Every once in a while, here in Minnesota, something magical happens in the middle of the night. Winter comes.
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A couple of weeks ago, Tyler told the family that they would be in Sodak for Thanksgiving, so could we have a family Thanksgiving the weekend before the actual Holiday? Everyone agreed this was a fabulous idea so we yesterday, we celebrated our first Fake Thanksgiving! That's not a good name for it, since the thanks were genuine and so was the food and fun but that's what I'll call it until we come up with a better title. The original plan was to have a traditional turkey dinner with all the fixin's because we're Americans and agree that you can't have too many turkey dinners. But then the grocery store up the street brought out their traditional holiday Manhattan roasts and Jay changed the menu. No one argued because those roasts are out of this world and we all know we're going to be eating turkey till it comes out our noses by the end of the week anyway, so; Roasts it was! Instead of mashed potatoes and green bean casserole, we cooked up a giant bag of tater tots (I won't eat either so did not care how the potatoes were served) and Katie brought a pan of roasted green beans with parmesan cheese. They were fantastic! Also on the menu, provided by every member of the family, were fresh sweet corn, deviled eggs, jello with orange slices, stuffing, sliced tomatoes, sandwich fixings, Devil cookies, sherbet, donuts and pecan pie. There was also wine, pop, milk, water and scotch. Everyone got enough to eat and drink and there were even enough leftovers for several people to take bags of goodies home. In short, Fake Thanksgiving was a smashing success! It's hard to get the whole family together like that, what with jobs, kids and in laws but we need to make a point of it because we have so much fun. While the grownups were watching football, the kids were drawing pictures, playing basketball and having Princess Class. This little warrior can teach you a thing or two about being a Princess. Learning at the feet of a master. Every court needs a jester. We scheduled dinner for 3 and we ended up actually eating at about 4, so I think we were pretty good. Katie, Adam and BoopityBoop were the last to arrive. They'd been having a very exciting day, converting the girls' cribs into youth beds. Now that BoopityBoop have discovered they can climb out of the cribs, there's no point in them anymore. It's a sad transition for the parents of toddlers to realize one can no longer just toss the kid into bed and know that's where they'll be stuck until you get them out again. The Princess game was completely based upon the girl finding the crowns and Princess hat in the toy box. They had a blast. Meanwhile, most of the adults were in the TV room, watching whatever football game was on. I was busy all day, between playing Mancala with grandkids, eating, prepping or talking. The sun set shortly after 5. It was gorgeous, the sky over our hill striped with dark blue and vivid orange. The fun thing about this time of year is that it was full dark by 6, which means it felt like 10:00 by 6:30, everyone had gone home by 7:30 and everyone got a good night sleep before school or work the next day. A few nights ago, as I sat at my kitchen table, sipping the Manhattan Jay just made me and watching him as he cooked us dinner, it occurred to me that my life is like a day dream that somehow came true. I told Jay that and asked him if he every felt that way. He didn't even look up from the veggies he was chopping up for our stir fry; he just smiled and said "All the time!" We should celebrate Thanksgiving every single day. John G. and his fifth great grand child, Kitten, demonstrate what a time warp looks like.
It's finally looking like Autumn out my front window. The colors were disappointing this year. The few trees that went all out brilliant looked like they had over dressed for a party, or like folks showing up in formal wear on casual Friday. Most of the foliage just faded to neutral shades then dropped overnight. It was still very pretty, just not what we're used to. We have four maples in our yard and not one was brilliant. Then, they all dropped their leaves over the course of a few hours. I guess that's what happens when Autumn runs a month late. It's unheard of to still have this many leaves on the trees ten days after Halloween! We even had a real dusting of snow this week. It wasn't much, just a quarter inch but it did stick to the ground for a few hours. Maybe winter will be late and weird this year too. That'll be interesting. Business is booming, which is great but I had to order all three sizes of the canvas I use this month. It's very expensive and the shipping is exorbitant. The only place I know of that carries it is on the west coast. I've been buying from them for over 20 years, they're very reliable and I like dealing with them but it's always a hit when I have to buy two sizes at once. In 45+ years of designing needlepoint, this is the first time I've ever had to buy all three sizes within so short a span of time. The upside is that my canvas cupboard is now packed and I can keep painting! You never know what will be a hit with customers. Last spring, I was asked to paint a bolster sized pillow that was very simple, just a white background with charcoal numbers depicting a significant date. In this case, a wedding anniversary. It was big, bold, contemporary and not too difficult. I thought nothing of it. I've done five more date-pillows in the last three weeks! So far, they've all been wedding presents but they'd make great birthday, birth announcement or anniversary commemorations. The first few were all black and white but now I'm getting orders with colors. Yay! Painting class is going swimmingly. I haven't been able to post any of my latest canvases because my phone quit taking pictures. Jay fixed my phone* yesterday so here they are: We did donuts to celebrate the opening of a Dunkin Donut shop near the studio. It was very difficult to concentrate as the place smelled of fresh donuts all morning. I'm the only one who didn't opt for the more interesting composition of a donut with a bite out of it. I can't take one bite out of a donut. If I'd done that, I'd have wolfed them both down and my painting would have been of crumbs. I brought them home and Zack and I ate them when he came over for dinner later. I believe I inhaled mine in about 11 seconds. It was soooo good. Books. This one was very fun but really hard. Right angles are a bitch. I had a stack of fancy bound, classic books from a collection I got from my Uncle Mickey when he moved out of his duplex a few years ago. Then I forgot to grab them when I drove off to class. Fortunately for me, everyone else had plenty of books they weren't using in their own set ups and one gal even had an extra apple, so there you go. This one was really fun and I'm going to hang it in my fancy blue bathroom. Zack happened to be at the house when I brought home "toilet paper in blue". His only comment; "It's yellow." Well, yes. the light was warm and there's really nothing white actually looks 'white'. I completely botched the hue of the shadowed part of the roll but the value is okay so it works. If that dark weren't so warm, the roll would look 'whiter', so Zack's totally right. It gives the paper a much yellower look than it should have but I still like it. I've reached a point where I know that if I just practiced, I'd get good at this. You can't become good if you only do it once a week. I don't care what you're doing, there is no substitute for experience. The theme this week was 'Halloween'. this is as close as I could get.
