Hey! Where Do You Think You're Going, November!

Lawsie! It's half over and TheQueen has been so silent. Well. I should confess - I have been committing blog-ultery over on Sparkpeople dot com because this close to the Food Frenzie of the holiday season, about the only thing I've been concentrating on is managing my weight. This is a perennial Queenly issue anyway and 2014 has been a particularly difficult year for keeping things in check.

In a deeper confession, I'm not sure I really have anything to say here today, but I don't want to come back later and see that there are zero posts for November.

What? TheQueen has nothing to say? Well - of course she always has something to say - but too much of it is likely to be whining and kvetching and complaining. Autumn of 2014 hasn't been any easier than Summer, Spring or Winter was. No. That's not true. We have automatic heat in the house now so WOW ... that has made a huge difference. If you recall, a large part of the reason last winter was so effingly difficult was that we couldn't get this house warm. Our sole source of heat was the old wood stove and the firewood, while seasoned, was always wet because it was always raining or sleeting or just plain cloudy and the temps stayed down down down. Wet wood is bad enough but when your prince is the type who forgets to keep the fire going while you are at work, wet wood is evil incarnate.

This year we have festooned the walls with these  and life is so different. A chilly day - and we have had quite a few of them already - just means when I get home the house is toasty warm. Coming down to the den to type in the wee dark hours of the morning used to mean putting on my winter coat and wrapping up in a blanket and taking frequent breaks to hold hot cups of coffee. Now things are different. Things are better. I am feeling disgustingly spoiled.

And for the curious - so far - and granted - we're still in the easy part of the cold weather season - the electric bill has gone up about $10. I will wait till the end of the cold before I make my final review of this system but so far - much more than so good.

So what else can I tell you about TheQueen?  There are a scant 46 days left of this year (to which I won't be all that sorry to bid goodbye - and now I'm feeling guilty for complaining about the gift of life and all) and much of that is already booked with holiday stuff.  My loyal fans know that I love me some holiday season but  I swannie, I can't believe it's already time to start Making Plans. I did have the good grace to cast on a Christmas sock and so there is real knitting going on (turning the heal on sock #1 today). And at least I thought about what sort of Christmas Card I'd like to make. Sister just sent out the call for photos for the Family Christmas Calendar. She started making them as gifts to the parents - but we all love them and I'm glad she's continuing the tradition now that we are orphans. My beloved LD and our precious daughter in law PD will be here for Thanksgiving, along with 7 other guests. And I am hope hope hoping we can finally get back to Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens for a caroling light show. I have explained to ThePrinceConsort that there are to be no heart attacks this Christmas.


I have also pulled out my tattered copies of the Betsy-Tacy books because nobody can do autumn like Maud Hart Lovelace. Her high school books are my favorites although I am also a sucker for Betsy and Tacy go Downtown - which is about middle-schoolers. Autobiographical, with the perfect patina of fiction smoothing over memories and plot twists, these books had as big an impact on forming me as "The Laura Books". (Laura Ingalls Wilder) Perhaps even a greater impact, now that I am old and now that I already got to do my own Little House in the Big Woods thing and it's pretty much a fulfilled fantasy instead of a longing. I read these kiddy books in secret because ThePrince will prod me about why I am reading them again if he sees me and TheQueen disdains explaining herself. Also - this particular trip down memory lane is something I like to do alone and he is all about the togetherness.

One of these days I will honor these books with a blogpost about why they are so important - to me and, I wish, to today's techno-plugged kids. I could go on and on about why I think they are preferable to most of the  soft-core violence and suffering stuff being written for middle readers these days, but for this fall I will just enjoy them.

So. What else? I haven't done much art lately and was feeling decidedly colorless and art-less. Also, I have been fighting with some excess poundage (hence the above-mentioned blog-ultery) for most of 2014. In an effort to give attention to both issues I have created a glitter chart for myself - small enough to fit in my Daytimer. It has a clutch of action-steps I can take to earn points and when I earn 100 points I can add $100 to the camera fund ... that pitiful sum which I have raided all summer long when Other Expenses cropped up. I would very much like to get a new camera and I think I'll need about $300 for it. There is an additional reward of a pair of boots when I reach my goal.

