Style

It was a very windy here, bringing in very cold air.  Some of you have been in the cold for several days and don't want my whining.  Please know, though, that I actually envy your cold and snow.  Not how dangerous it can be, but how beautiful.

Y'all know how much Internet scrolling you can do when you don't feel like doing much else.  Today I wound up at the website of a store called Pull and Bear, and this platform shoe stopped me cold:

I won't buy a pair (aged out of them, you know), but they fascinate me for some reason.  It may be the cut of the heel.  It's almost architectural.  I don't know --- they just strike a chord somewhere somehow.  And if you must know, I did indeed once own a pair of slingback platforms.  They were white.  I distinctly remember wearing them on two extremely different occasions: my grandfather's funeral and the wedding of one of my cousins.  Come to think of it, I may have worn the same dress to both...

True It All Is

I think I got sick once everything I had to do for Christmas was done and my adrenaline ebbed.  Why I'm still sick . . .?  Sleep is sporadic, because I'm drenched in sweat, or have shivering chills, or wake up coughing (cue my ribs and sides aching.)

  

Christmas Wrap Up

Honestly, I wasn't thinking "pun" when I thought of the title.

Festive little touches at my daughter's:

Grogu a little tipsy?

Yep, she's a Star Wars fan.

But she hasn't rolled far away from the tree.

The house across the way has had lights on a front yard tree, which is something I like a lot.  Each night when I've taken Tap out, I've looked at it and seen different things.

A yeti or chimpanzee holding a tree to help go down a hill.

Downhill skier.

Elf pulling a sack of gifts to Santa's sleigh.

If you look at it sideways, a running goat with someone on its back.

Someone going UPhill on a sled, scarf blowing back behind.

A ballerina --- or ballerino --- mid-jete'.

Jester with hula-hoop.

Others.

Probably the funniest holiday "thing" I saw this year:

Hannah gave me scented glue sticks.

Apple pie, sugar cookie, blueberry and watermelon. 

This is my 2025 Nativity: a pin.

That's practically a Toddler Jesus, if you ask me.

This might be my favorite Christmas commercial.

This isn't Christmas-y, but it shouldn't come as a surprise that Twinnie and I are enjoying the same TV experience.  "Landman."  Look at these faces:

How do those faces not draw you in?

Warmth

Do any of you have a hot water bottle?  Covers for them seem to be a knitting staple.  If you do have one, can you tell me the advantages/disadvantages of it versus a heating pad?  I've had to keep a heating pad on my chest to battle congestion.  Of course, you can't get far away from an outlet with a heating pad;  a water bottle seems portable.

If I'm ever able to knit again, that might be a good project.

  Simple but pretty.  Confetti yarn.  Model by No Frills Knitting.

Play is Good

As my children were growing up, I steadfastly refused to talk about them turning into "such grown-ups"* or "big people."  They were going to be adults for a long time --- why rush them?  Why inherently make growing up sound more appealing than being a child?  Enjoy being young.  Play.  Pretend

One of the true bummers of being an adult is that Christmas isn't terribly magical anymore.  Getting to sleep on Christmas Eve isn't a problem, for one thing.  It simply isn't the same.  It can be happy, it can be fun, but it's not the same.

Our trips to and from Atlanta were surprisingly easy, traffic-wise.  Everyone seemed genuinely pleased with their gifts.  We had delicious snack-y foods.  I'm sick, so I did a good deal of dozing.  In lieu of new toys to play with, my little ones spent many minutes during the day like this:

I hope you and yours had a happy, merry day.

*If Briton answered the phone when a particular hospice nurse of Dale's called, she always --- always --- said, "He sounds so grown-y!"

Wait. WHAT?

The last Advent book is this??  Was there just a random draw?  Very weird and, yet, interesting. Isn't there something about Christmas in "The Taming of the Shrew?"  Still, if you're trying to provide folks with surprises in an Advent calendar, this has certainly accomplished that goal.

