Minimism Monday

minimism ~ inclination to reduce a dogma to the least possible

You know, the problem with having a busy weekend followed by a day off from babysitting is that Monday tends to feel like Sunday. And you’d think despite spending the day shopping, followed by making the usual big dinner for the daughter and her family Sunday would have felt like Sunday, but nevertheless, this is why today’s post is late.

Not only does today feel like Sunday, I actually slept in this morning. Okay, not so much slept in as lounged in bed for an extra 45 minutes because it’s another grey, miserable day outside today. Plus I’m feeling pretty grey and miserable myself with a sinus infection. Good thing I get to see my doctor this week.

The Christmas shopping, and most of the wrapping, is done. The hubby and I went up to Peterborough (about an hour’s drive north) yesterday and as we were headed from one mall to another I suddenly realized we were supposed to go to Oshawa (about an hour’s drive west) because Peterborough doesn’t have a Toys ‘R Us and we needed to exchange one of the grandbaby’s gifts.

Notice how all our shopping seems to be about an hour’s drive away from here, no matter what direction you take?

The decorating, such as it is, is pretty much done as well. The hubby put lights outside around the windows, and a row of candy canes in the garden. We also have two of those light projectors – one with just green and red lights, the other with green and red candy canes that kind of dance around on the side of the house. I also sprung for a real wreath for the front door – I’ve been wanting one for years.

Inside the house is not quite as festive. One of the pitfalls of the hubby being retired is that he no longer brings home a poinsettia from the office, so I went out and bought my own. And then, on Saturday morning, after much plotting and planning and rearranging of things in the dining room (mostly just getting rid of crap that didn’t need to be in there), I went out and bought a real, live Christmas tree.

I can’t remember the last time I had a real Christmas tree, but I found one that’s small enough to fit on the drop leaf table that divides the living and dining rooms, and as I proved last night we can still all eat at the dining room table. So far I only have the lights on it, but I’ll dig out the rest of the decorations today and post a picture of it next week.

Meanwhile, the other goal today is to get all of the out of town presents in the mail. Well, all except for the ones for my sisters. I ordered theirs online and I haven’t got them yet.

Sorry, sisters! You gifts might be a little late this year.

Metrophobia Monday

metrophobia ~ fear of poetry

I’ll bet you thought that since NaNo is over with now I’d be back to my regular blogging schedule, didn’t you? Well I have news for you. In case you haven’t heard, Christmas is only TWO WEEKS AWAY

And therein lies one of the major drawbacks of NaNoWriMo. It happens in November. At the beginning of November Christmas is still weeks away so you can pretty much ignore it (like you do everything else for the month so you can get those precious words in).

But suddenly it’s the end of November and before the ink has dried on the winner’s certificate you’ve just printed out, you’re hit with the realization that Christmas is almost here! So then you’re making a face like this one:

That’s the grandbaby, in case you were wondering. ;-) Hard to believe she’s not quite two, eh?

While she recognizes cartoon Santas and will be the first to tell you Santa says “Ho ho ho” apparently she wasn’t impressed with the real deal. In fact, I’m told that when he said “ho ho ho” to her, she responded by giving him a dirty look and then screamed right in his face (like most toddlers, she’s developed a patented ear-splitting screech to show anger or frustration or sometimes just for fun).

That was pretty much my face yesterday when I made out a list of all the stuff I still have to do before Christmas. Actually, it turned into three lists. One of stuff to do, one just of cookies I need/want to bake, and one of stuff I still needed to buy.

We got about half our Christmas shopping done on the weekend, and came up with a few ideas for people still on the list. But unfortunately, other than getting my lists made, that was pretty much it for me. Oh, no it wasn’t. I dragged out my huge bag of Christmas craft stuff, put the wreath on the front door, and found the Christmas penguins - which the grandbaby loves but her mean mommy won’t let her take them home. Okay, so one of them plays Jingle Bells obnoxiously loudly, but still... ;-)

The hubby got the outdoor lights done last weekend - and he didn’t even cheat! He’d sprung for one of those light projectors that are so popular now, but he also put up the strings of lights around the windows and in the shrubs like he usually does. The projected lights are a lot cooler than I thought they’d be and the way he has it set up it looks like there are lights in the tree in front of our house. Unfortunately, some idiot from the gas company was marking where the gas lines go, wasn’t watching where he was going and knocked it askew. Hubby still hasn’t been able to get it quite right again. It still looks good, just not as good.

Anyway, there’ll be no movie reviews for the rest of the month, but there will be random posting of Christmas videos. Just because I can. :-D

Ho ho ho