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October 2010
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December 2010

When Kids Grow Up

They get their own cameras and they have more time to upload! On Thanksgiving there were about 5 females taking pics - why do we not have any men with cameras??

So, since I have to do some class proposals tonight, I will not be uploading nuthin, but through the magic of The Princess, I will show you some holidays photogs.

If you are sick of turkey, pilgrims, stuffing, family fun shots, move along. No need to gawk. Don't be a hater. Plenty of other blogs with more scintillating material, but where else would you get to see

 

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The Menu

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The Table

 

 

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The Bird

 

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2 Birds

 

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3 Boys and a Bird

 

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A Flock of Parakeets

 

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A Mother Hen with Her Chicks

 

 

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And Some Chicken Scratch

 

This will now end the Autumn portion of your program. Stay tuned whilst we unpack the Fa La La La La.

 

It's all candy canes and icicles from hereon in!

 


Sigh

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That was an exhale, a sigh of relief, not a sigh of disappointment.

For the first weekend - I think since the summer - I have no appointments, errands (beyond the usual), events, obligations, dinners, etcetera. I went to work on Friday because, mainly, the house was such a disaster and I had such a headache that it was easier to sit at a desk at a quiet office than to wash more dishes and clean. 

It was a great idea, until I actually arrived at my office and after about an hour of steady work, felt like I was melting off my chair onto the floor and I came home in midafternoon and crashed into bed. But Surprise! My three darlings had cleaned, washed, picked up, took apart the dining room table, put all the furniture back - even washed all the champagne flutes that couldn't go into the dishwasher!

I made the small turkey that Mr. Pom brought home as a gift from work, as there was almost nothing left from the Thanksgiving turkey, and we had a quieter, tastier dinner in front of the fire. It was an absolutely lovely Thanksgiving, very sweet and all children and adults were well-behaved and pleasant.

 

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The house is full of sweatshirts and laptops and boots, the sink is constantly littered with plates from late night meals, the door bell rings at ungodly hours (9:30 to us all ol' folks), and the dogs race up and down the stairs constantly to see who is coming and going. In short, all the kids are home and the house is under heavy use, which is how it should be and how I like it and how I also like it when they return to their own lives. 

 

Today they are going together to see Harry Potter. Tonight is Family Night but Micalangela has protested as there is still a dozen of her eighty hundred friends she hasn't seen or sufficiently bonded with, and I'm not sure what will we be doing except The Princess wants to watch Muppet Family Christmas and everyone refuses to eat another bite of Thanksgiving leftovers.

I think it may be a night for a rare and bloody steak with caramelized onions on seeded Italian bread. Or, in other words, an alka setzer night. I have discovered a Chardonnay that is quite delightful and the only reason I bought it was for the name, "Cupcake", and I am off to find it again as I loved it and I'm not that much of a Chardonnay drinker usually. 

 

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Mr. Pom, a/k/a He Who Cannot Rest, took my subtle cue that if he was looking for a project The Back Pantry (the tiny landing before one descends into The Horror That Is The Basement) needs to be cleaned out, painted, and a light put in and is sorting it out as I type. If I become industrious, I will put away all the art supplies from Baubles & Bling (or in my case, Baubles & Bust, not that it wasn't LOVELY), and continue transferring my art supplies from the old art room to the new one in hopes of turning the old art room into a study for writing.

Or I may just continue to stay in bed with a triple venti cap and very large Labrador using my feet as a pillow and read, in tandem, these two marvelous books:

 

Romantic Moderns: English Writers, Artists and the Imagination from Virginia Woolf to John Piper, by Alexandra Harris, brought to my attention by the splendid Jane Brocket.

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And The House at Royal Oak: Starting Over & Rebuilding a Life One Room At a Time, a memoir by Carol Eron Rizzoli, which is the next best thing to rehabbing a very old house and turning it into a B&B yourself, minus the expense and hard labor. After you read the book, go to the website and see the beautifully restored B&B and book a room. As both the younger Poms are sorta kinda in this area, I am considering a spring sojourn.

 

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Mr. Pom will be happy to read that I am jonesing for the Cape.

 

 

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I had a bit of burn out after all the driving in the last year, but I am ready for a bracing walk along Nauset and I miss my little house so much.

 

 

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I have to find a jetpack or private helicopter so we can get there without spending all of Sundays driving home.So next weekend, we'll be off sparing snowstorms or sickness.

