Temporary Snow

We have a shower again, we can bathe and smell nice, and I am very happy about that. The water control in our shower/tub broke Monday and we could not turn the water on. Now showers, no baths, just your’s truly washing her hair in the kitchen sink. Our wonderful plumber came and fixed it all up for us and it didn’t even cost us too much! So, Yay! One thing going right after going wrong.

I am slowly working on projects for xmas/Yule and making slow but steady progress. It would help if all the flotsum and jetsum from my husband’s work could finally be gone, but I am doing the best I can. We have our first snow of the season and it’s lovely. There’s a fire in the woodstove, coffee cake in my belly, and tentative hope for the future that the U.S. won’t become some kind of hellscape.

Hello Darkness

No matter how I try I just can’t seem to drum up much enthusiasm for Halloween this year. I don’t have the mental energy to come up with the wonderful ideas to salvage this one. Or so it seems today, with only 3 days left to pull a rabbit out of my hat. Normally I would be busily working on costumes, making zombie sugar cookies, decorating with our Halloween stuff, and ordering some scary movies from the library or planning a one-shot horror run for the family. I’m tired. I’m drained right now. I know my sweet husband feels the same.

We started this year with the horrifying wildfires in Australia and California. Gods, those seemed like the worst thing, didn’t they? I have loved ones in Australia and CA and I was so worried about them and about all the animals and other people caught in such shockingly bad situations. Obviously the year had to get better from there but it so Did Not. The fires in Australia were brought under control eventually, and even CA had something of a respite but the world situation just got worse. CA is on fire again, has been for what feels like ages and that is almost the least of my worries, not really, it’s still a big worry. Most of my worry time is used for the newest rise in Covid-19 cases and the political unrest in the US. Watching a sitting president fan the flames of hate and violence is not something I ever thought I’d see. My son came of age watching it, and hearing how the climate is collapsing, and now a global pandemic… and people wonder at the nihilistic sense of humor Gen-Z has. My son literally turned 18 in quarantine. So did a lot of kids.

This year horror is all too real and it’s everywhere. I feel like I can’t turn on my computer without finding out yet another unarmed POC has been blatantly murdered by police. The protests over police violence continue but get less and less coverage even as the police use tear gas on peaceful, unarmed pregnant women, small children, and everyone else who dares ask that POC be treated as human beings. I can’t open my computer without seeing yet another highest cases per day report as thousands die and other thousands flock to the President’s super spreader events and refuse to wear masks and scream their approval of the continued denial of science. And there is so much more. So much hate and violence, so much despotism and inhumanity. Even my dreams are filled with stress.

So, I don’t even know why I want to salvage Halloween. Horror is the new normal. 2020 is such a shitshow. And yet, whatever distractions we can manage should be managed. My son, a freshly minted adult, needs me to find the good, to focus on the brightest hopes I can, to provide whatever structure I can in this, the upside-down I never thought we’d live in. Things are crazy enough for him without mom abandoning the rhythms of the seasons and all the celebrations that mark the passage of time. So I keep fighting to stay as positive as I can. I cook our meals, plan and run RPGs, provide the little luxuries of favorite foods when I can, and talk about the future as if everything will be alright because he, and my girls, need to believe the future is worth showing up for.

So I guess I have a Halloween feast to plan, some zombie cookies to bake, and I’ll need some pumpkins to carve into Jack O’Lanterns too. The bridge to the future will lit by candles and guarded by leering pumpkins.

Creeps

What is up with creepy dudes? I just had to block someone on Twitter for the first time and I hate it. I’ve blocked dozens on Facebook, of course, something about the format there invites creeps to post and message I guess, but this is the first time I’ve done it over on Twitter. The dude in question is also the first stranger to message me. This was nothing overt, nothing threatening, I didn’t even let him get to the point of being actually inappropriate because this is not my first rodeo.

He started with: “Hey, how are you doing today?” He had just followed me and his profile looked normal, his politics seemed sane, people I follow also followed him, so I followed him back. Then I get: “There are no words to express the gratitude that I feel in my heart for having followed me and how your beauty makes my day so special.” And like the generally kind person I am I assume the best intentions of friendliness and respond w/ a neutral ‘That’s kind of you to say. Thanks! Have a great day.” That’s just manners. It is not flirting. Flirting would be more like, ‘wow, thank you, you’ve made my day! You’ve got a great smile… ‘ or something. I feel like I have been polite and kind while signalling that this is just friendly. He comes back asking where I’m from. I wasn’t on Twitter at the time so he offers that he’s from wherever etc. Days go by, I’m not usually on Twitter very much, and he says, hello, how are you today? I respond with, fine, thanks, I hope you are staying safe. Yep he is. Asks about the weather, where I’m from again. I respond non-specifically, give him a region. (like, 1,000 miles from where he says he is.) He asks if I’m married, if I have kids, tells me he’s divorced etc. Tells me something tragic, I say that’s rough, like a person does.