And so. That is the state of mid-November at TheCastle. One will hope that the future will hold more and perhaps even better quality writing from TheQueen. But there you have it - one can always hope. There is always tomorrow. And Tara.

What's Going On in TheQueen's Bi-cameral Brain

The B's have been pretty reticent lately - they're having a hard time coming to grips with something so I thought I'd let them each lay out their viewpoints and see what sort of conclusion they come to.

  LB   So do you realize TheHolidays are upon us? Do you realize we have to start planning and making lists. We don't want to show up on New Year's Day with an extra 20 lbs on us, now, do we?

  RB La la la la - Christmas is coming the goose is getting fat - hm hm hm hm hm.  

 LB Hey! It's planning time! Listen to me

 RB I am going to open myself to my true desires and let them flow into me

 LB  Yeah. Hot rolls with butter and pumpkin pie are going to flow into you and when they do they'll flow into me too. We'll start the new year looking like a blimp and we won't fit into any of our clothes. Besides. Holiday plans are fun to  make. We need a shopping list for Thanksgiving and a Christmas gift list and we need to schedule the caroling and we really ought to spend the weekend creating that Christmas card address database. It's time to get crackin'!

 RB  We gather together to ask the Lord's blessing

 LB Yes yes. We ought to ask that too - We need all the blessings we can get if we're going to make this a great holiday season. We really should make one of those Gratitude games to put at everyone's place at the Thanksgiving table. Oh and new sheets? do we have new sheets for the guest room? the old ones are so gross.

  RB I don't feel like making lists and planning. I feel like being open to accept what the universe wants to send me.

 LB (quietly pondering a moment)  Well. I am sure it will be wonderful - and I actually understand that. I even want it. But. But you do realize that the Universe is also sending us a dozen guests for Thanksgiving and 4 short weeks afterwards to prepare for Christmas.

 RB Yes. I do. And I know I've been dragging my feet - but I just think that ... too much list making will get us lots of tasks accomplished but maybe leave us with some rare opportunities missed.

 LB Yeah. I actually knew that was what was going on in your side of the brain - but I feel stuck because I don't have a road map ... and that's making me feel anxious.

 RB  No you don't. You think we're going to be sorry - I'm the feeler.

 LB What I think is that we're going to be fatter because you will feel so nervous when things don't work out, because we did not plan, that you'll eat everything in sight.

 RB  Oh. Yeah. You're right. I will do that.  Sigh. I don't want to grow out of my clothes but I don't want you to prod me so much that I'm unhappy.  Hey - and weren't those the cutest jeans we tried on yesterday? Are we going to buy them today? and that red dress - hot hot hot, weren't we? Man I love new clothes!

 LB And I want to explore the possibility of magic happening  - of extraordinary opportunities coming into our lives that we hadn't thought of but ... I don't want to get caught with no Christmas gifts bought - or too much money being spent at the last minute on the ones we do buy. I just want the assurance of a few lists.

 RB Well, can you put Time To Dream on one of those lists?

 LB AB-SO-LUTELY! but remember - time we take for one thing has to come out of time we used to spend doing some other thing.

 RB What about those jeans? Can we buy them? Huh? huh? today?

 LB If I can find a discount coupon. If we get that cluttery pile of mail sorted out. Otherwise we have to wait till Tuesday when it's senior discount day.

 RB Let's go sort the mail right now!

 LB  LOL Okay - but after that we do a little holiday planning. OK?

 RB OKAY!   hmm hmm Baby's got her blue jeans on

What, Huh? December 29 Already?

I feel a little Ripp Van Winkle-ish these days. A-buzz with the fat saturated, alcohol fueled sugar high of Christmas I just haven't had any literary oomph this month. No doubt about it - December has been a blur and suddenly I'm looking around at the filled up 2012 calendar, the blank notebook, and wondering ... what about New Year and it's resolution writing? I am not ready for 2013. I have no plans!

Remember, I am a Virgo

Love me some plans you know.