Wishing all of you the most lovely weekend. Stay out of the stores, don't get sucked into the Christmas rush, and if I hear the words, "Black Friday" one more time, I shall scream!

Oh, and someone cover over and get this coconut custard pie out of my house so I stop eating it.

 

That is all.


~~~~~~~~Happy Thanksgiving~~~~~~~~~~~

Thanksgiving is the last day of autumn.

 

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Oh, I know technically it is not, that we have at least three weeks left before the winter solstice arrives.

 

 

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To me, however, Thanksgiving is the last day of the autumnal spirit. It is the day to find a moment to leave the house and walk in the woods, kicking at leaves, finding the perfect oversized maple leaf waiting to be picked up, and maybe even the last of the chestnuts hiding from the squirrels.

 

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The last of the autumn flowers are bobbing their graceful petite heads at all the guests as they approach the front door. Who would have guessed that a flower that appears as delicate as the anemone does, would be so hardy and fecund into the dark, cold days of the end of November?

 

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Oh! The oak hydrangeas have deepened into wine red, their leaves as leathery as a vintage book sitting on the shelf of a country squire.

 

 

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The pumpkins were still intact when I took these shots, but as of yesterday, this one became the plat du jour for the black and grey squirrels. It looks rather like an open skull with brains spilling out, but I like to see the local wildlife scavenging for fall. It's good to know that are seasonal frivolities actually serve a useful purpose.

 

 

Everything is ready. I've chopped carrots and celery, diced onions, chiffonaded herbs, baked cornbread, and toasted sourdough. Gingerbread cake has scented the house with fairytales. Pudding is chilling and thickening in the icebox, ready to be layered into trifle with the cake. Pies have been delivered by relatives and children have moved furniture and polished silver and washed crystal. The mister is bringing home the traditional pre-Thanksgiving Wednesday night supper: pizza slices. We are waiting for Mystery Man to drive up, for The Fiance to land from from Italy, and all I have left to do - tonight - is wash the bird and season it.

 

 

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Please stop by anytime you like. There will be shrimp before dinner and fruit and nuts afterwards. The cream will be whipped by dusk and the apple pie will be hot.

                     There is always a chair waiting for you.


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We drove into the city, pulled up in front of the hotel, and began our 24 hour getaway. The hotel was all silver and grays with amazing artwork in the lobby, a beautiful room overlooking Madison, a Dux bed, twin marble sinks,  and the most luxurious down comforters and turkish robes.

We checked in and then began walking downtown to see Promises, Promises.  Central Park was filled with fallen leaves and kids jumping in piles just like in the 'burbs.  We saw Catherine Zeta Jones, a vision in black, walking her little white puffball of a dog,  with a slow-walking Michael Douglas behind her. The corners of every street held tourists with shopping bags and cameras and the air buzzed with holiday electricity.

After dilly dallying around the corner at a cafe for lunch, we reached the theater to see the most enormous line of blue-haired, wind-breakered people waiting to see the show. The first act had me reaching for the fast forward button, but the second act was a hoot with Molly Shannon and Sean Hayes doing Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin, and the score filled with a lot more Burt Bacharach hits to hum along to.

We thought our dinner reservation was really early, unfashionably early, eating in an empty restaurant while the wind blew around our ankles early, but the restaurant was full and lively, elegant but  inviting, and very wonderfully warmly French.

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(These tables were filled in a few minutes.) We had oysters and pumpkin tortellini in a brown sugar sage butter sauce, olive baguettes, amazing champagne, a fresh and light Cabernet Sauvignon, and quail and fish and then managed room for dessert.

 

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And how fortunate that we did!

 

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Or we would have missed this bonne treat!

We were sufficiently full but not so full as to not steal the two macarons left on a tray by the table next to us. Mr. Pom dated me ten bucks to do it and I did, since we were seated at a banquette and their table was only two inches from ours.

When I thought I could not manage another crumb, the waiter brought over a cleverly tied white linen napkin fashioned into a basket, and we peeked inside to discover it  was filled with lemon-scented, warm, light as air madelines that crunched in our mouths. Dark, rich espresso topped it all off and as I began to melt into the banquette with my eyelids fluttering, we reluctantly stood up and began to totter back to the hotel.

 

