I love a Christmas dinner

I love a Christmas dinner. And in my considerable life span, I am lucky enough to be able to say I’ve never had a bad one.

My earliest memories of Christmas dinner were with my aunt and cousins.  My parents, brother and I would open Christmas presents and then pile into the car and head to my aunt’s house 2 hours away.  She’d have this ginormous spread.  A turkey at one end of this huge table and a ham at the other.  In between was every side you could imagine.  And among the many dessert offerings there was always a box of Turtles. 

As I got older it was my mother who presided over the Christmas feast.  Her infamous Bruno’s turkey roll, stuffing from Pusateri’s, and a Christmas tablescape worthy of a Harper’s Bazaar photo shoot.   The meal was served on Christmas eve and Christmas crackers were de rigueur; dinner was always late and always fabulous, and my brother and I spent hours cleaning up afterwards. None of her good dishes could go in the dishwasher.

Now that I have a family of my own, I’ve had the luxury of eating Christmas dinner hosted by my mother-in-law and my sisters-in-law.  All of them fantastic cooks.  I’ve even been known to cook a mean Christmas roast myself.  My in-laws’ meals are always on time and always delicious. Mine, by the grace of who knows what deity, have always been good but seldom on time.  These days my boys spend hours cleaning up afterwards.  Usually because they start horsing around.  My good dishes are dishwasher safe.

I’ve adopted my mother’s Christmas eve Christmas dinner tradition.  That way you never have to get out of your pajamas on Christmas day.  I’m always delighted at the faces I see around the table.  And I’ve managed to convince them all to wear Christmas crackers.  This was not something my husband grew up with.  To this day while putting on his paper crown he’ll mention that he does not get it.   The first time I brought them to my mother-in-law’s she gamely placed them at each setting without judgement and then wore the paper crown and read her joke out loud.

Sometimes the tables are big, sometimes small, and the people around them all work hard to make this dinner a great dinner.  All those families and friends, all that effort, all these wonderful memories. 

I love a Christmas dinner.

My table only looks like this when my mother is in charge

Remembrance Day

Today is the day we pay attention to and honour the incredible sacrifices that our soldiers and their families made in both world wars to win said wars.  The alternative was unacceptable and these men and women laid down their lives or suffered incredible loss to ensure it. 

Lest we forget.

How could you forget?  Entire towns of men were wiped out.  Everyone had a lost solider in their family tree.  Some had many.  If you went to school in the 80s All's Quiet on the Western Front was assigned reading.  The geopolitical fall out took 40 years to recover from.  Never mind the physical destruction and loss of life.  I now understand the span of 40 years.

For me, this day also became a tribute to the victims of war, soldiers and civilians alike.  I have friends who have civilian POWs in their family tree; who were considered slave labour; who's grandfathers lived in forests and resisted occupation after the war.  I'm sure there are many who experienced actual war crimes.

It was never talked about and yet universally understood that war is - insert your many and varied horror adjectives of choice.  What was also made very clear...war was the last defense but if it came to that you fight.  The cost of your neighbor's freedom is stratospheric but you pay it to protect your own.

Imagine my dawning understanding of what that cost really entailed as this day marks the 9th month of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.  I'm relieved my grandparents aren't alive to witness this.  Ironically, it appears US and Poland are doing the most.  The rest of the western world's "caution" is a terrible response to our veterans sacrifice.  And my country's tepid involvement feels shameful.  Would I sacrifice my life to end this war?  Yes.  Would I encourage my children to do the same?  I don't know.

Those men and women, the ones in our family tree, said yes to both.

Lest we forget.

My Current Life Coach Is A Sewing Machine

I have all these sewing projects in my head.  I want to sew cushion covers made out of my sons' old t-shirts.  I want to make a duvet cover out of old summer tie-die t-shirts that either don't fit or no one wears anymore.  I have a secret desire to make my own tunic tops.  The ones that fit and look fabulous are so hard to find.  And I have sewing housekeeping.  A hem hear, a mend there and a couple of old blankets that need new material.

I do not know how to use a sewing machine.  I normally take my mending to a fabulous woman who does a phenomenal job for a reasonable price.  Then one day I took her one of my old blankets and asked her how much it would cost to sew material onto one side; sewing it along the edges of the blanket.  She quoted me $50.

I was surprised.  At the time I thought that was expensive.  It was 4 straight lines.  I was supplying all the material.  How hard could it be?

As I type the words "how hard could it be"  imagine an ominous echo reverberating around your head.  How hard could it be? How hard could it be? How hard could it be?  I have gotten myself into so many unintended experiences asking this simple question.  And after years you'd think I'd learn.  The answer is either not at all or very, very, very, hard.

So, today I'm writing about my little life lesson called learning the value of a service.  I have always respected seamstresses.  People who are able to make clothes are very clever people indeed.  However since my escapade into sewing I now believe that people who make clothes should hold the same social reverence as surgeons. I had no idea.