Now, I’ve been increasingly feeling like his questions are not quite right, they feel a little invasive and I’m hoping he’s about to chill but the needle goes into the creep zone with his next and last query: “Hope I can be your very good friend?” Dude, WTF. That is not ok. Starting out with a compliment I can understand, (my pic is now a few years old and it’s cute) testing the waters with a compliment is ok. But after a woman tells you she is married you need to chill. You can say ‘lucky guy’ which he did, and move on either to being an online acquaintance or move on and look for a single chick. Right? He could have said he hoped we could be friends and it would have been better but he asked, immediately, for a big jump in intimacy, to be my “very good friend.” This would honestly be creepy if it came from another woman. It feels like a tactic, it feels like grooming, it feels like being tested for weaknesses.

At this stage in the game, having been through the mill a few times now, having dealt with my share and then some of abuse, I see it for what it is. I am done doubting my instincts. I am done allowing myself to be manipulated. Yeah, I hate having to put up barriers, I’d rather be friendly and be friends with loads of people but I am not going to put up with overt or subtle creeps. I am not full of myself, I don’t think I am ‘all that’ but I’m cute and I look pretty good for my age. I’m at a point where I don’t feel beautiful anymore, time is having it’s say, but I am still a target for creeps.

I was playing my Harry Potter game on my phone last Summer (2019) in the park and two guys went and stood at the head of the path. They had their heads together and every time I glanced at them they were looking at me. I kept them firmly in my peripheral vision because my inner alarm was silently pulsing. They walked down the path, I was off to one side giving myself plenty of room, they were looking at me as they went past, I nodded politely. They hit the end of the path and began walking along the road back toward where they’d started. They stopped halfway, where there are a lot of tall bushes. Again, I could see them talking, eyeing me and my alarms were no longer saying ‘Be Alert.’ My instincts were beginning to howl at me to get the hell out of there. I walked quickly to the head of the path and went home, some 200 yards to my house. Of course I second guessed myself. I ran it by my 17 year old son and he said; “No, no, that is legit, they were clearly doing something creepy.” (He then said he would go to the park with me whenever I wanted to play Harry Potter on my phone because he is awesome.)

It’s ok to give a woman a casual compliment: “You look great today.” or, “You have a really nice smile.” Something we can just say, “Thanks.” to. It’s ok to look at a woman and think she is pretty but don’t stare. If you look too long, and accidentally creep a woman out say, “Oops, sorry! I was just noticing how pretty you are, didn’t mean to stare.” and then turn your attention elsewhere. It’s not difficult to not be creepy, loads of people, some of them men, do it every day. Think of it this way: Do you love your mom? Or your auntie? Let’s say Mom (of Auntie) is single for whatever reason. She’s out an about, walking in a park, in coffee shop, waiting for a bus, or something. There’s a guy there, he thinks she’s pretty, wants to get to know her, wants to ask her on a date. What do you want him to say to her? How do you want him to act toward this woman who is precious to you? How should he approach her so that you wouldn’t think he was being a creep? Think about that for a bit and next time you want to give a woman a compliment let it be your guide.

Halloween in a Pandemic

So, I’m sorry for going all “Winter holidays” there before enjoying the Fall. Halloween is probably my favorite holiday of all and I shouldn’t short change it like that. How rude! So I’m here to talk about candy, costumes and what’s going on instead of trick-or-treating and in-person parties this year. First, I love this idea for little kids or pretty much anyone:

How fabulous is this? Obviously, I think those with sensitive little ones should play fast & loose with the word “scary.”