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As we rose, the very handsome, suited waiter came over and said, "I hope we ze you again before ze next anniversary, Mr. and Mrs. Pomegranate". I blushed and smiled and thought that perhaps we could eat here once a week, given an unlimited budget for such stuff as anniversary-worthy meals. 

And then as I fumbled for my few words of high school french, the busboy came up behind me and said, Happy Anniversaire, Madame, and  I almost gave him a little kiss. So I asked Mr. Pom again if perhaps the waiter could come home and live with us and be our  personal maitre d', and he just took me by the elbow and said come along, dear, you've had enough champagne.

We went back to our elegant  room and put on the turkish robes and looked through a collection of Vanity Fair portraits. We fell into bed and mumbled something about ordering a down comforter just like this and the next thing we knew, it was morning and New York was right outside our window in the sunshine!

 

 

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The paper, the sun, breakfast wheeled in a trolley,  cappuccinos AND coffee, hot showers, soft robes, and fleece slippers.

Forget moving to the Cape, I'm moving to a hotel. What, my sister and I agreed, could be better, than living in a hotel? Room service, daily maid service, the paper delivered to your door, a concierge downstairs, and no need to even bring your own furniture!  A few books, some flowers, a view, and voila! Home Sweet Home.

More tomorrow about our Sunday adventures.

 


How-dee

You know I am in a rush when I post those little weirdly spelled titles. Sor-ree!

The week was a blur. Took off a day. Rushed around for many days and nights for Baubles and Bling. Lugged art hither and yon. Exhausted by Friday night, I ate a slice of pizza, some popcorn, a pumpkin spice latte, and crashed.

Going to have someone do something with the mop on my head because this is a Big Weekend.

You see, Mr. Pom and I are celebrating a milestone anni! It is actually Tuesday but our gorgeous and loving kidlets have given us a weekend in the city - can you imagine that we've never spent the night in the city? Really, such dull lives!

Tell you all about it when we come back. Look for us in a buggy in Central  Park!


Pre-tt-y!


 

 

Sorry I've been so quiet. Like Santa, it is very busy here in Pomegranateland getting ready for Baubles & Bling!

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I hesitate to post most of these pics because the lighting was so bad, but it gives you a taste. Trust me, they are crisp and vibrant in person!

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I am painting and collaging my little head off. My dining room looks like it was in a paper storm. The kitchen faucets are encrusted with gel medium. My blackberry keys are stuck together, too. The dogs have little bits of art paper stuck to the tails. The family is eating from a communal pot of soup that I managed to whip together, otherwise it's peanut butter morning, noon, and night.

But the end is sight: everything will be delivered to Baubles and Bling tomorrow.

 

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If you live in the tri-state area, take a ride to Scarsdale and visit this very unique and amazing holiday boutique!

I will be introducing my new line of mixed media pieces, "On My Shelf", which is a series based upon my favorite books - and yours!  More later when I get better pics - sun never came out and the two lamps on a white surface just doesn't cut it!

 

 

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Come on over to Scarsdale on Thursday night and Friday to see an amazing artisan market of handmade holiday gifts and ornaments. The info is below in the last post. Sallianne is a dynamo - don't know how she manages all she does with two kids, but I am a better person for knowing her!

 

 


BAUBLES AND BLING FOR YOUR HOLIDAY THINGS

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If you live anywhere in the tri-state metropolitan New York area, please come to a wonderful holiday boutique held at the home of our resident Aussie, one of the fantastic creators of Art Is.

If you come on Thursday night, you will also get a chance to meet me and see a brilliant display of art and artisan crafts, including some by yours truly.

Heard their will be wine tasting and chocolate, too!

You can not only cross off everything on your Santa list, you can indulge in little bling bling for yourself, which after all, is what it's all about - right??

 


The Heel of the Bread

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This is a photo of my Dad from World War II. He's the middle one in the front row with his pipe in his mouth. They were in Burma, but whenever I look at this picture, I think they are in Egypt in front of the pyramids.

 

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He had finished two years at Lehigh  in engineering when he enlisted in the army. He was in the Radio Corps. He was never injured, but he did get malaria in Burma. He came home after five years, but didn't get to finish his college degree because his Dad had died and he needed to get a job to help support his mother.

 