After getting the quote for my blanket I took it home and decided I was going to learn how to sew.

The first thing I needed was a sewing machine. A sewing machine that was relatively easy to learn on, that wouldn't cost the world  and could handle blankets.  I went searching for my sewing machine... during a pandemic when everyone was sewing masks.  You could not get a sewing machine for love or money.

My blanket and mending projects languished in a corner for a long time. When I finally mended my eldest sons pajama bottoms, they fit my youngest.  Then during Black Friday madness at Michaels a great friend who works there texted me that they had sewing machines in stock and on sale but they were going fast.  I asked her to grab one for me.  She had to argue with her manager because as she was taking the last machine off the shelf, 5 orders came in for the same machine.  She literally pulled the "I am a loyal employ and just pulled 40 hours of overtime you will let me buy this machine".  And it worked.  Then even more fabulously she went in with my mum and gave it to me for Christmas.  

Now I was in possession of a beautiful singer "heavy duty" sewing machine.  It took me 3 and half months to take it out of the box.  That machine scared the bajeebies out of me.  Sewing machines have the same vibe as band saws only with less deadly results.

Generally when I learn new things, I am lucky enough to have an innate aptitude.  I understand the gist and then it's a matter of practice and figuring out how I made the mistakes I made. Everything else that's not in my wheel house, I fear.  Witness my trepidation over making granola.

Turns out I have zero aptitude for sewing.  Learning to set up the machine challenged every one of my brain synapses. The first time I tried, it took me three hours to thread the machine and the bobbin properly.  I felt desperate frustration that brought tears to my eyes and a tantrum to my soul.  I really wanted to take a baseball bat to this machine and hammer it into tiny, tiny pieces. 

When I was little, seven or eight, I broke my wrist and had to wear a cast.  During that time I was scheduled to perform at a community piano recital that my piano teacher was hosting for her students' parents.  With huge trepidation, I walked up onto that stage and attempted to play my song with a cast. It started off well enough and then I flubbed a note.  And then I flubbed another note.  After the fourth flubbed note I stopped, turned to where my mother was seated in the audience and yelled "I TOLD YOU I can't do THIS." The frustrated rage that overcame me could only be released through loud volume and social embarrassment.  I had no self regulation.

That is how frustrated I felt trying to learn how to thread this sewing machine. Only there was no one to yell at but me.  I was doing this voluntarily.   And my failure to grasp how it worked was not a fun feeling.  Through sheer teeth gritting perseverance I reviewed everything I'd done so far and started again.  Turns out I'd threaded the upper part (still no idea what it's called) and it hadn't caught on the metal loopy thing that goes up and down. 

The sense of relief when I finally figured it out defies description.  I was giddy with my success and I had yet to sew a stich.  I was coming to realize that $50 was looking like a serious bargain.

I started off small.  At first I wasn't sewing anything.  Just little squares I'd cut out.  Running a line through the middle.  I could do this.  I was building my confidence.  Feeling pretty please with myself.  Then I moved on to simple mending.  I sewed up the aforementioned pajama bottoms.  It was a simple straight line where a hem had come undone.  It worked.  I was a genius. I could take my place in the famous French ateliers.  Alexander McQueen and I had something in common.  

My naiveté was hilarious. Then I grappled with a fitted shit where the corner had ripped along the seam.  This required a different colour of thread.  Which meant a new bobbin.  Damn bobbins.  This time it only took an hour to re-thread the machine.  I was getting the hang of it.  I was logging my time into the 10,000 hour journey to sewing machine mastery. Then I had to sew a straight line over a jagged tear, with one end of the sheet bunched up culminating in a elastic hem.  Good lord it was not pretty.  But I closed that gab.  And no one will ever know because it's on the inside of the corner and it's my sheet.  I was sensing I was far from a seat at the French ateliers.  This was when I realized that my seamstress had probably quoted me a discount for the blanket project.  

Then bored with myself and impatient to get to the "good stuff" I jumped into the deep end and started on my blanket project.  Please keep in mind that the "deep end" is relative.  I grabbed the jersey sheet that I wanted to sew onto the blanket and put it up against the blanket itself.  They were not the same size.  The sheet was slightly wider and longer.  What?!  I didn't want to cut the sheet so I devised a plan that I'd sew the sheet around the blanket.  

The first stage was to sew the two top widths together.  Success.  Except my attention to detail comes and goes and this time it was nowhere in sight.  I sewed the wrong side of the sheet and left the seems out for all to see.  Dammit!  Also lets talk about sewing in a straight line.  I can do it for 2 inches.  Then things go sideways, sometimes literally.  Yes I was using the guide; or at least trying to. Once that needle starts going and the material feeder starts ramping up, with a slight touch of your foot you've got a runaway train.  And you can create a fabulous thread burr if the material does not move forward.  At one point I had to take a knife and cut through the threads to get the material out from under the foot and off the little metal plate.  It was an actual struggle that involved my muscles.