Decorate for Halloween, make Halloween themed snacks, and have everyone in your household dress up in costumes. Then mix & match from these ideas:

  • Take out some Halloween themed books or collections of ghost stories from your local library and have a read-aloud by candlelight or flashlight.
  • Make a Facebook group and ask friends and family to dress in costume and post pics or do a Zoom gathering to show off costumes and socialize.
  • Hokey monster movie marathon. (Godzilla and that era or any of the wondrously bad/hilarious sci-fi channel monster movies.
  • Create and decorate a Halloween Tree. My middle daughter started this when she was 3. We were getting ready for a little Halloween party and she asked; “What about the Halloween Tree?” I was like; “whaaat?” and asked her if she meant the tree with the lights and decorations because that was definitely the Christmas Tree… yep that’s what she meant alright but it was a Halloween Tree and she obviously thought I was suffering from extreme early-onset dementia or something because i was clearly misremembering. SO, I made a Halloween Tree. All you need is some smallish dead branches and something of sufficient weight to hold them up. I used a vase full of stones. Just arrange the branches to look like a dead tree, add some lights and spooky decorations and you’re done. Our first tree had a small string of white lights but you can now buy orange or purple Halloween lights. For decorations We make ghost out of Kleenex and string with faces sharpied on them, and some pumpkins and cats cut out of colored paper. Ours is usually sized to make a great centerpiece.
  • Bake some Halloween themed sugar cookies, the kind you cut with cookie cutters, and let the kids decorate and eat them. You could make this part of a Facebook group w/without costumes. Have friends and family share their kooky cookies.
  • Find out what, if anything in these crazy times, your local library is offering for Halloween. I am having a Make-Your-Own Monster event with a randomly drawn prize, and offering take-home crafts of Fall lantern kits, shadow puppet kits, and friendship bracelets. My counterpart in children’s services is offering several take-home kits for the little ones. Some libraries might be having costume contests by having patrons submit photos.
  • Some radio stations are definitely having costume contests w/submitted photos. One in my area is offering a prize of $100 or $200 on a debit card. (I can’t remember the amount)
  • Make a round layer cake and decorate it to look like a Jack-o-lantern.
  • If you and your kids or housemates play tabletop RPGs (Role Playing Games) run a special one-shot Halloween game. The possibilities here are nearly endless and can range from a child-friendly, goofy Scooby Doo vibe all the way to a Creepy, gritty, gorey Walking Dead/horror movie vibe. Call of Cthulhu is my go-to. One shots are perfect for it as player characters generally go insane when exposed to the Mythos anyway.
  • Create a LARP, if you’re feeling ambitious, and have enough people in your household. LARP stands for Live Action Role Play and it can be a lot of fun. This one takes more prep than any of these other ideas because you need to have a plot, props, maybe an accomplice, etc. The simplest way to do this is to get your hands on a boxed Murder Mystery game that contains all the characters, clues, etc. A few years back I created my own LARP for my youngest when that’s what he wanted to do for Halloween. I had 3 days and no money to spend so it was unpolished to say the least. But it was fun. It involved splitting our group in 2, a scavenger hunt for one group so they could find a book about Halloween that contained clues as to what they had to do, and the other group had to come up with 2 word clues to try and help the first group when they got stuck. The second group had accidentally been pulled into the afterlife and were stuck in a waiting room with a booklet of their own outlining their situation. They also got snacks and hot cocoa. The first group had to find the clues, figure them out, and conduct a ritual to get group 2 back through the veil between worlds. I wrote the booklets and decorated them with woodcuts of skeletons and such from online and set up the afterlife waiting room in our shed.

I have a bit of a headache so that’s all I’ve got for right now. Please feel free to add your awesome ideas in the comments. Or your really dumb ideas, those can be a ton of fun! ^_^

Just a couple of pics I dug up: goofy jack-o-lantern idea and one of our Halloween Tree centerpieces.

Seasonal Rambling & Gift Ideas

Okay, so I looked around trying to find Christmas crackers, the fun surprises not the ones you put cheese on, and none of them are acceptable. There are plenty in my price range but they are full of plastic junk and there are plenty that are not full of plastic junk but they are way out of my price range. So, for the second time ever, I am going to make my own. I made them once before, without the “pop” and without the paper crowns but discovered that both the paper crowns and the “pop” are very important to me. I was never going to make my own again but it turns out you can buy the pop-strips and the paper crowns so… How cool is that? I am going to have fun making sure these are topnotch Christmas crackers, oh yes, there will be chocolate. Here’s a link to a video on how to make them if anyone’s interested: https://youtu.be/XtohLHq3SCw (the 2nd way is simpler so don’t get discouraged by the 1st!)

