece of paper attached, and you write the product number on each as you bag it. This is because the checkout staff, while possessing a remarkably encyclopaedic knowledge of everything in the store and the ability to identify each on sight, need help with the minute portions of spices in their tiny bags.
WHICH ALL LOOK THE SAME, I’LL HAVE YOU KNOW.
Okay, so the ginger was easy, because, well, it’s ginger-coloured and it smells A LOT like ginger. But I am here to tell you that, to the untrained eye and nose, nutmeg and allspice look REMARKABLY similar to the aging, maybe-one-day-I’ll-have-glaucoma-OMG, I-don’t-have-my-new-glasses-yet eyes. And the smell test is not much help, because in such small quantities, every bag smells pretty homogeneous. Kind of spicy and plasticky, but not much to discern one from another when you’re buying, like, TWO TEASPOONS of stuff.
I had a problem.
I got out my existing containers of nutmeg and allspice and tried to do comparative sniffage. In the existing little containers, metallic and designed to keep things fresh, you can really smell the difference. In the plastic bags, sniffing the new stuff? Nada. (And my nostrils are stinging still, just so you know.)
I tried looking at each. The existing stuff? The grind and colour are distinct enough to tell the difference. The bagged stuff? Both a pretty fine grind and similar colour.
I poured a smidge of each out on a white plate and got under the brightest white light and tried to figure it out. I tasted. I touched. I asked pertinent questions.
The spices were less than accomodating.
In the end, I took my best guess, and poured one into the nutmeg container and one into the allspice. Fortunately, for my immediate baking purposes, both will go into my gingerbread in equal quantities, so I’m not too concerned. After that, for the eggnog cookies? Could be a little dicey, but we’ll do our best. I think I have another bit of nutmeg in the back of the cupboard so we might be okay.
But, come the summer, when it comes time to make jerk, which requires a whole lot of allspice? If I guessed wrong, that’s going to be some odd-tasting, nutmeggy jerk indeed.
Maybe I should just make enough gingerbread and pumpkin bread and pumpkin muffins before then to use up all the current supply. That would mean another trip to the spice aisle, obviously — but next time, I’ll remember to label the packages.
Nov
24
Some days I get all inspired.
Usually it’s around charitable donation. I don’t have a lot of money. I don’t have the skills to organize and inspire and lead people to get things done. I don’t have vision. But I can knit.
Charity knitting. I see projects, or yarn, or organizations, and I am gripped with a fever to KNIT ALL THE THINGS!! But then, sometimes, I get going on a project and I find another organization that needs this, and another group that needs that, and all of a sudden I hit the wall. There’s just so much need, and not enough me. Or, as Dan says earlier in the episode above, “A couple of months ago I wrote a check to someone. Now I’m in the middle of Dickensian London.”
(Ooh, Dan. Yum. How perfect is HE? But I digress.)
What I need? Is a LIST.
(No, I kid. You THOUGHT I was going to say “list”, didn’t you?)
What I ACTUALLY need? Is a PLAN. Which is LIKE a list, only with more levels of organization.
(Okay. So you weren’t so far off. Yes, you’re very smart. Shut up.)
A plan would help me, I think. What’s bad is that, while I am an Olympic-calibre project starter, my follow through is for crap. I have a bazillion knitted things around the house, for this group and that organization. What I need is to get my arse in gear and get them packaged and sent. And that’s where I seem to get stuck.
I know there are so many people and animals that would benefit if I could just get a plan together. This is my challenge, of late. It’s the holiday season, and it’s winter, and so I am seeing more and more people and animals in need. I’m finding pet projects I want to support. But until I can begin to think about these things, I need a plan.
I have the will. I have the desire. I have the stash. What I lack are the listmaker’s favourite things: Lists. Lists of people and addresses and websites.Lists of needs. Lists of deadlines. And a plan to pull all these things together, to help me get my stash on the needles, my knitting completed, and my projects out the door.
Well, that, and a dash of reality. I also need to be realistic in what I can do, while also getting the personal projects I commit to completed in a timely fashion, within the confines of my free time. Because, as much as I want to donate to ALL THE THINGS, realistically I have to draw some lines somewhere.
You get bogged down, looking at all the charities that need help, here in the middle of Dickensian London. They are all deserving. But you just can’t do everything for everyone.
That may be a big part of my projects dying before they get out the door: I want to do so much, and when I finish something, it seems to be so little.
So more perspective is needed. Because really, every little bit you can do helps, because it’s that much more than the recipients of your efforts had before. A couple of squares here, some hats there… it all adds up. If I am doing a little bit, it’s added to someone else’s little bit, and it all comes together to be so much more. The trick, as they say, is to get in the game.
So, a plan. I need one. So since BDH got us our fabulous list-making software, the first step is to make use of it to accumulate all the charities and websites and needs and contact information I need. That will be the first step in the plan. Then I need to set some realistic goals, and deadlines. And then, make another plan for follow-through at the end.
I have to see my inspiration through the perspiration to get to donation. Because, when all those pieces fall into place, even if just one person in need gets a blanket or a hat… just look at what we can do.
Nov
23
Stinkerbelle took a sick day from school today.
She’s not REALLY sick. In fact, she’s on the mend from a cold we’ve both had for a week or so. But she’s got this lingering cough, as do I, and we’re both a bit hoarse. This cough had her up quite a bit last night — and, by extension, so were we — so I decided that this morning it was probably best for her to stay home and have a quiet, restful day.