It's going to take me all kinds of practice to be able to sew with a sewing machine well.    It bears repeating, I. had. no. idea.  I have humbly learned the value of sewing with a sewing machine.  The problem is I now own a sewing machine and I can't quit because what kind of example would that show my kids? 

I've actually learned more than one lesson through this experience.  One: talented Seamstresses deserve to be paid A LOT of money.  That is a serious skill.  This is a Harvard PhD, 12 years of medical education skill.  Talented seamstresses are the surgeons of the garment industry.  

And two: I have an aversion to hard.  Hard brings up all kinds of negative emotions that I do not like to feel.  It takes courage to tackle something hard.  It takes even more courage to stick with something hard.  Failing over and over again requires persistence and faith and humour.  Hard requires an ability to see the teeny tiny increments of success and celebrate the heck out of them.  Hard means you are witness to all your immaturity; your inability to control your reaction, your spoiled princess like qualities that rear their ugly head.  And these stakes are non existent.  Imagine if there was actually something on the line.  Do you know that Thomas Edison quote?  The one where he says he figured out 852 ways not to invent a light bulb.  I would think "that's clever" and then dismiss it.  It didn't settle into my awareness until I started learning all the ways not to thread a sewing machine and all the ways not to sew a straight line.  

So for all those kids who yell "I can't do it" and then figure out how to do it; or men and woman who believe in the possibility of repair and have the courage to try, my hats off to you!  I have recently learned that this is a very big deal.  

 

The Christmas Tree

Decorated Christmas trees are one of my favourite things about Christmas.  They are like snow flakes; each unique.  Every one is a creative expression.  They are all inspired by different motivations and even if they aren't my cup of tea decoration wise, they are all beautiful.

My Christmas tree grows with me every year.  I've been decorating this tree for 25 years and while some things are inviolate and must remain, others have morphed and changed as the decorations age and my ornament collection grows or things break. (It's always a little soul wrenching when something breaks.  Especially if it's my fault the item broke.) My tree is an homage to my Christmas history, my favourite Christmas tree accoutrements, and a physical talisman of family and friends. 

It starts with the lights.  My lights are from 1995.  They are the old Noma electric opaque Christmas bulbs. These are the same kind of lights that have been on  my family's Christmas tree since the early 70s. Now they are considered "retro" and they come in special packaging and are twice the price of the ordinary ones.  

One of the most vivid Christmas memories I have is setting up the Christmas tree with my Dad.  I don't remember him wrangling the tree into the stand, I don't really remember even buying the tree, but once it was up my dad and I would string the light wire from the front hall where the Christmas tree stood through the living area, into the dining room and screw in each bulb.  At that time, if one bulb went dead, the whole string wouldn't light up.  So you had to lay the long strand out and make sure that every bulb worked.  Once we confirmed every bulb worked, Dad would slowly drag the long light strand towards the tree, nimbly wrapping it around the base and then continuing on, spiraling up the tree until he reached the point on top.  Magic!

For 20 years I searched for tin light reflectors. My grandmother put them on her lights and my mum inherited a few.  I loved the way the reflector turned each Christmas bulb into a sparkling flower.  My quest remained just that until 4 years ago, Michaels sold them one Christmas season in a tribute to  "vintage Christmas".  I actually shrieked with excitement in the store.  Now I have an homage to my grandmother and beautiful sparkling lights on my tree.  

Next comes the tinsel and ribbon.  I'm a gold tinsel garland girl myself.  Some swear by the strands of silver tinsel.  We tried that one year and I swore never again.  It takes a long time to lay each strand perfectly for maximum effect and the stuff gets everywhere. I would find it in bedrooms, behind the toilet, it would migrate all over the house.

My ribbon is a red plaid.  There is something very Christmassy about a red plaid.

Now I feel ready to decorate.  My husband always looks at me like I'm crazy.  "Haven't you been decorating?" he asks with a shake of his head.  Potato, tomato.

I love, LOVE, a Christmas tree decoration.  Finding the perfect one is so satisfying.  Seeing ornaments that have been with me forever is like a warm hug.  It provides fresh joy every time I see it and provides all the lovely memories associated with it's inception and continued existence.

We had a lot of single colour balls on our tree growing up. When I got my first tree the first thing I did was go out to the Hudson's Bay and get a huge selection of single coloured balls; red, blue, gold, green, I even found purple.  You can't find them like that anymore.  They shatter if you drop them but they don't feel like glass. Those where always the filler.  The problem became that after a while I didn't need filler. Now they are a delight in their own right.  

Taking a picture of one of these ornaments is challenging.  You can always see your camera reflected in their surface.