As of today, October what? 21st? I am nearly done with my holiday shopping, except for food, and am making my way down my to-do list. My eldest daughter gave me her list at last so I have started on it and I’ve ordered almost everything for everyone. Stocking stuffers are mostly collected, I think one or two items might be left to gather. I have some crafting ahead of me, for sure, but not as much as previous years. Lets all pray to the old gods that my sewing machine doesn’t need a tune up and will perform its duties tidily and well. I have a fair bit of sewing ahead of me. I want to make Hogwarts themed cloth napkins for the Yule Feast. I’ve had the fabric forever just never got around to making them. I’m about 1/3 of the way through the project for our friend Savannah. (muahaha) And I’ve just got a few little bits and bobs to make. Once all the presents arrive it’s down to wrapping them, decorating the house and all things feast-related.

Killing it on the organization this year. Requested a couple of strategic shifts off in December to have a week off over the holidays and my boss approved it. Then she asked were there any days in November anyone wanted off and I asked for the 23rd because it’s our wedding anniversary and it’s also the Monday before Thanksgiving, and the anniversary of the first showing of the first episode of Doctor Who. I got that off as well so I am very happy. I anticipate an even more relaxed holiday season than I was expecting. ^_^ This never happens to me, never. I am always the one who ends up working the day after Christmas, the day after Thanksgiving, New Year’s Day etc. I always forget to ask ahead of time.

Holiday celebrations, and all celebrations, are awesome but one thing I hate is the attendant waste. I understand the relative “need” for paper plates and such, I try to avoid them whenever I can but I get it. What I hate is all the throw-away junk that gets bought, given, and very soon-thereafter tossed. All those cheap little pieces of junk that seem darling for like, an hour maybe, and then end up choking a sea turtle. This year wasn’t going to be too big on junk anyway but something in my inbox gave me just lovely ideas for stocking stuffers. Really good stuff that I feel like I should share with you, the dear people who stop by and read my silly blog. Here’s the link: https://modernmrsdarcy.com/stocking-stuffers/ It’s an old blog post for MMD and it is an excellent guide to stocking stuffers you won’t regret. It’s got practical items, useful items, consumables, and all that sort of thing. There are items on the list for everyone. Some broad ideas, some specific links that’ll do for inspiration at the very least… just check it out if you’re short on ideas. I tend to fill stockings with certain traditional items, at least traditional in my family, like; toothbrushes, a pair of socks, mittens, or gloves, a bit of candy, travel tissues, mini shampoo or conditioner or other toiletries, and I try to add some more individually targeted items like maybe a small paperback book, gaming dice, minis to paint, or other little items I know the receiver will especially appreciate.

On to presents! I love looking over curated suggestion lists. I don’t always find the perfect gifts on them but I do find inspiration and ideas that make for good jumping off points. This year the MMD (Modern Mrs. Darcy) has come out with a really nice list for book lovers: https://modernmrsdarcy.com/mmd-2020-gift-guide-for-book-lovers/?utm_source=convertkit&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=%F0%9F%93%9AThe+MMD+2020+gift+guide+for+book+lovers%20-%204645164 I think the socks and the little notebooks are particularly on point. This list for gamers has some ridiculous pricey items on it but a few nice little gems that are budget friendly: https://www.thisiswhyimbroke.com/gifts-for-gamers/ The $10 arcade style light switches make me want to rewire my house so there are more light switches. They are adorable! There are lists out there for all kinds of people. Google search is your friend.

Lists are cool, I usually find some good ideas, but sometimes they do fail me or my brain fails to engage while I’m looking at them and that’s when I switch tactics to something really fun. Gift Baskets absolutely rule. I used to put one together for fundraisers at my kid’s schools to be raffled off. They are easy, cheaper than you’d think, and so much fun to put together as well as to receive. They can be themed to cover almost anything, any interests, any occasion, etc. You could put together something fun like a “Movie Night” (for 2) basket. I’ve made these for a few people. I took a big plastic movie popcorn bucket, ($1) and filled it with: a few bags of microwave popcorn, ($1/3) a few box candies, ($1 each)and a couple of Virgil’s Rootbeers or a bottle of wine. I get everything but the drinks at Dollar Tree. Under $10 for the Virgil’s version, less than $15 for the wine version. (I tend to buy Apothic blends for $10 because they are both tasty and not too expensive) I get everything but the This year I’m considering making one or more “Sick Day” baskets with a fleece throw, cough drops, some cans of chicken soup, a couple of bottles of ginger ale, a book that’s a nice, light read maybe, or a book of crosswords or sudoku puzzles. I think I could pull that off for under $20 easily. You could make a nice food basket with some fresh fruit, block of nice cheese, some dried fruit and some packets of cocoa, a box of tea, etc. These things can be as practical or as silly as you like they are very flexible.

