There's the shirt, completed and being worn by #1 son, who made a goofy face for the occasion. He didn't button the sleeve cuffs, but he rolled them down at least. This is a KwikSew pattern, and would have been no great effort for you skilled seamstresses, but it was an accomplishment for me, I'll tell you.

#2 daughter and I started the day yesterday by walking over to the church for the decorating party. There we were faced with another of those "two kinds of people in the world" situations: the process vs. product split.

Some people enjoy the process. They want everyone to have a say and to be validated (which I think ought to be reserved for parking tickets), and they enjoy lengthy conversations probing all sides of an issue.

Now, I also enjoy lengthy conversations probing all sides of a philosophical issue, preferably over a nice cup of tea, and I can also get into those conversations examining all the possible ramifications of a life decision, or even where a relationship is going, provided there is lunch involved.

But not when there are things to be done.

#2 daughter is the same way. So when we strolled into the room full of decorations and found that people were debating how the table covers had been done the previous year, we could tell that we weren't going to be good at what was being done there.

Fortunately, there was a large box of wreaths and wreath hangers, complete with photos showing just where said wreaths had been the previous year, so we went off on our own and did that. Then we strung popcorn for a while. We were just about to hang Chrismons when lunch was served.

Then #2 daughter headed back to the midwest and my husband announced that his family were arriving in a few hours. You might remember that we were expecting his family a week or two ago. So they arrived last night. We prepared by quickly putting away the Thanksgiving decorations and putting out a few Christmas ones instead, making up all the beds with fresh sheets, and cooking hot peppers. We also turned up the heater, since these are Californians, and unaccustomed to cold weather.

It was about 70 degrees on Thanksgiving day, but it has since gotten cold. This is good in one way, since the anthem at this morning's early service is "In the Bleak Midwinter." This is a wonderful song with words by Christina Gabriella Rossetti and music by Gustav Holst. Click the title for the words, midi file, and PDF of the music, so you can sing this with any remaining house guests.

People who think of "Christmas music" as a genre should consider that their single genre would include both this great song and "Will Santy Come to Shanty Town?", not to mention Handel's Messiah.

It was nice to see my brother and sister in law again. Also with them was one of my nephwews. He speaks Lao with a strong American accent, and often spoke English. #2 son and I (#1 son had gone to work by the time they arrived) sat politely while everyone talked. We know how to eat in the Lao fashion, so we were able to join in with that convincingly, and I know a few words of Lao -- enough that I can usually tell what the topic of conversation is. However, the basic fact is that when the Lao family is here I don't understand most of what's said and certainly can't join in the conversation. I expect I'll get a lot of knitting done. Above you can see my Jean Greenhowe elephant in progress.

Rigth now I have to wake my voice up enough to do my solo justice. It's kind of high.

I fixed the shirt, responded to the business emails that came in on Wednesday and Thursday, washed a few things... But basically I took yesterday off, too. The grading of papers is beginning to loom.

The Empress came over and we congratulated ourselves for not being in retail any more. "Black Friday" has that name, they say, because that is the day that retail business start operating in the black for the year. For those who work in retail, though, it means the most horrible day of the retail year, the day when people begin behaving really badly. We had a nice cup of tea instead.

Then #2 daughter, #2 son, and I went to the mill.

There we had beans and cornbread and bought flour sacks full of things generally more interesting than flour, including cinnamon pecan whole grain pancak mix, which will become waffles any minute here.

The mill is entirely water powered, having a mill wheel that turns with the movement of the river on which it's built. How cool is that?!

So we didn't observe Buy Nothing Day, but at least we were supporting a nice green local business.

We came home and did crossword puzzles together. This requires some adustment, because all of us do crosswords, but we have different methods. #2 son and #2 daughter like to go in order, clue by clue, filling in the ones they know, with pencil.

They are completely convinced that this is the best possible approach. I like to sort of cast my eyes over all the clues and fill in the ones that I know, but first I'll check the intersecting words to make sure that my word is correct, and if I know those clues, then I'll go ahead and fill them in. I also don't mind using ink.

Fortunately, we are good at cooperating and working together.