It’s weird being in the position to make these decisions. I remember as a kid just DREAMING of having a day at home from school. Stinkerbelle is not of the same mind. She LOVESLOVESLOVES school so she was kind of sad not to be going today. But I think she’s quite tired, too, so I think it was the right call.
But it IS strange, being the one to make the call. Between always hoping as a kid to be kept home from school, and then growing up and going to work and never feeling comfortable taking a day off (except for mental health days, because I worked in Hell) because there would be twice as much work when I returned, days off were a sweet thing.
And here I am, at 7:30 in the morning, hemming and hawing about what to do… my, how perspective changes things.
So we decided to take the day and get That Girl some rest. Last night we were out late at the mall, where I had an optometrist’s appointment — can I just say, I was looking forward to a new sexy pair of glasses, but there’s nothing like being told by a doctor young enough to be your son that you are potentially heading for glaucoma to make you feel REALLY OLD — so not only was Stinkerbelle to bed later than normal, but she was up coughing and fussing a number of times, so we’re both a little run down.
We’re parked in front of the big TV in the new-style family room, with the Christmas tree and a little picnic and watching Doctor Who (only the not-so-scary episodes). We’re eating veggie chips and squabbling over who (intentionally) knocked over whose block towers. Stinkerbelle is brushing and “styling” my hair and shouting advice at the characters on screen (“Don’t fall down, Donna!” and “Run very fast, Doctor!”) and crawling under the Christmas tree to snuggle with Duncan. I’m even knitting a little bit.
So all in all, it’s a really good sick day. (For me, anyway. Stinkerbelle’s probably a little bored. I’ll put on some Shaun the Sheep later. That’ll be fun.)
Nov
22
So, we have decorated a bit here at the House of Peevish, WAAAAY ahead of the normal Dec. 2 start date I usually observe. And I have found this is posing a bit of a problem.
Because now that the tree is up, and things are looking festive-ish around here, I find that I am fighting the urge to Be On Holiday.
It’s hard, when surrounded by the Christmas things that we normally are putting up rather late in December, and the baking that makes the house smell good, and the Christmas movies on the telly… it’s hard to keep my mind from getting into the mindset of relaxing and being on holiday as I would normally. All the signs are pointing to the holidays, so my subconscious is pushing for me to sit down, relax, pick up some knitting, have some Bailey’s…In my mind I imagine sitting with my warm beverage with Bailey’s, a cat on my lap, my knitting, something festive playing, looking out at the cold and snow.
Only it’s not time yet. It’s nowhere even CLOSE to time yet. And OMG ARE YOU CRAZY THERE IS NO SNOW YET SNOW IS BAD VERY VERY BAD YOU MENTAL DEFECTIVE WOMAN, YOU.
There is still so much to do. I have a few more presents to buy. I have to do all my baking. I have to buy everything for the holiday meals we plan to have. I have to make plans to have friends to visit, and what to feed them. I have to send out cards. There is still SO MUCH TO DO.
But it is still November, so it’s not like there isn’t time. So these things should, in most years, be the very LEAST of my problems. And, let us not forget… Real Life is still happening! There are appointments and school days and swimming and work and a billion other normal, everyday life things that have to get done. And yet, I feel compelled to relax and put my feet up and enjoy the holidays.
HOLIDAYS THAT BY THE FRIGGING WAY ARE NOT HAPPENING YET OMG ARE YOU INSANE.
So, I am kind of undecided as to whether this whole getting-ready-well-in-advance deal is a good thing or a bad thing. Because, yes, we will be prepared and have lots of time, when Christmas actually rolls around, to enjoy our time together without any last-minute stress and hustle and bustle. But by the same token, not only am I annoyingly distracted and diverted by having things looking so festive so far in advance, but also, I wonder… am I going to be bored of the holidays before they actually come along? With I be burned out on festive music and movies and such by that time?
I hope not.
I think the trick will be to keep myself busy during the run up to Christmas too — but with plans to do FUN things. Visit Santa. Go out for walks or drives to see the houses all decorated with lights. Go out for walks in the woods when/if the snow begins to fall. Take advantage of tree lighting ceremonies and pancake breakfasts and carol singing. That is, IF the opportunities present themselves, and we are sufficiently prepared and find we have the time and inclination to go. I know people who try to DO ALL THE HOLIDAY THINGS! and over-schedule and overcompensate to a ridiculous degree. I don’t want to go to the other extreme, either.
Or perhaps, I will just give in to my urge to sit and relax and knit then. It’s hard to say.
Either way, it’s certainly a change for us for the holiday season. Change is good, but it does take some adjustment. As will the tree, no doubt, after a month of kid and cats tugging and climbing and jingling and futzing with it.
Nov
21
My daughter, until about two weeks ago, had never eaten a chocolate chip cookie.
Surprised? Yeah, I was too. But as things have gone, with her oral motor issues and delays and such, it was only until this year when she really got interested in eating homemade cookies. Store-bought cookies like arrowroots were fine, because they’re pretty… consistent. But homemade cookies are full of mixed textures and flavours and shapes and she was all OH HELL NO until just recently.
Then Corn Parking introduced her to the wonders of gingerbread.
She’d had some little gingerbread cookies that I had made at Christmastime before. But they were tiny and she would kind of gum them until they dissolved. But the Corn Parking cookie? OM NOM NOM. Gingerbread has lots of flavour, which stimulates the taste buds and appeals to the eating-challenged, but also it’s one texture. So it was tasty AND easy.
She loved them.