Let’s see… Do you know anyone who isn’t happy to receive home baked cookies as a gift? I make a few different kinds and put about a dozen cookies into each ($1) Christmas tin to give to coworkers or neighbors I don’t really know but want to spread a little cheer to. I also give them to friends if I know they don’t get time to bake much. Lemon bread is another good gift, I’ll try to post the recipe sometime soon, it’s awesome. I don’t get to eat it anymore because I am allergic but it still makes a good gift.

You probably have some great ideas for gifts, stockings, etc too, please feel free to share them. I am always looking for more ideas. ^_^

Stress-Free Holiday Feasts!

Good Morning. Since the house is still buried in boxes to some extent I am not focused on decluttering. Instead I have decided to focus on activities and areas of my life where I am currently feeling more accomplished and competent: stress free holiday planning, crafting, and reading.

I pretty much straight up brag about how I pull off the holidays and bragging is not really my thing at all. Like pretty much everyone I used to stress out over all things holiday and pretty much had a pretty stress-filled miserable time. I worked my butt off decorating, shopping, wrapping, and pulling off ‘the big meal.’ I would spend Thanksgiving day cooking and cleaning up and be utterly crushed when the meal took about 30 minutes and then everyone went back to video games or football or whatever. Christmas was similar but more so. I would get so stressed that I was miserable and I was also no fun to be around. Part of that was perfectionism, that insane mindset that makes you feel like one little thing going wrong negates Everything Else that went right, another part of it was that I was disorganized and going about things the wrong way.

It took a while, it didn’t happen overnight, but over the years I have completely transformed my experience of the big Fall/Winter holidays. Thanksgiving and Christmas are now virtually stress-free for me and I have way more time to relax and enjoy them. The crazy thing is that what I do to have these stress-free holidays isn’t complicated at all. Normally, I would shop for Xmas presents over the course of a whole year, squirreling away gifts one by one as I found perfect gifts at very low prices and carefully noting down each gift and who it was for in a notebook. 2020 being the non-stop dumpster fire that it has been so far, I haven’t been out at the charity shops or stores running crazy sales, I just started shopping about 1 or 2 weeks ago… when I finally realized it was October and I was rapidly running out of time. So this year is different. I have started shopping at the same time I have started planning the feasts. (I started thinking about the feasts about when I usually do)

Stress-free celebrations are easy:

  • Plan Ahead
  • Stay Organized

Right about now is a good time to be finalizing the menu for Thanksgiving. This is the easiest part, just make a list of all the foods you want to serve for your feast. Here’s my list:

  • Gordon Ramsey’s Christmas Turkey & Gravy
  • Stuffing
  • Mashed potatoes
  • Broccoli casserole
  • Cranberry sauce
  • Rolls & butter
  • Butternut squash
  • Chocolate chip sour cream coffee cake
  • Apple pie
  • White wine
  • Sparkling cranberry juice
  • Hot cocoa

There is plenty to do there, and I do spend the morning cooking, but I am calm and happy anyway. The obvious thing is that I do everything ahead of time that I possibly can. I make the cranberry sauce a day or 2 before, I do all the baking a day or so before, I oven roast the squash ahead of time and use the stovetop for reheating and the final touches. I assemble the broccoli casserole the day before, and peel and chop the potatoes in between turkey prep steps. At this stage, I would also note on my list the cooking temps and baking time for each item that needs to go in the oven that day. Then I pick a sort of average temp, since I have just the one oven, and adjust all the cook times down the list. Then I make a note of what time each thing will need to go into the oven on the day of the feast in order to have everything ready all at once. If I had too many things needing to go into the oven at the same time I would have to rethink things a little and do a bit of oven tetris. With what I have planned above my son and I will spend the morning using Gordon’s YouTube video to prep and cook the turkey and make the gravy. I will also make the mashed potatoes, rolls and stuffing and do the final steps for a few other things. I’ll have music on, I’ll be sipping white wine, and I’ll be relaxed and happy as I have been for the past several years.

