Let The Festivities Begin

And so the Holiday Season begins. Of course I have been Thinking Holiday since Labor Day because after all - that's when the celebrations roll in thick and fast. There are no birthdays in August and we're all tired of the heat and wish summer would end. So even if it's still hot in September We (probably only TheQueen - hence the royal "we") are glad to begin the time of monthly Monday Holidays at last. And then, there is The Birthday. And one begins to think about presents in September if one is a knitter. And when the days grow shorter and the winds blow out of the north - one must think about cleaning the house before company starts showing up. And if one has dogs - one might get some help. But one might not. Yes yes. It's a dog's life around here - especially when Mama's at work all day. 

But finally that weekend before Thanksgiving dawns and when you are very very lucky - family arrives. This year we have both LD and P - who is ready to teach us how to dance the Hora. 

Callie - the graceful one, the feminine - wants to learn how to dance too. TheQueen obliges. 

Today is Turkey Shopping day and since I slaved away all day Thursday cleaning house - yes, the rugs and upholstered furniture were shampooed - I will take the weekend off from chores and save any housecleaning till more guests are closer to arriving. Instead I will untangle the holy mess Juno made of my Christmas knitting - or maybe I will even cast on that oatmeal Aran sweater. I finally realized that I am utterly in love with the cabled  hat I knit 2 years ago and want to use that same super easy, evenly repeating, pattern to make this sweater. I can wait for another time - and another yarn - to knit the complicated sweater residing now in the recesses of my mathematical Left Brain. There will be photos. This is not gift knitting - it's for mememememe.

And So

At TheCastle we're shouting "Let the festivities begin!!!"

What's the Plan? My Left Brain and Right Brain figure out Thanksgiving Dining

Thursday, November 22, 2012

I thought you'd like to listen in on my School Marm Left Brain and my Wild Child Right Brain as they get ready for this Food Fest of a Day.

LB Happy Thanksgiving to you! How do you feel?

RB Thanks, pretty good. How do you Think?

LB LOL It's not HOW I think but WHAT ... and I think we look pretty durn good compared to a year ago - which was an improvement over the year before. Doin' good girlfriend

RB You know what? That's just how I feel too. I'm really proud of how slim I look and I really love that sparkly shirt we bought

LB Yeah - even though we DON'T NEED ANY MORE CLOTHES! I think we look good in it too, though. So. I am thinking also about how to keep on looking this good. I have a plan.

RB Why am I not surprised. I hope it isn't a Nothing Good To Eat plan

LB of Course not. I wouldn't ruin Thanksgiving for us. My plan is this. Let's figure out how many calories/points a modest thanksgiving dinner is and then decide how to eat around it the rest of the week. AND figure out how much more exercise we're going to have to get in to counter the "weight" of that dinner.

RB ...uh. OK. There will still be pie, right?

LB Absolutely. And thigh meat and dressing - but .. how about skipping the gravy?

RB What about the jello?

LB You betcha.

RB And cranberry sauce?

LB If you want it.

RB hmmm. and wine?

LB yep

RB Well. It doesn't look like I'll have to give up anything. what's the catch?

LB I think we might pass on the whipped cream with our pie.

RB well... okay. I'm always sort of sick by pie time anyway

LB And if you decide to NOT put butter on your roll - that saves something ... but that one is up to you. I've factored it in.

RB What about the surprise dish our guests are bringing?

LB I've factored that in. Plus the hour of housework we have to do and the 2 mile after dinner walk we'll take.

RB So. what's the damage?

LB Well - dinner will be about 2400 calories or 50 points. give or take

RB oh. that's a lot

LB It will be less if you eat less turkey thigh - but that's about the only place I can see you could cut back and ... even I don't want to do that

RB Me neither.

LB But we can shave off 4 points by taking that after dinner walk and cleaning this house - the floor looks awful!

RB LOL but we always do that anyway.

LB Yes - we do. But listen - this means we have oatmeal with apples for breakfast and only carrots and apples the WHOLE rest of the day.

RB I'm good with that.