Hudson's Bay used to have a section called Christmas Street.  They would set up 10 to 15 trees and decorate them with all kinds of amazing ornaments and then all the ornaments that were on those trees would be sitting on hooks on the wall beside the tree. Some of the ornaments were decorated balls, breathtaking, some where clever ornaments. I could spend years pouring over each tree, admiring each decoration, trying to decide if there were any that I could not leave the store without.  Sadly today, there is no more Hudson's Bay Christmas Street.  But I did find a version at Garden Works.  Their trees are beautiful.  I also have found ornaments at HomeSense, Target, and Canadian Superstore. There was also this magnificent Christmas store in Victoria where I spent a lot of money.  Sadly it too is no longer. I've even found ornaments on vacation.  I was in this hole in the wall store in Jerome Arizona (a very cool town built on the side of a hill) and found this spicy guy. 

Unwrapping each ornament, I am reminded of where I got it, or who gave it to me or why I have it. One of my best friends gave me this flying squirrel that always sits pride of place.  We don't live close, but every Christmas when I decorate the tree I think of her and smile and bask in her love for me.

 Some ornaments make me laugh, some make me cry.  I've got this weird, heavy, but beautiful Turkish ornament that hangs because my mum brought it home from a visit to Turkey.  My husband and I spent part of our honeymoon in Turkey. An ornament will bring up a happy memory that triggers another happy memory and they all tumble around in my brain like clothes in a dryer. 

Once you've got everything dangling from the tree the final piece de resistance is the tree topper.  I grew up with a very simple angel made of straw.  She didn't have a face, but her body was dyed a lush burgundy.  And I can't remember if she had wings.  My brother has since inherited it because I found one with the same vibe. But until I found that angel a giant elf sat on the top of my tree.  I found him at a craft fair.  Now he sits hidden inside the tree.

When I started out, I looked for the familiar.  What did I love about my family's tree?  And could I recreate it for my own?  And then slowly my life took over the tree.  It became a repository of items reflecting the Christmases that inspired me,  the people I love, the people my husband loves, the places I'd been and the family memories we'd made.  

I think I need a bigger tree

The details of my tree matter a great deal to me.  However the details of a tree don't really matter.  The most important part is that whomever decorated the tree made the effort.  And for that I am very grateful.

 

Posting Photos

I love Instagram because it's so immediate.  Click and post and voila you've managed to entertain friends and family while immortalizing a moment in time.  I've yet to venture into a public Instagram account.  I need to research how you separate the wheat from the chaff in terms of true followers.  

The problem is my inner critic.  When he gets a hold, I don't post nothin'. 

He hijacked this blog for a while which would account for the year long furlough.  

I love a great photo.  I love taking a great photo.  And I love posting fantastic photos on Instagram.  I'm just not sure everyone wants to see them.  When I get on a photographic role and it's going well, I could easily post five or six pictures a day.  Many of them would be food related, tons of my kids and the nature surrounding me.  My horizons are a wee bit limited.  Well they are and they’re not.  I have this wonderful life, And sometimes I compare.

Also, I think these photos are good.  I'm not sure they really are.  I am a noob photographer.  My good pictures are lucky pictures.  No matter how many times I read about it, I have no idea how to control the outcome of my photos when it involves exposure and aperture.  I can't even spell aperture.  And don't get me started on focal length.  I'm bound and determined to figure it out.  The going is slow.

But I realized that I had unfettered access to a fabulous place to post photos.  Right here! So tonight when I figured out I could upload photos to the cloud and then grab them from my phone to post them on Instagram I decided I'd post more of them here along with their story, how I got them and most importantly with no inner critic on either the photo or the content.

So here goes:

Bird Butts

There are a series of electric wires that cross a portion of my back yard along the alley.  In the spring they attract a lot of birds.  These birds poop.  These birds sit on these wires and poop on my fence.  they also poop on my garbage bins, and if my car is parked outside, on that too.  This is the first time I have been able to grab a photo of them.  It was the wrong angle so all I got was their butts.  And this was the best my zoom lens could do.  However, you can vaguely distinguish their little tale feathers and you get the idea. I really love that the sun is glinting of the one on the top left.  These aren't big birds. But they are poop machines.

Next:

the last key lime tart

I was grocery shopping and needed some tart shells.  I blindly grabbed some only to discover, once I got home, that they were sweetened tart shells.  Currently you can't return groceries, so I was stuck with sweetened tart shells, but my plan was to make mini quiches.  They languished in my freezer for a while until the next grocery shop where I picked up a box of key lime pie filling.  And the rest is dessert tart history.  I also bought 2% milk instead of whipping cream.  In my defense the packaging on both looks the same.  Fortunately, I had some whipping cream dregs left, that had not gone sour and was just enough to make 24 little dollops of whip cream; and now the rest is dessert tart history.

This was the last tart.  I photographed this sucker nine thousand times adjusting the ISO, the exposure, the focal length. No luck.  Then my husband suggested I use a flash and presto:  Magic.

Number 3:

Zoomed in on our peekaboo view during sunset.  I even got birds

I cheated with this photo.  I zoomed in on the peekaboo view from the front of our house.  It looks magnificent but it isn't that big.  Normal settings not involving zoom do not capture the detail.  Plus, I managed to get some birds flying by and a little pink from the sunset. Worth it!