Our Christmas feast is similar, really, some of the foods will be different, but the planning and making ahead are the same. I should have the xmas feast planned shortly after Thanksgiving. This is the planner I used to use: https://christmas.organizedhome.com/printable/christmas-planner/holiday-menu-planner I just ignored the fiddly little categories and put all my ‘sides’ wherever. My form is a lot simpler. 


<!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; mso-font-charset:78; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-536870145 1791491579 18 0 131231 0;} @font-face {font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; mso-font-charset:78; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-536870145 1791491579 18 0 131231 0;} @font-face {font-family:Cambria; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073743103 0 0 415 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} @page WordSection1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;} -->
Feast Plan:
 
 
 
Drinks:
 
 
 
 
Sides:
 
 
 
 
Main:
 
 
 
 
Dessert:

Tune in next time for a rundown of my simple plan for keeping Christmas craziness at bay. ^_^

Holiday Prep

Is it that time again? Yep! It’s actually a hella late start for me I try to start my holiday prep in January so I can pick away at it all year. That is a habit born of being broke for several or more years of my adult life. I would shop all the crazy after Xmas sales at Michael’s and Jo Ann’s and snag craft items I could whip up for the next xmas, or decorations I could give as gifts or add to our collection. (75-90% off was my jam) I also spent the whole year visiting tag sales and secondhand shops looking to luck out on clothes, books, toys, etc, that were in excellent condition and perfect for the people I was shopping for. Our Christmases were always pretty amazing despite the bad financial times. Anyway….

This year, due mostly to the pandemic, I am starting now in mid-October. Eek! We need to save money this year for sure. Everything is unstable at this point; jobs, the political climate, the actual climate, just everything, so we are trying not to spend too much, trying to build up a cushion in case we need it. In a shocking development, to me at least, I am pretty much forced to buy all our presents new. There has been no browsing the aisles at charity shops, no tag sales, nothing like that. I have to order everything online to be safe. So were doing a category thing:

  • One thing you Want
  • one thing you Need
  • one thing to Wear
  • one thing to Read
  • one thing to Eat
  • one thing to Drink
  • one thing to Play
  • one thing to Make

That seems like a lot until you realize that our ridiculous “normal” was 15-20 presents each thanks to my shopping strategies. So this is a significant cut back BUT I will be forced to get it all new so that kind of shifts the cost back up. I’m still looking for deals, of course, and I’m doing ok. The categories are mostly broad and a lot of the items will end up being cheap, like something to drink is going to be tea for a few of us and rootbeer for a couple, only my hubby will get expensive as he wants scotch. Something to eat is cheap too. I have requests for chocolate, pretzels, ‘fancy’ ramen, smartfood, and crackers so far. I expect my remaining daughter to request dill pickles. My son asked for underwear for something to wear, my husband needs jeans, one daughter asked for a jacket. I’d pay a lot less if I could shop second hand but hopefully the novelty of getting stuff brand new will make it worth it this year. Yikes.

Stockings will be stuffed with mostly practical items; hand lotion, toothbrushes, shampoo, etc, and food treats like cocoa packets, mints and so on. There may be socks, or gloves, probably a few homemade items. I love the stockings, I like to get creative and fancy with them, make them specific to the recipient and all, but this year will be a little different and that’s ok. We will be surrounded by all the decorations, and we will have our little feast. We will play games and watch movies, and read aloud, and it will be lovely.

Soon my son and I will begin planning said feast. He will peruse our Harry Potter cookbooks and surf Youtube cooking videos and come to me with suggestions. He wants me to make spotted dick for dessert this year, I suspect mostly because of the name, and I will. It has raisins in it and it sounds kind of awful but I’ll make another dessert as back up and it will all be fine.

Oh, I need to get holiday crackers, I need to put that on my list! I have a whole binder that keeps me on track for Yule/Christmas. It’s a thin binder, nothing overwhelming, I used to just use a few pages of a spiral notebook. For years and years I used a notebook and all I wrote in it was a list of gifts for each member of my little family and a list of their stocking stuffers. Since I shopped all year and hid things away I really needed those lists of I might forget which gift went to which person. It also helped me keep things even as far as number of gifts and $ spent for each of them. As each present was wrapped and tagged I would cross it off. It was really helpful for knowing if something was missing and I needed to hunt it up but as systems go it was very, very basic. In 2017, after visiting Diagon Alley in FL, I got it in my head to make us a Harry Potter Christmas and nothing was going to get in my way.

