Monday, December 1, 2008

PloYoMoFo Assessment

Time to review the results of National Blog Posting Month on the Wayfarer Journal. I’m actually quite impressed at how I did! I’m taking a mulligan on the three days that I was in Charlotte because of technology issues but, apart from those, I missed only one day. People are even reading the blog, so I can make the generous assumption that it’s worth people’s time. That makes me feel good. Thank you, everyone, for your comments and support!

I’m really feeling empowered by what I’m writing; it’s helping me to stay focused on goals, and I find the big things I’ve been pondering (in some cases, for a long time) are starting to become clear. I’m reading and writing more about the things I value, and that’s good for me. This is what I wanted blogging to be.

If you signed on for National Blog Posting Month, how’d you do?

In other news, the tree has been dressed for the holiday season. For those of you who don’t know, Wayfarer House has a tree, a weeping fig, that’s been part of the décor for some 15 years. His name is Theo. Every year, we drag out the lights and ornaments and deck Theo out, instead of spending a lot of money for a tree that just gets cut down and thrown in a landfill in a month. A lot of people think we’re weird (what else is new), but I like the idea of the tree being part of the festivities. I’ll post a pic as soon as I can find the camera (or convince Wifeness to take a pic for me).

We also have Wayfarer House “stockings” hanging in the living room. They get quotation marks because one could hardly call them stockings. They’re closer to sleeping bags in size. They are, in a word, enormous. There are five this year, and they cover the entire closet door! Other decorations will come out as time permits. Some years, we put stuff everywhere, but I’m less and less of that mindset as time goes by. It’s not that I’m a scrooge. I’m just not into the holiday IN THAT WAY. I like the certain traditions that we’ve developed as a family, and I love the sounds, smells and smooches that are all part of the season, but turning the house upside down doesn’t contribute to my sense of the festive. I prefer to decorate on the inside.

Wifeness and I have decided to forego gifts to each other this year so we can get stuff the house really needs, like kitchen equipment, sheets, towels and insulated curtains (the cost of heating our house will be astrofuckingnomical this year). We’ll still do anniversary somethings when the time comes, and Santa will be kind to the kids, but when we sat down to talk about it, we just didn’t see the sense in going nuts trying to find stuff the other needed when we knew we both wanted to take care of infrastructure. It’s amazing how much peace can come from new linins!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

We're with you, Wayfarer. Sheets, linens, towels, an anniversary woohoo, all good.

This year, we bought a new chimney (the original chimney was falling apart). Our mason is a very nice guy and I do hope that our $$$ helped him have a very good year. We needed the work done and he did a wonderful job. Masonry is not a skill set that I would ever presume to be able to do.

We also oogled and oogled and finally bought a flat screen "telbision"...all of the sports will be grand. We just look at each other and grin. The tv requires a very big stocking but other than some coal and an orange, the tv is what's filling our stockings.

For the past few years, my family has been cutting way back on nonsense gifts, we're opting for good food and good time well spent with each other. BEW family has for years done a "one person finds one special thing for one other person" gift exchange. There are four kids under the age of five there so almost every adult buys something for the wee kids to unwrap. I tend to buy tape measures, flashlights and good hardboard page books for them.

Mostly, we spend time and share good food and wine. Time is really the only thing of limited quantity that we do have to spend. I've been broke and I've been pretty comfy, the time I have to spend is special either way.

Here's hoping that you and all of your extended Wayfarer family have a wonderful holiday together as often as you can.

I'm sure Theo loves the attention too.

Mrs. Chili said...

Mr. Chili and I are in talks about foregoing the presents in favor of a big screen t.v. in January.