My biggest challenge:

Evening light

When the sun sets in my neighborhood, especially in the spring, there is this golden glow that bathes certain trees and buildings.  It's phenomenal.  And I am forever trying to capture it in a picture.  And, I am forever failing.  This was the closest I've gotten.

One of my faves:

Granola, yogurt and fruit sauce

I''m really proud of this picture for several reasons.  One, I made the granola and the fruit compote.  I have lots of frozen fruit and if you throw it in a pot it reduces down and I can mash everything up and then strain out the seeds.  So maybe this is more of a sauce.  No, fruit gravy!  Yes,  I made the fruit gravy.  I also made the granola.  I am an old hat at granola now.  But it still thrills me to bits that I can make it.  If you'd like to see how I started please click here.   And I took the picture and it came out beautifully if I do say so myself.  Everything glistens, the fruit swirl is distinct and the granola is included but visible in the picture.  My only frustration is I housed it all in a really old bowl.  My yogurt, fruit and granola is housed in the equivalent of dish sweats.  sigh!  Next time.

And that concludes today's photo journal.  I really appreciate that I've found a place to post and say " Look!  Look what I did!" and I feel thrilled about it.

Binge worthy TV Part 1

I am often late to the party.  In this instance I discovered an amazingly binge worthy tv show that have ended their run.  I'm so grateful I got to see such creative awesomeness and I'm frustrated because I do not have the power to keep these shows going.

My first foray into lose yourself completely, forget the world exists, holy smokes coming up for air makes me dizzy, was the television show Newsroom. Here's the back story: I finally took the plunge and traded my kids channels subscription for an HBO and crave subscription.  It took me three years longer than it should have to do this.  My kids have not sat down and watched a children's television show for an embarrassingly long time but I held on to those channels because they embodied memories. I also always wanted shows like this when I was a kid and I fulfilled that fantasy for a good long while.

So now entering the wonderful world of  adult entertainment I began looking for shows I'd heard about but hadn't been able to watch.  And along came a little gem from Aaron Sorkin.  This man!  This man has my utmost respect.  He is a genius story teller who weaves current events and over the top dramatic personal experiences with humor, grace, wit, style and panache.  I love everything he has done.  I cannot understand his critics.  He's brilliant.

The Newsroom is  3 seasons of brilliance.

Although I'm not sure you can call 6 episodes a season. I'm feeling my age when I have this discussion.  6 episodes used to be a mini series.  A prolonged made for TV movie-esk type of show that was an event.  A series was 26 episodes that ran all year from September to May.  Now you can pinpoint my demographic.

The Newsroom had interesting characters who knew their stuff, they were cleverly acted and had magnetic personalities.  There were fabulous parables and an underlying "Don Quixote" theme.  The idea that news was not about making money but about making the general public aware of important events and political, economic, environmental and social shifts; the idea that news anchors held the moral high ground and looked after the country's values; banging up against the need for funding and the dilemmas that need created.  And then you throw in personal drama - abracadabra it was MAGIC!

Educating and entertaining at the same time is one of Aaron Sorkin's very best gifts. My favorite bit in the whole series is when the financial reporter is educating the news director about the difference between a commercial bank and an investment bank, and Sorkin has woven this through the news' director's personal drama.  I am running out of ways to say this was so damn clever!

I couldn't get enough.  And then there was no more to have.  But I am so grateful to have gotten the chance to watch.  There is something very inspiring and motivating about watching really great work.  And really great teamwork makes me want to climb - I was going to write Mount Everest but I hear that's kind of gross now - makes me want to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. And that feeling is why I go searching for more.  

  

I was going to write about spring...

I was going to write about spring but my mum came to visit during March break and we planned a couple of small trips, then I got caught up in deck furniture and then I had to euthanize my cat.  Now it's late spring, and I'm in it, as opposed to anticipating it.

Also I have been sleeping very poorly which has left me with zero motivation for actually creating anything.  I think about stuff, but I am not actually making it right now.  That ends today because I got enormously inspired by a little movie I saw on Netflix called The Unicorn Store.

All the actors in this movie are brilliant.  Just so fantastic. And the story is a great one.  Sadly it was a little slow for me.  I have no idea why.  But what made me sit up and take notice were the words:

Samantha Montgomery McIntyre is brilliant.  As the screenwriter of this production her script was so darn clever.  Satirical and whimsical, funny, real and it spoke to the very heart of  growing.  I am in the midst of trying very hard to like brown rice.   For Samantha it seemed to be kale.  It's not just about food, although the food bit is hilarious.  How much else are we trying very hard to like that is in fact disgusting.

Do you ever hear a personal truth that rings like a large gong?  Reverberating around in your skull, hitting all your feelings, making you laugh out loud with it's truth?