For many years, our Christmas Eve tradition was going to IHOP for dinner, come home and watch "Muppet Christmas Carol, then open one gift each.  We had to stop that when 1) IHOP started closing early, and 2) getting Hannah here --- with her cats --- became too much of a deal.  So now Briton and I find a place that's open and have a daytime meal.  Today, we went to Tacqueria Tsunami, and my red boots drew comments.  They usually do.

Happy Christmas Eve to you all.  May your Christmas Morning dawn bright and happy, and may your floor be covered with ribbons and torn wrapping paper.

It Starts and Then Stops. WHAM.

It's "Christmas" and "Isn't Christmas fun?" and "Oh, we get to decorate" and zhushing scissors through wrapping paper, and then, it STOPS.  No more baking, no more checking lists and checking them twice, and some (maybe *cough* in your own family) are already angling to take all the decorations down.  And woe, WOE, to those who have to go right back to work.  I truly hate that for you all.

Am I right?

Another cover I like:

I've never been gung-ho about Peter Pan.  Sorta of a "whatever, it's fine" shrug.  The movie "Finding Neverland" I did enjoy, though.  Yes, I realize it's technically a prequel to the Peter Pan story.  Still.

Time to shine the red boots!

Read, Read, Read

Charlotte missed the "Lean" memo.

I'll give them "Frank," because they do use sort of fancy script, but there is no way in the world that this says "Baum."

What do you think the last book will be?  A Christmas Carol  is what I've been thinking all along.

Speaking of books:

From my best friend.  We've been giving each other Marx Brothers gifts for 50+ years.  One year, we gave each other the same Harpo t-shirt.

 

Quick Take

Okay, if you glance at it, it looks like "Jules Verne."

But if you're just glancing, the title looks like Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sex.

It's O.S.C.A.R.

Even the typesetter gave up on the author's name for a minute.

SH.......

"To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman."  So begins

I am a Sherlock Holmes fan.  I married a man who was a Sherlock Holmes fan.  We spent many, many hours watching the Basil Rathbone movies.

Heck, my Senior Paper in high school was a character study of Holmes.  Rathbone pops into my head on hearing the name "Holmes," but I've liked other portrayals.  Ian McKellen was wonderful as "'Mr. Holmes."  I like Benedict Cumberbatch on principle, though I think I only saw one episode of "Sherlock."  Jonny Lee Miller is a favorite, and I thoroughly enjoyed "Elementary."  One the world has been deprived of is the rumored Hugh Laurie as Holmes with Stephen Fry as Watson.  Imagine how glorious that would be.

Infinite Monkeys Theory

 This, I don't think, took an infinite number of monkeys with typewriters.  One monkey with one typewriter could have done this.

The author's name.  The name.  At least the cover is pretty.

Some of my time of late has been spent playing the app "Jigmerge."  Remember those little plastic slide-y number puzzles, put the tiles in order 1 through 9?  This is sort of like that.

I wasn't ever able to do those, but I'm enjoying this.  And most of them are more than 9 pieces.

A week 'til Christmas...  The last two months of the year have velocity.  I have precisely one gift for my daughter.  Her unwrapping is going to be quick and clean.

Butterflies Are Not Free

I used to have a pair of these.  Buying them at a boot store in my undergraduate college town is a vivid memory.  I literally wore them out --- soles, heels, straps, vamps...  Lots of good times in them.  People are selling them for near $200 now.

It's been a quiet day here.  I did little odds and ends things: replaced a light bulb in one of the porch lights, cleaned the master bath, picked out some frames for some things, you get it.  I even started wrapping gifts.  Hello, zsushing sound from scissors moving through wrapping paper!

This was all fun for a while, but now it's just plain frustrating.

"O'Leavis Canbolle."  Really?  I plan on reading each of the little books --- do you think the insides will be as indechiperable as the covers?

Relax, though.  It's hockey season, which means we get to see

again.  Hey, Henrik --- how you doin'?