I made us all House Stockings and scarves and I made a bunch of decorations. Google search was my best friend as I looked for ideas on how to create this first themed Christmas. I cooked up a storm too, making a Hogwarts/English Christmas feast complete with butter beer and other such treats. It was all this crazy activity that lead me to improve my system. Instead of just present lists I needed to keep track of many projects I was working on and create a schedule for myself for both the crafts and all the cooking. It’s kind of funny, I used to stress out horribly on the big holidays and now I am relaxed and enjoying them. I am on track to be finished with all but wrapping and meal prep by the end of October!

A Decluttering Collapse

I got off to a good start but life like to give us the unexpected. I should have expected it. I knew we were going to have to deal with a ton of boxes from my husband’s work, I knew it was coming soon, yet when it arrived it derailed everything. He had to prep computers for something like 300 students? It might have been more. So all the computers arrived and all the computer bags arrived… at our house which is just a regular house, where we live and do stuff. I think we have 1700 square feet for the five of us which is normally ok. The boxes took over. There’s an office-type space in the kitchen and it was full, floor to almost ceiling, with big red boxes. I wish I’d snapped a pic but I didn’t. Here’s the point I remembered:

This is when there were only 8 boxes left. You can see the windows and everything!

So each red box contains a bunch of little boxes containing a laptop and assorted cords. We have other boxes that contain laptop bags. We unbox a red box of laptop boxes, unbox each laptop, scan it, label it, etc etc, and put it in a laptop bag which gets labeled, then re-box the laptops in their bags by dorm assignment. Then we tape up the big box, label it, and get it to the school. As we do this we are left with all the individual laptop boxes which must be saved to mail them back in like 3 years, so the amount of clutter grows and expands and takes over everything… until we box up the little boxes and get them to the school too. I have a pic, again not taken at peak-boxage:

The boxes are on top of the dog crate and they were, again, up to the ceiling. There are more on the shelf there and there were even more taking over the counter in the laundry room and on top of the pantry cupboards.

At the point that I took this picture we had sent back over 100 of these little boxes already. Also, as we fill the big boxes with laptops we move them into the front hall until we can’t safely put any more in there, then we have them picked up ASAP.

We can squeeze by the boxes so it’s ok! The lighter boxes at the back are the boxes full of boxes. It gets pretty hilarious at certain points, like when I tried to bring groceries in.
A small sample of the recycling. We went twice a week to drop off cardboard and that was pretty much ONLY the boxes the laptop bags came in because we reuse the others to send the computers to the school.

We’re almost done at this point, I hope, so I can stop treading water and get back to making some progress again. I’m reviewing Sink Reflections; by Marla Cilley in the meantime, trying to keep my mojo alive. Soon the last of the boxes will be gone and I will restart my decluttering efforts and get this place in shape.

Note: the banner for this post is by: “clutter” by Sean MacEntee is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Garden Goals

Since we’re so very indoorsy and don’t know how to do much yard stuff, and because I am a known even notorious crop-killer, I met with a woman who does landscape/yard stuff to talk about getting some gardens put in and some help/instruction around keeping food plants alive and hopefully getting them to produce, you know, FOOD. It was a fantastic meeting, outdoors in our yard, both of us masked and socially distant. I showed her all my spots of abject failure and semi-success and we talked about what it is we want to do and how to get that going. She was, of course, very positive and certain with the right help even I can garden successfully. I’m actually hopeful! We’re looking at having the existing ornamental beds cleaned out and possibly filling in empty spots with more productive plants as well as having actually food gardens put in and more berry bushes installed with some kind of actual plan. She took soil samples to be tested which is, apparently, step one.

Even though I’m sure it made me look like a total spaz I asked if all the mint I have so painstakingly tended, with mediocre results, could be carefully dug up and given a place in the new garden. She did try to warn me that mint is crazy but I pointed out that with YEARS of encouragement it has made minimal gains under my tender mercy so I’m guessing it will get it’s own little area which is fine by me. I have peppermint and spearmint growing and I love them. She says we can do an herb garden and a vegetable garden, a berry patch and so on, maybe fruit trees! It’ll have to happen in stages of course, she probably prefers to be paid and stuff. My art studio/hippy fort/shed is back-burnered for now because being able to produce some of our own food is just a bigger priority. Part of my childhood we had a nice garden and it was lovely to be able to run outside and just pick fresh veggies that immediately made their way onto our table.

