Again.
Seriously, wasn’t it Halloween just a couple of days ago? To me, it was.
Now, the calendar says Thanksgiving was nearly two weeks ago and Christmas less than three weeks away. I’ve completely lost control of time. It’s just whizzing around like a firehose with no one attached to it.
Thank goodness for the internet! Amazon in my favorite place to shop. If I don’t get one more gift, no one would complain. So that part of the Holiday prep is in the bag.
On the other hand, all the cookies I’ve baked so far have already been eaten and the closest I’ve come to getting anything decorated is hanging my needlepoint “HO HO HO”s on the door handles. And I only did t
hat today.
Jay got the lights on the driveway back in early November. I love them, I wish we’d leave them up all year. They’re white lights, so not particularly Christmassy and that driveway is loonnng and dark.
After Josie went back to school after Thanksgiving, it occurred to me that there was no one to help me get the tree up. We’re not hosting the family party this year…why put the tree up at all?
I said as much to Jay, who every single year does the best Grinch impression you’ve ever seen…and he nearly cried. You’d think he was Ralphie and he’d just shot his eye out.
“Don’t worry!” I assured him, “I’m putting up the tree!”
For the last several years, I’ve put the tree in the front picture window. It looks pretty from the street, yada yada but last summer, I re arranged all the living room furniture and the tree won’t fit between the couch and the window. No biggie; I’ve also put the tree in other parts of the room and I’ll do that again. It actually fits in the back part of the room better. The ceiling is higher. Our house is one of those ancient little cottages that started life as a country house. It’s been remodeled and added to over the years. What is now the living room was clearly once the front room and a porch of some kind. Two levels of roof, the change aligned with the outside of the upstairs, which was also clearly added on years after the original structure was built. So half the room has an eight foot ceiling, the other only seven. The tree is six feet but when you put my tree top angel on, she has to bend a bit. Not in the back of the room! Back there, she has room to spread her wings!
I told Jay my plan and he objected. He loves seeing the tree in the front window when he pulls in and out of the driveway. I told him I didn’t want to move any furniture. It’s a big enough job decorating (and cleaning up later) for Christmas without adding furniture rearrangement to the mix.
He said He would do it. He’d get Zack to help him.
That was two weeks ago.
I’m putting the %$##@ tree up where I !@#$$% feel like.
Who are we kidding? He was never going to move the furniture and even if he and Zack did move it before decorating, they never would have put any of it back after. I knew all this, even if he didn’t.
The Problem has been time. You’d think with no kids in the house and being self-employed, I would have all the time in the world but if you really did think that (come on, you didn’t, did you?) you’d be DEAD WRONG.
Here’s a little bit of reality: I’ve been trying to get all my Christmas designs done since September but orders have been going gang busters. This is a good thing, since special orders are our bread and butter. Being creative takes energy. I’m much better at it than I used to be but it wears me out. Painting needlepoint is physically demanding. I can work for maybe three hours at a time, then I have to go do something else to avoid back ache, eye strain and writer’s cramp. I’ve tried to paint while tired and it never ends well: a brush full of magenta paint in the margins of a design can NOT be corrected. The canvas is too dammed expensive to ruin with impunity. Hint to customers: the stuff costs $30.00 a yard wholesale and that’s before the designer even looks at it. I’m usually at my drawing board by 10 in the morning and most days I don’t quit till 7 pm but I’m never there the whole nine hours. I wouldn’t last three days if I tried to pull those kinds of hours.
Like the lumberjack who kept his ax sharp, I do all the stuff that needs to be done in between sessions at my board. Stuff like laundry, meals, grocery shopping, bathing and once or twice a year, housework. And yes, reading, writing and playing spider.
I had a whole list of new ideas for Christmas that I had to get into the shop by today or I’d miss the 2015 window. I had so many orders that I had no time for designing this stuff. So I worked overtime to try to squeeze in the new things. I brought in everything this morning but I still had a list of fifteen new ornaments I wanted to get done. Maybe next year.
Bottom line is I’m as flush as I’ve ever been but I don’t have time to blow my nose much less put up my tree.
On the other hand, all my deadlines are now past which means I CAN TAKE THE WEEK OFF if I want.
Well, I can take a day or two to get my tree up, anyway.
Here I sit, sounding all work and no play but that’s not true at all!
Last week, I went out to Ty’s place Friday morning to get the preliminary sketch of his mural on the wall. I had the photos and source material I was using, the chalk I would use and my…oops. I forgot my yard stick.
The wall is eight by ten feet. I had the design broken into quartered quarters, all I had to do was transfer it from the small sketch in hand to the big wall. It would have been easy if I’d brought my tools.
I felt like whatever King it was who lost his Kingdom for want of a nail.
Screw that! I decided to improvise.
I rooted through drawers and closets and found a 24” quilters cutting mat I could use as a straight edge, a level, a 25’ tape measure, scotch tape and a sewing kit complete with scissors and thread. Using the ceiling as my baseline, I used the tape measure to mark off the quarters, both up and down. Then I used to the level to keep the cutting mat straight and marked off my vertical and horizontal lines. The mat wasn’t long enough to mark the diagonals I needed so I taped thread to the corners and stretched it across, taping it where I needed it.
MacGyver’s got nothin’ on me.
With my grid finally in place (at this point it dawned on me that I could have driven into town and bought a yard stick. It would have cost a dollar and saved me an hour and a half. MacGyver is laughing so hard milk just squirted out his nose. And he’s not even drinking any.) I began to draw.
At this point, Tyler came out of his office to find me sitting on the floor in front of a wall covered in red thread.
“I thought you were going to paint the mural, not macramé it.” He said.
“DO NOT QUESTION THE CREATIVE PROCESS!” I explained. What do I care if my teeth fit in his bourgeois mouth?