A few weeks ago, we were at Corn Parking, and they had no fresh-baked gingerbread. Their baking was cleaned out. So we had to settle for one of the few remaining bags of chocolate chip cookies. They were pretty good, but kind of bland. And the chips were big and lumpy.
She was underwhelmed, and only ate a little bit.
But today? Today, for whatever reason — maybe they were talking about it in school — but today, she was all about LET’S BAKE COOKIES. As soon as she got up from her nap, she asked MOMMY WE MAKE COOKIES AND USE THE MIXER?
And I, never one to pass on the opportunity to bake, agreed. I wasn’t sure what we had in the pantry, but I figured we would find something to make. So I looked and found some chocolate chips, and a packet of Skor chips that I had forgotten about. Jackpot.
Stinkerbelle was RIGHT THERE, right in the thick of things, pouring things into the mixing bowl, turning on the mixer, and happily sampling every ingredient and taste she could find. She mixed and spooned and helped however she could.
Yes, there were some mis-measurements and some spills. And, yes, possibly there was more cookie dough sampled than probably there should have been. But she LOVED it. And for someone who loves to bake, it is one of my favourite things about having a child to be able to share this with her. It gives me great joy.
So we made a couple dozen slightly lumpy, slightly doughy cookies. But as she sat at the table, chocolate smeared all over her hands and face, grinning from ear to ear, I watched as my kid discovered one of the great joys of life — homemade chocolate chip cookies and a big glass of cold milk.
It’s moments like this that make everything — all the sleepless nights and stressful times and frustrations and fears — worthwhile. This is what I imagined when I dreamed about being a mom.
I love these times with my daughter. And I love chocolate chip cookies. Win/win.
Nov
20
I’m not used to blogging on a Sunday. When I am not doing this NaBloPoMo business, or unless something really remarkable happens, Sunday is usually my day off. And really, a lot of that is due to the fact that Sunday is always our day off here, too.
A long time ago, when BDH and I were young and childless, Sunday was a whole different thing. It was lazy. We slept until we woke up. We ate giant brunch. We spent our days in neutral corners doing what was relaxing — playing computer games, knitting, watching movies… whatever helped us relax and decompress before another long and stressful work week began. At the beginning of our relationship, we both travelled almost every week for work, so Sunday was often our travel day — so a Sunday at home was precious.
But now, years later, with That Girl and different jobs and a different lifestyle — Sundays are still precious, but for different reasons.
We try to stay in on a Sunday. I plan my week so there are very few errands that need to be done on a weekend. We have low tolerance for the crowds, the cars, the lineups, the rushing stupid throngs of people going here and there. We If we do go out, it’s mainly on Saturday, for That Girl’s dance class, or for something fun together like going out to Corn Parking, or for lunch at a restaurant, or visiting friends. But Sunday is reserved for staying home and enjoying our time together.
Not too much happens in our house on a Sunday. Well, that’s not true — a LOT happens here nowadays, but it’s usually not blog-worthy. We clean, we do stuff around the house, we do laundry. A LOT of laundry. We try to do a “Sunday supper”, a sit-down meal with a bit of planning and actual meat-and-two-veg kind of thing going on, if we can. (Or maybe fish and rice and veg. Or maybe a casserole. But you know what I mean. A traditional sit-down family meal.)
Sunday is our day for big breakfasts, and sleep-in days. It’s our day for cleaning up from the week just past, and preparing for the week ahead. And it’s Stinkerbelle’s bath day, which is a two-hour event in and of itself with bath and hair and whatnot. And we try to squeeze in some time to do things together, maybe go to the park or for a walk if the weather is fine, or play and do puzzles and watch movies and read stories together if it’s not.
But mostly, Sunday is about rest and relaxation. We have nowhere to be and no errands or appointments we have to attend to. And even though there’s sometimes a lot of laundry, or cleaning to be done, or whatever, it’s okay, because we’re home together and we can put music on and we can work together, and there are always breaks for fun.
I like Sundays. I wish we had a week of Sundays sometimes. That would be lovely.
But even better? A week of LAZY Sundays. I think those days are gone, for a few years at least. But that’s okay. Laundry or cleaning or whatever, I wouldn’t miss a Sunday like we have now, with Stinkerbelle at the centre of our day, for anything in the world.
Nov
18
Christmas season is right around the corner, and around here, a big part of our holiday traditions revolve around watching Christmas movies.
I’ve probably mentioned it before, but I am one of those people who can watch a movie or a TV show over and over again. If I like it, of course. And I think this is one of those things that you either DO or you do NOT — there’s no middle ground. Either you are a re-watcher, or you watch something once and that’s that.
If we enjoy something, we buy it, and we will, more often than not, watch it again.
I think it’s fair to say you can probably identify the people who are big movie re-watchers by their big video collections. I wasn’t really that aware of how big we are into watching things repeatedly until I sat down and took stock of our video collection one day last year. I forget what the total was then, but I am sitting opposite our video collection right now, so let’s do a rough guesstimation. On average, one of our shelves holds 50 videos, and we have 6 shelves full. So that’s 300. Then we have two tall, narrow cases of movies on another wall, each holding an average of 80 videos. Then, across the top of our shelving, we store some of the bigger box sets, and there are 40-ish of those, each containing multiple discs. Then, scattered about the place, we have maybe 10 movies or box sets at any given time. And downstairs in the playroom, we have Stinkerbelle’s videos, which number probably close to 100.