This is where I've become a Montgomery McIntyre fan for life.  Never mind that the question was asked as a type of creepy flirtation, the main character answered with such truth.  My truth.  I still operate under this desire of not being a great disappointment; I think maybe to myself most of all.

Brie Larson did a hell of a job embodying these words.

What I loved most of all was the idea of finding your personal unicorn.  And then living life to accommodate it. So often I get bogged down in the minutia of life, or the anxiety of doing it right, or the simmering resentment of a negative attitude.  The sheer earnestness and youthful  innocence of this movie's narrative leaves me inspired.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to go build a stable for my unicorn.

Planning Christmas: A Defense for Early

As long as I can remember, people have been expressing their contempt for my desire to plan for Christmas long before society deems it appropriate.  And at first, I honored that censure by keeping it to myself. Now that I am older, more secure in my quirks and have had a few family Christmases under my belt; I think that if you don't at least start planning to plan it out while the leaves begin to turn you're nuts.

If I had my druthers I'd be having an open planning session during the summer solstice.  The longest day heralds the coming of the longest night, days get shorter, the weather slowly starts to get colder and at the end of the this journey you are looking at Christmas.   I'm usually knee deep in camping gear, summer travelling, household projects you can only do in the summer and the beginning of a new school year.  Once September rolls around, my attention is taken with school, sports, thanksgiving (where I live it happens in October), the beginning of Halloween and birthday party prep.  Late October is generally consumed with Halloween costume preparation.  Once Halloween is over, I can feel almost a physical pressure.  So on November 1st I start my engines and damn the torpedo of neigh-sayers. 

That's not to say I don't pay homage to everything that's important to me, my culture, and my family throughout the fall.  Remembrance day is a solemn occasion where Christmas doesn't  enter the picture.  My kids birthdays fall in the late back half of the year and those involve lots of attention to detail, and Christmas doesn't enter the picture (much; when you have a December birthday there will be decorations up).  I can only imagine what day of the dead celebrations might involve. 

In the summer I begin to try and figure out what we are going to do for our Christmas card.  Last year we had ugly Christmas cat t-shirts, Santa hats and aviator glasses.  In order to get the photo taken for the card, I had to reserve the photo session in September.  This year I'm having a heck of a time trying to top that.  I've got a half baked idea that involves the mall Santa so I'm in a holding pattern.  However, I've lost out on the October stationary sale.

Last year's Christmas card

Three weeks ago, when Walmart started putting out Christmas plates, Tupperware and other table top items I snagged several adorable plates at unbeatable prices that I will fill with baked goods and use as hostess and neighbor gifts.    If I don't pick things up when I see them, they tend to not be there when I'm ready to go back.  And then I'm scrambling and paying a whole lot more for the same effect.

There is the very legitimate school of thought that a card isn't necessary, nor is baking, nor should you turn yourself inside out around presents, decorations and get-togethers.  I counter this with the thought that with enough planning none of that is a problem.  If you have an idea in June about what you want to deliver in December, it tends to happen without a lot of stress because you've given yourself the luxury of time. This planning can also help you save a lot of money.  You're on top of what you need when early and late sales roll around.   I conclude this statement with the caveat that this only works if you want to get involved with these details. Christmas doesn't need them.

I love, LOVE, participating in all things Christmas because it's so satisfyingly fun.  Christmas themes are phenomenal: love, generosity, connection, celebration; friends and family, details, beauty. I love the excitement, the surprises, the family activities, the decorations, the random acts of kindness, selflessness and support, the food, the tastes, the sounds and the MUSIC.   I love when people go all out to decorate, or put up amazing light displays, or bake phenomenal treats. I love listening to a symphony play hark the herald angels sing.   I love the effort.

I also love feeling the anticipation.  Mind you, holiday anticipation isn't only reserved for Christmas.  I get pretty jazzed about Thanksgiving,  Halloween, Valentine's day, Easter and Summer vacation too. Christmas has the most because of all it's moving parts.  

It makes no sense to me when you take the time to put up a tree, decorate your home, bake treats, create a Christmas carol play-list and participate in holiday activities to only do it for a few days.  All this effort should deserve a fair amount of time to savor , appreciate and submerge yourself in the beauty of it.  And in order to organize all this fun, marshal all this anticipation and participate in as much Christmas as I can get, I have learned to honor my instincts and start early.

People have all kinds of different motivations for participating in all things associated with Christmas but at the heart of those motivations appears to be a desire to share.  Isn't that wonderful?!  And that is why when I wake up the day after Halloween, bam, I've got Christmas on the brain.

Now if you'll excuse me,  I need to go sort Halloween candy with the kids.  It's November 1st after all...

I...Have Made Granola!

In what I thought was going to be a supreme act of efficiency I bought over two kilograms of vanilla yogurt from Costco.  My son eats a container for lunch every school day and I can save some money buying a big tub and sending him to school with a small zip lock container.