We then played some more Scrabble, and then sang Christmas carols. We have this new book of carols which I bought at a yard sale with Janalisa during the summer. With #2 daughter playing piano and #1 son playing guitar, and my sight-singing skills which while still not impressive have gotten quite a bit better through my otherwise unfortunate bell-ringing, we were able to learn a bunch of new songs.

This is always nice.

I'll tell you about others as the season progresses, but I think my favorite was "The Virgin's Slumber Song." You can hear a little bit of it here as it will sound when you get a group of yor girlfriends together to sing it this afternoon while finishing off the leftover pie.

We didn't have a choral arrangement, but just your basic art song. I tried to persuade #1 son to add it to his repertoire, because the guitar sounded fantastic on it, but he assured me that the title alone was so creepy that he couldn't even consider using it as a solo piece, even apart from the fact that it contains the phrase, "on his mother's breast."

I think he could play it in German, and no one would ever know.

We're heading over to the church pretty soon here to help with the decorating and to eat chili. Then #2 daughter will return to her midwestern fastness to enjoy the week till she starts her new job, and I'll get those papers graded.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving. My parents, an aunt and uncle, and 75% of the kids were there, along with me and my husband and an assortment of dogs.

We had a good time, with plenty of interesting conversation and good food.

After the others left, the kids and I had Family Game Night. We played Encore, Apples to Apples, Cranium, and Scrabble.

We've gotten down to such reduced numbers of permanent residents at our house that we can only have Family Game Night by bringing extra people in -- in this case, #2 daughter.

So we take the opportunity when it arises. We played uproarious games and ate leftovers all evening.

Mostly we had simple meats and vegetables for Thanksgiving. However, we did also have lots of fancy sweets. You can see in this picture our dog Toby assuring the aunt and uncle that he loves them with an undying devotion.

You can also see chocolate-dipped pretzels, nuts, fruit, #2 daughter's amazing pumpkin dip with marshmallows and pecans, and cookies, both mocha and butterscotch.

Here's the recipe for the butterscotch cookies for The Poster Queen, who asked:

Butterscotch Cut-Outs

1 c butterscotch flavored chips
3 c all purpose flour
1/2 c ea white and brown sugars
1/2 c butter
2 T cream
2 t vanilla

Melt the chips, add all remaining ingredients, beat, chill for an hour, roll out, cut, and bake at 375 for 5-8 minutes.

This makes a nice, crisp cookie.

We did make the Caramel Bourbon Cake again, and it still doesn't look like the picture at all. It was tasty, though. And then there was a Chocolate Macaroon Tart, a French Apple Pie, and a Cranberry Apple Pie.

If you live in my neighborhood, you should come over and eat some of this stuff, let me tell you.

We never did get over to the mill, and we might go today instead. It is Black Friday, and some loony people are even now lurking in parking lots in hopes of buying things at prices that will make them feel as though they are mighty hunters who have brought down a really impressive beast with their slingshots or something. In fact, you might have misread the first sentence here as "We never did get over to the mall" but it is the local water-powered mill we intended to visit. We buy grains there, and walk over the bridge, and bucolic stuff like that. It's fun.

 It is also International Buy Nothing Day, a day to renounce all consumer activities in a protest of our hyper-consumerist society and the problems that causes the environment, other people, and ourselves.

Take your pick.

I think it's also the day for me to begin my fourth annual Musical Advent Calendar.

Four years ago, in response to all the posts I was reading and all the talk I was hearing about how much people hate Christmas music, I started sharing Advent and Christmas music here every day from about Thanksgiving to Epiphany. My thinking here is that people who hate Christmas music do so because they are just hearing "Little Drummer Boy" over and over and over till they can't stand it any more. I figure, if you get to come here and find a great new seasonal song every day, you'll come to appreciate the stuff.

I don't know whether this works or not, but I'd like to begin with two songs today, in honor of the dual nature of the day. First, Santa Baby, a really stomach-turningly materialistic song. Watch Eartha Kitt on YouTube, or sing it yourself as you fight your way through crowds at the mall. Actually, I like the song a lot, however reprehensible it might be if it were considered as a real statement about Christmas.