"But isn't this supposed to be a knitting blog?" the faithful ask? Well. Yes. and No. It's really just an ego trip for TheQueen.  I do still knit - a little - there is a single sock almost finished on the table by the couch - and a lovely blue hat that will go in the window of Sew News at the corner of  Prince St. and Water Lane come next week. Here is a sneak preview:

The popcorns were tedious to knit but I love how they look. Plymouth yarn. I have the label around here somewhere .... sugar high again.

And there will be more knitting in the New Year. I've got some issues with a sweater and with an overstuffed closet full of clothes I don't wear enough already. But there will be knitting. And spinning. And creativity. I promise.

But.before the New Year is upon me, with all its promises, here's a little bit of what Christmas is like at TheCastle.

For such a sluggish start to the month, December has turned out to be surprisingly sweet. LD got in early enough to get in a visit with my sister, his Aunt B. He can stay long enough to see the new year in. We've had lots of cozy snuggles by the fire - with arms full of dogs.

             

My guys found the absolutely most beautiful tree ever, the Friday before Christmas. We decorated it that weekend and have kept it lit almost constantly.  

Our Christmas eve dinner was the same delicious oyster stew it always is. This year, like last, we were able to have the real thing - Rappahannock River oysters  which we bought from the local butcher shop - thank you Pat. He assured me they'd been shucked that very morning!

 The only photos I got on Christmas day were the ones we took while circumnavigating the farm - where we found even the tree stumps were wreathed for Christmas!

We are great walkers. All of us are in love with the idea of legs as transportation. LD takes the prize for the longest trekker but BD is out every day and TheQueen is no slouch either. I was thinking about distances the other day as we strolled about 5 miles on a windy Thursday - wondering just how far I could walk to work if I had to. Mind now - 26 miles a day might cut into my knitting time if I had to make the present commute - but could I walk 2 miles a day? 4? I wonder. Ah well. I'm glad right now all our walking starts out like this.

On Boxing Day LD and I got over to visit mama - who is living now in a very nice skilled nursing home. She's going to be 90 in 3 weeks - and though she's bed-ridden, she can still keep up with the family and absolutely loves it when we bring photos of our lives or stories and letters from years gone bye. Love ya mama! 

Since then the days have been full of playing with Christmas presents ...

 and cozy evenings admiring trees.













The last big festivity on the schedule was a retirement party for my assistant - here she is looking altogether too gleeful about getting away from her now-former boss...

Honestly - we really do like each other and worked well together.





And here she is with the rest of the female staff - somehow the guys were not around at photo op time.

And so - that's what's been happen'n at TheCastle and in the Life-0-Bess. 

Just in case you were wondering.

Getting that holiday feeling

Certainly I don't want to give Thanksgiving short shrift. It's one of my favorite holidays, redolent with soft loving memories, long enough to really feel like time off, early enough in the season to be likely to have good weather and plenty of More Holiday Fun still up ahead.  Yup. I heart me some Thanksgiving. LD will be here to share it with us and so will H's girls. And best of all - I will have completed all my deadline driven, task oriented, worry creating, activities at work. I will be able to kick back and coast on through the next few weeks.

And just knowing that has me thinking about the light show at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens. We went there in 2007 on a bleak cold Friday before Christmas. We were with a small gathering of friends with whom we traipsed through frosty air, singing carols and giggling with excitement at all the beautiful lights. It was one of the sweetest holiday festivals I'd ever had. We've repeated it since then and last year expanded the group to include my sister and her family. I can pretty much guarantee that if you were ever lacking that holiday spark, this would be the place to kindle it.

This year I am hoping to talk some of my Other Wonderful Richmond Cousins into joining us there again. If the whole family can't come, I do intend to kidnap a certain special someone and take her with us.

I never feel like too much is made of the Christmas season. If decorations are out too soon, I just don't look at them. I like to listen to audio books in the car so I don't get overdosed on Christmas music. I like to Make Plans - so thinking about holiday things now feels very much LikeTheQueen. It feels good.

I promise to be circumspect here - to refrain from overdosing my readers with Happy Holiday Cheer - but today I am smiling, thinking about the wonderful light show at Ginter Park Botanical Gardens. Happy Hump Day to you.