This works really well.  Unless....  Guess who doesn’t like the taste of this brand?

I made a cardinal mistake.  I bought a Costco size of something before taste testing it. What was I thinking?!  I’ll tell you what I’m thinking now:  I’m thinking I've got to consume 2.2 kg’s of yogurt before it goes bad.

My first thought was smoothies.  However, smoothies require the blender which is not stored in an easily accessible place. Which means I will get the blender once, maybe twice but I won’t make smoothies every day because I’m too lazy to grab the stool and get the blender out, clean it and put it back every day.

Let that be a lesson if you have the good fortune to be laying out a kitchen.  Store all your small appliances within easy reach.  Otherwise you wont use them as often as you think you will, but I digress.

One-off smoothies will help but I’m going to need something else.  And I’m thinking this as I’m spooning a small bowl of yogurt for a snack and wishing I had some granola to add.  I actually write “granola” down on my shopping list, head off to the store, pick up the dry cleaning, get everything on my list but granola and head home.  Only then, once I realize that I’ve forgotten the granola,  do I think “maybe I could make granola”.

When I think of granola, I think of my childhood staple Quaker Harvest Crunch.  This stuff is magical!  And when I eat it, I am instantly transported back to my six year old self.  Trying to reproduce this magical substance was out of the question and intimidating as hell.  I know; it's granola. I should get out more or at least over myself, but somethings are sacred and when you build them up in your mind they become a thing.

Where could I find a granola recipe that I could trust? Pioneer Woman, my culinary hero, makes fancy granola but I needed something basic.  So I turned to America’s Test Kitchen.  And voila!  A basic recipe with ingredients I already have.  Although they said not to use quick oats and those were the kind I had. I bravely risked it and it turned out great.

I had no idea how resistant I was to  the thought of making granola until I made it.  And then I felt like Tom Hanks in the movie Castaway where he makes fire.

Only I made granola, but not just any granola, granola that tasts REALLY GOOD!
Watch out yogurt, you are destined to be my breakfast of choice until you are all gone, because I. made. GRANOLA!

Instant and Delayed Gratification

I'm an instant gratification junkie.  I love having what I want when I want it.  There is nothing more satisfying then fixing a problem, replacing something that is broken or getting what you need right away.  No waiting, no working at it, no putting the time in. Not having to wait can be giddy, thrilling, empowering: snap and it's done.  Like Samantha and her nose twitch. Instant relief.

image courtesy of gfycat.com

Alas most everything doesn't work that way.  I live in a world where delayed gratification is the norm.  Things require time to grow.  Things require time to make.  Things require time to learn.  There's lots of talk about the journey. While I have enjoyed the journey, the most exciting part is arriving. I love arriving.  Everybody out of the car, we are here!

Image courtesy of Getty images

My favourite literary characters as a kid had photographic memories, encyclopedic knowledge, special awareness, enhanced abilities if you will, that allowed them to solve mysteries, succeed in record time, try new things successfully, not have to practice.  I have to practice. 

I'm currently sanding my deck.  It's a big deck. Sanding is pretty monotonous.  Especially when you have a large area but you have to use a small tool so you don't take off too much wood. I can only do an hour at a time.  The parts I've done are now looking great.  There is an art to sanding. I'm learning how to sand.  At the 45 minute mark I always wish I could twitch my nose and have the whole thing be done. When I am finished, I will have enormous satisfaction that I accomplished this goal.  I will feel very proud that I saw this through and it looks great. So I understand the value of delayed gratification.  Building a skill or crafting something requires time, effort, practice and patience. It's a beautiful combination that yields amazing things.  (Arrival! Just saying.)

The worst combination is when you can't practice and it doesn't happen instantly.  It's a prolonged one shot sort of deal where you never arrive: marriage, raising kids, building a career, looking after a home - the goal posts are always moving.  And when the journey ends with these things, there's no arrival, it's just over. 

Let's take parenting.  You pour your very soul into the raising of another human being.  You never make the same mistake twice, more like you never make the same mistake more than 20 times, but every age, era, season and life encounter brings something new to learn from and then you finally get them gracious, and charming, and responsible, and polite and an asset to society with a decent sense of empathy and self awareness and and an inkling of accountability and they leave to go be successful, autonomous individuals. It's the biggest kick in the pants.

On a lesser scale, cooking comes to mind.  Lots of practice, lots of learning, lots of repeating, and finally you master the recipe and for 20 glorious minutes your masterpiece sits on the table to be admired.  Then it's devoured, and the accolades pour in, and your eyes roll back in your head because it tastes just that good and if you are Duff Goldman, you actually donkey kick.  And then it's gone.  I've seen an entire Thanksgiving meal for 20, which took three days to make, get demolished in 15 minutes.

Image courtesy of Glamour Magazine

As silver linings go, you do acquire a wealth of experience which makes the journey less fearful.  you gain confidence in what you are trying to achieve.  You develop a very strong ability to appreciate.  And your sense of empathy is nothing to sneeze at either.  But over is over, and over sucks.

