Current view. I just put some fig-and-goat-cheese pastries in the oven: stupidly simple fig-and-goat-cheese pastries, featuring fig preserves, spreadable goat cheese, and ready-made roll-out pie crust from Aldi. Basically I just made a pie-crust sandwich with goat cheese and fig preserves, then cut it into bars and put the bars in the oven to bake.
We came in sixth in the trivia game at the pub last night. It was a late night --- later for most of the household than for me, though I didn't really sleep well. There was a lot of talk and thumping around into the wee hours. I'm glad they're having fun, but I'm feeling a little thin today.
Tree up but not decorated. I hope somebody's going to want to decorate it at some point, because it's going to be a bummer on Christmas morning if they don't.
Little daughter at work. Everyone else awake, just.
And of course it's cold. It's not as cold here as it is lots of places --- in the 20s, not the single digits. But it feels cold enough. Dora was levitating with every gust of wind on our abbreviated walk this morning. Gust: boing! Gust: boing! She loves soaking up sunlight, and this buffeting cold is not at all what she ordered.
Wearing today:
Maggie over long-sleeved navy merino base-layer tee (Patagonia, from Poshmark last year), with old synthetic leggings from Aldi worn over a pair of Snag merino tights. This was a good move: I was very warm on my walk, even in the buffeting cold, and my feet stayed warm in my boots with just the layer of tights, no socks.
I feel blah, so this outfit feels blah, but I honestly think it's not as bad as I feel it is.
As always, I love this luminous blue as a backdrop. I have managed to wear it a lot with this particular scarf, and I haven't gotten tired of the combination. I'm insanely comfortable, as in pajamas.
And while I sometimes feel that this dress is an awful lot of fabric (I'd definitely get a regular, not a long length if I got another), AND while the cut is fuller than my Camellia, the swing is so nice and easy. I like that I can make it into more or less a Rowena with the addition of a long-sleeved layer --- but then it takes me into the summer with short sleeves. I'm very much looking forward to wearing my whole complement of cardigans with this dress in Christmastide and Ordinary Time. My wear-purple rule does amount to a tiny little fast, which I appreciate while I'm doing it, but which I'm glad to see end when it ends.
Even without the tree decorated, the house is feeling lovely and festive and cozy with the cold outside. Here's a gratuitous shot I took the other night, while I was sitting down on the bench beneath the window in the dining room, drinking my beer and looking into the kitchen:
This house is banged up and dinged up and wonky, not to mention not entirely as clean or tidy as it might be, but it's home, and it feels like it. For years I struggled to feel at home here --- we lived with old paint and wallpaper for a long time, which was depressing, and I felt I was camping here, rather than living. But now we live here. It's home. Everybody comes back here and has a good time. That's a gift and a privilege, and of all the things I could have for Christmas, I'm most grateful for that.
LATER:
And my son and his girlfriend have pretty much done the tree. Hooray! We don't have the little light-up village houses out . . . we'll see if anybody feels like doing that. I have been cooking all day and do NOT feel like doing that. But we have a beautiful, lit-up tree, which is the main thing.