I need to make a list of veggies, fruits, herbs and berries I want to grow and she’s going to help me make it happen. I warned her that I am going to go pretty mental and list a million things and she might have to help me pare it down to something reasonable and, especially, point out items that are hard to grow/easy to kill. I want:

  • at least one apple tree *
  • more raspberries and help keeping them “nice” *
  • lingonberries
  • mint
  • rosemary
  • dill
  • cilantro
  • onions
  • scallions*
  • garlic*
  • red peppers
  • broccoli
  • cauliflower
  • zucchini*
  • summer squash
  • lettuce
  • winter squash*
  • hot peppers
  • cantaloupe
  • tomatillos*
  • Pumpkins
  • at least one pepper tree
  • a nectarine tree
  • Potatoes
  • carrots
  • parsnips
  • beets
  • chickpeas
  • kidney beans
  • navy beans
  • green beans
  • long beans
  • maybe grapes!

I mean… obviously Not all at once… but I’d like to get at least some of this going and then build on it over time, build up to where we have a nice variety of veggies and fruit and such. I want to be able to say that we are not completely dependent on other people for our food. Ideally we will eventually have some sort of greenhouse, some chickens, maybe a nice little sheep or 2? We’re also looking at installing a hedge along the road. … … … man, that is a lot of stuff and it is the tip of the iceberg. I think this project in particular will be worth all the effort. I know it is a little crazy to pay someone to help with this, food gardens should save money and this one will take ages to break even, BUT I can’t do this without help, I’ve proven that over and over again, and this way I might actually succeed. Plus the goal isn’t precisely to save money, it’s more to have the ability to produce food. So, yeah, I think it will be a win if my blight druid tendencies can be conquered at last. I am so excited about this!

Balance in the Library

Years ago when I was asked to list my favorite authors I realised, looking over my list, that most of them were men. My list had writers like Tolkien, Guy Gavriel Kay, Christopher Moore, Neil Gaiman, H.P. Lovecraft, R.A. Salvatore, and loads more. There were two women on my list: J.K. Rowling and Caitlin R. Kiernan. I thought about what I read and reread and added Anne Bishop because how did I forget her? I read her stuff all the time! But still, I had at least ten male authors to three female and I wondered, why? Do I really prefer the writing styles/tones/etc of men? Or was I just not exposing myself to many female writers?

So I started consciously choosing to read fiction written by women. I found Gail Carriger, Mira Grant, Genevieve Cogman, and N.K. Jemisin. Lately I’ve discovered Diana Rowland, Brigid Kemmerer, Kira Jane Buxton, A.J. Hackwith, Angie Thomas, Ijeoma Uluo (nonfiction), Sherry Thomas, Cait Flanders and Silvia Moreno-Garcia. I gravitate toward books by women. If I’m looking at a book it is more likely I will buy it if the author is female. Not that I shun male authors. I’ve also found Chuck Wendig, N.S. Dolkart, Jim C. Hines, and James Lovegrove in recent years and I love them. My personal bookshelves are pretty egalitarian at this point. But I recently noticed that the YA Collection I curate is pretty slanted toward female authors so now I’m working on restoring balance. I’m scanning professional journals looking for male protagonists and male YA authors and it seems to me that there are actually a good deal more women writing YA than there are men, or maybe that’s just the releases of the past several months… I know for sure that YA is heavily tipped toward fantasy and it takes some effort to find other genres.

I want the collection to be balanced, to represent all the types of people that might browse it or use it. I want male authors, female authors, authors of color representing all the colors there are, and LGBTQIA authors. Stories featuring all types of characters, from all walks of life should be in the collection. And all genres, all interests… just a good variety, a good sampling of what is out there. Right now the YA collection is organized alphabetically by author and I would LOVE to organize it by genre and then alphabetically by author within those sections. We don’t even, for the most part, add gere stickers to our books, so it is really hard to help teens that just want to see a selection of romance, or horror, or sci-fi etc. There are some stickers but they aren’t used consistently. I really want to change that. Overall, I’d say now is the time to try to do it with the library not being open to patrons right now. I could take it all apart and put it back together… but first I should weed it. Goodness knows I haven’t properly done that yet. At the same time, we are busy, busy with phone calls and curbside pick up and trying to plan for next year.

Hmmmm, maybe I’ll just start with the “New” section… just organize that by genre and see how it goes? It would make things easier for sure if I could get it done. So many teens want a specific genre and it would be a huge improvement to be able to just show them the section so they could browse independently.