So 300 + 160 + 10 + 100 + 40 box sets = A LOT OF VIDEOS. A ridiculously wonderful number of videos.
(And let’s not even talk about the ones of which we have purchased digital copies.)
Some of these, admittedly, are duds. Whoever convinced us to buy Tropic Thunder or Along Came Polly or Lost needs a punch in the junk. And, my love affair with John Cusack caused the ill-advised purchase of War Inc. and The Ice Harvest so, you know, I’m not entirely free from blame. And some, while they were really good, are probably too heavy or dark or depressing to watch again, like The Cooler or Grace is Gone or The Matador. And some are favourites of BDHs, usually action films, that I will likely never watch, whereas my favourites tend to lean towards costume dramas and period pieces, some of which he can take or leave.
But as we were redecorating our family room/attic the other day, I was also reminded of some hidden gems we have discovered over the years. State of Play, a BBC series, is one of the best drama series I have ever seen. Life on Mars, also from the UK, was fun and gripping and occasionally gave us moments of WTF. And The Lost Room was a little mind-blowing piece I had never even heard of until BDH brought it home. And, with Christmas coming, we have the charmingly hilarious Bernard and the Genie and Patrick Stewart’s version of A Christmas Carol to look forward to. We have all kinds of these little wonders.
We have a lot of videos.
There’s obviously no way I am ever going to watch all of these videos again.We still have movies we have not seen yet, unopened and waiting to be watched. But even still, when we sit down to watch something, we’ll consider watching something we know and enjoy just as frequently as something new. And some things definitely get more rewatching than others. Sports Night got watched and rewatched so often we had to get another copy. I am currently doing a watch-along of The West Wing. I tend to watch Kenneth Branagh’s Much Ado About Nothing when I am down, or Henry V when I need to watch something truly, genuinely great. And of course, I have watched Doctor Who again and again, like comfort food for the soul.
You just know that, even though we have hundreds of videos, there will be some on our Christmas wish lists this year. Sure, some might be duds. And some of those may become favourites to watch again and again.
So if ever you’re bored, come on over and we can watch something together. Or rewatch, as the case may be.
Nov
17
Awhile back I said I was going to start a blog about cooking. Mostly cooking, occasionally failing. So I did.
I’m still in the process of backposting stuff and making it look just so. And, hopefully, I’ve got the security settings right so a) people can actually SEE it, and 2) people can leave comments in the appropriate fashion. So, you know, if someone could test that and get back to me, I’d be eternally grateful.
And I’ll post my famous gingerbread cookie recipe as thanks. OH WHO AM I KIDDING IT IS NOT MY RECIPE I STOLE IT. But I’ll still post it, just in time for the holidays.
So, I hope to back-fill a little bit with recipes, and post about new recipes I try, and challenges I have with meal plans and cooking, and my many and catastrophic cooking fails. And maybe I’ll even let guest bloggers post their favourite recipes, too. But mostly, I just wanted a place to post recipes that I find and like.
So have a look, and have fun.
Nov
16
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When I said a week or two ago that I’m a night owl, I didn’t expect my kid would have read it and taken it as fact. But apparently, she has. Because last night, I was up with her a couple of times.
So, perhaps I should rephrase, and say “Night Owl =/= WAKING UP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT AFTER I HAVE GONE TO SLEEP ALREADY OMG ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME”.
It’s not her fault. She and I have both come down with a cold, and so one of the times I was up last night was after listening to her coughing for about 15 minutes on the monitor. The child clearly wasn’t comfortable and wasn’t sleeping, so you do what you gotta do, man. Get up, clear your head, muster the wherewithal to a) decide what medicine to give her, 2) read the incredibly tiny print on the label with tired, cold-med blurry eyes to know how much medicine to give her, and c) give her the medication without missing her mouth and schmearing all over child, jammies, blankets, and self.
But you have to do it, so you just DO.
(However, I would be remiss if I did not give Lucy and Duncan an assist on this one. Lucy, because “The Lucy Alarm” was going off because OMG THERE IS NO WATER IN MY BOWL WHOOP WHOOP WHOOOP!!!111!1!eleventy!11!”, so in order to shut The Loudest Cat In All Of Time And Space up, I had to first stagger downstairs and somehow not blind myself going from darkness to OH HOLY HELL KITCHEN LIGHT OF DOOM, and fill her water bowl. And Duncan, because he tried to sneak into That Girl’s room not once, but TWICE, and had to be chased out. They are SO helpful.)
The other wake up call we had in the wee hours is one we’ve been getting intermittently over the last few months, and that is the whole Nightmare Rescue Mission thing. Around this age, kids begin to have nightmares. Developmentally, this is a normal thing. And we tell ourselves this, frequently, once the shock of being awakened from a dead slumber by a frantically crying child wears off, and you stagger out of bed without breaking joint nor limb by becoming entangled in the bed linens during your dismount, and manage to go and attend to a sleeping yet crying child, and wake her from her bad dream, and comfort her, and get her settled back into bed, and then you find yourself LYING AWAKE FOR DOG KNOWS HOW LONG FROM THE ADRENALINE RUSH. It’s a mantra you chant, as your heart rate returns to normal, over and over – “THIS IS NORMAL, RIGHT? NOTHING IS WRONG, RIGHT?” — until you calm down enough to sleep again.