I really like this one. I can just hear you saying "Really. Why?" Well, it was very ambitious; there was a lot going on and I managed to suggest most of it in only a little over two hours of painting. I could have worked on this set up all day but class only runs to noon, so that's it. I wasn't happy with it in class but in the days following, I've like this one more and more. The tarnished silver cream pitcher and the candies glow just the way I hoped they would. So, I consider this a success. I'm not that hard to please. * In the past week, Jay fixed my phone and my computer. He fixes everything for me. Even dinner. Is it any wonder I adore him? After all the dithering about whether BoopityBoop would be Spidermen or Princesses for Halloween, in the end they were sick. I had convinced Katie to drag the girls all the way down into town for our family Halloween party at my sister's house for chili, cornbread and trick or treating with their cousins when Kate got a call from their daycare telling her both girls were sporting fevers. When she called to tell me the bad news, I asked "How high are the fevers?" I know that sounds cold but for those of us who've raised toddlers, we know that tiny kids can have temps of up to about 100 that don't really mean anything. I dose of kid Tylenol and an hour later, the toddler is right as rain. BoopityBoop's fevers were up around 102. That's really being sick. Katie was far more upset about the girls missing out on Halloween than they were, they're too young to know what they were missing. Not only trick or treating with Nanners, Bean, Tot and Nana but the pizza party at school the day after. Oh well. There's always next year. The party at McCollow's was a quieter affair than it has been in years past. First of all, Andy and Vi's kids are old enough now to want to go hang with all their friends, so that's four fewer trick or treaters. Even Ty and Megan's kids would rather stay in their own neighborhood with all their friends than spend a half hour in the car coming down to ours. Woody and Kathy were on a family vacation with their new grandson, Ziggy. But we still had pots of chili, bowls of candy, fresh baked corn bread, lots of wine and a bonfire! Grandma Punkin and John G. came. Dad was able to walk all the way from the car up the front steps into the living room with his walker and a little assistance on the stairs. It was cold but not too cold for trick or treating. The neighborhood seems to have hit one of those kid-lulls where there just weren't as many kids young enough to go door to door. Even last year, there were several large groups of roaming trick or treaters. This year, it was pretty quiet on the street but the adults were all having a great time! In the morning, Katie sent me pics: when the girls had had some dinner and the Tylenol kicked in, they dressed up and trick or treated on their street. Everyone had a good Halloween! Two days later, Katie's thermostat went out. I was at her house for lunch and the interior temperature was 58. She was calling around trying to find someone who would come over to fix things on a Saturday. Not so easy. I must say, we've had Service plus since Centerpoint was Minnegasco. When you need them, they're great and they always put furnace issues at the top of their priorities. The house wasn't getting any colder but it wasn't getting warmer, either. Later in the day, Ty and his whole family came over for dinner (at our house, which was warm). Josie joined us and Katie and the girls did too, after visiting the Mall of America for pictures with Santa. We had a lovely dinner! Ty brought steaks, we ate in the dining room as there are now way too many of us to fit at the kitchen table. The only one missing was Zack. Jay had texted him earlier but I guess he was busy. The kids all had a blast together, as they always do. Then the guys watched football or basketball while the rest of us crammed onto the porch and watched the Greatest Showman. Much singing and dancing ensued. Katie and the twins got offers of a warm bed from everyone who has a house but she was sure that they'd be fine, snuggled up together. And they were. A furnace guy came Monday morning and Katie just sent me a text with a picture of her new thermostat, reading 70 degrees in her house, with the caption "Hallelujah!" So all is well. I woke up this morning to a dusting of snow all over the world. The trees out my front window still have most of their leaves, although those leaves are a very faded beige green and gold. It's been a strange Autumn. Fun, but strange. Under his jacket, Babalouie is a ninja. When push came to shove and the tylenol kicked in, Spiderman won the night.
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