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Funny how you can remember a parent's handwriting. How just looking at it brings back your Dad with as much vividness as if he was speaking to you. The smell of his pipe, the checks he kept in the desk drawer in the living room. His curly salt and pepper hair. The way he belly laughed when he watched Johnny Carson or cartoons with us.

 

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He rarely said anything about the war to us. I learned more about his experiences there when I began dating Mr. Pom and my Dad would talk to him, the son he never had. I can't imagine what it was like to be gone 5 years from your family. To spend 5 Christmases away, 5 birthdays, and then to be told  that your father had died suddenly and you would never see him again.   He said that when his Dad died, he had a dream that night that his father had come to see him in the war. The next day he learned that his father had died. 

My Dad passed away twenty years ago tomorrow. He died within 3 months of being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. For a long time, I remembered each and every moment of those three agonizing months.

I've willed it to become a blur now.  I'd rather remember the cloud of smoke that wreathed around his head and billowed through the living room every night after dinner when he read the paper in the green chair in the corner. I'd rather remember him showing me his arthritic hands and his resignation that he couldn't play golf anymore. I'd rather remember the typerwriter he gave me when I graduated college, and  seeing him all snazzy in a blue suit and a red tie. I still remember and always will how never got angry but told the doctor that he'd just like to  go home and be with his family awhile longer. 

I make sure I talk to my kids about my Dad. I feel as though the two older ones have a pretty good memory of his presence and that the youngest has heard enough and seen enough photos that he is in some way a part of her heritage. The only grandchildren he knew were The Princess and Mystery Man. He did have the pleasure, however, of finding out in the last weeks that sister #4 was pregnant with her firstborn. And then her second born, her son, was born on my Dad's birthday, which no one will ever convince was not divine planning.

My Dad is always on my mind. I doubt a day goes by that something doesn't remind me of him. It gets me to thinking about love and loss and long term relationships. They were married 44 years on November 3rd and he died on November 7th. Thirteen days later was our 10th wedding anniversary. And now here we are at our 30th and what seemed like an unachievable lifetime of 44 years is only a short 14 years away for us. Time wraps us around us like a top and sends us spinning faster than our futures can keep up with.

 

 

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In honor of my Dad, we will have an Italian Sunday afternoon dinner. I took to the kitchen this morning. It seems like whenever fall comes, and I take to the kitchen as I chop and stir and fry and bake, I have a cadre of people looking over my shoulder. My Aunt Anita is telling me not to add too much breadcrumb to the meatballs or they'll be tough. My mother's mother is reminding me to be careful with a pot full of oil or I'll burn myself like she did when the pan caught on fire. When my kitchen seems impossibly small, my great aunt Gussie pokes me in the side and reminds me of the tiny kitchen where she turned out one holiday meal after another. 

I browned a loin of pork and an eye round of beef in olive oil, salt, and pepper. I opened 4 cans of imported tomato puree and two of diced tomatoes, threw in two cloves of garlic, more salt and pepper, a little nutmeg and cinnamon, and a dollop of red wine. I mixed ground beef, seasoned breadcrumbs, salt, pepper, rosemary, and parmesan cheese, and made about 48 meatballs and fried them the old fashioned way. It all went into the tomato sauce and when the house filled with the aroma of the gravy, I found the heel of some Italian bread and dipped it in the gravy and tasted about a thousand meals of my life in that red, savory, warm mouthful.

Micalangela and Mystery Man came home for the weekend. After I made the gravy and lasagna and washed the pots and pans, I took out the griddle and whipped up some pumpkin pancakes and breakfast sausage. (I can manage to cook more on a Saturday or Sunday morning then I do in a week. ) Vampire Weekend was blasting from the Ipod player. Mr. Pom was reading the Times, and The Princess was fixing a bagel.  I took silly pictures of MM eating with aviator sunglasses on and Micalangela recounted all the costumes worn to the Halloween party at school.

After we ate, I sat in the art room and painted a bunch of canvases for an Christmas art fair. As I painted and looked out at the sun on the last scarlet leaves of the dogwood by the garage, I reasoned that I had lived the life I had meant to live. I remembered back when I only had the two oldest and worked part time. On my days' off, I'd make a big pot of something that could simmer all day and I would drag the sewing machine into the dining room and work on a quilt where I could watch the kids play inside or out.