It took about a half an hour to sketch the buildings into their proper places.
Then we went into town and had lunch at the local Chinese restaurant. It was very tasty.
I got back to town in time to take advantage of climate change and go for a lovely walk with MJ and her kids. We drove to the lake and walked to the rose gardens and back. About a mile, which is what Punkin will do without complaining. The sun set as we walked and it was absolutely gorgeous. Then I went home, took a shower and got dressed for the Christmas dinner party Jay and I were attending.
Some folks who’ve been friends of Jay’s since junior high have been throwing a Christmas dinner party for years. It started as three couples and each year the hostess invites a new couple to surprise the returning guests with. Once you’ve been added to the guest list, you’re permanent, so the party grows every year.
We were told to arrive around 7, as everyone else would be assembled by then. So we did. Our hostess, Alix, had all her guests down in the lower level and she had us wait at the top of the stairs while she tossed clues as to our identity down to the assembled party.
Jay was the president of their high school class, was the lead singer of their ninth grade rock band and five years ago was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. So what clue did Alix give them?
“Her Dad is a famous author!”
“JAY!!” the crowd roared.
The party was fabulous. First of all, Alix’s house is absolutely lovely and every single room in it (including all the bathrooms) was decorated for Christmas. A 12’ tree in the living room hardly competed with the Santas of all different sizes, styles, materials and nationalities adorning bookshelves, staircases and end tables. Wreaths, greenery and lights were everywhere an all in such good taste that I know I could never have pulled it all together. Two large tables were set for the sit down dinner. They were so gorgeous they looked like floor displays from Macy’s home department. Each place was complete with name tags set in tiny tree ornaments and tiny gift bags.
When we were invited, the invitation included a request for each of our three favorite songs.
I immediately answered Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles, Switchin’ to Glide by the Kings and La Vie D’ansante by Jimmy Buffett. Those aren’t necessarily my favorite songs but the first three you think of can’t be bad, right? Jay had to spend several hours poring over his iTunes list before he’d commit to three ‘favorites’.
Our hosts put everyone’s favorite songs into a play list and after dinner, we retreated to the lower level and danced. At first, we tried to guess which songs were whose favorites but after a while, we were far more concerned with just dancing like madmen.
You know it’s a good party when it winds up with everyone hooking arms and singing along to Daydream Believer at the top of their lungs. OH, those gift bags at the table? They each contained guitar shaped jump drives with the entire play list on them. We can recreate our favorite's dance party any time we want!
We didn’t get home till 1:30 in the morning.
I haven’t danced like that since last summer, when we had a wedding to go to every three days. I’d forgotten how sore I was all last summer.
I didn’t try to do anything fancy or funky but the next morning my back, neck, knees and ankles were barking. Good thing I didn’t drink after the dinner wine: at least my head didn’t hurt.
Especially since I had tickets to a 2:00 showing of White Christmas at the Heights Theater in North East Minneapolis.
My niece Sara lives up there and bought tickets to the perrenially sold out show weeks ago. The theater is a wonderful old refurbished place and White Christmas is a tradition. An organist rises out of the floor in front of the stage and plays while the audience gets situated. I was the last of the Pivec party to make it but he was still playing when I took my seat with Pam, Sara, Dayna, Tom, Kelly, Mary, Lizzie, Wes and Gus.
Then a lovely gal came out and sang a half dozen mid century Christamas tunes. She was wonderful! When we were all properly put into the Christmas spirit, the lights went down and
We’ll follow the old man, wherever he wants to go!
It was great.
After the movie, Pam and I went over to Sara and Dayna’s place for drinks and hors d’ oeuvres. It was so fun! Their house was all decorated for Christmas and small gatherings are always nice. With both sides of the family, most of the time there are so many of us that you don’t really get a chance to talk to anyone. Sara and Dayna are smart and fun and Pam and I were both delighted to have some time with them.
In fact, the three of them went out for dinner later but I had to decline since I’d already made plans for the evening.
I was hanging with some of my faves: Bananas, Punkin and Tater Tot.
MJ and Kent had a parish party to go to and I said I’d baby sit.
The kids had already had dinner when I arrived and I was fresh off the cocktail party at Sara’s so we didn’t have to deal with food. I had two bottles to give Tot if he got hungry. Bananas read two books to us and then Punkin read one. Punkin doesn’t actually know how to read yet, so her story was very interesting, as she was making it up as she went. The girls went to bed with no fuss at all and then Tot and I got down to some serious boopedy boopin’. That boy has his mother’s mouth: when he laughs, he looks like the entire top of his head is coming off. If he were blond, he’d look just like a Calvin cartoon.
I knew MJ wouldn’t be out late. Parents of three month olds just don’t have that much party in them. Sure enough, I was home before ten.
I tried to watch some Frasier but I fell asleep.
Sunday, Babydoll, Babalouie and their cousins, MissEllie and Cowpoke came over to play while their parents all went down to watch the Vikings game.
Believe me, the kids and I had much more fun than their folks did. The game was a debacle.
We on the other hand, played at the park, fed the birds, drew on the chalkboard wall, watched Sky High, pretended to have super powers and ate apples and mac n cheese all afternoon.
So Babalouie lost a boot on the way down to the park and I didn’t notice till Cowpoke told me, a block and a half later. There wasn’t any snow left on the ground, so no harm no foul.
My goodness, Babalouie loves the swings. The rest of the kids ran around, screaming ‘watch this’, ‘lookit this’ for about an hour. I told them all they could call me Nana.
Naturally, Babalouie crashed about ten minutes before his parents arrived to pick him up. I crashed about ten minutes after.
Thanks to all the fun I had over the weekend, I had to crank out a week’s worth of needlepoint on Monday.
After all that, putting up the tree should be a snap.