But the way I figure it, if she takes me at my word in such a fashion that I am a night owl, then surely she can forgive me for not being a morning person today, as I stumble around on limited and interrupted sleep, cranky and miserable, with a head full of concrete and numbed by cold medication. And she can forgive me for dozing off on the sofa while watching Wallace & Gromit movies, and graciously let me doze awhile, instead of shouting WAKE UP!! at the top of her lungs and laughing uproariously. And, possibly, forgive me for surrendering to the easy out of take out AGAIN this week.
Sure she can.
Nov
15
It’s been a chaotic couple of days. Just your regular everyday disorganization here at the House of Peevish.
Nov
14
What is it about a change of scenery that does one so much good?
We have a small person in the family who currently has an obsession with ALL THINGS CHRISTMAS. She wants to DO CHRISTMAS all the time. And so, we are trying to accommodate her.
So, this past weekend, we said HOKAY. LET’S CHRISTMAS. And BDH went into the basement and brought all the Rubbermaid bins wherein Christmas, and, indeed, all holidays are contained, up the three flights of stairs to our attic/family room space, so that we could start Christmasing.
This amounted to, let’s say, 8 bins. So, we scattered them about the room behind the couch and began to take stock.
The biggest bin contains the tree. Now, when we agreed to LET’S CHRISTMAS, I figured it would mean some faffing about in boxes, looking at pretty things, playing with a couple of stuffed reindeer and the like. Putting a festive cookie jar here. Possibly taking the odd bit of garland and festooning it there. (Does one festoon garland? I am not sure.) Like that. Simple.
BDH had other ideas. Specifically, let’s-just-put-the-tree-up-and-all-the-decorations-and-be-done-with-it ideas. And once I made my peace with the concept of full-on Christmas in November, I thought meh… what the hell.
And this? Is where the Home Renovations came into play.
See, our attic is a nice space, but it is an ATTIC. It is full of dormers and sloping rooflines and odd spaces and requires a little finesse to decorate properly (which, admittedly, we mostly lack.) So the “where do we put the tree” discussion began in earnest. And almost every option required the movement of furniture. “So, if we put it HERE, then we could move the daybed THERE, and turn the couch THIS WAY…”
We began to look at the only really useful spaces in the room. And there is not a lot of good space, but one bit accommodates our television and limited seating. The only other useful space is one full end wall limited by sloped roof at either end, on which we’ve installed some modular Ikea shelving.
We looked at the seating space, and agreed the tree would look good in one corner. But that would mean moving a big ass chair, and moving the television.
It was then that we came up with the bright idea of putting the TV IN THE BOOKSHELVES.
OY.
Meanwhile, Stinkerbelle, she of the “LET’S CHRISTMAS!” was sitting there, pointing and ordering and contributing to the discussion, but getting decidedly little Christmasing out of the deal. BDH kept promising we would get her some Christmas this night, come hell or high water. If she could just wait a few minutes.
So the hell became the measuring, unloading, reconfiguring, moving, and reloading of all our bookshelves. As well as finding a place to put TV, various video and audio components, speakers, and a Mac mini. And the accompanying cables. And refastening the shelving to the wall once again.
The high water would end up being a bath for That Girl while much of the electronic tinkering occurred.
Bathtime done, we opted for a fast-food picnic supper upstairs amid the mess. BDH continued the business of reconfiguring shelves and boxes and books and DVDs. And, as Christmas was promised, I got a big bin out for Stinkerbelle and I to unpack.
This particular bin happens to be the summer vacation home of about six stuffed reindeer of varying sizes and colours and sporting collars of jingle bells. So after delighting in unpacking the festive fellows, That Girl and I played with the reindeer, jingling bells and such. And then we spent a good 45 minutes playing “Where did Stinkerbelle go?” as she hid in the now-empty Rubbermaid bin while her father and I wondered aloud about her whereabouts, leading her to spring up out of the bin and shout “SURPRISE!” at the top of her lungs, and laugh uproariously.
In the end, she was sufficiently Christmased out to go to bed, just a little later than usual. And then BDH and I continued work on the furniture arranging.
And, once we got the bookshelves and TV and such into place, with still much rearranging of shelf contents to be done, we crashed onto the newly-moved sofa. And we were very pleased with the new arrangement. It was what we had hoped to have all along.
It was after sitting for a few moments that we decided the tree wasn’t going to go in the corner that we had moved everything round to accommodate after all.
BUT THAT IS OKAY. We have a new space to enjoy, and the tree will fit in a good place, albeit a different one than we had planned originally. And, because we have a lot of cleaning and sorting and rearranging to do yet, there are still many bins of Christmasing to do yet. We didn’t do it all yesterday as we had planned originally.
So… we have a freshly reconfigured “new” family room, that is still waiting to be Christmased. And that newly reconfigured room will go along nicely with our renewed excitement about the holiday season.
Everybody wins.
Nov
13
There are times, man. Times where I just don’t want to know anymore. If I could just crawl back under the covers and bury my head and not come out for awhile, I would.
I’m talking about news. Everywhere you look these days, there is NEWS. And it is BAD.
War. Violent crime. Political corruption. Famine. People being assholes to one another. The Penn State scandal. That Duggar woman who thinks that a vagina is a clown car.
It’s not good. None of it.
BDH tells me STOP READING THE NEWS, FOR THE LOVE OF DOG WHY DO YOU NEVER LISTEN TO ME. Because I read this stuff? And then it makes me NUTS. And I get all worked up, or agitated, or angry, or cry, or all of the above. And then he has to sit there and be patient and kind while resisting the overwhelming urge say I TOLD YOU SO.
