We Survived December!

It has been over a month since my last Wander or Ponder post, which, ironically was titled Relax and Be Thankful. It is New Year's Eve and we have no plans to go out. Tonight's situation is an opportunity for relaxing for which I am very thankful. December was quite hectic, but I am still grateful for all that transpired; even the hard work part of it. The end justified the means. Hold on for a saga of the events to come - at least for some of the pre-Christmas happenings.

I belong to two quilt guilds, Diablo Valley Quilters and Amador Valley Quilters, and am on the board for AVQ. I also attend club meetings for the HandiQuilter long arm machine users, both the sit down and stand up type, held at a quilt shop about 30 miles north. I frequent my local quilt shop in downtown Livermore, too. Two guilds, one board, two clubs and one local quilt shop all held their holiday potlucks in the same week. Between December 6th and December 15th, I attended six holiday celebrations. I guess we quilters really party!

Starting out on December 6th was the brunch by the local quilt shop. It is a lot of fun since each table is decorated by a volunteer who puts in a lot of effort. Each table decor is unique, inventive, and inspiring. Here is the table I was at. The black glass goblets were topped off with paper white bulbs and a cookie. Behind tall flutes were filled with rounded jeweled stones and tall berry sprigs. The table was overlaid with a quilted tree skirt.

The place settings were layered with a lacy charger at the base, topped with a clear glass plate placed on a paper plate. The effect really looked like an expensive decoupaged set of dishes.

In the middle of quilting merriment Frank and I went to a SIRS (Sons in Retirement) Christmas dance on Thursday December 10th. Here we are cutting up the rug - er - the dance floor.

That weekend we also took Alex to his annual Friday through Sunday December 11th-13th Christmas themed camp weekend in Los Gatos, about a 60 mile trip.

The fly in the ointment amidst all this merriment was that on the morning of December 16th we would be cutting up the rug, literally. We were having hickory hardwood floors installed and needed to have the kitchen, nook, family room, and over-crammed closet under the stairs emptied before the installers arrived. On December 14th this is our family room. Cue music:

♫♩♬
Silent night, Holy night 

All is calm, all is bright.

On the morning of December 15th the wood arrived to acclimate temperature-wise and moisture-wise.

Then the cacophony throughout the remainder of the downstairs begins. Here is the once serene living room, whose Christmas decorations had been once artistically and lovingly displayed about. Frankly precisely placed a pole full of coats between two chairs. I tried to improve the situation by inserting a pad so the pole would not mar the chair backs and "Timber...!" it all toppled over. Frank and I looked at each other, instantly and unanimously agreeing, "Leave it that way."

On the other side of the living room there would be no accessing the fine china in the hutch or tweaking the garland carefully draped above. Emptying the under-stair closet in front had taken over that real estate.

The hallway between the living and dining rooms suffered a similar fate. At least we could still get in the bathroom without having to dash up stairs when nature called.

The biggest ruckus came from removing the floor in the kitchen and nook areas the morning of December 16th. Underneath some click-in-place tiles, a vinyl floor and its glued down underlayment had to be pried, chipped, sanded, and crowbarred off. We were totally unprepared for dust mitigation and the finely ground wood silt permeated everywhere!

We escaped a lot of the "noise, Noise, NOISE, NOISE", as the Grinch would say, by zotting off to the final day of a quilt show I'd wanted to see in the neighboring city of Pleasanton. They were very artsy wall hangings. Here is a sample of one that caught my eye.

The hickory installation crew was large though, and worked late, so the banging and hammering of the installation only lasted two full and very long days  – Wednesday and Thursday. We were glad to have them gone in such short order but as an unfortunate trade-off, they left the cleanup to us. Ugh! A TV cable also got cut in the process. We cleaned the floor and the first item I put out was the Christmas rug. We then added two chairs and a jury-rigged TV so Frank and I could watch the final concluding episode of his favorite TV series Haven, Thursday evening December 17th.

