November

It’s December and so I guess it is time for Procrastinating Mary to write a November post. I’ve been thinking about this for some time, but this morning (um, afternoon by seven minutes) I am distracted by a beautiful snowfall. Huge fat white flakes are sifting down and clinging on branch and weed and railing. In fact, snow is falling on my garden, dancing lightly (?) swiftly down. Hmm. Should google that. 

In truth, this is our second snowfall. We had a dump in latish November of over five inches of wet, packy, perfect-for-snowmen snow. JG did not clean this off, being in the throes of repairing the big snowblower (new bearings, bashing out the bends in the blades and scoop, new chain), some parts of which I ended up fetching from Ottawa for him, although he did not trust me to get the right chain. We also made a multitude of trips, it seems like, to get our new central vacuum working. It did work for a few days after we got it and then the new hose refused to suck. Shop replaced pin. No joy. Shop replaced hose. No joy. JG lugged canister back to shop and we finally had a working machine. Sigh. Luckily the old hose did continue to function through this, so my cleaner did not quit.

My cleaner is a brave lady – she even tackled the kitchen after my baking frenzies. We have two events at the Community Hall in November, the big 350+ person Hunters’ Dinner, and a Christmas Craft show. We need pies for the first, well over 60 pies, and cookies and squares for the second as we serve a small lunch for shoppers and vendors. No, I did not make 60 pies, but for me I made quite a few and a pile of gingerbread men and sugar Christmas trees on the second round. These events are fundraisers for the Hall, as we get only a small support from our Township Council, and I am pleased to say that we did well on both.

The Hunters’ Dinner is a zoo. On top of our usual local hunt camp denizens, this year we had two school buses full of hunters from the next county arrive, much to our surprise as no one had warned us, and in consequence we were scraping the beef pans by the end and the poor hungry staff (sniff) did not get any meat. Our hall is essentially a three room building. Main hall has a stage with two small rooms behind that and it is entered through a smaller annex with the kitchen to the left of that. We lay the food out on serving tables in the annex and people take their food and are seated at tables in the main hall where they also pick up drinks and dessert. Needless to say, the door between the two halls is a horrendous bottleneck. This November we had two traffic cops seating people and I ran backup, necessitating broken field running through the entering and milling crowd to refill the water jugs and help with resetting tables. Good shoes and sharp elbows are helpful.

Shortly after I recovered from that (two days prep, plus baking, plus the day), Miss G had her practice Gym Meet at her club and JG and I went in to watch. Miss G is now eleven, has been moved up a competitive level and has things like a handstand on the high bar and a press to handstand mount onto the beam to show off. She did well,

 beam mount

 Back tuck portion of tumbling line. Not Enough Light, she said, whining.

but my photographs are not great as I need to see a routine a lot of times before I can get a clean still photo of the best bits. (You can see me in red coat gripping my camera and JG behind me, reflected in the mirror on the far wall.) Since then she has had her first real qualifying Meet and did splendidly, although she (and her former gymnast mother) can list every bobble she make.

While running back and forth with the vacuum hose we also managed to get most of the Christmas shopping done, thank goodness, before the weird Canadian version of Black Friday gummed everything up.

And I got to spend a fine day (PD Day off school) with Miss G manufacturing a Christmas gift for her father and taking her to run errands and pick up other gifts. And I just realized that I cannot write this day up without giving away one of the YD’s Christmas gifts. Well, I can tell the story in January.

And I may even get a post up in between. If I get the mending and sewing under control and if the YD really meant it when she said she would help with the tree.  Have to have a tree, as the family is coming here for Christmas dinner. Must. Order. Turkey. Soon.

Twenty-two days. And counting.