LB I'm glad. It also means we only have 15 bonus points and 10 activity points .... about 1,000 calories of wiggle room the rest of the week and there will be ALL THAT PIE in the house.

RB Couldn't we give some of that away?

LB Yes! We can! And I plan to cook only enough mashed potatoes to eat up in this one meal. No Leftovers of that. You know that - it's not really this one big meal that causes so much damage. It's all the aftermath. The snacking. The pie for breakfast.

RB Yeah. I know. I wish ...

LB Don't go there. It's NOW. and it's HERE and TODAY deserves as much fun and attention and enjoyment as ANY Yesterday!

RB Okay. I won't go there. Besides, I'm looking forward to getting to know the K's better.

LB Me too. And sharing the beautiful autumn colors with two artists. Won't they love the views and the colors and the fresh air smell?

RB Yeah - I'm so thankful we could invite them this year. And really really thankful it's such a pretty day.

LB I'm thankful too - for the opportunity to have a smaller feast.

RB LOL I bet.

LB and we'll be taking long walks on Saturday and Sunday and maybe even going to the gym on Friday. We can rack up some exercise points this weekend. But we really have to eat only healthy nourishing food the rest of the week - in appropriate sized portions.

RB Yeah yeah yeah. I understand. But talk to me about THAT later because ... I can't care about Saturday when there's today to live in. Remember "It's NOW. and it's HERE and TODAY deserves as much fun and attention and enjoyment as ANY tomorrow!

LB Touche! And thanks for having this talk with me. I'm really THANKFUL for it. I love you, you know.

 RB I'm thankful for it too. Love ya right back

Better'n 3! It's a 5 Day Weekend!

Of course, it is Thanksgiving too - and I am thankful for both the day and the reason for the day - thankful for the thousands of blessings I enjoy - but most of all - I am thankful for some time off.

And just typing this makes me pause and wonder why I feel that way. This way. This is more than the usual delight-in-goofing-off sensation. This is a taking-off-tight-shoes feeling. This has a soupcon of relief to it. And it's been a long time since I felt relief at escaping my day-to-day world. But this has been a very challenging year. I love that word - it's such a good euphemism for rotten. And of course, this hasn't been a rotten year either. But for a ENFP Virgo - which is already such a conflict - I've had to spend more days than I like doggedly getting through whatever I had to get through.

But not this week.  This week I am going to savor my time, enjoy my family, explore new foods and read the Percy Jackson series.  My traditional holiday weekend reading is usually the 4 high school books in the Betsy/Tacy series - and I'll read them, too, but they are fun all the way up to - and through - Christmas.  The last of my 12 in 12 habits is to read YA and older children's fiction 20 minutes a day. The underlying intention is to be better grounded in that genre and I'm not going to get too weird about the 20 minutes a day thing after December .... though I will stick to it during this final month of 2012. And since I'm thinking of using minutes of reading instead of number of books read for our Summer Reading Club, it will be interesting to see the effect of monitoring my reading time.

I like this series - it's got a lot in common with Star Wars and Harry Potter - the same 'special' kid, the same fight against the dark side, the same enigmatic teachers who won't lay it out, but insist upon their charges risking their lives while figuring it out. I have always found that last aspect sort of weird because if I were coaching someone who's life was at risk, I'd give him all the tools he needed to reach his quest  - but there - it's a guy think, I think. BD used to do the same thing to LD and I, at least, had the good sense to stay out of it.

I also recently, and at last, read Lois Lowery's The Giver - a different sort of book - with much less of the quest and a much greater development of an alternative culture. In many ways it was a far more horrific book because a single soul was expected to contain all the feelings of an entire community while everyone else buzzed along in neutral.

The initial books in both of the series are good enough to tempt me to continue reading - even if their structures are very predictable. They are, after all, intended for young readers.  In fact, that's part of why I enjoy reading children's literature. I like distilling stuff down to clear lines.

But before any indulgent reading happens there must be HouseCleaning and Feast Preparations. I have silver to polish. I have pies to make. I want to go to the gym before lunch. We have New Guests coming for Thanksgiving. First the Feast - then the Fiction.

Ta.