Starting the next morning, Friday December 18th, we would have to scurry because Dan, Carrie, and 20-month old Vivian would be flying up for Christmas arriving early Tuesday morning, December 22nd. The garage and the back deck are still disastrous hard-hat only areas but we will get to them in 2016.

Before the arrival of company, we squeezed in one more holiday party at Alex's home at St. Denis on Saturday afternoon December 19th. They always put out a fantastic spread. The long buffet table offered several main dish alternatives.

The dessert table was scrumptious, too. Singing Karaoke afterward was a blast!

Frank and I worked our butts off but we were ready, so to speak, for house guests. Upon arrival, here are Vivian and Dan exploring the arched bridge in our backyard.

We accompanied them on a walk around the neighborhood, too, that first day they were here.

The rest of the action during their visit is the topic of another post - or maybe two. That will be a great kickoff to Wander or Ponder in 2016! For now I am content to sit back while recuperating from partying, massive re-organization, and hosting. I am thankful that I can stay home on New Year's Eve. I will relax. Relax and Be Thankful. Yup, I like that mantra.

Relax and Be Thankful

This year our theme for Thanksgiving was to relax. After a great deal of traveling, we have been very busy of late with many low key items at home. Our days have been filled with routine, but time-gobbling, items. For Frank there were dental appointments and train group meetings and bathroom repainting. For Diane there were quilt guild meetings and quilt guild board meetings and quilt outreach meetings and quilt guild membership database management and library literacy tutoring. For Alex there was his quarterly review meeting and of course bowling. For the bunny, the dog, and the cat there were vet appointments. We even squeezed in a dinner dance with the Hayward Dance Club one Friday night. By the way, we are the dance club's new treasurers. I am thankful that we are not rusting out in retirement!

I've been so involved of late that I noticed my last blog post to Wander or Ponder was November 9th, the day before Frank's 67th birthday. In the morning of November 10th, Frank opened a few casual gifts I had gotten for him – magazines, books, etc. – and we fielded some phone calls and birthday wishes from family.

When I said casual I meant it. Observe Frank's new tool socks. They coordinate with the sawdust on his shoes.

Then we had a break through – at least Frank did.

We would relax at home, no frantic meal out or houseful of folks for a party or travel. Here is our plan in action. Daphne and Wima were copacetic with this state of affairs.

On his birthday I cooked a turkey dinner with sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie, Frank's favorite foods. But I am slowing down. We did not eat until 8:00 pm that night! The pace was a bit too relaxed. For Thanksgiving we decided to buy one of those ready made holiday feasts at a restaurant and bring it home, saving cooking and cleanup afterward and interminable leftover storage.

So we did just that. We were to have one friend and Alex joining Frank and me on Thanksgiving Day. The day before, I had fun setting a pretty table. I wrote about it on my DianeLoves2Quilt blog in the post for November 25th, 2015. I like doing the decor better than cooking anyway. Wednesday, I picked up a few of Alex's favorite treats at the grocery store. I avoided major food shopping and its associated attempts to thaw out and store a huge bird. It is a bit early for Christmas but for Alex, I put up our artificial tree from last year and put just a few gold ornaments on it. He loves the lights of Christmas and with just gold I was in keeping with the colors of Thanksgiving. Otherwise, I spent most of Wednesday working on a quilt for charity up in my sewing room or blogging about the table decor.

The meal was scheduled to be picked up at 3:00 pm Thursday. Frank took Alex bowling in the morning while I enjoyed more time in my sewing room and puttered about putting the finishing tweaks to the table decor. I just needed to add goblets for wine and set out the drinking glasses, ready to be filled with ice water. I snipped and prepared the fresh red carnations to  add at each place setting.

Frank, Alex, and Vickie arrived at 2:00 pm. I sat with Alex and did puzzles while Frank and Vickie went for the meal at the scheduled 3:00 pm. They were back by 3:10 pm with the food. I was expecting takeout, ready to be gobbled down in the true Thanksgiving fashion. This is what came with the food.