I could take this opportunity to be all deep and shit and discuss these issues, but I WILL NOT. Because no good will come of it, and besides, who cares about what I have to say anyway. Plus I am not deep and I mostly don’t know a lot ABOUT said issues, so there is that.
But if you are planning on spending time on the internet these days, particularly where THERE MIGHT BE NEWS, let me offer you this advice:
WAIT. IT’S DANGEROUS TO GO ALONE. HERE, TAKE THIS.
There. Don’t you feel much better now? I know I do.
So I have to STOP READING THE NEWS. And stop reading ANYTHING THAT IS TALKING ABOUT ANYTHING THAT IS NEWS.
Instead, I need to walk away. I need to spend time with my kid who keeps insisting NOW, LUNCH… THEN… WE HAVE CHRISTMAS TOGETHER! Because all she wants to do in life these days is dig into our boxes of Christmas decorations and look at all the pretty things and have a happy time.
And I think that sounds grand. I need to be festive and happy and pretend the outside world isn’t happening for a few hours or days or weeks.
Yesterday we put our lights on the house. Last night I found some recipes I’ve been looking for. Maybe today we’ll sort through our decorations and make the place look FESTIVER. And I’ll avoid the news for awhile.
IT’S NOT SAFE TO GO ON THE INTERWEBS ALONE! Good thing I have That Girl.
And as a bonus, That Girl will wear the Santa hat. Because unlike the Festive Safety Kitty above, I know none of our cats will do it.
Nov
11
Today was Stinkerbelle’s very first trip to the dentist.
We’ve been talking about it for weeks now. For someone like me, whose dental experiences as a child were fairly terrible, it was important that I make going to the dentist as positive as possible for Stinkerbelle. So we’ve been building it up and making it sound like a fun outing.
And to her credit, it was as much fun as one could expect. There was a big bathroom to go potty beforehand, and toys in the reception room, and a TV in the waiting area too.
The whole dentist thing was a lark for That Girl, it seemed. Until we actually went IN to the exam room.
There are a lot of things in a dentist’s office that are a little intimidating to a three year old. Stinkerbelle was stopped in her tracks by the chair. It’s kind of big and scary, to be fair. But she got in and gamely took a little ride. That is, until they tilted it back and then it was OKAY I ALL DONE NOW.
We let her sit up.
She let the hygenist, Ashley, count her teeth. She tried to follow the open-close-open-close commands, but for someone who is speech delayed, it was hard for her. But she let Ashley use the little mirror to look around, and examine her bite.
She loved the polisher, and the toothpaste. But my kid likes toothpaste.
But UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES could Ashley turn on the big overhead exam light. That thing came on, and Stinkerbelle was once again NOOOO OKAY I ALL DONE NOW BYE.
But for someone her age, she did really really well. We waited for the dentist to come in and do his exam. I was looking forward to that, because with That Girl’s oral-motor issues, I really wanted his opinion to see what was what.
Our dentist is nice enough. He’s a pleasant sort, but English is not his first language. So when he came in and began looking around, I began to tell him about her problems with speech, and chewing, and swallowing…
And it was like I was speaking Swahili. I don’t think he was following what I was asking him about. Or, maybe he was and he was just ignoring and/or disregarding it. Either way, I got nowhere, no confirmation or observations about what role, if any, her bite or palate or shape of her mouth have in her current problems.
So that was great.
Still, it was positive and Stinkerbelle had a good enough experience that she would go back. Plus, she got a free toothbrush and a toy at the end, so, you know, SCORE. A little swag never hurt anyone’s chances of agreeing to come back.
On the way home, we stopped in to visit Daddy at his office. Which meant we spent 5 minutes on a pee break and 10 minutes being quiet so Stinkerbelle and Daddy could have a two minute visit. Strategically, this was not my best-laid plan. First off, BDH is just incredibly busy all the effing time, so he certainly doesn’t have tons of time to visit. Secondly, having a three-year-old is like having a very tiny drunk around all the time: no sense of decorum, loud, and everything is a matter of great comedy or great drama. Which leads us to…
Third, that Stinkerbelle would bawl when the time came to say goodbye to Daddy and she realized we had to go without him. My kid is full-throated in her expression of emotion, and sorrow is expressed with great wailing and sobbing.
But I told her that if she calmed down and stopped crying, she could push the elevator buttons. And then I got her loaded in the car and off we went.
We were running late, and still had groceries to buy and a mission to find a white t-shirt for her school Christmas pageant. So I thought it best, since we were passing by anyway, to stop off at Corn Parking and buy some cookies. For BRIBE purposes.
She was already starting to melt down from hunger and tired by the time we got her into Corn Parking, and was (by Stinkerbelle’s standards, anyway) a little obnoxious. So I managed to keep her from touching everything long enough to buy a couple of groceries and a pack of cookies, and we were back in the car on the way to the grocery store.
I kept a cookie in reserve for the grocery store, just in case. But by then, her belly was full enough of cookie goodness that she was in good spirits, and told ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE SHE ENCOUNTERED about her morning’s adventures. The dentist, the crying, the cookie… she told everyone.
But we made it though without incident, although the t-shirt shopping is going to have to wait for another day. And now, we are home, and I have plonked her down to have a picnic in front of Curious George, which I said she could watch so long as she ate all her lunch.
Yeah, another bribe. Seems on busy days like this, you can’t get through without a few choice bribes. But at least her teeth are clean.