Alternatively, stay home or go for a hike or come over and eat leftover pie, and sing "Comfort, Comfort Ye, My People." This is an altogether more uplifting song, but of course it depends what kind of mood you're in. I like it with bold percussion, and maybe dancing.

Comfort, comfort ye my people,
speak ye peace, thus saith our God;
comfort those who sit in darkness,
mourning 'neath their sorrow's load;
speak ye to Jerusalem
of the peace that waits for them;
tell her that her sins I cover,
and her warfare now is over.

Make ye straight what long was crooked,
make the rougher places plain:
let your hearts be true and humble,
as befits his holy reign,
For the glory of the Lord
now o'er the earth is shed abroad,
and all flesh shall see the token
that his word is never broken.

In addition to singing one or both of these songs, I have to grade papers (to give my students feedback on their rough drafts, since the final version is due on Tuesday), fix #1 son's shirt (I'll tell you the heartbreaking story another day), wash a whole lot of dishes, and continue having fun with my family.

Happy Thanksgiving! I know it's not Thanksgiving, but #2 daughter is home and has a job, and we're going to cook and bake and go out to the mill for grains and generally start celebrating now.

One thing we'll make, though not till tomorrow, is Squash Casserole:

Yellow Squash Casserole

I had this recipe at a potluck, which is where I always do encounter casseroles. I eat them and they're delicious, and then I get the recipe and they're made out of bizarre things like crackers or Cream of Mushroom Soup, and of course there's the mental recoil, but then I make them every couple of years anyway. Contrary to what you might expect, this casserole is quite good. There will also be green beans and corn and possibly salad, so people who don't care to eat casseroles will not therefore be without vegetables.

The cracker companies ought to come up with more recipes like these. They keep doing full-page magazine ads featuring "recipes" like a Triscuit with a slice of cheese on it. A Ritz cracker with a slice of cheese and a sliver of ham. These things aren't recipes. It is also the case that six Ritz crackers have the same fat and calories as a brownie, and no more nutritional value, either. So at our house, we need some kind of special impetus for buying crackers.

Maybe we're not the only ones. The Nabisco company has come up with an extremely stupid little book called The Tale of the Magical Crackers, and we ended up with a copy. In this book, a household gets a visit from three enormous magical crackers that become whole again when people eat them. The giant crackers hang around the family and play with them, and the family members eat bits off them. It's disgusting, isn't it?

At the back of the book are "recipes" for things like a Ritz cracker with cheese and pepper jelly on it.

I guess the real question is, what are they drinking over at the Nabisco company?

I'm getting up at 4:19 these days. Compared with having my husband out of work, this is good, but compared with, say, sleeping till 5:30, it's not good. The big question becomes, do I try to go back to sleep, and possibly waste an hour or more lying in bed trying to sleep, or do I go ahead and get up and work, even though I haven't had enough sleep?

Insufficient sleep keeps a person focused on very small, dull questions.

Last night, we worked on the Brahms German Requiem. I wanted to show you what the music looks like, so you'd grasp how difficult it is. We worked through two pages last night and will reconvene in late January to give it another shot.

There's a party next week. I don't plan to go. Much as I enjoy singing with this group, there are really only a few people there whom I actually like in social terms. And there was such a lot of joking about drinking... Somehow, when a group of people that old finds it funny to joke about drinking at length, it seems very likely that it won't be my sort of party. Not to mention that the entertainment for the evening is the auctioning off of wrapped gifts. The auctioneer said that people should make sure to let him know which gift they'd brought so he could embarrass them during the auction, which could get dull otherwise.

Nope. I think I'll skip that.

#2 daughter should be home this evening.

I've got class today, and had intended to do some stuff for the evaluations process, but I have a worried email from my Aussies, so I'm going to do that instead. And also instead of trying to go back to sleep.

Yesterday I hemmed the shirt and marked the buttonholes. I didn't actually do the buttonholes, because right now it's a really nice shirt, and it is easy to destroy that by making bad buttonholes. I have an old-fashioned machine, not the modern kind where you just tell it to make buttonholes and then it does. It requires courage to make buttonholes.