HEATING INSTRUCTIONS? 

What the (insert not very thankful work here) ... ?

Every item was chilling cold from being stored in a refrigerator, required transferral to an oven proof container, some prep, and 30 minutes cook time. Here is a sample of some of the phrases from the instructions.

Turkey: add chicken broth (not provided)
Stuffing: break up and cover
Gravy: place unopened bag in at least 4 quarts boiling water
Mashed potatoes: for best results use a double boiler

Sweet potatoes: spread evenly, cover with foil, remove foil after 20 minutes

Green Bean Casserole: place in mixing bowl, add french fried onions (not provided), pour into casserole dish

I was shocked. My idealized vision of relaxation had just been shattered into a million bits like shards of ice. I did not behave very thankfully to say the least.

Once I acknowledged there was no other option but to proceed forward per the instructions I did. Resentfully at first, but then I took a few deep breaths and realized it was not so bad. The food was really very good, the all-white turkey meat was moist, the mashed potatoes were well seasoned, the sweet potatoes (once I added my own marshmallows) turned out great. Alex sat with us for most of the meal and ate well. I think it was more like a pail of frigid water had been thrown on me instead of being presented with the comforting abundance of warm food. 

The cleanup was not so bad either since casserole dishes did not have baked on crusty food in them. There was no turkey carcass to deal with. All the leftovers fit neatly into Ziploc® containers on one shelf within the refrigerator with that one remaining quart of mashed potatoes and partial bottle of white zinfandel to enjoy for other meals. It sure beat staring at a turkey rib cage and two amputated turkey legs for several days. Now that I know what to expect, I would order a feast from a restaurant  again. I'd still make my own pumpkins pies, though.

Except for my initial knee jerk reaction the day was great. We enjoyed doing a crossword puzzle jointly with Vickie. We were full but not to the point of being uncomfortable with over-indulgence of food. Alex loved exploring his collection of banks and puzzles. When we dropped him home he was quite happy to pose for us in his strikingly new Star Wars shirt that he had worn that day.

My son-in-law and daughter-in-law supported our theme of relaxation for Thanksgiving. I am thankful that they are such loving parents. I am very thankful that Robin and Dan have made quite happy families for themselves.

(NOTE: Autumn is not in the previous picture because even at the age of three she still rarely sleeps!)

I woke up this morning greeted by the red carnations from Thursday's table. They were bright and cheerful and had opened up fully. They set the tone for the day. Robin called and texted to talk sewing and quilts. She regularly sends photos of Autumn and Isaiah to my cell. Carrie sent me a link to fantastic family photos she and Dan had taken for their holiday cards. She keeps me current with images of Vivian on Instagram.  Frank is sitting peacefully and companionably behind me doing a jigsaw puzzle as I blog. I will join him shortly. Aah, the little pleasures of life to be thankful for...

Ponder Post: Gifts of Imperfection

Sometimes you find a pithy little book that just seems to hit the nail on the head. The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown is short, only 130 pages. It is told in an anecdotal style that is refreshing and circumvents the dangers of resembling a droning psychological tome or a trite self-help treatise. The subtitle Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are raised my curiosity as to how it might relate to life changes such as entering into the retirement phase of life.

Have you ever seen a trailer for a movie and then, when you go to see the full length feature itself, you realize that all the good parts of the movie have already been shown in the trailer. Little more remained to be gained from the film itself. That is not the case with this book. The table of contents tells it all and does so quite concisely. But reading the book itself was worth it because the anecdotal examples were highly entertaining, quite illuminating, decidedly thought-provoking, and particularly instrumental in helping me integrate the book's message into my own life. Here are ten guideposts to living "wholeheartedly" – accepting myself and making decisions that satisfy me –  as opposed to deciding and acting according to what is perceived by others to be correct. Several of the following guideposts resonated with me.