Nov
10
I was at work today. I work, mostly from home, for a friend whose office is in an old factory. So, the building has that industrial corrugated-tin-and-pipes-and-stuff ceiling thing going on. The building is old, and the roof leaks. So, on rainy days, it’s buckets and tarps everywhere, and there are ceiling tiles missing where the leaks have been particularly persistent.
Today was one of those days where I needed to go in to the office and take care of a few things. And while I was there, I heard this noise.
It was kind of a pinging noise. PING PING PING. Only maybe a little deeper. Sort of a PLONK PLONK PLONK. A little more than a PING, but less than a PLONK. Kind of halfway between a PING and a PLONK, actually. It took me a while to figure out what it was, but I realized after a little listening that it was raining. It was the sound of rain hitting the roof above me. So I figured it must have been pelting down, and wondered how long it would be before we had to start throwing plastic over everything.
But we didn’t. For something that sounded like a pouring rainstorm, there was no water coming in.
Huh, I thought. And went back to doing battle with a printer with a bad attitude.
So I worked for a few hours more, and then went to pick Stinkerbelle up at her sitter’s house. I remarked in passing on the rain, and the sitter said they came in before it began.
Then I began to load Stinkerbelle into the car. And I noticed, as I looked around, that there was this… STUFF… floating down from the sky. WHITE stuff.
SNOW.
It was only a very few flakes falling here and there, but STILL.
So we started for home. And as we began to drive, I noticed it was starting to rain. Only not really. It was like rain, only it was snow. It was that half-snow, half-rain stuff. It was SNAIN.
I could cope with snain.
Only, as we drove along, I noticed it was really LOUD. It was REALLY loud, for snow. Sort of like the sound of the rain on the HEY WAIT A MINUTE! It suddenly dawned on me that the sound I heard in the office wasn’t rain… and there was no water leaking because… IT WAS SNOW.
Bastard snow!
But this was BIGGER than snow. It was all over the road like ice pellets. Or hail. But when you watched it hit the car, it didn’t hit and bounce like ice, it went all SPLAT. SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT.
And it was BIG. It was like someone was heaving little snowballs at us. SPLAT SPLAT. I looked up into the sky and could watch these big wet snowball thingies come down and SPLAT on my windshield and the hood.
SPLATTITY SPLATTITY SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT.
Hmph, I thought. Bastard giant snow.
From the backseat, That Girl piped up. “WOW. That’s not rain.”
“Nope,” I said.
She sighed. “WOW. WEIRD.”
And then, just like that, within a matter of a few hundred metres down the road, it was dry. And sunny.
“Yep,” I agreed. “It’s just weird.”
Nov
9
My husband, he is an enabler.
I have a couple of obsessions. He enables them. Sometimes this is a bad thing. Mostly it’s a good thing. Sometimes it’s an OMG TOTALLY FULL OF WIN thing.
So, you know the other day, I was talking about this thing I have about lists? Yeah, he has a list thing, too. So what does he do? He finds this program called Evernote, and it lets us make lists on whatever computer we are on, and synchronize them. So that means that no matter what computer you use to add something to your list, if you sign in on another computer you can add something to that same list, and see what you added previously. So if I am upstairs, and I think “Oh, I need to add X to my shopping list” I can add it right then and there to the shopping list. Or if I am at work, I can add something there. But the BONUS is, that if BDH is at work, and he thinks of something, he can add it too, from his work computer. We can SHARE lists.
Takes list-making to a whole new level, doesn’t it. I KNOW!!
He also knows I lovelovelove music. Like, geeked-out love. And radio, too. But, in the last couple of years, I have grown disillusioned with commercial radio, in particular the station I listened to since university. We have iTunes and I have links to listen to stations worldwide to get a good station that I enjoy, but that doesn’t help when, say, I’m out and about in the car, or at work, or whatever. So, with a little research… voila, we have satellite radio. So that’s been really nice.
And then there’s knitting. I love to knit. And it’s fair to say, I have a large stash of yarn. Now, in the past, he enabled my knitting obsession by picking up GIANT SKEINS OF YARN he found on sale. And he didn’t bat an eye when I picked up a bunch of balls here, or a bag of mill ends there, or went a little nutty at the going-out-of-business sale at our local yarn store. But this is why I have such a large stash of yarn. I’m slowly knitting my way through it, but the operative word is SLOW. And so, we have had to shove yarn into drawers and bags and boxes and bins to store it, else we end up buried up to our collective whatzis in cheap acrylic and handicraft cotton.
But my birthday is approaching. I am nothing if not cheap, and so when I am asked for what I want for gifts, it is usually something practical. Something I NEED. Now, BDH HATES this. He wants me to get something I WANT. So, this year? I found something frivolous and enjoyable and fun.
A MYSTERY GRAB BAG OF YARN FROM A FANCY SUPPLIER.
So this means, I put in the order, and I get something like 25 balls of yarn, their choosing, and they pack it up and ship it to me. And SURPRISE! I see what I get in the box, and away I go coming up with something to knit. It would be a chance to try yarns that I have never knit with before, so that’s fun. (To be honest, the cheap practical me would probably try to ensure I got something useful and practical, like cottons and washable wools. But still.) And I like the surprise aspect of the colours and so forth. But it also means — MORE YARN WE HAVE NO PLACE TO STORE.
Did BDH complain when I suggested it? On the contrary. He keeps bugging me to see if I have placed the order yet.
So yeah, he’s an enabler. But he’s MY enabler. And if you have a problem with that, you can add it to my list. (But not right now because I have the radio on and I’m knitting.)