One day my next door neighbor came over with her kid. Younger, prettier, she watched me cook, offer her a cup of tea, and baste a quilt on the table. In exasperation at her own mixed emotions over parenting, she said with some impatience, "You're so domestic!" I still remember it. I was embarassed at my own contentment at the time.  But I'm not anymore. Content was how I felt this morning as the kids crowded in to my art room and showed me You Tube videos. I felt as if I was living exactly the life I was meant to live and I was living exactly in the center of where I was meant to be.

Tomorrow we will jam ourselves into my dining room. The Empress will preside, matriarch by default on my father's side now. Two of his nephews, my cousins, will be here along with three of my sisters, two brothers in law and five of the grandchildren. Hopefully the dogs will not steal anyone's meatballs and no one will need to use the bathroom during the meal or 16 people will have to be climbed over. We won't ask people to go around the table and tell the memories we have about him. We are criers and I don't want a dining room full of sobbing people. But by day's end, everyone will have spoken of him and looked at photos and shook their heads that it could be twenty years since we last heard him laugh or tried to read the comics after he cleaned his pip stem on it or listened to him complain that nobody filled the ice trays as he made his evening martini before dinner.

I will sit next to my mother so she can hear me more easily. I will measure the thirty years between her and I and myself and The Princess. I will project into the future and wonder if I will be here for The Princess when she is 55 and if she will be hosting a dinner for us or in memory of us.

Either way, I will be standing over her shoulder, poking her in the ribs if she forgets to add the parmesan to the ground beef or doesn't have any red wine on hand to add to the sauce. I'll watch her haul out the table leaves, untangle the legs of the folding chairs in the closet, hunt for the good cloth, and hope nobody notices paper napkins instead of cloth cause there was no time to iron.

Always remember, there is nothing worth sharing
Like the love that let us share our name

-Avett Brothers


Randoms for Wednesday

November: 

  • urge to buy and light differently scented candles all over the house
  • restrain self and limit candles to pumpkin, apple, and coffee-cinnamon
  • fir and cranberry must wait for December, tho admit to taking hits of fir when no one is looking
  • Starbucks has gingerbread lattes!
  • Starbucks has the red Christmas cups!
  • How pathetic am I that the first cappuccino in the Christmas cup this morning filled me with unreasonable pleasure?
  • And the saying on the cup cuffs - "Stories are gifts: Share your gifts". Or something like that. Put it on my desk at work.
  • Roasted the first chestnuts of the season and makes me miss Mr. Pom
  • My seasonal song obsession is, "Change of Time", Josh Ritter, but only the acoustic version on WFUV freebie CD for members. Playing it to death on the way to work and want to download for you buy can't find it the acoustic version online.
  • my job is making me feel like I have ADD
  • or ADHD - never sure of the difference and too distracted  to find out
  • Helping The Princess write her first graduate paper
  • By helping, I mean making her roast beef, mashed potatoes, and salad (THE Pomegranate dinner), and giving big pep talks
  • Missing Mr Pom who escaped to the Cape to do some house stuff
  • Left me with Bella Sera who is the only dog who won't look at me accusingly when I am in the bed at 5:50 p.m. straight from work
  • Yes, I said 5:50 p.m.
  • Wore my new black boots for the first time
  • Discovered I left all my heavy socks in Cape Cod
  • And winter jackets
  • Mr. Pom is now officially known as Mr. Pom the Mold Slayer
  • I will never hear the end of it
  • I am in need of about 5 turtlenecks in jewel tones.
  • When did turtlenecks routinely cost $79??
  • Making do with last year's two turtlenecks
  • Want scarves, many scarves
  • Getting ready for Baubles & Bling (more later)
  • In connection with B&B, have discovered that I am rolling paper disabled (not rolling papers, but the rolling of papers) (tho probably haven't had rolling paper in about 30 years)
  • Buffy repeat is completely weirding me out - The First Slayer
  • New books!!! OMG - the best new books!!!!
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  • 61orxzxFnNL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_
  • These books are blowing my mind
  • I've officially switched over to tea - English Breakfast or Earl Grey - after dinner. No coffee on the porch until June.
  • Will my entire family fit in my house for brunch on Sunday? Will they mind standing? Will I make an apple pie? Waffles? Ham?
  • And if I do all these things, can I call it Thanksgiving and phone in the actual holiday from the Cape?
  • Go: Light a coffee-scented cinnamon candle: get a cup of tea: let the dog jump on the bed: put on your red flannel pajama pants: find a piece of chocolate: pick one of the above to lust over: try to roll pages from a book into cones to make a wreath; give up and watch Modern Family; go to bed early.

Happy November!!!!!!!!!!