Cultivating Authenticity: Letting go of what people think
Frank always teases me about an expression I have, perhaps due to my Polish heritage. They will think gypsies live here. Shades in the house are at uneven heights... ?  They will think gypsies live here. Christmas lights up too late into the New Year... ? They will think gypsies live here. Did not dust before the guests arrived... ? They will think gypsies live here. So what!

Cultivating Self-Compassion: Letting go of perfectionism
I do not have to correct every misspelling in a text message before pushing "Send." I am still working on that one, even if the message is just to Frank or one of my kids. Also, I love to quilt and there are several stages to the process: picking colors, cutting out, piecing together, and quilting the final product. I am pretty good at the first three but need a lot of practice in the fourth. I am afraid of ruining a top I pieced by quilting it badly. Consequently I have a backlog of quilt tops that are just that, tops. Angela Walters, a well known quilter, advises that, "A finished quilt is always better than a perfect quilt top." And it is true. I'd be much happier quilting a top imperfectly and gifting it, rather than feeling the guilt of those seeing those unfinished projects every time I look in my closet.

Cultivating Intuition and Trusting Faith: Letting go of the need for certainty
Here faith is defined not just in a religious sense but in trusting ourselves to make good judgment calls and not seeking reassurance from others or even reassurances from a spreadsheet or other calculation tool! I had entered into a week of vacation with friends uptight because I had not laid out a straw man schedule of events and itinerary ahead of time. Free flow is an OK thing!

Cultivating Creativity: Letting go of comparison. 
This section had a ponder worthy concept. "Comparison is the thief of happiness." Think about it. Were you happy with that test score or that pay raise at work until you learned someone had done better? Were you content with your purchase until you found out you could have bought it cheaper at another store?

Cultivating Play and Rest: Letting go of productivity as self-worth
This is a big one when entering retirement and not just because of leaving the paid workforce. How come I still have that big pile of paperwork and all that clutter in the attic? I am retired. I am home all day. I should be ashamed that I am not more productive, right? Wrong. Consider this quote. "The opposite of play is not work – the opposite of play is depression." It is OK to diddle around a bit. Let go and be creative.

In that vein, I like to diddle around in Google images. I found these that I think represent the guideposts I discuss above. Can you match them up?

I could have read this book in one sitting but I lost it somewhere in the house. As soon as I found it I completed reading it that evening. However, it had become overdue at the library while I was searching for it and I will now have to pay a fine. Right now the fine is at $2.75. Apparently it had been misplaced for about a week and a half beyond its due date. My positive take away from this is that I am not upset and am learning to cultivate self-compassion by letting go of perfection. My sewing table, where it had been buried under some piles of fabric, is now tidier. I will return the book tomorrow and just pay the fine without hanging my head in embarrassment. I even allowed myself to refrain from returning the book until I'd blogged about it. No reason to flagellate myself at the price of $0.25 per day and I am sure I am not the only person to return books late.

I do have a small regret that I'd had to pause for so long in reading The Gifts of Imperfection due to my misplacing it. I did not get a continuous read, which is always better. In leafing through it to refresh my memory and write this post however, I was able to remind myself of some of ideas that had initially struck me. Long term memory sticks better than short term memory. I can accept that I was imperfect in a broken read through. Imperfection can have its advantages, too!

I like to mix some non-fiction in with fiction when I take time for my recreational reading. I think this book was a concise, and actually fun, way to do just that.

Dancers' Dinner at Halloween

The mood was set for a Halloween themed dinner with some couples we've known from dancing. I'd dug an old canvas print I knew I had out of the attic and set it up next to a plaid pumpkin. Just that morning at a HomeGoods nearby store, I'd bought some appetizer plates because they'd reminded me of that canvas. I could not believe how well they went together. I'd purchased that owl and big orange moon image many, many years ago at a T. J. Maxx.