Nov
8
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Welcome to Tuesday. Just your usual random oddball happenings here in Suburbiaville.
Nov
7
So, I have this problem.
(Well, I have many problems, honestly. But here is one of the problems I have today.)
I have gardens. I have issues with my gardens. They’re never quite right. This is a combination of bad planning (whoops), bad soil and drainage (what a surprise) and bad location (next to Where The Wild Things Are, Who Come And Eat What You Plant). But despite this, every year, I start out optimistically buying and planting, weeding and trimming, until it begins to a) become tedious or 2) go horribly terribly wrong, and I lose interest.
Fortunately that is followed quickly by Fall, so… problem solved for another year.
Anyway. In my fit of optimism, one June day I went out to buy some plants. Being cheap, I bought only a few things. But the planting season was drawing to a close, so there were many discounted plants and shrubs.
And there, on a flat of shrubbery, was where I met Yew.
For five dollars, there was a shrub that called out to me. It was Yew. I knew Yew would be a great addition to our gardens. I had vague ideas that perhaps Yew would be good in the Far Back Reaches of the Far Back-est Garden, where he could help keep the weeds down, and provide a warm place for the birds in winter, and probably, when he got big enough, be something for the deer to munch on when things got desperate.
So that sunny June day, I bought Yew home, and I put him on the porch with the other little plants I had purchased.
And there Yew sat. And sat. And sat.
All the flowers and vegetables were planted, and yet Yew sat in his little pot, waiting patiently for a home. And although I watered him regularly, I could never get motivated enough to go out there, into the Far Back Reaches of the Far Back-est Garden, with a shovel and gloves to do battle with the horrible clay soil and rocks and weeds.
And then, it was September. I knew I had to get him into the soil early, so he had a chance to settle in before the ground got too cold. Except the weather didn’t cooperate, and it got cold and wet almost immediately.
And still, Yew waited for me.
And now? It is November. It is too cold to plant Yew anywhere. And I am afraid that, in his little pot, if I leave him out on the patio, his roots will freeze and he will die.
So, what am I going to do with Yew?
I have a couple of choices. I could just let him take his chances on the patio. But I have grown attached to Yew, and I hate the thought that Yew will die because of my neglect.
I could buy a big plastic pot, fill it with dirt, and plant him there. He could sit on the patio, wintering over as evergreens do, but the stone south-facing patio plus the insulation of a big pot full of dirt might help him endure the cold until springtime.
Or, I could do the big plastic pot thing, but bring him inside for the winter. Yew would be warm, but it will also be dry and dark-ish in the house, and I have not been terribly successful because of this when I have tried to bring plants inside over the winter. Plus we have cats, and cats love dirt, and that means my choice of location for Yew would be limited indeed.
So I bring the question to you, my all-knowing peeps: What am I going to do with Yew?
Nov
6
Today, I broke a cardinal rule on which I have held firm for my entire life: No decorating for Christmas before December 2.
I have kept this rule year in and year out, and have never even felt the slightest bit inclined to pull out the holiday decorations before December. But this year, something was different.
I don’t know what it is, but I have been feeling excited at the prospect of the holidays for a little while now, probably as soon as the weather began to turn cold. And so today, we went out to the new Michaels in town, and we went a little Xmas bonkers.
And, when we came home, we put up our first decoration of the year — a little lighted tree in our foyer.
I think it probably has something to do with the fact that, for the first time, Stinkerbelle is starting to “get” some of the year’s holidays, and remember some of the symbols and traditions and things we do. She was VERY EXCITING for Halloween, and understood what was going to happen, and remembered a little bit of last year’s Halloween excitement.
And it was contagious.
So when she saw a picture of Santa somewhere in her school paperwork, and immediately said “It’s Christmas!”, I think that was the moment when I began to really feel it. The prospect of her first Christmas season where she understands Santa, and decorating the tree, and making cookies, and can participate and has a frame of reference… well, it just makes it all that much more fun for everyone around her.
A few days ago, That Girl and I were at Canadian Tire, looking for a humidifier. And as much as I love Canadian Tire, you need a slide rule, a ouija board, and a 20-sided dice to find things in there. So as we wandered around, we came upon the Christmas tree display. And her eyes lit up and there was that moment of breathless wonder, where she whispered, almost reverently, “Oooooh, Christmas…”
And I knew I was as good as done trying to resist the urge anymore.
So today, there we were, bright and early at Michaels, buying festive cards, and things for holiday baking, and our new little potted tree. And it was so much fun to see her gasp and squeal and clap her hands at every aisle of festive items. She said hello and wished people “Happy Christmas!” as we shopped.
When we came home, she repeatedly begged us to “have Christmas” and “Open the box and see!” until, at long last, we unpacked this first decoration of the season. She shrieked with excitement and jumped up and down, clapping her hands, as we fluffed up our little tree’s branches and got it to look just so.
And both BDH and I knew, right then, that it looks like it is going to be a great holiday season.
For the last few years, we’ve been too busy and tired to do much around the holidays, or we have not been here to celebrate so didn’t bother much with decorating. And before that, pre-Stinkerbelle, for a number of years decorating just served to be a sad reminder of how empty our home was without children.
But this year? This year, the prospect of Christmas has us feeling… well, like a kid at Christmas, honestly.
But it’s only November. We’ve got a lot to do, but not THAT much. So we’ve got to take it slowly, and savour it. As BDH said this morning, Stinkerbelle understands it now, and until the magic of Santa and Christmas fades for her, we only have a few years to get it right.
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