But then what doesn't require courage? I got up with my husband at 4:19 and wrote my business plan. It seems, given the modesty of my goals and the fact that I'm offering something that is so widely needed, that I really won't be able to fail. Of course, I spent several months thinking of myself as an unemployed person who happened to work a lot, and then several more months thinking of myself as a person who obliged at websites, sort of like being a babysitter or something, rather than as a business owner. However, I got the Zentrepreneur books from a Frugalreader pal, and read through them all thinking, "Well, yeah, of course." They advocate a design-centered business, having a written plan, continually improving your skills, behaving with integrity, having a good website, stuff like that. These are not the type of business books that focus on whether to be a sole proprietership or an LLC (though they mention it), but the pep-talk kind. You can finish up thinking, "Why yes, I am a dragon and a tiger; I can do that."

I guess you could also end up thinking, "These guys are whack. I don't want to be a dragon or a tiger, I just want to know what the heck an LLC is." This is why both types of business books succeed.

Now I'm reading Life@Work: The Art of Balance. This is also a used book. I probably should have asked the people from whom I acquired these used books whether they worked through them and became successful businesspeople, so they no longer need them, or if perhaps they just gave up.

So maybe I have to build up my courage to make buttonholes, but I have four billable hours today, plus at least four unbillable hours, so I think I'm on track with work. Increasing the proportion of billable hours is the ticket. Giving up thinking of grading papers as "unbillable hours" is probably also necessary.

I did other things yesterday besides make minimal progress on #1 son's shirt. I also played four handbell pieces, very badly. I attempted to weasel out of it for the second service, and in fact was even able to persuade CD to take my place, but Bigsax refused to allow that. I decided I should quit handbells completely, in fact. That's how bad I am at it.

Sigh.

Then, when Pink Hebe suggested that I could just get an elephant pattern, rather than just wishing for the one in the Last-Minute Knitted Gifts book, I toddled around the web a bit and found this excellent elephant pattern.

The book it's in also contains this excellent Puss in Boots and the fine penguin below, along with a whole bunch of other knitted animals. It's out of print, but I found it for $9.95.

It is true that I don't have anyone on my Christmas list who would really want a knitted toy. It is probably also true that I wouldn't have time to knit toys for people even if they did want them.

And yet I ordered this book, and it was less than Last-Minute Knitted Gifts, so I guess it could be worse.

The sad fact is, I have no Christmas gifts at all. I don't think I have ever left my holiday shopping and/or making this late. I'm going to end up being one of those desperate last-minute shoppers. Or one of those all-night knitters. Slippers rather than toys, perhaps.

I still have to pay quite a lot of #1 son's tuition. I also have a lot of invoices out still. If people pay me, then I can pay the tuition, and then if there's anything left, I can buy Christmas gifts.

In the same way that I read these business inspiration books rather than the ones that explain how to do your quarterly estimated tax payments (I have one of those, too), I may take this knitted animals book as inspiration for Christmas gifts rather than actually making penguins to put in people's stockings. I may just buy Wii Music for the whole family. And make slippers. Or cookies.

Have you done your holiday shopping/ creating/ planning yet?

Here's where I got to on the shirt yesterday.

You can see from the picture below that I did in fact get some sense of how the sleeve plackets should be. This is not going to be a perfect shirt, by any means, but I think it'll be wearable.

The first thing I did yesterday was to go buy startling amounts of food. I avoid going into stores in December at all, and my husband's company is planning a long shut-down as well, so filling the freezer with meat seemed like a smart thing to do.

I also bought some cleaning supplies, specificially a bottle of Frasier Fir cleaner from Thymes. Having a wonderful smell to clean with doesn't quite turn cleaning the kitchen into a sensual experience on a par with a long soak in scented oils, but it improves it a bit.

Buying the cleaner was pleasant. I found it at a little shop near the co-op, where I'd gone to stock up on bulk grains. I met a woman from Tuesday night class there, and she told me she was one of the top 50 shoppers at the co-op, an odd thing to brag about, it seems to me. Nice for the co-op that they can get that response, though.

Anyway, I went on from there to a little shop that used to specialize in handmade goods, but which now is more of an upscale kitchen boutique. There I smelled all the home fragrance collections, sampled their punmpkin scones, and fondled their knitted goods.