For each table place setting decoration I'd drilled two holes in a mini-pumpkin using a wine corkscrew. I was surprised to find out that even at this small size, pumpkins are hollow in the center.  I could dribble water in one hole, while air exiting the second hole and then insert two yellow roses. I added a bright green bow and a cardboard BOO sign and voila, instant atmosphere and cuteness.



Here is the place setting complete with napkin and gold ring. I talked about my planning for this table arrangement in my DianeLoves2Quilt blog post for 10/28/15.

 I liked the simplicity of the table layout but enjoyed the lushness of its colors.

In the nook area off the kitchen I had set up snacks for if we had the energy to play some games after dinner . The witch hats in the background are made from cookies and Hershey kisses and the owls in the foreground are from Oreo cookies and Reese's pieces eyes and beaks on top of chocolate mini-muffins.



Here are those owls closeup. How does it feel to have all those eyes peering directly at you?



The first to arrive were our friends Carl and Sachi, dressed as Hans Solo and Princess Leia. It was not intended to be a costume party but what fun it was to get in the spirit.

Our friends John and Marita called on their way saying they were delayed. That night was to be the Zombie Pub Crawl in downtown Livermore. Traffic was backed up from the throngs driving to attend. Folks dressed as Zombies gather as a flash dance mob in front of the Bankhead Theater and then pub hop all dressed in zombie clothes and makeup. This is a photo from 2014 but the event grows every year, much like the zombie nation population. Livermore is a happening place! Just think of all those scientists' brains that are available to feed on.



John and Marita's delayed arrival did not upset my precisely planned menu timetable. That got thrown to the four winds when I discovered that the large burner on my stove that I was using to heat water up to boiling to steam the vegetables, had stopped working. A watched pot may never boil but an unwatched, flaky burner, that only functions intermittently, has the same issue. At one point I turned on all the burners on the stove to high and when I learned which one was working I used that one. Not a very efficient method, I know. That was OK, though. The pork loin roasting in the oven had reached an internal temperature of 145°F, as was the goal, but the meat still looked too pink to be appetizing. After slicing, back in it went. Oh well. As they say... the best laid plans...

The salad was color coded to the theme and in a crescent moon shaped dish. I'd prepared it before the timetable had run amuck. From top to bottom the ingredients on a bed of romaine lettuce were yellow corn and yellow bell peppers, orange mandarin segments, green Granny smith apples, and blackberries at the base. A centrally placed hard boiled egg section added a stark white and bright yellow accent. The egg reminded me of Mike Wazowski, the one eyed monster from the Pixar movie Monsters, Inc.

My favorite part of a dinner party is the decorating and socializing so we just rolled with the punches on the food portion of it. The cooking may not have been executed elegantly, but everything on the menu was edible. The ginger sesame marinade on the pork loin was tasty and folks like the dried fruit I'd mixed in to jazz up the rice.

Everybody loved the dessert. It was Crème Brûlée per a recipe by Betty Crocker. I'd made a trial run of the recipe a couple days before. Frank and I had learned the longest part of the operation was caramelizing the sugar on top just before serving. We decided that this would be a group activity instead me having them all ready to serve. It would be like the showmanship of the waiter who flambés the rum when preparing the cherries jubilee at the table but in this case, everyone could do his own.

Well, a waiter typically has a flame to work with, not a flickering, sputtering, irregular, smattering of sparks. Caramelizing that layer of sugar provided quite a bit of entertainment when we gathered to create that characteristic hard, crunchy top. I had a tiny "gourmet chef culinary torch" from Bed Bath & Beyond. Very small ceramic ramekins come with the torch and they are a joke. They hold two, maybe three, mouthfuls of the custard. I used bigger dishes and made a double batch. The torch was kind of a joke, too. It kept going out. We were probably at it a good twenty, maybe even close to thirty, minutes repeatedly refilling that bitty torch with butane. Fortunately I had thought ahead and bought refills. The guys were really hankering to use a large propane torch like you would for soldering pipes. We muddled through with the tiny butane torch because I was unwilling to "flavor" the crème brûlée with the smell of propane.