This is where I struggle mightily with the saying "don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened".  I'm really too busy  weeping, pining, and grieving over the ending to ever recognize that the journey was the arrival. 

Huh...

You know what epiphanies are?  Instant gratification. ☺

Wash, Rinse, Repeat...

I struggle with repetitive tasks.  In contrast, I love a tradition.  Tradition with all it's history, pomp and circumstance is so fun;  the excitement of getting out the Christmas ornaments; using the Easter dishes; getting together with family to celebrate occasions; going back to visit the family cottage every year; these speak to my soul. The repetition of routine is another matter.  And nowhere is this more prevalent than in house keeping.

Image courtesy of Dreamtime.com 

What do you mean you are out of pants?  I just washed them last week!  How can these blinds be dusty, didn't I just wipe them down?  Why is the bathroom so gross, it feels like I cleaned it yesterday. (I did not clean it yesterday.)  It mystifies me how much dust can accumulate, not to mention grease on walls.  How do light switches get dirty?  I fold laundry again and again and again. And don't get me started on the emperor of all chores: putting things away.

One of the many...

I wish my family were the disciplined type who took something out, used it and put it away, right away.  Sadly, I don't do that and my children were not born with this skill.  It's a daily challenge. I have succeeded in creating a place for most things in our home.  And with regards to school, sports, and paper there is a system that has become somewhat of a routine. But really I can spend a good portion of my day tidying up.  And it kills me.

It's become a mission, a learning opportunity if you will, to see these tasks as privileges not persecution.  If the sun is shining and I'm feeling especially pulled together I believe this with all my heart.  I am really lucky.  I have clothes that need washing.  I have a house that needs cleaning.  I have cherished things that need to be put away.  Okay that one is a stretch.  My cherished things are usually put away.  Although I've still got some Easter decorations sitting in a neat pile not put away.

Easter pile

But largely it's the flotsam - items that need to be returned, an article that I want to keep but don't know where I should keep it so that I'll find it again, anything that needs to be sewed, broken things that need to be fixed, notes to myself, seeds that need to be planted, and what I call kid litter -  items of clothing, a baseball cap, the odd Lego brick or toy car, a DVD  - these things creep onto my counter and breed.

This is my counter on a good day

 And I have lovely machines that help me with these tasks. I have a dishwasher. I have laundry machines.  I have a vacuum cleaner. I can afford swiffers.  I even have an outdoor clothes drying rack. I live in cleaning largess. Not only that, but if I clean up with music in my ears - it becomes a work out.

I love this drying rack so much I wrote a whole blog post about it.  Click here to read it. 

Alas the sun does not shine every day and sometimes my life is far from pulled together. So when I greet the morning with a huge full body sigh of discontent because neither one of my children has clean pants, there's a lovely drawing in the dust on one of the stools, my kitchen cabinets all need to be wiped down, I can't see the peninsula counter top for the stuff that's on it; and there's a mysterious substance at the back door that I'm really hoping is mud (it isn't mud) ; I'm going to put some music in my ears and count my house cleaning blessings.

Imagine if I couldn't clean up the mud?!

Music and Mother Nature

It took a while for spring weather to arrive.  Lots of cold, heavy, rain.  I'd look out my kitchen window onto my backyard and cringe as I saw winter detritus covering early spring blooms, all shrouded in wet.  No way was I feeling motivated to get out there and clean things up.

And then life took over and who had time for gardening? I had to get kids places, housework needed to be addressed, there's always laundry; the school's hot lunch orders needed to be sorted, and were we doing movie night? What about cub scouts: is $13.65 too much for a rock climbing evening? Are we going to introduce batting practice to the tadpole team?   And taxes are due at the end of the month. But I digress...

Today I woke up to a bright sky.

This made me pay attention to my backyard. I had some serious spring flowers on my hands and they were not looking happy.  I loaded up my iPod nano with some really great "get your ass" moving music and headed out to survey my domain.

I am currently obsessed with "The Greatest Showman" soundtrack.

My favorites are "The greatest show", "A million dreams", and "This is me". Mr Pasek and Mr. Paul are brilliant, incredible, phenomenal, song writers/composers.

I was out in my garden for three hours pulling weeds, digging boarders, trimming trees, getting rid of dead greenery and dancing around, lip syncing with fervor! Sometimes I'd just burst out with the chorus, alas with headphones on no one could hear the music but me, which must have made for some interesting viewing.  It would have been awesome if I could sing.  I cannot.

What it also did, beside give me energy that no synthetic drug could touch, was enhance my senses.
I was digging in rich, dark, moist dirt.  The flowers were so vivid.  Early spring in my neck of the woods is full of multi hued grey skies which allows early spring colour to seriously shine.

I had orchestral pop music in my ear (my favourite kind), and I was witness to some serious mother nature magic.

Today was a good day.