It was a nice break in the errands. I went and bought food for the week, including Thanksgiving, and then came home and cleaned the kitchen, enjoying the crisp scent.

I baked cookies and put most of them into the freezer for the cookie boxes, brought out the Thanksgiving decorations, and refused to panic over not having any Christmas presents bought or made.

Then I watched War, Inc. and sewed. Today will be butons, buttonholes, and hems. First, though, I have to play bells in both services at church. I have a goal to find another bell ringer to take my place so I can quit. Sigh.

In the past two weeks, I've either worked on the websites of, or met with or gotten an assignment to work on the websites of, a steampunk jeweler, a big game hunter, a web designer, a choral group, a legal videographer, a health records firm, a parent resource center, an educational store, a writer, a house painter, an assisted living community, and an event space.

How cool is that?

Today, though, I don't plan to work on any websites, except perhaps my own. I had a goal for this month of getting all my business systems in place, my software settled, all that. I'm pretty close, but have been working a lot for clients (good) and therefore haven't had a lot of time to work on the Taking Care of Business stuff. But I might actually write a business plan, since I found a template for one online. A couple of months ago, when The Computer Guy asked about things like a business name and a logo (he was building my website at the time), I responded with horror. Now (having simply accepted the name and logo he came up with for me), I am actually contemplating making a business plan. Pretty amazing. And you're lucky you aren't one of my kids, because I think that all of them have had to listen to me gloating about all the things I'm on the front page of Google for. Suffice it to say, if you are looking for my services in my town, you are going to find me.

Not that you are. And especially not today, since this is not a business day.

The big thing today is the whole cooking and cleaning and grocery shopping bit, plus further work on #2 son's shirt. He's been very good about not nagging, and understanding that I'll mostly just be able to work on it on the weekends. But here it is the weekend, so it's time to get back to it.

I think it's pretty convincing as a shirt. You can believe that it's going to become a shirt some day.

I didn't line up the front edges so you could tell that the plaid matches and goes around the whole body of the shirt the way it's supposed to.

The fabric is Pendleton wool given me by La Bella. This stuff runs $50 a yard, and we spend a lot of time petting it and admiring it and thinking about how wonderful it will be.

If I ever get the sleeve placket issue figured out.

We may have to wait for #2 daughter, who has mad spacial skilz, unlike me and #1 son. My husband also has these skills, but he drives us insane with his measuring, so we haven't asked him for help.

This makes sense, since he makes Craftsman wrenches. They have to be correct to within something like .0018 millimeters, so he naturally doesn't like my slipshod methods. If we asked him for help with the sleeve placket issue, he would probably want the sleeves completely removed and possibly cut out again so they'd be more exact.

I'm hoping that the mysteries of the sleeve plackets will unfold themselves to me when I look at them with fresh eyes right after breakfast and grocery shopping. And maybe cleaning, too, because it's hard to really focus in a messy house.

I have to make a shopping list for Thanksgiving, as well.

Today will be linkbuilding all day.

The relatives never did arrive, but I guess they still might, so after work will be housework and decorating for Thanksgiving. There are plenty of Christmas decorations up -- there was a giant Christmas tree at the college -- but I don't think we should skip Thanksgiving.

Part of last month's Amazon Vine largesse was the new book Luxury One-Skein Wonders. This is the third in the series. There aren't that many things you can make with one skein of yarn, so of course this book has small scarves, hats, socks, mittens and gloves, baby things, washcloths, and the occasional bit of jewelry. And I guess that, if you use the yarn called for, you could feel confident that one skein would be enough to make the item.

I'm currently not feeling confident that the one Christmas gift I already started knitting will be ready in time, but even so I've been tempted by this book. You think, One skein? Surely I can knit that up in a weekend!

But first I have to get that sleeve placket figured out. And do some cooking and cleaning and baking for Thanksgiving.

Still, I might pull out my leftover balls of yarn and see if I have anything that would work for one of the patterns in this book... How long can it take to knit just one skein?

As for this month's Amazon -- other people were offered MP3 players, Photoshop, camcorders, and tea sets, but I was offered cat food and a label maker.