Afterwards, when there were just a few bites left, John tried an experiment with the propane. I could almost hear caveman grunts like those of Tim Allen as Tim "the Tool man" Taylor from the classic TV show Home Improvement, as he relished the use of power to get a task done. I did not smell any propane as I had feared, but the room positively stunk from the sulphur of the wood matches John had used to light the torch! We had to throw open the windows and air it out.

For the information of the uninitiated, the television series Home Improvement, with its own comedy of handyman errors, was one of my favorites. It aired from September 17, 1991 to May 25, 1999. Per the Wikipedia article, "In the 1990s, it was one of the most watched sitcoms in the American market, winning many awards. The series launched Tim Allen's acting career."

After dessert the genders separated, spontaneously and naturally, not really planned. I have no idea what the men discussed but we women just talked about family and then Marita and Sachi requested I conduct an unprepared and unscheduled tour of my dishes. I have a lot. I admit it. They said I must because, when they have dinner here, I use a different set almost each time. Looking in the far reaches of high-up cabinets, in the bases and upper portions of hutches, and even in the depth of some drawers was fun as well as a reminder to me of stuff I should use or "lose" to goodwill. Except that I like it all! We played a couple rounds of the card game Swish and then called it a night. It had been a fun evening. I enjoy planning and setting a formal table but that is certainly where the formality ends with friends.

Alex's Pumpkin Festival

In reviewing my photos, I realized I never posted about the pumpkin festival we went to with Alex on Saturday, October 10th. Alex's summer and weekend respite camp holds an annual festival one day every fall. The camp is located in Los Altos. He is a veteran camper here at least one week in the summer and several weekends throughout the fall and spring months.



The event typically has a haunted house, a petting zoo, a pumpkin patch, a games and crafts area, and also hosts a barbecue lunch. There is usually a cotton candy booth and a face painting booth as well but these do not interest Alex. The fall festival is a fund-raising effort for the camp for special needs kids and adults that is sponsored and run by Via Services.

Alex, as usual, is more interested in the animals than the pumpkins. His favorite part is the petting zoo and, in particular, the bunnies. Here he is with two of them. If I had posted sooner I would have remembered the names of all four bunnies. Alex had to hold every... single... one... multiple... times.

Alex is wearing the shirt we bought him when Frank and I went to see the musical Lion King in San Jose. Hmm, that is another post I never wrote.

We did persuade Alex to at least give a perfunctory pat to one of the goats before we moved on to other activities.



The lunch was great with hot dogs and chicken and salads and chips. Afterward, in the games area, Alex liked the bean bag toss game and throwing the basket ball. He liked picking up the floating yellow plastic ducks using a net and often captured two at once! Seeing a Disney princess, in this case Jasmine, was also a treat for Alex.

Alex really got into pouring colored sand through a funnel to make his own sand striated piece of artwork. Then we circled back to the pumpkin patch, detouring a bit to pass through the petting zoo again, and picked up the pumpkin Alex had previously selected.

We spent a good three hours at the fall festival and Alex was happy the entire time. Alex did carry his pumpkin home and all around St. Denis in the following days. It sat on his table by him as he did his puzzles. We may have put mileage on the car (120 miles round trip) but he got mileage out of that pumpkin.

With three pumpkin festivals in just over two weeks, it is no wonder I nearly forgot about the one in the middle with Alex. I'd blogged about a pumpkin festival we went to in SoCal with Dan and his family on Sunday, October 4th (my 10/13/15 post) and one we went to in Oklahoma with Robin and her family on Monday, October 19th (my 10/27/15 post) and now, with Alex's pumpkin festival, my collection is complete. I am "pumpkined" out but we had a good time at all three.